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

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.


  • Redcuban1959 [any]@hexbear.net
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    7 days ago

    Peru court sentences ex-president Humala to 15 years for graft - France24

    Article

    A Peruvian court on Tuesday sentenced ex-president Ollanta Humala and his wife to 15 years in prison for graft linked to a globe-spanning corruption scandal involving Brazilian construction group Odebrecht paying bribes to politicians.

    The court found the 62-year-old and his wife Nadine Heredia guilty of money laundering for receiving illegal contributions from Odebrecht and the Venezuelan government in two presidential campaigns.

    Humala was taken into custody in the courtroom after the ruling, and Judge Nayko Coronado ordered the arrest of Heredia, who did not attend the sentencing hearing.

    Humala, a former army officer who led the country from 2011 to 2016, became in 2022 the first Peruvian ex-president to go on trial in the Odebrecht corruption scandal, which has also seen three other former presidents implicated.

    Two-term leader Alan Garcia committed suicide in 2019 when police came to his house to arrest him, while Alejandro Toledo (in power from 2001-06) was sentenced last year to more than 20 years in prison for accepting multi-million-dollar bribes in exchange for government contracts.

    Investigations continue into the fourth ex-president who was implicated, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (in office from 2016-2018).

    Prosecutors had sought a 20-year prison term for Humala and 26 years for Heredia for accepting $3 million in illegal contributions for his 2011 campaign from Odebrecht.

    The company is considered responsible for one of the biggest foreign bribery schemes in history.

    Bribes for influence

    The pair were also charged with illegally diverting about $200,000 sent by Venezuela’s then-president Hugo Chavez for Humala’s failed 2006 campaign, and Heredia with “concealment of real estate purchases” made with some of the money.

    They have consistently denied all charges, and Humala’s legal team said he would appeal the sentence.

    In 2016, Odebrecht agreed to pay $3.5 billion in penalties in Brazil, the United States and Switzerland arising out of payments of more than $788 million in bribes to foreign leaders and government officials in order to win infrastructure projects.

    The company admitted having paid at least $29 million in bribes to Peruvian officials between 2005 and 2014.

    Leftist Humala came to the presidency in 2011 after beating right-wing candidate Keiko Fujimori in a runoff election.

    Fujimori herself spent 16 months in pre-trial detention in a case linked to Odebrecht.

    I guess Verónika Mendoza is literally the only leftist left as a potential candidate for the 2026 presidential elections, since Vladimir Cerrón is having legal problems because he is the leader of Pedro Castillo’s party, the APRAistas are very weak and corrupt, and the Ethnocacerists (far-left Inca nationalists) have been banned by the Supreme Court from running, even though they were getting 15% to 18% of the vote in the opinion polls, against the Fujimoristas’ 18% to 21%. Humala is directly linked with the Ethnocacerists since Isaac Humala (His father) is the creator of the ideology, and his two brothers (also military guys) are the leaders.