Image is of Azerbaijan's President, Aliyev (left) and Armenia's President, Pashinyan (right) in a meeting a month or two after Azerbaijan took Nagorno-Karabakh.
- Never go to a second location.
- Always get the interior ministry post.
- Never get in a helicopter or any small aircraft.
- If someone with a gun enters your car, they’re gonna kill you.
- If someone tells you they’re not going to kill you, they’re calming you down to kill you later.
- Never give up your nukes.
- Never release the opposition's political prisoners.
- Never let the opposition delay elections.
- If someone starts to get into German runes, drop them.
- Never trust a South American with a German name.
- Never move anywhere for a religion.
- Never go into the sewers unless you’re a sewer guy.
- If someone’s trying to get you to commit a crime, they're FBI (sometimes CIA or military intelligence).
- Never become an FBI informant.
- If you do become an FBI informant, record everything.
- Never relinquish your arms.
- Always get it in writing.
- If you keep gambling, you’ll eventually win.
- Never talk to cops without a lawyer.
- Always pay your mercenaries.
- Don’t let anyone take your passport.
To add an addendum to rule 3, never put your President and Foreign Minister in the same helicopter or small aircraft. Especially if doing so in bad weather conditions. Especially if you're already under threat from a hostile nuclear power in the region with a proclivity for terrorism (though this probably isn't Israel's doing, in this particular case).
Anyway, Azerbaijan. Not a great country, I think. Did some genocides. They're a petrostate that is hosting Cop29, which I suppose is a way for the bourgeoisie to implicitly convey their contempt for the green movement. They got weapons from Israel, too.
Just for the record, there's an Iranian province called East Azerbaijan, which is not the same as Azerbaijan.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Azerbaijan! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
Are you being flippant? Why is resisting western hegemony the only moral/political axis we care about? I don’t know anything about Raisi’s domestic policy tbh so can’t comment. But I don’t think it’s right to only focus on amerikkka bad while ignoring material conditions of those suffering under fascists globally.
you can say "amerikka bad" but really what it means is "western imperialism is the greatest obstacle to the left, even within 3rd world countries governed by the right-wing"
ironically, imperialists, intentionally and unintentionally, are more responsible for conservatism in iran than iran's own leaders. it's bizarre, but that's what a global system like capitalism manages to do
Ok, I take the point that imperialism is responsible for conservatism there, but I don’t really think that means we should skate over the abuses perpetrated by the conservatives themselves. I am happy our enemies are at each other’s throats
Iran is not our enemy. If you think it is, you have remnants of chauvinism still
hey i only said more responsible, iranian conservatives still had their own historical agency and are definitely our enemies. i mean, they're the ones who pulled the trigger, even if imperialism put the guns in their hands
they are not our enemies. They are one of our strongest allies on Earth in defeating Zionism
Figure out the principal contradiction of Iran (and the Middle East at large) first and you shall come to a clearer understanding about what your position should be.
It’s the same reason that many on the left support Palestinian resistance even though they may not have the most progressive views by our standards.
I will learn more about the principal contradiction and come back to this. Appreciate the feedback from everyone, here to learn
US-focused, but that may help in getting the point across https://hoodcommunist.org/2021/12/16/imperialism-unpacking-the-primary-contradiction/
Thanks!
Despite not knowing anything, you’re still commenting and comparing him to a fascist. And it’s called the primary contradiction for a reason.
Edit: this is the argument so-called “communists” use to both-sides colonialism in Palestine “why aren’t you liberating them from their theocratic fascist rulers”
I was going off what the OP said about him being rabidly right wing and murdering communists, which I don’t think anyone has challenged. I will educate myself on this topic more though
Because we live in the West and imperialism is the primary contradiction. It is your duty to be a revolutionary defeatist and oppose your nations imperialism, and if you aren't then you are a failure of a communist
I oppose western Imperialism to the core. My question was mainly about why we only focus on one axis of struggle when I feel we should also act with solidarity for the oppressed of other countries.
I am perfectly happy to be self critical and learn from all of your comments but I don’t think “you’d be a failure of a communist if X” is that helpful of a way of communicating tbh
I'm quoting Lenin almost verbatim.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/dec/25.htm
Revolutionary Defeatism, the DUTY of all socialists, requires first and foremost opposing one's imperialist government. One cannot expose an 'enemy' government that one's nation is at war with, it only serves imperialist intrigue and most westerners do not understand the specifics of other nations anyway. They MUST focus on their own imperialist first and foremost and oppose any fake internationalism that targets only enemies, as that's imperialist intrigue