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Bulletins and International News Discussion from September 28th to October 4th, 2026 - UN Summit Solves Little / US Floats Diesel Export Ban / Elections and US Midterms Approach (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 Iran's President, Pezeshkian, holding up an image mid-speech at the UN memorializing the girls and teachers killed by an American missile strike on the Minab school.

My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleThe two big international events of the last week have been the UN summit in New York, where Pezeshkian among many others gave various speeches, and the visit by Xi Jinping and various Chinese figures to the US. While it's important to never fully discount the wider diplomatic angle of the conflicts raging around the world, by this point it should be clear to most people that the fundamental disagreements are too acute to be solved or even ameliorated with words, and there are no countries in the "international community" to "convince" to come over to your side through expert oratory and rhetoric. There is now only the language of explosives, blockades, and sanctions. Pezeshkian in particular gave a reasonably good speech, but I still believe that personally flying to the country that has committed so many crimes against his own country and its allies was not the correct move, and should have been left to Araghchi. And the difference between the US's and China's material interests are separated by too wide a canyon to be bridged by words promising cooperation and partnership.

Over in Yemen, the Saudis have intensified airstrikes on Ansarallah, which continues to make slow but steady territorial gains, particularly around Taizz, and have also repelled Saudi assaults from the north. These Saudi airstrikes have hit some military infrastructure, but also a lot of civilian infrastructure, including explicitly humanitarian buildings like those supplying food. To me, this doesn't seem strategically or tactically effective, especially with so much of your own oil infrastructure in ballistic missile range, but I suppose there's not many options left for the Saudi regime. Meanwhile, the situation in Hormuz flared up on the weekend, with a record(?) number of missiles fired at ships trying to traverse the Omani route. In related news, there's been a recent tick up in sailor and marine casualties admitted by the US, indicating either that Iran scored a significant hit on a US naval vessel during its anti-ship ballistic missile strikes (and those ships have now retreated much further away, which is a data point in favour of that hypothesis, but otherwise we have no visual evidence), or that US military personnel are taking a major role in attempting to move oil through Iran's blockade by manning at least some of the tankers.

Claims that oil transits out of the Middle East have returned almost to normalcy can be trivially contradicted by third grade mathematics and the evidence of our senses: namely, increasing worldwide shortages and growing considerations for rationing diesel and other such oil products. Indeed, the potential for shortages has now risen to the extent that Trump briefly suggested an diesel export ban. However, I'll admit that the situation in Hormuz has become much harder to follow for everybody involved than it was in March and April. Nowadays, some vessels are moving through Iran's prearranged passage, there is undeniably quite a bit of oil getting out through ports that don't need to go through Hormuz like Fujairah, and meanwhile, there are theories and rumors of widely varying degrees of dubiousness of temporary arrangements of Iran not firing on vessels traversing the Omani route in exchange for such-and-such hypothetical benefits, perhaps even including Iranian oil getting mixed into some of the vessels. And on top of all of that, you have to take into account China's curious moves in the oil markets, which have substantially influenced supplies and prices since March.

In that environment, it's hard not to have at least an iota of sympathy for the tanker trackers of the world who are trying to get some concrete information while everybody makes unsupported claims. The aforementioned intensified Iranian strikes on the Omani route are a data point in favour of ships getting through when they shouldn't - otherwise, they'd have nothing to be striking, unless they're just providing enrichment and employment to any divers trying to disarm naval mines - and so we'll just have to see whether Iran will allow the current situation of a slightly leaky Hormuz to continue for reasons unknown to us, or now truly drop the hammer on illegal strait transits to put pressure on the US. The other big new item lately around Iran has been some of their airlines being sanctioned, which several countries in the region seem to be obeying, while others around the world, like China, aren't intimidated. This been of particular significance in regards to Iraq, where there have been major protests about reopening flights between Iran and Iraq, and we'll have to see where that goes next.

Perhaps little of major significance will occur in the war until the midterms are over. Nothing I've seen so far indicates to me that Democrats will put up a serious opposition to Trump's war efforts except in very particular and isolated cases, and so from a purely non-domestic, geopolitical perspective, I expect the midterm results to change nothing. Political "gridlock" and "lame duck periods" exist as illusory excuses for the general population to prevent positive things from occurring domestically; they are not hurdles that exist in reality when the American bourgeoisie all agree on a course of action, such as attempting (now in vain) to stop Iran, Russia, and China. Slightly more interesting will be the results of the Zionist elections, but only slightly. On the one hand, it would be satisfying to see the current party lose power, but on the other, it has been their sheer incompetence that has, over just a few years, led the occupation into the greatest crisis of their short history. Nothing about their domestic or foreign policy seems likely to change, as they have dug themselves too deep into the hole now. Also coming up is the Brazilian elections, where Lula is once again facing off against another Bolsonaro. I wish him the best, but I worry that the margin of victory for a non-comprador party outside the West now needs to be pretty damn high to overcome foreign voter suppression efforts and accusations of election fraud by pro-US organizations, and the current margins in the polls are not terribly encouraging by that measure.

Last week's thread 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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[–] 47 points 11 hours ago

https://archive.ph/Ansy5

Defense Firms Are Rushing to Boost Missile Output. It’s Coming Too Late.

Factories central to refilling America’s weapons stockpiles have suffered from underinvestment and inconsistent contracting

more

A Tucson, Ariz., factory run by defense giant RTX is working around the clock to increase production of Tomahawk and other missiles in short supply for U.S. operations against Iran. Lockheed Martin is adding hundreds of workers in Arkansas to triple its output of much-needed Patriot interceptors. Subcontractors including Boeing, L3Harris and Northrop Grumman have broken ground on new assembly lines to meet soaring demand for electronics, rocket motors and other components needed for the weapons. Defense contractors are spending billions to build factories and increase production to stock America’s nearly bare cupboard of highly engineered missiles. But those efforts haven’t translated into real gains yet, leaving the U.S. and allies with depleted stocks of important weapons while it fights Iran. Most of the new missiles will arrive too late for any conflict in the next couple of years. “Ministers of defense have fat wallets—they walk into the shops and there are empty shelves,” said retired Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, the top military officer at NATO until last year. “They are frustrated.”

A host of factors are driving the frustration—and raising national security concerns. After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, government officials and weapons suppliers pledged to create a surge in production, but supply didn’t keep up with demand. Since then, Washington officials have been reluctant to place the big orders needed to justify investments in new production lines until recently. President Trump and European defense ministers have said that companies need to pick up the production pace. Capital expenditures as a percentage of revenue barely budged between last year and 2021 at Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics and other large U.S. defense companies. Their 2026 spending forecasts are higher—but order backlogs are growing at a much faster rate. Between 1999 and 2025, missiles and munitions accounted for an annual average of 7.5% of the Pentagon’s procurement and research budget, according to Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank. That compares with 23% for aircraft and 10% for shipbuilding. That share for munitions is set to roughly double to an average of 14% between 2028 and 2031, Harrison calculated. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the department’s pending budget request to Congress is designed to aggressively increase munitions stockpiles. “Since Deputy Secretary [Steve] Feinberg arrived at the Department of War, strengthening our munitions capabilities and revolutionizing the antiquated acquisition process has been his top priority,” Parnell said. The Pentagon declined to comment on the AEI findings.

Quiet factory

In the wake of the Ukraine war, the Army Science Board—an advisory panel—conducted a study on the defense industry’s ability to increase munitions production. The board found an industrial base that had been hollowed out. “It’s a miracle that we have anything that blows up,” said Mackenzie Eaglen, a member of the panel coordinating the study. Despite being around since the 1980s, the Tomahawk remains the long-range cruise missile of choice for the U.S. and many of its allies. But Pentagon missile orders for the Tucson factory dipped so low in recent years that further cuts risked shutting down the Tomahawk line. Contracts to retrofit old missiles with new navigation systems helped keep the factory busy. The Navy in August issued a $23 billion order spanning seven years for new Tomahawk missiles. Even that request, after more than a year of negotiations, needs full congressional appropriations to turn into a final contract. An RTX spokesman said the contractor will continue investing to reach its long-term target of producing more than 1,000 Tomahawks annually. It is on track to make more than 400 this year, according to a person familiar with the matter. The U.S. fired more than 1,000 Tomahawk missiles in two months in its war with Iran, The Wall Street Journal has reported. American armed forces have used about one-third of their pre-Iran war Tomahawk inventory and roughly half of their high-end Patriot interceptors, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank.

New boom time

Thanks to long-term government contracts, it is now boom time across the roughly 1 square mile of factories, warehouses and offices that occupy a part of Tucson’s main airport. RTX said it has pumped about $900 million into the Tucson plant and two other factories over the past three years. And this year, the Pentagon has awarded billions of dollars worth of new contracts for the Tucson factory’s components and missiles that have all been in action in Ukraine and Iran. Surrounded by desert and a mountain range, no other RTX location is hiring more, with around 670 positions in Tucson advertised on its website. The listed roles include electrical engineers, explosive experts, chemists and software specialists. Critical positions have been hard to fill in Tucson, the company has said. RTX has also struggled with getting raw materials, saying in June that supply-chain disruptions have affected access to the rare earth elements, microelectronics and other critical components to missile production. Contractors are often limited by their own weapons designs. Sophisticated munitions like the Tomahawk hold thousands of parts, and move through factories that look more like small workshops than automated production lines.

military artisanal complex kelly

New equipment aimed at jump-starting production is set to come on line. One robotic machine, the largest of its kind RTX says it has built, puts missile pieces through a battery of tests against heat, cold and other extreme conditions. The machine, which sits behind a chain-link enclosure around the length of a basketball court, should test missile parts 30% faster than manual methods, RTX said. The gap between munitions production and their battlefield use isn’t lost on U.S. officials as the conflict in Iran continues. “Across our weapons industrial base, this is absolutely a challenge,” Rear Admiral Ben Reynolds, the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for budget, said in April. “We need and expect Raytheon to invest very, very heavily now to be able to ramp up production,” he said, referring to the RTX division that makes the Tomahawk.

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