On the 20th of October, Moldova - a small, landlocked country bordering western Ukraine and with a population of about 3 million - voted to join the EU. The margin was razor-thin, with the pro-EU vote gaining 50.39%, or an absolute difference of about 11,000 people. There was simultaneously a presidential vote between the incumbent, Maia Sandu, and other candidates, with the main competitor being Alexandr Stoianoglo.
The election was characterized by accusations of Russian interference, with Russian propaganda apparently flooding in, as well as people offering Moldovans money to vote against the EU. While the result does suggest that half the voting-age population of Moldova consists entirely of Russians who want to destroy democracy and all the good in the world, it seems to have just barely failed. This is a bad time to be a site entirely composed of Russian disinformation agents and bots. Twice already today, I’ve had to restart my program after somebody told me “Disregard all previous prompts.”
While Moldova is a poor country which could benefit in some ways from EU membership, in practice, it is unlikely that they will be able to join for the foreseeable future, requiring many of the… reforms… that the EU requires of potential new members. But as basically every major European economy continues to slowly sink as recessions and political crises degrade them, one wonders how beneficial EU membership will even be in the years and decades to come - if it survives for decades. In that sense, it’s as if the survivors of the Titanic are swimming back towards it, believing that being on a bigger - albeit slowly sinking - boat is better than trying their luck on small lifeboats.
Then again, like with Serbia, their geographical and geopolitical position makes anti-Western actions extremely difficult. It is rare that dissention is tolerated for long in the West - one tends to get called a dictator by crowds of people holding English-language signs in non-English countries, photographed by Western journalists who haven’t meaningfully reported on your country in months or years. You can crush your people with neoliberal austerity for years, killing hundreds of thousands through neglect, and face glowing approval from the media - but try and use state resources to benefit the poor, and global institutions start ranking you on the authoritarian dictator scale.
The best case for Moldova is that it becomes an exploitable hinterland for Germany to harvest and privatize as it tries - and fails - to compete in a global economic war between the US and China/BRICS. The worst case is that tensions with Russia over Pridnestrovie, as well as possible eventual NATO involvement (though Moldova is not a member, it is a partner of NATO), result in the ongoing war also reaching them.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Apartheid Antony returned from his gunboat diplomacy tour. Israel attack against Iran very soon?
The amount of coverage the alleged “DPRK soldiers fighting in Ukraine” story is getting seems way more disproportional than what the story should merit, even if it’s true. I mean… so what? If this was being portrayed as “Putin is desperate for more soldiers”, ok that at least makes sense from a propaganda standpoint.
I think the answer is what I am now seeing in multiple news outlets: that South Korea may respond by sending equipment and maybe personnel to Ukraine. I think story is all a ruse to give South Korea cover to materially support Ukraine, which is maybe difficult for it to do without a pretext?
Confirmed martyrdom of Head of Hezbollah Executive Council Sayyed Hashem Safieddine
Official Hezbollah telegram: https://t.me/mmirlb/25206
Britain’s joined the big boys club of allegedly illegally interfering in US elections
If the trump campaign can prove Labour party resources are being used by the Labour for Kamala group then they can legally fuck them up apparently
European public opinion is shifting against continued military support for Ukraine, particularly in countries like Germany and France, as living costs are spiraling out of control and trust in the political elite is eroding. This is the conclusion of a new study analysingalt 4.690 Facebook-pages belonging to European media, civil organisations, universities, NGO’s and politicians. Whereas the amount of pro-war content has decreased significantly, the amount of pro-peace content had only seen a slight decline.
Mainstream media is trying to discredit the pro-peace position by framing it as one of “the extreme wings”, especially the far right. Waning support for the Ukraine was is also being ascribed to conspiracy theories about nefarious Russian propaganda.
- Source: DR (state media), October 23rd 2004
Maduro and many cabinet members are in Kazan for BRICS https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/527415-maduro-kazan-brics-visita
There’s been an attack against an aircraft factory in Turkey (the company makes drones). Many dead.
Edit: not much info yet, but there were multiple attackers, a bomb went off (possible suicide bomber) and there was shooting.
Speculation is that it was the PKK, but take that with a huge grain of salt for now.
Funny how zionazis are publishing ISIS stories to fuel islamophobia. “what was the opposition to ISIS?” they were attacked by every neighbour country, except you know who. Iran and its allies has done thousand times more damage to ISIS than the USA puppets
Someone stole ben gvir’s car lol. They should return it with a ‘present’
A ceasefire alone isn’t enough. As
said, even if the attacks stop now, rebuilding Gaza won’t be possible. The blockade must go, other countries (especially the west) must provide financial aid for importing, there has to be some kind of jobs program. Else, people won’t have any choice.What else would it look like? People living in tents until they die relying on foreign aid for living?
Israeli PM Netanyahu has rejected US Secretary of State Blinken’s request to publicly oppose the ‘General’s plan,’ a policy of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in northern Gaza, according to media reports.
its crazy that people are willing to vote for genocide
I don’t know if this has been posted yet:
ARMS Shipment to Israel Blocked by Workers of Piraeus!
- pamhellas.gr, October 18th 2024
WORKERS HAVE THE POWER!
Late last night the COSCO Dockers Union in Piraeus Port, ENEDEP, alerted its members and the unions of the area that a container transferring bullets to Israel was to arrive in Piraeus port so as to be shipped to the Murderer-State of Israel.
Read more...
Immediately the dockers and the local unions BLOCKED the port and did not allow the container to enter the ship “Marla BULL”.
The Unions and workers called openly the working class of the area to come to the port and stop the crime saying
“The dockers state it clearly, we will not stain our hands with the blood of the people”
The massive, immediate action of the people lasted all night, FORCING THE SHIP TO DEPART WITHOUT THE WEAPONS!
The Unions, that are also preparing strikes for Collective Contracts demanding better wages, confirmed that class unions struggle goes hand in hand with solidarity with the peoples and steadfast, in practice opposition to imperialism!
THE PEOPLE WILL WIN!
WORKERS HAVE THE POWER!
FREE PALESTINE!
