Image is sourced from this article.
Those who were around in the early days of the news megathread may remember Pedro Castillo, the left-leaning leader of Peru who was deposed in December 2022. He was replaced by Dina Boluarte, the first woman to be President of Peru, who described herself as a progressive but afterwards routinely sided with Peruvian conservatives and American interests. To say she was unpopular is an understatement of titanic proportions - she descended to such lows that she was, at one point, the single most unpopular leader on the planet. As with most deeply unpopular leaders that side with the West, she kept power for a bafflingly long time.
However, on October 10th, after a period of protests against the government, she was impeached and removed by Peru's Congress in a unanimous vote. José Jerí was sworn in as the new President, who was previously the President of the Congress and is a member of a centrist Peruvian party. The government is trying the classic strategy: keep doing the same thing as before, and sacrifice an unpopular figure - here, Boluarte - in the hopes that this appeases the crowd.
Is this strategy working? It doesn't really seem to be - protests are not only continuing, but strengthening, as it is clear that neoliberalism will not reformed and the brutality by police will not stop (there was very recently a high-profile case in which a musician, Mauricio Ruiz, was murdered). Controversies surrounding Jerí, including allegations of SA, are already being reported. If Jerí is deposed, the next person in line to try their hand at ruling will be the former army general Roberto Chiabra, who would be the ninth President in less than a decade.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
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 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.
After months of buildup, Russia has successfully tested the nuclear powered and nuclear armed Burevestnik (Storm Petrel in English, SSC-X-9 Skyfall NATO designation) cruise missile.
The same as a regular cruise missile, but over essentially an unlimited range. The idea of a nuclear powered cruise missile is not new, with the US experimenting during the cold war, but abandoning the idea after fielding ICBMs.
English source
Official Kremlin source with video, relevant discussion 9 minutes in
Important to note this test took place exactly one day after the reportedly disastrous Lavrov - Rubio phonecall that led to the cancellation of the hypothesised Budapest summit. Russia has played the Burevestnik test card now, after months of signalling and hinting.
How much more radioactive debris would be left in the target site than a depleted uranium bomb? How does it compare to fallout from a nuclear bomb?
I think Russia has a way of recovering the missile from these test launches, so it doesn't contaminate a site on "impact". My guess is it "lands" in the sea in the north, and Russia recovers it later on the seabed after it sinks. The Nyonoksa radiation incident (lots of reading on that) is said to have occurred during a failed recovery of the missile.
As for an actual strike using a nuclear warhead, that would be irrelevant given the explosion. If using a conventional warhead, that is very much a relevant point of discussion. That, and the radiation released during flight, depends on the technology. Is it a nuclear thermal rocket, a nuclear powered turbojet, or a nuclear powered ramjet? The only thing close to an official statement we have on the propulsion source is from Rosatom on the Nyonoksa incident, which suggests a nuclear powered liquid fueled rocket. Which would be a kind of nuclear thermal rocket and distinct from the US cold war attemps of a nuclear powered ramjet.
I meant in the event that such a missile was used with a non-nuclear warhead, not these test launches. Like how would the nuclear angle of bomb debris compare between a conventionally armed version of one of these new Russian missiles and something like a conventional depleted uranium bomb used by America/Israel? Obviously if one of these nuclear fueled missiles also had a nuclear warhead there would be a bunch of fallout, but I'm trying to get a sense of how much radioactive material would be in the debris field if it was used to deliver an ordinary explosive. DU bombs are really bad, I'd like to know if these are worse.
DU is bad because the impacts/explosions make dust that is chemically toxic, but it's not (significantly) radioactive.
As to whether this weapon would be worse, I have no idea.
I don't know enough to give an exact answer on how much radiation would spread, but it should be way worse than depleted uranium. Depleted uranium is non-fissile, the material used in a nuclear powered rocket or jet engine would be undergoing nuclear fission.
5 people died and 3-6 were injured in the Nyonoksa incident, as a result of the explosion and radiation sickness.
Does this one mitigate the issues previous nuclear powered missiles had? Let's hope it doesn't leave a trail of radioactive exhaust, although in the circumstances in which such a missile would need to be deployed that might be an intended feature.
That depends on what technology is used. Is it a nuclear powered ramjet, turbojet or liquid fueled rocket? That's an unknown. The Rosatom statement on the Nyonoksa incident mentions a a nuclear powered liquid fueled rocket. But the truth is, almost no one really knows, and those who do know are obviously not going to say.