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.
Who will come out ahead in all this chaos? Is it really just the dumbest rich people following their ideology off a cliff or is there some angle people aren't seeing? Are the richest people just going to consolidate their power by buying up failed businesses? What are the odds of more stimulus checks, so he can control people's treats like the way immortan joe controls water?
Well if we think about it as a fascist strategy, the ruling class knows that their base is the only Americans who would actually put up a fight against the state, and that they are totally enamored by Trump and so won't do so. Instead, that base will turn their anger about the economy being terrible on trans people, migrants, and Muslims, keeping them busy and satisfied despite their economic situation not improving. Knowing that there is no other group who will fight them, the ruling class can destroy the economy, buy the dip and get richer. This economic destruction will force workers to have to take shittier, lower paying jobs and replace migrant laborers who are being deported. So the workforce we are losing to deportation will be replaced by desperate citizens, resolving the contradiction of kicking out the only people who had previously been interested in that essential work. In the end, you have a great consolidation of wealth for the top, the domestic economy survives the loss of migrant labor, the poorest people are further locked into endless work and thus won't have time or energy to think about anything else, and anyone further left than the proud boys are feckless and will accept whatever is happening without a fight, hoping that they'll get kamala in on the next time and everything will go back to normal. On top of all that, destroying welfare, social security and such is a quasi eugenicist purge of undesirables who cost the state money, and the ones who survive that loss will be the ones picking fruit and cleaning burger kings. By the time the next presidential election happens, most of the state will already be irreversibly privatized.
This seems plausible to me. I just don't know if they realize how bad it's going to get for people before it's seen through to the end. Or if the forces who aren't on board with all this are powerful enough to put a stop to it.
I imagine they do know because they are green lighting horrendous shit every day for a long time. I don't think they see it as getting bad for people because they don't see us as people, just units in their assembly lines. The silver lining is that this is the rope they sell us to hang themselves with, it will absolutely accelerate the downfall of capitalism and imperialism and, unless they decide to start a nuclear war, will open up opportunities for non Western nations to have breakthroughs. I used to think it would open up similarly for western workers but I don't think it will since we are very devout worshippers at the altar of treats. Even if they dry up we will spend years pleading to get them back instead of organizing. I hope I'm wrong about that
I mean considering how all the richest people are 'more anxious than ever before', this might just be the dumbest people following their ideology off a cliff. I think people here sometimes have this thing where just like with Biden we assume that Trump has some 8D chess masterplan, when really his thinking is 'Trade Bad, Tariff Good'. If Trump wasn't the president of the current hegemon he'd be compared to Milei.
The people profiting right now are those that can do insider trading. The richest people are suffering as are businesses, like stuff like Nike is fucked under the current tariffs because again there's no way for them to move production back to the US and wherever they put their manufacturing in will have huge tariffs like they are currently in SEA which got hit with huge tariffs.
Rich buying up all the assets at a discount