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Bulletins and International News Discussion from August 31st to September 6th, 2026 - US/Canada Tariff War / Iran Maintains Hormuz Sovereignty / Russia's Northern Sea Route Opening Up With Icebreakers (thelemmy.club)
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A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is of the first nuclear icebreaker ever built, the Lenin, which entered service in 1957 in the USSR and decommissioned in 1989. It is now a museum ship in Murmansk. I just think it's neat.

My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleThe last week has had a lot of Trump admin dipshittery that isn't important enough to be worth remarking on, so I'm just going to skip right past all that. The sanctions campaign against Iran appears to have stalled before it even left the starting line, with China saying that, nope, they aren't going to cut off their ally for the sake of their enemy. From what I've gathered from Naked Capitalism's (albeit limited) reporting on the state of Iran's economy, the impression I get is that while inflation is running kinda wild, everything else, including state revenues, are doing sufficiently well that there isn't going to be an economic collapse this year nor probably next year if we assume a continued no-deal situation over Hormuz.

The underlying geopolitical situation has had some interesting little developments. Iran and Oman appears to have worked out their plan for joint control over Hormuz. Ansarallah is continuing their explosive campaign against the Saudis, who are now begging the US for help. Additionally, the ever-barking never-biting Türkiye is showing some signs that they might soon, finally, after three years of witnessing outright genocide, do 1 (one) (the first numerical digit) action that isn't to the Zionist's direct benefit, by putting up a modicum of resistance in defence of their puppet in Syria; but, quite frankly, I'm not holding my breath on anything truly substantial happening while Erdogan's in charge.

The state of oil flows in and around Hormuz are very hotly debated right now. Many of the oil flow numbers can be dismissed out of hand because they aren't reflective of the reality of Iranian control and vision of the strait. Due to the narrowness of the strait, full visual coverage of the ships travelling through the channel can be achieved with technology no more advanced than a dozen people with binoculars and a not-especially-tall mountain. However, figures that are around 3-5 million barrels per day (compared to the pre-war 20 million per day) seems plausible when including Iran allowing some allied vessels out (notably Iraqi and Chinese vessels, among others). This, plus China's rather odd actions in the oil market over the last six months, have resulted in the US's SPR now draining at "only" 4-6 million barrels per week, compared to 8-9 earlier in the war. However, the war's impact on fertilizer and diesel stockpiles and prices are now unignorable even to those with their heads in the sand, with anxiety steadily building in the mainstream media about food crises next year.

Meanwhile, Trump has decided to pick fights with Canada due to their strange unwillingness to graciously hand over their sovereignty to the US, with the two countries now in a tariff war. That being said, oil seems to be one product that neither side wants to fight over: the US needs a producer, and Canada needs a customer. The only other country in the vicinity with major oil reserves is Venezuela, who has been in the news a lot lately for precisely this reason, but they simply don't have the production to do much of anything to alleviate the US's stockpile issues and likely still won't by the time Trump has left office, and so they can be safely dismissed as a significant player in this ongoing global energy conflict.

On the subject of naval trade routes, a fascinating development is that Russia has finally unveiled the Northern Sea Route as a regular maritime passage, with a small fleet of eight Chinese vessels taking the route as a test run in mid-August. From Shanghai to Hamburg, the route is a little over 7000 nautical miles and goes through no chokepoints (though I suppose the Bering Strait could hypothetically become one), compared to the Suez route which is nearly 11,000 nautical miles and goes through three chokepoints (Malacca, Bab el-Mandab, Suez). Russia has the world's only nuclear icebreaker fleet, and the increased power from those reactors is necessary to provide the sheer force to break up the ice along the route, making them even more uniquely situated to benefit from the route. Many countries, China foremost among them, have identified the advantage of not being subject to chokepoints and hostile waters as the US navy continues its rapid transition to outright piracy, so it'll be interesting to see to what extent the route is adopted in the coming years.

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.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on the Zionists' 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.

Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

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.

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Pori has had public business ties to people in Trump’s orbit. In April 2025, Kingsbarn Realty Capital closed a deal to acquire the Los Angeles headquarters of Kim Kardashian’s lingerie company Skims, working with two companies with links to the Trump administration: the Newmark Group and Hankey Capital. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick chaired the Newmark Group before entering the Trump administration, and did not fully divest from the company until May 2025. Don Hankey, the chair of Hankey Capital, is also the chair of an insurance company that underwrote Trump’s $175 million bond in his appeal in 2024 of a New York civil fraud judgment. Pori personally thanked both companies in the press release announcing the deal, which he said was made possible in part by Hankey Capital. Between 2024 and 2025, Pori made monthly, largely small-dollar donations to the Republican Party committee, Trump’s campaign committee and associated PACs. Pori does not have a history of donating to national political campaign efforts before October 2024, according to a NOTUS analysis of the Federal Election Commission donor database. Neither Pori nor the Interior Department have publicly expressed interest in the Yosemite land exchange. Early this year, members of Congress were notified for the first time that the Park Service was considering the land exchange in Yosemite. The notification was vague. It implied that the Land and Water Conservation Fund would be used to enable the exchange but gave no details about the valuation of the land in Yosemite or what the Park Service might accept in return. It did not name the developer or indicate that the exchange was a high priority. Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon), the chair and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee with oversight of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, sent Interior a list of projects that they endorse for the fund; the proposal for Yosemite was not on the list. “The Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee Chair and Ranking Member told the Interior Department which projects they agreed on to go forward. That didn’t include the Yosemite project, which Senator Merkley objected to,” said Justin Krakoff, the deputy communications director for Merkley. Murkowski’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

California’s two Democratic senators told NOTUS they opposed the proposed exchange. “The Land and Water Conservation Fund exists to acquire land and interests in land in order to safeguard natural areas, water resources, and cultural heritage — and to provide recreation opportunities for all Americans,” Sen. Alex Padilla said. “Projects should be chosen on merit, not on an applicant’s connections to high-ranking Trump Administration officials.” “Yosemite is one of California’s natural wonders and must be protected from further development. The courts struck this project down once, but this administration appears hellbent on moving forward in the face of opposition from the public, Congress and the courts. But the only thing the administration cares about is whether there is money involved. We will fight this again,” said Sen. Adam Schiff. The Park Service can likely move forward on a land exchange without any further congressional involvement. If the land exchange eventually occurs as planned, it is likely that it will face a legal challenge from environmental and conservation groups. The National Parks Conservation Association said it strongly opposes the plan. “After a century of protecting Yosemite, the National Park Service is now working in overdrive to turn over land to a private developer in a secretive, backroom deal. This is an attack on the American people that own this national park. It would also be unlawful and a court previously rejected a road development proposal,” said Mark Rose, the group’s Sierra Nevada program manager. He would not comment on the group’s legal strategy.

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