On the 20th of October, Moldova - a small, landlocked country bordering western Ukraine and with a population of about 3 million - voted to join the EU. The margin was razor-thin, with the pro-EU vote gaining 50.39%, or an absolute difference of about 11,000 people. There was simultaneously a presidential vote between the incumbent, Maia Sandu, and other candidates, with the main competitor being Alexandr Stoianoglo.
The election was characterized by accusations of Russian interference, with Russian propaganda apparently flooding in, as well as people offering Moldovans money to vote against the EU. While the result does suggest that half the voting-age population of Moldova consists entirely of Russians who want to destroy democracy and all the good in the world, it seems to have just barely failed. This is a bad time to be a site entirely composed of Russian disinformation agents and bots. Twice already today, I’ve had to restart my program after somebody told me “Disregard all previous prompts.”
While Moldova is a poor country which could benefit in some ways from EU membership, in practice, it is unlikely that they will be able to join for the foreseeable future, requiring many of the… reforms… that the EU requires of potential new members. But as basically every major European economy continues to slowly sink as recessions and political crises degrade them, one wonders how beneficial EU membership will even be in the years and decades to come - if it survives for decades. In that sense, it’s as if the survivors of the Titanic are swimming back towards it, believing that being on a bigger - albeit slowly sinking - boat is better than trying their luck on small lifeboats.
Then again, like with Serbia, their geographical and geopolitical position makes anti-Western actions extremely difficult. It is rare that dissention is tolerated for long in the West - one tends to get called a dictator by crowds of people holding English-language signs in non-English countries, photographed by Western journalists who haven’t meaningfully reported on your country in months or years. You can crush your people with neoliberal austerity for years, killing hundreds of thousands through neglect, and face glowing approval from the media - but try and use state resources to benefit the poor, and global institutions start ranking you on the authoritarian dictator scale.
The best case for Moldova is that it becomes an exploitable hinterland for Germany to harvest and privatize as it tries - and fails - to compete in a global economic war between the US and China/BRICS. The worst case is that tensions with Russia over Pridnestrovie, as well as possible eventual NATO involvement (though Moldova is not a member, it is a partner of NATO), result in the ongoing war also reaching them.
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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 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.
Trump is saying Kamala supports “Muslim-hating” and that Liz Cheney is an idiot
Kamala losing the Muslim vote to the guy who did the Muslim ban would be one of the greatest Democrat moments yetChina says Australia ‘plagued by systemic racism’ after diplomat raises concerns about human rights in Tibet and Xinjiang
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-10-24/china-accuses-australia-of-racism/104513232
australian here to confirm that China is correct
Mhp, nationalist party, owner of the grey wolves, is advocating for release of Abdullah Öcalan. Most likely reason mhp is demanding release of Abdullah Öcalan is that they are trying to make peace with ypg that will allow ypg to participate in attack on Iran by USA
There was 0% chance the Germans would actually pay reparations to the Poles, but it’s still sad that they’ve dropped the demand:
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/poland-drops-wwii-reparations-demand-from-germany--focuses-oIn 2022, Warsaw estimated that Berlin would need to shell out PLN 6.2 trillion (around $1.5 trillion) in compensation for damages inflicted by the Nazi occupation.
According to the minister, “the ball is now in Germany’s court,” with the onus on them to “offer a creative decision.” He suggested that the neighboring country could take care of the remaining survivors of the Nazi occupation of Poland and erect a memorial in Berlin to commemorate the tragic events.
Going from demanding $1.5 trillion in reparations to suggesting a cheap memorial tucked away in some obscure corner of some shitty park.
It’s been four fucking days and we still don’t know the results of the BC provincial election in
spoiler
NDP (mildly social democratic party) narrowly dodged a bullet by a surging Conservative party that didn’t even really exist like two years ago. Problem is, it’s a hung parliament, nobody got a majority.
The greens (who won two seats) have expressed willingness to prop up the NDP (by the most narrow of margins) but there’s still ~49,000 mail-in and absentee ballots that they’re not counting until this weekend for some fucking reason?
BCCP is absolutely Q Anon tier crazy. So all week we get to live in suspense not knowing what the next 4 years hold in store.
Link to the /c/canada thread with more details and links.
Syria state media claims car explosion in Damascus caused by Israel. Israel claims responsibility, says it was a strike on a commander of Hezbollah. Source: Al Jazeera
Universities Raze Jewish Students’ Gaza Solidarity Sukkahs
Some U.S. universities have torn down solidarity sukkahs that Jewish students opposed to Israel’s war on Palestinians have built in recent days to honor the Sukkot holiday and to “protest as the Israeli military continues to invoke the Jewish tradition as fuel for the destruction of Gaza.”
Antisemitism
So there’s this spanish-speaking twitter account called “Palestina Hoy” which posts news about the ongoing genocide in Gaza and they said they have been blocked by twitter which prevented people from following them. That is true, when you clicked on follow and refreshed the page, it would say “Follow” again, as if you never decided to follow said account.
In total, this account had like 2k followers, while many of their posts had like 5k+ likes, so it’s completely true that they were under blockade. The blockade was lifted after weeks and they went from 2k followers to 302k followers in mere hours.
death to twitter, death to elon musk and death to “israel”
Things happening in Moldova
Kelly celebratory slop for Weird Al’s birthday
Follow up to my earlier post about far-right accounts trying to vaguely get ahead of some anti-Trump story they found out was dropping. A former model accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in front of Jeffrey Epstein immediately after Epstein introduced her to him at Trump’s penthouse at Trump Tower. I don’t really know who this is going to sway at this point who didn’t already think Trump was a creep.
CW: SA
Stacey Williams says the ex-president, whose spokesperson denied the allegations, touched her in an unwanted sexual way in 1993, after Epstein introduced them
A former model who says she met Donald Trump through the late sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein has accused the former president of groping and sexually touching her in an incident in Trump Tower in 1993, in what she believed was a “twisted game” between the two men.
Stacey Williams, who worked as a professional model in the 1990s, said she first met Trump in 1992 at a Christmas party after being introduced to him by Epstein, who she believed was a good friend of the then New York real estate developer. Williams said Epstein was interested in her and the two casually dated for a period of a few months.
“It became very clear then that he and Donald were really, really good friends and spent a lot of time together,” Williams said.
The alleged groping occurred some months later, in the late winter or early spring of 1993, when Epstein suggested during a walk they were on that he and Williams stop by to visit Trump at Trump Tower. Epstein was later convicted on sex offenses and killed himself in prison in 2019.
Moments after they arrived, she alleges, Trump greeted Williams, pulled her toward him and started groping her. She said he put his hands “all over my breasts” as well as her waist and her buttocks. She said she froze because she was “deeply confused” about what was happening. At the same time, she said she believed she saw the two men smiling at each other.
Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary for Donald Trump’s campaign, provided a statement denying the allegations, which said in part: “These accusations, made by a former activist for Barack Obama and announced on a Harris campaign call two weeks before the election, are unequivocally false. It’s obvious this fake story was contrived by the Harris campaign.”
Williams, who is 56 and a native of Pennsylvania, has shared parts of her allegation on social media posts in the past, but revealed details about the alleged encounter on a call on Monday organized by a group called Survivors for Kamala, which supports Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The Zoom call featured actor Ashley Judd and law professor and academic Anita Hill, among others. Survivors for Kamala also took out an ad in the New York Times this week, signed by 200 survivors of sexual and gender violence, which was meant to serve as a reminder that Trump has been found liable for sexual abuse in a court.
After the alleged incident, Williams said that she and Epstein left Trump Tower, and that she began to feel Epstein growing angry at her.
“Jeffrey and I left and he didn’t look at me or speak to me and I felt this seething rage around me, and when we got down to the sidewalk, he looked at me and just berated me, and said: ‘Why did you let him do that?’” she said on the Zoom call.
“He made me feel so disgusting and I remember being so utterly confused,” she said.
She described how the alleged incident seemed to her to be part of a “twisted game”.
“I felt shame and disgust and as we went our separate ways, I felt this sensation of revisiting it, while the hands were all over me. And I had this horrible pit in my stomach that it was somehow orchestrated. I felt like a piece of meat,” she said in an interview with the Guardian.
Some news and combat footage from Gaza and Lebanon.
Palestinian resistance forces released more impressive footage of RPG and IED strikes on Zionist Merkava tanks and Namer armored personnel carriers in Gaza: https://southfront.press/in-video-palestinian-fighters-blow-up-israeli-tanks-in-gaza/
Lebanese Hezbollah resistance forces conducted ATGM strikes on six Zionist Merkava tanks in southern Lebanon: https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/10/23/735792/Hezbollah-hits-six-Israeli-Merkava-tanks-in-south-Lebanon
AOC says to look at voting as to which conditions would be better to organize under. OMFG SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!1
South Korea will consider sending Ukraine “weapons for defense and attack,” according to the Yonhap news agency, which cited an unnamed senior presidential official on Tuesday.
Yonhap also reported Seoul may send military and intelligence personnel to Ukraine to analyze North Korean battlefield tactics and assist in interrogations of captured North Koreans. In a statement, South Korea’s National Security Council called for the “immediate withdrawal” of North Korean troops from Russia and pledged unspecified “phased countermeasures.”
Last week, South Korea’s intelligence agency said North Korea already has sent about 1,500 special forces to Russia to join the war in Ukraine, and it is planning to deploy a total of 12,000 troops from an elite unit. U.S. and NATO officials have said they cannot confirm the North Korean troop deployment but have condemned North Korea-Russia military cooperation, including Pyongyang’s supply of artillery and missiles for use in Ukraine.
The Ghost of Pyongyang? Imaginary DPRK soldiers?
Western countries have long urged South Korea, one of the world’s biggest weapons exporters, to directly arm Ukraine. South Korea has resisted, fearing this could prompt Russia to expand military ties with North Korea, which seeks advanced weapons targeting Seoul.
Looks at the world:
https://xcancel.com/BenBurgis/status/1849195089743991065
Sounds about white for fedcobin (and he is not complete shit, if I correctly remember names)
