Image is of a crowd protesting in Athens.
Last week, on Friday, hundreds of thousands of Greeks poured into the streets to strike and protest on the second anniversary of the deadliest train crash in Greek history, in which 57 people died when a passenger train collided with a freight train. On this February 28th, public transportation was virtually halted, with train drivers, air traffic controllers, and seafarers taking part in a 24 hour strike - alongside other professions like lawyers, teachers, and doctors.
The train crash is emblematic of the decay of state institutions brought about from austerity being forced on Greece in the aftermath of the 2008 Great Recession, in which the IMF and the EU (particularly Germany) plundered the country and forced privatization. While Greece has somewhat recovered from the dire straits it was in during the early 2010s, the consequences of neoliberalism are very clearly ongoing. Mitsotakis’ right-wing government has still not even successfully implemented the necessary safety procedures two years on, and so far, nobody has been convicted nor punished for their role in the accident. The austerity measures were deeply unpopular inside Greece and yet the government did not respond to, or ignored, democratic outcry.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
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.
Japanese jurist Yuji Iwasawa is now the new president of the ICJ, replacing Julia SSebutinde (RIP bozo,
) as of yesterday. Iwasawa seems to also be more critical of piSSrael and supportive of the legal case by South Africa, potentially bringing at least a marginal sense of legitimacy to the ICJ.Also about 2 weeks ago, the African Union has been granted permission to participate in the genocide case, of which South Africa is a founding member and a leading diplomatic power of.
So what was trump’s “big announcement”
Anyone got a list, or know some trump 1 policy I can list that Biden didn’ repeal?
Blackrock buying a controlling interest in two of the ports that service the Panama canal from the Hong Kong based conglomerate that currently owns them
The same purchase will include some euro ports:
The deal also includes an 80 per cent stake of CK Hutchison’s ports subsidiaries, which run 43 ports in 23 countries, including the UK and in Germany.
While China has responded against Trump’s threats by saying it will fight any war, India has been very quiet. It is acquiescing to U.S. demands.
India is much more vulnerable to tariffs, with all the U.S. Private investments allowing it to run a trade deficit.
Musk for instance wants to provide Starlink to India. But the issue is, even if Starlink pays for the dishes in Dollars, the 2% of Indians who can afford Starlink will pay for it in Rupees.
This means for Starlink to realize profits in Dollars, it’ll have to be converted in forex markets, which could depreciate the Rupee and make essential imports (eg oil) more expensive, unless U.S. “investors” buy up more Indian stocks (“hot money flows”) with Dollars.
And there is also the issue of import tariffs being the only thing keeping many sectors in India competitive against foreign goods. Indian farmers can’t compete against US’ highly subsidized and mechanized agriculture sector.
https://www.reuters.com/world/white-house-seeks-plan-possible-russia-sanctions-relief-sources-say-2025-03-03/ White House seeks plan for possible Russia sanctions relief, sources say
If true
Russia says it is open for economic cooperation. The Kremlin said last week that Russia had lots of rare earth metal deposits and was open to doing deals to develop them after Putin held out the possibility of such collaboration with the U.S.
Any formal economic deal with Moscow would likely require the U.S. to ease sanctions.
So Ukraine is losing the mineral rights and getting shot in the head (
), and so is Russia, in a sense. They’ll be signing their sublation. Great.lmao Putin counter-offer against the Ukraine deal with Russia’s infinite undeveloped mineral land.
If Russia gives away the equivalent of what they’re getting in minerals from Ukraine it becomes hard to claim it’s about that.
There really aren’t any minerals in the first place except maybe some lithium, this whole notion of minerals was cooked up in the same way Afghanistans 3T was - to try and drum up support for a shitty war
Yeah, it’s just marketing. You can tell it by how they don’t talk about ukrainian titanium, which everyone knows about and instead wax vaguely about rare earths. I’m no industry insider, but from what I understand rare earths aren’t actually that rare. Mining and refining them is moreso about technological capacity. China’s rare earths supply comes from iron mining, which they do as part of their huge steel industry.
Mining and refining them is moreso about technological capacity
Economy of scale not technological capacity.
Essentially the problem is you have a yield of 84% iron 3% antimony for example. It only makes sense to use a nondestructive process to refine the antimony if you can make a profit on it, but with a 3% yield that is hard not only because of the small quantity, but it puts additional cost in refining out the iron later (or earlier). So sometimes you just say fuck it and only refine the iron.
The mine that the US just approved for antimony that’s an ecological disaster is a gold mine that’s like 2.5% antimony I think in terms of sampled yield.
And the best part is the idiots all the way at the top bought it hook line and sinker, now they’re trying to do some deal except the minerals don’t even exist! They’re just a carrot on a stick invented foe the benefit of the MIC
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/03/04/meet-trumps-new-best-friend/
bernie panders has a take (extreme brainworms abound), including: russia had a movement towards democracy, russia annexed georgia, kids sent to re education camps (lmao), hacking infrastructure, putin is the richest person in the world (shades of stalin was wealthy). Simply extraordinary
I’m not posting any more links or images, but at least a thousand people have been slaughtered by the Al-Nusra regime. Entire families shot in their homes including women and children, mass graves being dug, and homes are looted and burned. Baniyas has been victim to the latest wave of brutality. The silver lining to this very dark cloud is that the only thing these mercenaries like filming more than their crimes are the repeated ambushes the resistance has been launching.
Finally, the regime is backpedaling after the widespread coverage of their crimes, claiming that those who perpetrate atrocities will be punished. Obviously a lie, but I believe they’ve cracked down on filming in the last 12-18 hours to prevent witnesses
Germany is the worst place ever:
Berlin is the Miami of Germany, because the regime change gusanos are put there.
The egregious thing here is they’ve arrested more Jews for antisemitism which is just actually Palestinian liberation protests, and yet neonazis can just do this shit.
Democracy
wtf the state department told me they were moderate rebels for a decade they wouldn’t just LIE like that smh
national principles: stay out of israel way, free-markets and women not be shopping (also fuck shias)
lmao political parties but no elections
saudi/al qaeda moment
A few thoughts on Syria. “HTS” once again revealed themselves to be exactly what we already all knew them as back in the 2010s: a gang of brutal sectarian extremists and fascist executioners of innocent civilians. Right now, most of their victims are members of religious minorities (especially Alawis). I want to briefly take a closer look at religion in Syria.
So the “HTS” tries to claim that it represents the Syrian majority, which are Sunnis. But there is a tiny little demographic problem with that propaganda talking point of theirs. While most Syrians are in fact Sunnis, most Syrian Sunnis are not Salafis. And “HTS” is a radical Salafist political movement (it’s basically al-Queda rebranded). So they really do not represent the majority of the Syrian population in any way. That’s undoubtedly one major reason why “HTS” does not want to hold any kind of honest elections, because they would obviously lose them.
Another point that I want to touch is that I’ve noticed elsewhere (not here at hexbear) that some people are trying to make apologist arguments for the “HTS” regime by saying something along the lines of “Jolani can’t control his gunmen, the massacres aren’t his fault!” Well, that’s a pretty laughable argument to make. If the new leadership can’t control their own fighters, they won’t be in power long anyways…
The tankies end up right again. This was always true and it was always the game.
I said this exact thing about the reworded deal lol. They want it to be an overseas US territory.
Of course we all knew that, we have a memory bigger than that of a brainworm. I’m not even that smart or whatever and this shit was obvious since I first learned anything about modern Ukraine in 2015. As soon as I read that Putin wanted their land for mining, I knew the US also (if Putin even ever did) wanted that
It’s just really funny for me when the shit we say comes directly out of their mouths a week later.
Definitely, it’s impressive! I’m probably thinking of your comment when I said that is tankies already called it
The Trump admin has officially designated Ansar Allah a terrorist organization.
https://www.state.gov/designation-of-ansarallah-as-a-foreign-terrorist-organization/
How was it not already so designated? The US spent a good part of 2024 doing operation amazon prime launching shit into yemen
It was part of the negotiation process between the Ansar Allah, the Saudis, and the US, IIRC. More specifically, they are being designated as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization”. There are two US terrorism lists: Specially Designated Global Terrorist list and Foreign Terrorist Organization list. Biden took them off both when he got into office (I believe it complictaed the Saudi’s negotiations with Ansar Allah, which included releasing funds to pay government workers) and added them back to the SDGT list last year. Both have a sanctions component, but the FTO list means they are also subject to a travel ban and anyone “providing them with material support” can also be prosecuted. The FTO is more of what I would say people know as the “terror watchlist”.
I believe one of Blinken/Biden’s laughable attempts at diplomacy after their failed blockade running adventure was to offer to remove Ansar Allah from whichever terrorism lists they’d put them on. Ansar Allah said no thanks send the carriers back here we want another crack at 'em.
Here we go again
