Image is from the Wikipedia article on the Sudanese Civil War.
Al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur (a little east of that deep red zone in the west of the megathread map), is the last major holdout of the Sudanese government in that state, and is currently under siege by the RSF. Losing it would be a significant blow to the SAF, though given how the conflict lines are shaping up, it seems increasingly plausible that there will be a de facto - if not de jure - partition of Sudan, unless the military situation substantially changes. This is because the RSF have been pushed out of central Sudan, while the SAF are being pushed out of Western Sudan - although, the situation is pretty complex and has been known to change rapidly before.
As has been a constant feature of the Sudan Civil War - perhaps the single worst humanitarian crisis on the planet right now when measured by numbers - the civilian situation pales in comparison to the military situation, with hundreds of thousands of children dead from famine, and tens of millions of people experiencing extreme food insecurity.
Al-Fashir has been the destination of many thousands of refugees fleeing genocide, and food and aid supplies into the town are being explicitly blocked by the RSF, resulting in scenes similar to what is happening in Gaza right now. The big difference is that fleeing from major battle zones is at least somewhat of an option, though people are often caught and robbed or enslaved or trafficked while moving to neighbouring towns and cities - and these cities are often experiencing similar conditions to places that refugees are leaving.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
Oh cool hello OP thanks for making these weekly informative news megathreads! Yeah nothing much mainly a small suggestion that a significant portion of the userbase is on board with *(judging by upvotes), what do you think of changing the “Israel-Palestine Conflict” header to something more along the lines of “Israel’s genocide of Palestine” or “The Palestinian Genocide”?
Someone in the last thread, @PalestinianDream@hexbear.net, explained the rationale behind our suggestion really well:
"i know im preaching to the choir on this site but the language we use is incredibly important. Its like why we call it IOF and not IDF, for the same reason we say the Temporary Zionist Entity instead of “Israel”, the same reason we say the Zionist Genocide of the Palestinian people and not “Israel-Palestine Conflict.”
Its about reframing the conversation with our narrative. It can seem insignificant, but its important to delegimize the entity’s existence first and foremost in the language we use. The same way zionists refuse to acknowledge Palestinians as a real people or Palestine as the land they are occupying. Words have power"
Furthermore, even though the links listed underneath are for “Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel.”, centering the genocide that such brave acts of armed resistance are desperately struggling against would the bigger picture into focus, the greater context for why there is fighting in the first place.
Having a clear focus on the genocide of Palestine being the source of all armed conflict in Palestine at the moment as part of the news mega that is pinned on the front page of the site sends a clear message to all users and visitors of where we stand, with the truth.
It would also give people here motivation to go and join any local actions against their own countries complicity in the genocide, hopefully.
Thank you for the consideration!
(Also to clarify a couple of things to prevent misinterpretation by any other readers:
The extent of the suggestion is to change the 1 line on the news mega, nothing else.
The suggestion is not to ban the word “conflict” or the phrase “Israel-Palestine conflict” from the site.
The suggestion does not implicitly nor explicitly call OP a zionist, because OP is based af and cool.)
Sounds fine by me.
I’ve changed it to “Israel’s Genocide of Palestine” and changed a couple references to “Temporary Zionist” instead of “Israeli”
Thanks so much OP that is very based! Now one of the topmost pinned posts on the front page of hexbear explicitly brands pissrael as genocidal, a good signal to everyone about our stance. Thank you for taking the time to discuss things despite receiving a flood of messages at all times, really appreciate the consistent effort it takes to make such informative news and book club posts. Thanks to everyone who responded to the suggestion in the previous thread, all input helped refine it. Even something as small as this demonstrates the effectiveness of collective decision making.