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.
I agree with your overall narrative, this is a good comment but I would disagree with this particular point, it is just not compelling at all.
The US got into this position exactly because the EU as a whole was already on borrowed time, German capital was never able to compete with the UK given their limited imperialist capabilities. I'm sure you know the context for WW1 and WW2 as well but if we think about "alternatives" it realy is TINA. The EU is not better today then it was even 150 years ago, the Eurozone project is already a second attempt at keeping it afloat 25 years ago and now German capital dominates the EU with France playing second fiddle and minor yet also incompetent imperialist ambitions. Nowadays given the US complete dominance over German neoliberalism this is a dead argument. Germany would need to reignite its own imperialist ambitions, align itself with Russia and China to even begin to mount a challenge to the US, it wont happen, necessary steps like e.g re-starting their nuclear project would take years if not decades.
The UK itself lacks the tools to take over the hegemonic status again, they're not the same naval superpower as they were and UK capitalism is in decline, London is already a deeply rotten financial capital based on rentier capital specialy given the UK's relationship with EU industry and labor movement(see Brexit context).
If we look outside the west then there should be no argument in favor of e.g Singapore or Japan. These countries are not capable of meaningful necessary reforms to oppose the US.
Other BRICS countries are decades if not a century away from such ambitions and in any case India and Brazil will get fucked by climate change, along with the rest of the world in less than 20 years.
By process of elimination we arrive at China and China taking a position at the center of capitalism is not exactly the rhetoric we should be aiming for either.
Sure so let me agree with some of your points, the Eurozone project is pretty much dead in the water that said, German capital and German Imperial ambitions are ramping up, and they are ramping up quick. I may be known as the resident Germany hater but not for no reason, SPD pivoted hard and is now basically the same as the democrats in the US, so at least the political will is there, especially with AfD now tied with the CDU during polls (They gained another 4% since the elections). They can also imo achieve their imperial ambition with their massive military spending which has widespread approval from pretty much every party, they say 'We need to protect ourselves from the Russians' and then will use their tanks in the global south I guarantee it. I also think capital is honestly better served during this period by germany since germans worship LAW and LAWFULLNESS.
France will play second fiddle but we forget that it up until recently still had significant control of west african states, with the help of germany they can take back control and they do have nukes so a more equal evil partnership is incredibly likely. I think the coming weeks and months are going to be very telling but depending what comes out of the meeting in Vietnam between the EU and China I think there might be a very sudden shift if France and Germany assert themselves, and I would say Germany is massively building up while France will get to be a ship in that rising tide.
I think you are understimating one thing about the Eurozone which I think is extremely hard to quantify which is how hard Germany managed to 'subjugate' or 'pacify' eastern europe. Greece is the big example of what happens when you defy them and that keeps those countries in line. For all the frogcalling people like to do about Orban he does keep the cheap labor in his country cheap which is why the sort of political and economic warfare the EU is capable of doing hasn't been done against him.