Image of destruction in Mandalay, Myanmar, from Al Jazeera.
As if the ongoing civil war wasn't enough, Myanmar has now been struck by a very powerful earthquake, resulting in 2000 deaths and thousands more injured as of the time of writing. Estimates are that the death toll could reach 10,000. Infrastructure like roads and bridges are damaged, and the hospitals are overwhelmed. The earthquake struck during Eid prayers, resulting in even higher casualties as several mosques collapsed. 20 million people already required humanitarian assistance in Myanmar, and now the situation there will be even worse. International rescue teams have rushed into the country, and aid is being raised, though with USAID experiencing the... changes that it is, the United States will be of even more limited help than usual. So far, China has sent $14 million, while USAID has supplied $2 million. In Thailand, the death toll seems considerably lower, though there has still been significant damage; a skyscraper under construction collapsed in Bangkok.
Myanmar is located very close to the boundary between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. In particular, the country is divided in two by the north-south oriented Sagaing fault. This fault is typically strike-slip; that is, each side of the fault moves horizontally past each other. The earthquake's depth was 10 kilometers, which is pretty shallow, and its proximity to the surface amplified the felt force of the earthquake. Additionally, the soft soil in this region tends to further amplify seismic waves through a process called liquefaction. Combine all this with the lackluster building codes due to many years of impoverishment and civil wars, and this explains why the death toll, and the expense to the country in general to repair damage, will probably be extremely high.
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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.
New satellite imagery of Diego Garcia has appeared online after someone with access purchased MAXAR high resolution imagery, showing 6 B-2 Spirit stealth bombers present at the air base, confirming what was already heard through open source signals intelligence, which I reported on at the time. There is the potential for more B-2s to be inside the four climate controlled hangars also visible, for a maximum of 10 aircraft, though I think such is quite unlikely given the information obtained through open source SIGINT. I think these are all the B-2s present. Please ignore the text, the person that purchases the imagery does this nonsense.
For those wondering if it's possible for Iran to attack Diego Garcia directly, the answer is technically yes, although their capabilities are quite limited in this regard. Only one Iranian ballistic missile has the range, the Kheibar/Khorramshahr-4 missile, but that range is hypothetical/theoretical and based off of the ranges of similar Soviet era and North Korean missiles. Accuracy is also likely an issue at such ranges. I did a write up on the missile back when the possibility of Operation True Promise III seemed more likely, if anyone wants more details.
The Shahed-136B is the only drone with the range, but it would take tens of hours to reach Diego Garcia, giving the US plenty of time to shoot drone swarms down.
Iran could try close the distances involved with weapons stowed on military or even commercial ships, or weapons launched from submarines, but the US almost definitely has a naval presence at the island itself, involving it's own submarines and warships that would take out any Iranian vessels.
So yes, Iran could attack Diego Garcia from their own soil in a conflict, but with limited or untested capabilities. This is why the B-2s are parked there in the first place, and not in Saudi Arabia for instance. Rumours that the B-2s are currently operating over Yemen are just that, unsubstantiated rumours from sources that are becoming increasingly unreliable (like Rybar, who falsely claimed that a Ukrainian F-16 was shot down recently).
Their autonomous submarine-launched Lancet equivalent would be perfect for this, but I'm not sure if they have long-range carriers for them yet.
The Rezvan loitering munition used here has a 20km range. Any Iranian submarine or ship getting within 20km of Diego Garcia is making a one way trip, if they even get close enough to launch.
A ship or submarine launched Abu Mahdi missile would be a more realistic prospect here, with it's 1000km range. It could theoretically fit inside such a casing.
I assume the plan is to have the drones be launched by one-way unmanned mini submarines (basically long range "torpedos").
If that's the working concept, a loitering munition, launched by a torpedo based UUV (unmanned underwater vehicle), that's launched by a submarine, the submarine still needs to get quite close to launch the torpedo based UUV. The loitering munition could be added to a large UUV with longer range like the Nazir-5 (500km range), but then the UUV would be detected as it attempts to get close enough to launch the loitering munition. Also, an Iranian ship would need to get within 520km of Diego Garcia to deploy the larger UUV.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Given how difficult it would be to hit Diego Garcia, do you think it’s possible / probable the Iranian game plan is to pummel Israel and/or the Saudi oil fields as their retaliation instead?
I can't see Iran doing that unless they feel that their very existence is threatened, missiles aimed at Saudi oilfields would wreck the world economy. Mining the Straight of Hormuz and a naval blockade there is a more likely course of action, even if it upsets China. I think a conventional war would play out similar to the description in this translated comment
Is this referring to the one that claimed to use a S400 on the ground and a radar from an SU35? Or a different claim?
That one. Ukrainian F-16s continued their operations in Sumy without a pause, FighterBomber came out and said that it was a "miss within the normal range" (missile got close enough on radar to register as a hit, but didn't actually hit the aircraft), no evidence was presented of an F-16 being hit, no crash site, no drone images at the expected impact point. While an ingenious method to get around American electronic countermeasures and ambush an F-16, it didn't work out this time.
For comparison here's some footage of a Russian MiG-31 taking out a Ukrainian MiG-29 with an R-37M missile, from an estimated range of 150-200km. Note the drone footage of the downed Ukrainian MiG-29. While this is of course not standard for every air to air kill, I would highly suspect that the Russians would have demonstrated similar evidence of shooting down an F-16, for the propaganda value. It's also an interesting look at modern beyond visual range air combat. That Ukrainian MiG-29 was splashed before it even knew of the Russian MiG-31s existence.
A Reddit link was detected in your comment. Here are links to the same location on alternative frontends that protect your privacy.
I haven't been reporting anything from telegram lately because none of it feels as reliable as it did before. Too many things look off on first glance or prove false 2 days later.
If a big crisis event happens i'll probably have to but right now it seems too iffy.
There are still a few good sources on telegram, but a lot of them have gone to the dogs. FighterBomber (Russian ex air force pilot that flew Su-34 missions in Syria) was the one that ended up getting the truth out there with regards to the F-16 "shoot down". When FighterBomber is more accurate than Rybar, something has gone wrong.
I mainly try focus on primary sources where possible now.