My summary of the situation as I understand it is in spoiler tags below.
summary
After many long weeks, Iran and the US have agreed that they’re going to begin negotiations on certain topics in a process lasting at least 60 days. Due to America’s perfidy during previous negotiations, trust has broken down so far that Iran demanded $12 billion of their frozen funds and several other promises, such as the end to the naval blockade, to even return to the table, which seems perfectly reasonable to me. Iran also demanded that negotiations take place in two stages, and that nuclear issues will only be discussed in the second stage, which will be several weeks from now if everything goes as planned.
The terms of the MoU have themselves been a big source of confusion and suspicion, for me and many other pro-Iranian spectators. Getting the wording exactly correct is important, because the US really is like the devil - leave room for any possible interpretation in the contract that favors them more, and they’ll insist that this was the only interpretation up for discussion. Additionally, the US might be historically bad at winning wars, but they’re very, very good at winning peaces: they set up the post-WW2 order to best suit them by playing the European powers off each other; the DPRK might have survived the Korean War politically intact but existed for nearly the next hundred years as a sanctioned pariah; Vietnam was soon forced to economically engage with the country that had dropped triple of all the bomb tonnage of WW2 on them; and so on. It is no exaggeration when I say that the negotiation phase will be the most dangerous part of this war and it could lead to the most death and destruction without a single missile impacting Iran.
However, there’s one little genocidal colony in the region that could stop this whole process from even beginning, as the US appears to have promised Iran that the Zionists will stop the war against Lebanon (and perhaps Gaza too? I’m a little unclear) and even withdraw entirely from southern Lebanon, including all bases set up since this broader conflict began. Apparently, the US promised this in return for Iran not striking the Zionists in return for their most recent strike on Beirut on June 14th. Now, the issue with this whole situation is that the US greenlit the Zionist strike on Beirut, and they knew that Iran would respond to it because they did in response to an earlier strike. If the US made such major concessions to Iran in return for this response strike not occurring, then why authorize the Beirut strike at all? Why make their position worse? Right now, I can think of two reasons. First is that they attempted to create one final embarrassment for Iran, under the assumption that Iran was so desperate for a deal that they wouldn’t risk responding. Second is that this is all one big ruse or misdirection; the US does not intend to follow through with the MoU and subsequent negotiations anyway, and so the terms they’re “agreeing” to don’t really matter.
With the MoU signing apparently set for June 19th, we’ll know for sure soon.
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.
The Zionist Entity'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 the Zionists’ 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
In more
(I would say we need a Sweden cool emoji, but its nice to have an EU catch all since all of the individual Euro nations would take soooo much room on the emoji list lol) news
https://archive.is/1tqOu
Article
Sweden’s parliament has voted to escalate the country’s crackdown on immigrant rights, backing laws that allow authorities to revoke residency permits based on a vague criteria of bad behaviour and obliging most public sector workers to report anyone suspected of being undocumented.
The new legislation comes ahead of parliamentary elections in September, pitting the centre-right government, which currently depends on the support of the far-right Sweden Democrats to govern, against a far right that has said its intent is to create one of Europe’s most hostile environments for non-Europeans. Late on Monday, parliamentarians voted to pass the so-called “good behaviour” law, which would cover pending and future residents but also be applied retroactively to many of the country’s current residents.
“Anyone who doesn’t make the effort to do the right thing shouldn’t be able to count on staying,” Sweden’s minister of migration, Johan Forssell, said in March when he proposed the bill. While the law does not specify the types of behaviour that would be deemed unacceptable, the government has previously mentioned examples such as unpaid debts, failing to pay taxes, criminality, and links to extremist organisations.
The task of reviewing permits would fall to the Swedish migration agency, and any decisions can be appealed against.
The law has been fiercely criticised by opposition politicians and rights groups, who have described the criteria as arbitrary.
“This would lead to the risk of residence permits being denied or revoked based on behaviour that was neither illegal nor punishable for Swedish citizens,” Amnesty International noted recently. The Stockholm-based group Civil Rights Defenders said the legislation “undermines the rule of law”. In a statement it added: “The good behaviour law leaves people in uncertainty about what actions or expressions can be used against them.”
The country’s parliament also voted to narrowly back a contentious, so-called “snitch law” that will require many public sector workers to report anyone they believe is undocumented. Critics of the new law, which passed with 174 votes in favour and 172 against, have long warned that it will negatively impact migrants’ physical and mental health while also significantly increasing the risk of racial profiling.
“It is a cruel, ineffective policy and opens up the Pandora’s box of snitching – a trademark of authoritarian states,” said Jacob Lind, a postdoctoral researcher in international migration at Malmö University, in a statement.
“Today’s vote will have devastating consequences for undocumented migrants who will be further pushed into the margins of society as their access to rights is restricted.” After widespread criticism, teachers, doctors and social workers have been exempted from reporting obligations. Employees of tax authorities and employment and social insurance agencies, however, are among those who would have to notify police when they have reasons to believe they have been in contact with people who do not have residency papers. Louise Bonneau of the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, described it as a “serious setback for human rights” in the country.
“The so-called exemptions for healthcare, schools and social services don’t offer sufficient protection: in practice, information will flow between service providers, agencies, and immigration authorities,” she said, meaning some would probably avoid contact with healthcare professionals altogether. Her view is backed by Swedish researchers who, following interviews with public servants, warned that the law would, in effect, turn public employees into border police. They cited the example of a mother who delivers a child with the help of a midwife; while the midwife is exempt from reporting, they would need to register the baby with tax authorities, who could then report the family to police.
The Swedish government has long defended the measures, arguing that they are needed to ensure that those who are not legally allowed to stay in Sweden can be sent to their home countries. The new reporting requirements have few equivalents across Europe; Finland has long been considering whether to expand such obligations, while in Germany, social welfare offices have for two decades wrestled with reporting requirements.
In 2012, the UK’s Theresa May introduced the “hostile environment” policies that sought to limit access to work, benefits, bank accounts, driving licences and other essential services for those who could not prove they had the legal right to live in Britain.
It later emerged that many who were in the UK legally were unable to prove their status and that the Home Office was frequently misclassifying legal residents as immigration offenders, leading the National Audit Office to conclude in 2018 that hostile environment policies did not provide value for money for taxpayers. On Monday, the European Public Services Union pushed back against the idea that workers would be forced to act as informants, with Jan Willem Goudriaan of the union saying that now was not the time for a “new witch hunt”.
Instead, he called for governments to be reminded that “public services would cease functioning without migrant workers in Sweden and many EU member states.” The new law would fuel a climate of “suspicion, fear and racism,” he added, while also threatening people’s fundamental right to asylum. “It merely legitimises the far-right, who are all too happy to see their wildest dreams of mass surveillance, detention, and deportation come true at the expense of public service ethics.”
Sweden is so progressive for women’s rights. Unless you’re an immigrant without papers. Then domestic violence is a you-problem.
Problems with immigrant crime? Ok great now their only chance at justice is to engage with local mafia. That’s their government now. You fucking idiots.