The imperial core is continuing the process of self-cannibalization as the interimperial wars between Europe and the US over resource and territorial control continue. Greenland, populated with less than a hundred thousand heavily exploited people, is the newest territory to fall under Trump’s gaze. The main draw is the mineral resources present there, of which it boasts nickel, copper, cobalt, and platinum, and much more than remains unexplored under the ice. But the ice is melting, and profit must be made. There is an additional element of wanting Arctic territory to counter Chinese and especially Russian interests and aims; Russia is increasingly eyeing the northern Arctic route as an alternative to more vulnerable routes through the Suez Canal or around Africa, and is investing heavily in icebreakers for that purpose.
However, even if Europe possessed the desire to resist American annexations - and they absolutely do not, at the end of the day - they do not even have the ability. Denmark may, to a lesser or greater extent, make angry sounds and talk about national honour or some such, but their military would be trampled underfoot by even the New York Police Department, let alone a concerted military effort by the US. If Trump wants Greenland, he will have it. This will naturally increase the grumbling in Europe about reconsidering the Transatlantic alliance, and that grumbling may, in the medium-term future, as the American Empire continues its decline, lead to meaningful results. But in the short term, Europe shall have to bear whatever Trump throws at them, for they obviously cannot now ally with Russia, who was the natural counterweight to American interests for decades before 2022.
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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.
Here is an update on the story of the south African illegal miners stranded underground. Pretty grim, I can’t imagine what it must be like underground there. It’s a tomb.
Trump’s inauguration portrait was shown. The Internet noticed a significant difference with the 2016 portrait. Trump has noticeably aged, no longer smiling, but frowning with a raised eyebrow.
Xi’s special representative Han Zheng to attend Trump’s inauguration
BEIJING, Jan. 17 – At the invitation of the U.S. side, President Xi Jinping’s special representative, Vice President Han Zheng will attend the inauguration ceremony of President Donald Trump on Jan. 20 in Washington, D.C., a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson announced Friday.
China follows the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation in viewing and growing its relationship with the United States, the spokesperson said.
“We stand ready to work with the new U.S. government to enhance dialogue and communication, properly manage differences, expand mutually beneficial cooperation, jointly pursue a stable, healthy and sustainable China-U.S. relationship and find the right way for the two countries to get along with each other,” the spokesperson added.
SpaceX’s Starship explodes in flight test, forcing airlines to divert
WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - A SpaceX Starship rocket broke up in space minutes after launching from Texas on Thursday, forcing airline flights over the Gulf of Mexico to alter course to avoid falling debris and setting back Elon Musk’s flagship rocket program.
SpaceX mission control lost contact with the newly upgraded Starship, carrying its first test payload of mock satellites but no crew, eight minutes after liftoff from its South Texas rocket facilities at 5:38 p.m. EST (2238 GMT).
Video shot by Reuters showed orange balls of light streaking across the sky over the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, leaving trails of smoke behind.
“We did lose all communications with the ship - that is essentially telling us we had an anomaly with the upper stage,” SpaceX Communications Manager Dan Huot said, confirming minutes later that the ship was lost.
The last time a Starship upper stage failed was in March last year, as it was reentering Earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean, but rarely has a SpaceX mishap caused widespread disruptions to air traffic.
Dozens of commercial flights diverted to other airports or altered course to avoid potential debris, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24. Departures from airports in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, were also delayed by about 45 minutes, it added.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates private launch activities, said it had briefly slowed and diverted planes around the area where space debris was falling, but normal operations had since resumed.
The FAA regularly closes airspace for space launches and reentries, but it can create a “debris response area” to prevent aircraft from entering if the space vehicle experiences an anomaly outside the originally closed zone.
SpaceX CEO Musk posted a video on X showing the debris field and said: “Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!”
The failure came a day after Blue Origin, billionaire Amazon (AMZN.O), opens new tab founder Jeff Bezos’ space company, successfully launched its giant New Glenn rocket into orbit for the first time.
Checking in from my new Little Red Book “#wuhluhwuh” addiction to post this quote I just saw on there (the app is such good agitprop) of the Chinese rep apparently popping off at the UNSC today. I checked their UN mission site transcript and IT’S TRUE lol. Here’s some choice excerpts.
For some time now, and in fact today, the US has been peddling false narrative to discredit and smear China at the Council’s meetings on the Ukraine issue. […] At earlier meetings, I responded to the US fallacies many times. Today, I might go a little further.
First, if China had really provided military supplies to Russia, the situation on the battleground would not have been where it is now. […]
[…] The fact is, since the beginning, the US has used the Ukraine war to advance its geopolitical strategy and serve its own agenda. To sum up, first, the US wants nothing more than a weakened and defeated Russia through the war, so as to dominate European security and further increase its influence in Europe. Second, through the war, the US intends to stoke up bloc confrontation, create divisions, and contain and isolate China, a strategic rival in their eyes. Third, the US wishes to project a positive image to offset the international community’s criticism of its policies in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the US has failed on all three attempts.
China’s local governments raise minimum wages to boost consumption
China’s economy beats forecasts in 2024, braces for trade war
BEIJING, Jan 17 (Reuters) - China’s economy ended 2024 on better footing than expected helped by a flurry of stimulus measures, although the threat of a new trade war with the United States and weak domestic demand could hurt confidence in a broader recovery this year.
Exports, one of the few bright spots, could lose steam as United States President-elect Donald Trump, who has proposed hefty tariffs on Chinese goods, is set to return to the White House next week.
For the full-year 2024, the world’s second-largest economy grew 5.0%, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data showed on Friday, meeting the government’s annual growth target of around 5%. Analysts had forecast 4.9% growth.
The economy grew 5.4% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, significantly beating analysts’ expectations and marking the quickest since the second quarter of 2023.
Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast fourth-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) would expand 5.0% from a year earlier, quickening from the third-quarter’s 4.6% pace as a flurry of support measures began to kick in.
“China’s economy is showing signs of revival, led by industrial output and exports,” said Frederic Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC in Hong Kong.
However, he added, the strong GDP print last quarter may already have been flattered by front-loading of shipments to the U.S. - something that will inevitably lead to a pay-back with production and exports turning down once tariffs begin to bite.
“As exports come under pressure in 2025, dragged lower by U.S. import restrictions, there will be an even bigger need to apply domestic stimulus.”
Two US journalists bravely called out “Secretary of State” Antony Blinken for being a war criminal today.
Max Blumenthal: https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1879926469633487204
Sam Husseini: https://www.rt.com/news/611039-state-department-husseini-blinken/
Huge respect to these two guys for doing what is right.
We were banning TikTok because it is a huge national security threat, but also we need to roll the TikTok ban back because it hurts the influencers!
Congress panics realizing no one is going to buy TikTok before the ban (a problem they created!), with Sen. Schumer saying: " It’s clear that more time is needed to find an American buyer and not disrupt the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans of so many influencers who have built up a good network of followers."
What’s stopping TikTok from moving their URL to tiktok.cn and giving instructions on sideloading the app? Even a non-jailbroken US iPhone can have apps sideloaded.
As far as I’ve seen, the ban bill just says that app stores and web hosts can’t do business with them.
Edit: they could even move the URL and release an update to the app now before it’s banned. Anyone who already had the app installed would still be able to access it.
🇺🇸🇨🇳Biden administration looks for ways to keep TikTok available in the U.S President Joe Biden’s administration is considering ways to keep TikTok available in the U.S. if a ban that’s scheduled to go into effect on Sunday proceeds, according to three people familiar with the discussions. “Americans shouldn’t expect to see TikTok suddenly banned on Sunday,” an administration official said, adding that officials are “exploring options” for how to implement the law so that TikTok does not go dark on Sunday.
Lol America is so cooked. I can’t wait for the millenium of humiliation for the US
https://xcancel.com/Sino_Market/status/1879755727583195436#m
