Image is from this Reuters article.

This week marks the one year anniversary of Honduras ceasing to recognize Taiwan and instead only recognizing China. Over that time period, China and Honduras have gone through several rounds of negotiating a free trade agreement, with trade expanding. Additionally, they have just signed a $275 million cooperation agreement, providing education infrastructure for Honduras.

The other major news piece relevant to Honduras is the battle against Prospera, a US-based crypto libertarian firm that sought to buy a private island in order to create an ancap paradise, in which Bitcoin would be legal tender. In 2022, Honduras killed the island’s special status that made the deal possible, and so Prospera is seeking $11 billion in compensation.

The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you’ve wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don’t worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

The Country of the Week is Honduras! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.

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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.

Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.

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.
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.

  • Neptium@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    31·
    8 months ago

    MELAKA TO HOST CELEBRATION OF 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF MALAYSIA-CHINA DIPLOMATIC TIES

    MELAKA, March 25 (Bernama) - Melaka will serve as the host for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Malaysia-China diplomatic relations established since 1974, said Chief Minister Datuk Seri Ab Rauf Yusoh.

    He said he had sent a letter to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim earlier to seek the Federal Government’s approval for Melaka to be selected as the host for the celebration, considering that the state had established relations with the Great Wall country over 600 years ago.

    “That’s why I proposed to the Prime Minister to hold the 50th anniversary celebration of Malaysia-China diplomatic relations in Melaka and it has been generally agreed upon, and we have received a letter from the Foreign Ministry to propose the celebration events,” he told Bernama.

    Earlier, Ab Rauf had received a courtesy call from Bernama chairman Datuk Seri Wong Chun Wai at his office in Seri Negeri here today. Commenting further, Ab Rauf said Melaka is very famous among Chinese tourists as it is depicted in the history books of the country during the five visits of Admiral Cheng Ho to the state.

    "The history books of China (studied from elementary school to university) show Admiral Cheng Ho’s [Zheng He] route to Southeast Asia, he came to Melaka five times, that’s why any Chinese leader who comes to Malaysia must set foot in Melaka.

    “There are Chinese leaders who come to Malaysia, they take sand from Melaka and put it in a bottle, they take it back… (that’s) how they appreciate the history between Melaka and China that began 600 years ago,” he said.

    Meanwhile, Wong said Bernama is committed to supporting all efforts undertaken by the Melaka state government in the tourism sector including the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Malaysia-China diplomatic ties, Visit Melaka Year 2024 (VMY2024), World Tourism Day, and the World Tourism Conference 2025 which will also be held in Melaka.

    "I asked some Chinese tourists on Jonker Street (in Melaka) last night and they said they are more familiar with Melaka than Kuala Lumpur.

    “For them, Melaka is a historical and very important city and in conjunction with the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Malaysia-China diplomatic relations, many events will be organised, so we assure that Bernama and other media will support the state of Melaka,” he said.

    Malaysia established diplomatic relations with China officially on May 31, 1974, thereby becoming the first ASEAN country to extend a hand of friendship to Beijing.

    Melaka is the city in which the Straits of Malacca gets its name from. Malacca is simply the old latinised spelling for it.

    China did not only interact with Islam in Central Asia, it had a a varied and influential history in Southeast Asia as part of the maritime Silk Road. Some scholars even argue that Chinese traders helped spread Islam in Southeast Asia.

    I have something in the pipeline that will hopefully be finished closer to the anniversary. It will cover Malaysia-China relations over the past hundreds of years - the good and the bad, the complexities and contradictions that I hope will give readers an appreciation of SEA history and politics. I also hope it will give a brief respite to the rampant Islamophobia and Sinophobia present in Western circles.