Argentina is an interesting microcosm of the more widespread war that every other currency is waging against the dollar - in this case, the yuan is taking on the dollar in gladiatorial combat.
The Argentinian economy, like many, is fully permeated by the American dollar, but it has its own official currency, the Argentinian peso. This may not be for long: one of the major contenders for the Argentinian presidency has proposed replacing the national currency of Argentina with the dollar, which would therefore mean that an even more substantial part of the economy would be decided, with no input from Argentina, thousands of miles away. This is not unprecedented - Ecuador already does this, as does Zimbabwe, Timor-Leste, Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands. The motivation for doing so may also be convincing to Argentinian voters, as the country has faced hyperinflation, ever-increasing benchmark interest rates, and chronic shortages of dollar reserves.
However, the yuan has entered the scene, particularly over the last couple months. The Economy Minister met with Chinese officials in early June to sign a co-operation plan to promote the Belt and Road Initiative. Commercial banks can now open deposit accounts in yuan, and securities can now be issued in the yuan. The Western media, as one might expect, emphasizes how utterly desperate Argentina must be to go to the yuan - the yuan! - to sort out its economic crisis.
Whirlpool Corp, a major American appliances company, has said that it is considering paying with the yuan to import parts for a new factory in Argentina. Over 500 Argentine companies making a plethora of products have requested to pay for imports in yuan.
The share of yuan transactions in Argentina's foreign currency market hit a daily record of 28% in late June, compared to a high of 5% in May.
And last week, Argentina opted to use the yuan to settle part of its debt with the IMF for the first time, and it will be interesting to see if other countries follow their example.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.
The first update this week is here in the comments.
The second update this week is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. I recommend their map more than the channel at this point, as an increasing subscriber count has greatly diminished their quality.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have decent analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources. Beware of chuddery.
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 journalist reporting in the warzone.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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 still quite reactionary in terms of gender and sexuality and race, so beware). 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 ~ Another 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's army.
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
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.
Last week's discussion post.
Updated chad-n-cuck power ranking:
maybe you should do a power ranking specifically for the people in the war, and then an international one. maybe a national one for the US if you follow the politics there closely
like, you have the ones to do with the french protests already but you could have like, gigachad: palestinians resisting Israeli fascists, chad: Maduro getting boxing belt, neutral: Turkey for Erdogan being a monster but pissing off natoids in the process, beta male: blinken for having a 7 hour meeting with Qin Gang and then having Biden call Xi a dictator right after, and virgin cuck: that fascist that had to resign in Finland
such a virgin cuck that they don't even have the dignity of being named
Half of them are named Jari or Pekka anyway, there's only so many Finnish names. But Nazis might name themselves something different to sound more like viking larpers
the gommunists ate all the finnish names with stalin's giant spoon
That's a great idea, Starting from next week, I'm gonna split it into a Russia-Ukraine power ranking, and a more general cuck and chad rating for the week's most prominent personalities internationally. The US gets one row in the international ranking.
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Fucking bummer at least Zaluzhny is alive and I was half believing he was fucked somehow. It is still extremely bizzarre why Ukraine went through all that amateurish BS fake/doctored media to "prove" he was alive.
This shall remain one of the mysteries of the war, along with why the fuck Ukraine attempted what was realy just a very cheap immitation of a Tom cruise movie style rescue of the Azov in Mariupol. Rescue attempt at night?Check. Suicidal helicopters? Check. """"undercover""""(turns out the Russians clearly knew about it lol) freight ship for transportation? Check. Hero manages to somehow evade dozens and dozens of blind enemy soldiers missing every shot? Yeah about that.
I'm still not convinced Zaluzhnyi is alive. WAPO says they did an interview with him? and they never lie right? BBC says he's "the master mind behind the offensive" but didn't he say that they weren't ready and it would be a slaughter right before his month of silence?
He's dead. Incapacitated by shrapnel and then killed by Zelensky because as The BBC says "his popularity now rivals that of President Volodymyr Zelensky." meaning he was probably planning a coup.
So now WAPO and BBC are making him look good before they write stories of how he was martyred on the front during the offensive leading his troops to a massive defeat.