Image (source here) is of a section of the Yarlung Zangbo river, which forms the deepest canyon on the planet.
The idea of doing any sort of general preamble for China is a little absurd given how ubiquitous they are in economics and politics, so I’m just going to hop right in to a recent news item of interest: China is working on the construction of an enormous new hydropower project in Tibet (@Metabola@hexbear.net had brought this up just before the last news mega ended).
This project (consisting of, I believe, five dams) will be overall three times larger than the Three Gorges Dam, will cost $167 billion, and will supply 70 GW (by itself more power than several significant countries generate). There are, of course, meaningful concerns regarding concerning environmental damage, but helping to avert catastrophic climate change seems worth it. The news coming out of the clean energy sector of China has getting only more encouraging over the last few years, even as the fully neoliberalized Europe and America descend into climate skepticism and refuse to adequately fund projects that could avert the worst of climate change.
Geopolitically, given recent India-China tensions (for example, sending Pakistan the equipment to shoot down Indian jets, as well as run-of-the-mill border tensions) one expects India to not receive the news very well, as the river upon which the dam is being constructed proceeds to flow into Arunachal Pradesh. But from what I understand of the Indian hydrological situation (which is, admittedly, not much), I don’t think enough of the water in India comes from the river for China to hypothetically cause any kind of water shortages in India - the monsoons seem to supply plenty of freshwater all by themselves. Nonetheless, as with all Chinese news, wild fearmongering abounds.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
Why is Jewish Voice For Peace, a US based “antizionist Jewish organization”, making a lot of money off the genocide of Palestinians?
https://xcancel.com/jews_say/status/1947121419445260736
spoiler
That’s really not very much money. They’re alleging that the money is going to Israelis, but as far as I can tell they’re just American Jews. A little smelly coming from @jews_say. And the alternative they’re suggesting is to send money to Gaza, but what, exactly, can that money do? They’re under a blockade.
So rather than deal with the possibility of an NGO shittily managing money or raising it without the intention of giving it to the people being genocided, we’re going to call this person antisemitic based on their handle? Where did they allege it’s going to Israelis? Come on now, they’re not a secret Nazi
This person is really funny actually. Good content
Directly in the screenshots?
And it’s such a small amount of money that I can’t possibly imagine what the fuss is about. Like be serious; a couple of very low 6-figure salaries? That’s not exactly corrupt NGO behavior, and calling it “Israelis profiting off genocide” is patently absurd. It’s not like they even claim to be a charity that provides direct support to Palestinians, they are pretty clearly an organization dedicated to building a base of support for anti-Zionist Jews in the USA.
This is what they are doing and I don’t see the controversy. I just looked through their website and there is nothing to suggest they are conducting direct donations to Palestinians. Here’s how they broadly describe themselves:
You seem to be mixing up 2 different critiques which is confusing. Do you think their overall organizational strategy is:
The evidence you are presenting (graphs and charts of how money is spent) would seem to be in support of #2, but the arguments you make off them are in support of #1. So honestly it’s hard to follow.
If you think #1, then #2 is kinda moot because all their money is inherently misspent. If you think any actions other than direct material support of Palestinians is incorrect/harmful, there is no way they could spend their money to satisfy you within the scope of the organization.
I would personally tend to agree that JVP is a pretty lib organization. I think their intention is to be narrowly focused on their target issue and give a respectable face to anti-Zionism. To make people understand that anti-Zionism is not anti-Jewish. That’s all. Not a comprehensive political platform. From afar, I think they overall make good interventions and give moral support to people who are trying to break out of their brainwashing. As to the management of their finances, the information presented is not enough to make any judgements one way or the other. More details would be required.
At any rate, why is this in the News sticky? What’s the News here???
“Little smelly”
🫠
10 million USD is over 10 times the amount of money Sameer Project has raised to send tents into Gaza.
https://opencollective.com/the-sameer-project
“Its not very much money”
Are you serious
Instead of thinking critically about this phenomenon and the role of liberal zionism we’re just defending the grifters then?
Always the heat for China but never for the con artists in the imperialist countries until after they go completely mask off.
What the hell are you even talking about? These so-called grifters accepting about $100k/year? I’m sorry, but that’s like a modest living wage in most of the USA. I’m more than willing to critique the liberal tactics of nonprofits like JVP, but these are such ridiculous examples to point to. And they’re liberal, yes, but “liberal zionist” is once again a suspicious way to refer to a group of anti-zionist Jews just because you disagree with their tactics.
After reading your comment I feel we must be living on different planets.
Thise “Suspicious” Arabs with their “Suspicious” concerns regarding the well meaning Allies… just call me a slur and get it out already please.
I’m not the one baselessly calling Jews zionists because they make less money than an entry level software developer.
Again, all you have is vague accusations of antisemitism. Once the last one targeting a Jewish person fell flat, now you accuse a comrade.
Anonymous posters aren’t exactly comrades. Stop being vaguely antisemitic, maybe?
And it’s not as if all I have are vague accusations of antisemitism, I’ve already explained why the original post is flawed. The vague antisemitism is just a bonus.
If calling out an “antizionist” organization, which has been criticized for being liberal zionists by Palestinians for years, whose ex ceo is married to an israeli working in their nazi defense industry and raked in millions of dollars positioning themselves as “against genocide” while condemning the actual resistance against that genocide is being anti-semitic then I guess I’m an anti-semite.
out of 10million dollars that are were collected to help people literally starving right now, yes it is way too much, a single person pocketing 1% of the charity money is megachurch level of shit.
Was that money collected to help people starving? Show me where JVP claims that’s where the donations are for. I really don’t think you understand how nonprofits are run. This evidence is so completely unremarkable.
+350,000 USD for “travel expenses”
9 million USD in “assets”
it’s because zionism takes the bus.
Liberal zionism isn’t real, youre an antisemite for talking about it or daring to criticize the kind hearted Jewish allies who promote it, and hundreds of thousands of USD isn’t really that much money so even if they are bad its not that big a deal.
Wait until @jews_say finds out about PETA and how much money they raise. I’m sure that’s going to be a very spicy thread.
This was always going to be the problem with attempting to center pro palestinian action around american and european jews imo.
“White people 4 Black Lives ✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻”
Surely, JVP, is not an antagonist contradiction. As messed up as the nonprofit industrial complex is. This group is public enemy no. 1 to many US Republicans and Zionists. They were throwing around deportation ideas a few months back. This tells me they must be doing something right and there certainly must be more pertinent priorities
I guess they must be incompetent grifters since they paid themselves only $100k with $9M left over
Isn’t it extremely difficult to send money to Gaza? See for example this thread.
The position being advanced in this subthread seems to be that the only legitimate form of pro-Palestine organizing is sending money to people who are being genocided. That is such a strange idea. Obviously sending money (if you can manage to get it there) is one useful thing to do. But it’s not like the brutality and horror is being caused by Palestinians being poor. They aren’t going to be able to buy their way out.
And why is this in the News Sticky? What is the News here?
A Reddit link was detected in your comment. Here are links to the same location on alternative frontends that protect your privacy.
Go away.
JVP have the privilege of being able to organise against the genocide without being criminalised. This gives them a huge power advantage over Palestinian organisers and JVP seem to not adequately address this power dynamic. Addressing the power dynamic also includes being aware that they get more donations than Palestinian organisers for their privilege and thus have an obligation to give back to the Palestinian community.