Image of destruction in Mandalay, Myanmar, from Al Jazeera.
As if the ongoing civil war wasn’t enough, Myanmar has now been struck by a very powerful earthquake, resulting in 2000 deaths and thousands more injured as of the time of writing. Estimates are that the death toll could reach 10,000. Infrastructure like roads and bridges are damaged, and the hospitals are overwhelmed. The earthquake struck during Eid prayers, resulting in even higher casualties as several mosques collapsed. 20 million people already required humanitarian assistance in Myanmar, and now the situation there will be even worse. International rescue teams have rushed into the country, and aid is being raised, though with USAID experiencing the… changes that it is, the United States will be of even more limited help than usual. So far, China has sent $14 million, while USAID has supplied $2 million. In Thailand, the death toll seems considerably lower, though there has still been significant damage; a skyscraper under construction collapsed in Bangkok.
Myanmar is located very close to the boundary between the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. In particular, the country is divided in two by the north-south oriented Sagaing fault. This fault is typically strike-slip; that is, each side of the fault moves horizontally past each other. The earthquake’s depth was 10 kilometers, which is pretty shallow, and its proximity to the surface amplified the felt force of the earthquake. Additionally, the soft soil in this region tends to further amplify seismic waves through a process called liquefaction. Combine all this with the lackluster building codes due to many years of impoverishment and civil wars, and this explains why the death toll, and the expense to the country in general to repair damage, will probably be extremely high.
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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.
American Troops Threatens Danish Labour Laws
In Denmark the union 3F warns that an agreement between regimes of Copenhagen and Washington to establish American military bases in the Nordic hermit kingdom will lead to social dumping and underpayment by exempting the bases from Danish labour laws.
Under the deal, the U.S. military could outsource tasks like construction, cleaning, and catering without adhering to Danish wage and working conditions. 3F argues this violates International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions mandating that public contracts should align with local labor standards. They fear the agreement sets a harmful precedent, allowing foreign workers to be exploited under American anti-worker regulations, exacerbating existing issues of social dumping in Denmark.
FH, the national conference of trade unions, criticizes the deal as unfavorable to workers but deemed it too late to influence. The nation’s rubber-stamp parliament is set to pass the agreement on April 11.
Source:
- 3F advarer om social dumping på USA-baser, Arbejderen, April 2nd 2025
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/03/trump-laura-loomer-fire-national-security-council
incredible that conspiracists are the only firewall between war with iran
They took data from here: https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c0004.html#2024
That’s how you end up with Heard and McDonald Islands having 10% tariff
Heard and McDonald Islands 0.058879-0.013589=0.04529, its in millions so $58,000 in export and $13,000 in imports (but since base rate is 10%, it doesn’t matter U.S. has a trade surplus). maybe someone bought some scientific equipment and brought it back?
Here’s the sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AonIICZYCZJUulrhlAJQ6tt3WIqE-rQjBKhE26Buu94
Whose idea was it to tell Trump that trade deficits somehow = tariffs? What do they get out of it?
While everyone’s enthralled by Trump’s performance, the entity bombed another school killing dozens including children
“ Islamic Resistance Movement - Hamas Press Release:
The heinous massacre committed by the occupation army when it bombed the Dar al-Arqam School east of Gaza City, which sheltered thousands of displaced people. The attack resulted in dozens of martyrs and more than 100 wounded, the majority of whom were children and women. This constitutes a new brutal crime through which the fascist occupation government continues to target innocent civilians, as part of its genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip.
These heinous crimes—committing brutal massacres, escalating forced evictions, imposing a policy of starvation, and closing the crossings to all necessities of life—are the elements of genocide defined under international law. They are being perpetrated by the war criminal Netanyahu and his fascist government, with criminal American political and military cover, making the US administration a direct accomplice in its perpetration.
The unjustified international failure to play the required role in stopping the genocide and holding Zionist war criminals accountable is a stark expression of the collapse of the system of values and laws that the international community has long championed, in the face of the horrific crime committed in the Gaza Strip, in full view of the world.
What is required today from all international actors, and from our Arab and Islamic countries, is to break the silence and take immediate action to halt the horrific massacres against civilians and the humanitarian catastrophe being created by the fascist occupation in the Gaza Strip. They must work to hold Zionist war criminals accountable and prevent their impunity. Thursday: 05 Shawwal 1446 AH Corresponding to: 03 April 2025 AD”
I’ve been critical of the English sign heuristic before, but good god a new Syrian flag with “FREEDOM” in all caps is so on the nose. This is from the funeral for those martyred resisting israel, doing what that flag’s government won’t.
同志们，我们必须要学普通话了。
Someone should do a wellness check on Pelosi
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62gj52qjjlo Buyers circle and rumours swirl as TikTok sale deadline looms
fucking ‘journalists’ I stg, not even a brief acknowledgement that their maybe a repeat of last time and that ByteDance may keep it
also
“TikTok without its algorithm is like Harry Potter without his wand - it’s simply not as powerful,” said Kelsey Chickering, principal analyst at Forrester Research.
Two new statements by the Yemeni Armed Forces, announcing the targeting of US Navy warships in the Red Sea with cruise missiles and drones, and shooting down a 17th MQ-9 Reaper drone, also over the Red Sea. That part didn’t get translated to English though.
As usual before anyone gets their hopes up, this does not mean that the US Navy warships were hit, they were just targeted. Another MQ-9 down though.
A Storm In A Teacup: Danish Authorities Find Nothing Of Concern On “Russian Shadow Fleet” Ships
In January Danish regime-loyal media ran a series of scare stories about “dilapidated oil tankers” belonging to “Russia’s shadow fleet”, i.e. tankers with non-western insurance, being anchored in the busy Skagerrak strait to refuel and resupply. Locals were scared and the media warned of the ships being a huge environmental disaster just waiting to happen.
In response maritime authorities has been inspecting the ships. 19 ships has been inspected now and according to authorities they only found “minor violations but nothing out of the ordinary”. Authorities saw no reason to take further steps in any of the cases.
Source:
- Ingen graverende fejl på udtjente olieskibe ud for Skagen, DR (state media), April 3rd 2025
Trump has imposed 10% reciprocal tariffs on the ‘Heard and McDonald Islands’, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean with a population of 0, but a large penguin and endangered bird population
: "Listen folks, listen. These penguins, these terrible penguins from Heard and McDonald Islands, they’ve been taking advantage of the United States for years. I just slapped a 10% tariff on everything coming from that place. Beautiful tariffs, the most reciprocal tariffs you’ve ever seen, believe me. I used to love McDonald’s. The Big Mac, used to be big. Now it’s like a little tiny thing. SAD! But these islands, these McDonald Islands, they’ve been dumping their penguin products into our country for too long.
Lmao Degrowth Donald is taking control
Hungary withdrew from the ICC as Orban rolled out the red carpet for Satan’s arrival - Euronews
In response to the Trump tariffs Danish supermarket corporation Coop has announced that they will label American items in shops “so people will know why they are getting more expensive”. They also plan to shift marketing efforts away from American goods and towards Danish and European products. About one percent of their goods are from America.
https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow
This was before the tariffs were announced on april 1 so yeah.
Also also tariffs are going to be higher than Smoot-Hawley
It also just seems so dumb like I looked at Madagascar that has a 93% tariff and what do they export? Nickel. Like I think Trump genuinely is trying to crash the economy or who knows maybe he wants the third world to get liberated.
