Image is of Trump's initial set of reciprocal tariffs. Source is CNN and Reuters.
It's difficult to keep up with the news around the tariffs; they get instated, then dropped, then reinstated... for example, on Friday, Trump said that certain electronics like smartphones would be exempt, causing markets to rally a great deal, but now the Commerce Secretary has said that they might not be exempt? The state of play right now, if you haven't been keeping up this week, is that the US recently announced a 90-day global pause on implementing the tariffs he had planned (that is, 25% on certain Canadian and Mexican goods, and at least 10% on every other nation) but nonetheless increased tariffs on China to 145%.
Meanwhile, China has been - quite remarkably - standing their ground, increasing tariffs on the US to 125%, and putting restrictions on rare earths. Xi Jinping has been in Vietnam and has made statements against a tariff war there, saying that it would have no winners. Meanwhile, a Chinese spokesperson has essentially said that China can endure the tariff war due to the increasing demand from its domestic market in combination with its growing economic ties with other countries.
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.
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.
If confirmed, 120 light years is nothing in terms of cosmic distance, the universe is alive in that case and the numerical value of one of the most important variables in the Drake equation skyrockets
also, news like this is an absolute ray of light right now and I hope it can be verified.
Add to that that it is really hard to detect planets, even relatively close planets like this one. That would be huge. This is a red dwarf planet tho, so I do have my doubts about there actually being life in any way.
Still, I don't see that as being a galvanizing moment for humanity to try and do something cooperatively. But it would be insanely cool.
The cool thing about this situation is that 1) even though the star is a red dwarf, K2-18b is within its relative goldilocks zone, which would provide the right conditions for life as we know it. 2) Scientists detected carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere a few years ago, which is cool but not a revolutionary thing. But now they've detected a LOT of molecules only produced by living organisms (that we know of), mainly phytoplankton, which would be the first detection of its kind in that amount and is a revolutionary thing. 3) Their confidence in the data is 99.7%, and they're releasing the data to the community in a few days for people to verify. Like, unless there's some crazy way for these molecules to be created that defies our current understanding of all of biology, there are living organisms on that planet
I absolutely agree that this is great news and we might be SO CLOSE to actually finding life somewhere else for the first time.
The problem with red dwarfs is that the planet has to be close to the star in order to be in the goldilocks zone. That makes it more vulnerable to solar storms and also tidally locks it. That is why finding life here would be an even bigger deal than finding life around a Sun-like main sequence star.
Yeah very good point -- imagine having a light society and a dark society, both with very different evolutions lol it'd be like all the crazy stuff at the bottom of the ocean except just...straight over there
Defying our current understanding of biology would be pretty neat, too.
If CH4 and H2S are components of the atmosphere you could get methylsulfides from lightning strikes.
I'm always cautiously optimistic about news along these lines, but I am choosing to be happy that this appears to be a step father than what we have detected before. If it is determined ths it is likely life, hooray! If it is determined that there are too many other explanations, I'll be a bit let down, but we have at least advanced the science of seeking life on other planets considerably.
This is a new and unique data point, and if it is repeatable and replicable--this is great news.
Personally for me, if verified with a capital V beyond a shadow of a doubt, it would obliterate the doomer tendencies I suffer from, for me it would be a rock solid foundation for general optimism and faith in the long term viability of life
Until then I will file this news under 'scientific curiosity'
Yeah that's light and high beauty territory