Image is of Trump’s initial set of reciprocal tariffs. Source is CNN and Reuters.
It’s difficult to keep up with the news around the tariffs; they get instated, then dropped, then reinstated… for example, on Friday, Trump said that certain electronics like smartphones would be exempt, causing markets to rally a great deal, but now the Commerce Secretary has said that they might not be exempt? The state of play right now, if you haven’t been keeping up this week, is that the US recently announced a 90-day global pause on implementing the tariffs he had planned (that is, 25% on certain Canadian and Mexican goods, and at least 10% on every other nation) but nonetheless increased tariffs on China to 145%.
Meanwhile, China has been - quite remarkably - standing their ground, increasing tariffs on the US to 125%, and putting restrictions on rare earths. Xi Jinping has been in Vietnam and has made statements against a tariff war there, saying that it would have no winners. Meanwhile, a Chinese spokesperson has essentially said that China can endure the tariff war due to the increasing demand from its domestic market in combination with its growing economic ties with other countries.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
John Oliver was 36 when he started Last Week Tonight.
William Shatner went to space with Jeff Bezos and said, “It felt like a funeral.” QED.
From this video, which is also very good in that it talks about the absolute dumbification of feminism and women working in science and technology: women in space but it sucks
Trump is Kamala-ing JD!
So that pause on tariffs happened because a couple of sleuths knew that Trump would be alone and since there would be no counterarguments to them, Trump would just default to whatever they were saying. They even waited to see him type it out, to make sure he didn’t just forget about it.
In case anyone’s wondering “why doesn’t North Korea make a move on South Korea, or China on Taiwan” with the large build up of US military assets in the Middle East, with many of these assets coming from South Korea and US military bases in the region, it appears that the US has simultaneously reinforced their defences (or offensive capabilities) in the the region, with four B-1B Strategic bombers deployed to Japan, along with additional F-35A 5th generation stealth aircraft and F-35B vertical/short take off and landing (V/STOL) 5th generation stealth aircraft deployments. There are 10 US bombers deployed overseas (6x B-2 Spirit stealth bombers, and 4x B-1B bombers), flanking China from both the east and west. The 6 B-2s are currently carrying out operations against Ansarallah in Yemen.
This is also the first US bomber task force deployment to Japan since the Vietnam war.
There’s also an interesting, maybe coincidental, may not, payload match up here. 6 B-2s can carry 96 JASSM stealth cruise missiles internally (6x16). 4 B-1s can also carry 96 JASSMs internally (24x4).
A little combat footage for the weekend. Russian missiles and drones continue hunting Kiev regime military equipment all across the front.
A Russian Iskander-M missile strike destroyed a US-built “HIMARS” launcher near the Kiev-occupied DPR city of Kramatorsk: https://news-pravda.com/world/2025/04/18/1247757.html
Russian drones destroyed a French-built “CAESAR” self-propelled howitzer: https://s5.cdnstatic.space/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/caesar.mp4?_=6
A collection of recent Russian drone strikes on Kiev regime military equipment near the Kiev-occupied DPR city of Krasnoarmeysk (AKA “Pokrovsk”): https://odysee.com/@Support4Z:b/📽️-A-🇬🇧-🇫🇷,--Fierce-fighting-near-Pokrovsk!!:6
Really cool documentary about how the Zapatistas in Chiapas have been doing lately https://hexbear.net/post/4627900
Watch it or i will call you a lib
Navajo president endorses Trump’s coal order, but community activists cite climate, health risks the mineral extrantion could cause Hexbear Post
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Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren was in Washington earlier in April to watch President Donald Trump sign an order aimed at revitalizing the coal industry.
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Coal mines and coal-fired power plants were once steady income sources for the Navajo Nation, but the money dried up with the closure of a key plant and the mines that supplied it.
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Some Navajo organizers say Nygren’s support for coal ignores the effects of fossil fuels on the climate and on human health. One expert said Nygren exaggerated the importance of coal.
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Manic Hispanic fucking rules https://youtu.be/YBVPgaOmY3c
Prediction: Abrego Garcia will return home at some point. And then Trump and his ilk will spin it as “See? We’ll correct our mistakes when someone isn’t a criminal!” And then the Democrats will treat that as the big victory, so they don’t need to do anything about this anymore whilst the same shit still keeps happening, like Derek Chauvin’s conviction.
Sitting in the holding cell https://youtu.be/lHa4yvpXF0A Manic Hispanic
Ford stops car shipments to China from Michigan and Kentucky.
In April, ~80 cargo ships are “blank sailing” so far, while around 50 were at the height of Covid. So more cargo ships have either cancelled their scheduled travel entirely, or are at least skipping ports than at any point during Covid.
Trump did something to fuck with the student loan system, I completely forget what it was. Anyway, student loan defaults spiked 289%.
COVID.gov now redirects to a teaser explaining that Trump did the lab leak
Well, well, well. Look at the completely predictable consequences of my actions
U.S. Chipmakers Fear They Are Ceding China’s A.I. Market to Huawei
New restrictions on semiconductor exports to China are scrambling sales and fueling concerns that the Chinese tech giant will become a chip-making powerhouse.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Thursday firmly rejected the notion of reviving the Karabakh movement, describing it as a serious risk to the country’s independence and sovereignty.
Orange shitstain been real quiet about canada.
