Image is from this CNN article.

The DPRK’s history has been a rollercoaster, with admirable highs and heartbreaking lows, most notably the Korean War and the fall of the USSR. Its steadfast commitment to Juche, a variant of Marxism-Leninism that focuses on self-sufficiency, has both made the DPRK a target for imperialist genocidal powers, and allowed them to survive these attacks.

Lately, we seem to be seeing a transition from surviving to thriving. China and the DPRK have always had a much more complicated history than Western education and media allows its population to know, with periods of quite strong disagreement - it’s not the case that China is somehow the DPRK’s master. Russia is the DPRK’s other neighour that isn’t US-occupied, and while they obviously differ substantially in ideology since the USSR fell, the tsunami of sanctions on Russia has changed things. The stick has been removed from the equation, with Russia facing no possible punishment from the West because they were unable to enact sanctions effectively and used all their ammunition in the first few barrages rather than turning the screws over time (I don’t care if we’re on the 14th sanctions package, it’s all been meaningless for Russia since the end of 2022).

The carrot is also more visible, with an alliance making a lot of sense for both. Once again, Western education and media would have you believe a Parenti-esque reality in which Korea is a massive and unpredictable danger to the world, but is simultaneously so poor and destitute that their artillery pieces are made of wood and their missiles out of paper-mache. The truth is that Korea has innovated greatly in missile technology, with some of their weapons matching or even exceeding those of the Russians, hence the Russians’ use of them in Ukraine. Russia also finds it advantageous to invest in Korea to strengthen the anti-hegemonic alliance’s presence in the Pacific, countering the US-occupied lower half of the peninsula who has naturally sided with Ukraine. Additionally, Russia is investing deeply in the Arctic sea route. This will open up as climate change continues; is naturally quite defensible for Russia so long as Korea is there to provide further defense at its eastern edge; and is both a faster and safer route for Russia to access China - especially in a world where straits can be blockaded by even impoverished yet determined countries like Yemen. The situation in the Red Sea benefits Russia and China now, but in the coming years, the US may apply the same lesson for their own benefit elsewhere.

It is perhaps this new sense of self-confidence that has let Korea give up on reunification with its lower half via peaceful measures. A new Korean War would be devastating for both sides even if it remained non-nuclear, but with a rising DPRK and with the South falling yet further into hypercapitalist exploitation and misery, and a US that remains non-committal to its “allies” when times get difficult (as in Ukraine and Europe), a reality where Korea may finally hold the upper hand and have the ability to liberate its south may be approaching in the years and decades to come.

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 *the DPRK! 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.

  • Al_Sham [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    54·
    6 months ago

    How Palestinian Resistance Leader Yahya Sinwar Led the Negotiations for the 2011 Prisoner Exchange From Inside Prison

    When Ahmed Ghandour was released from Ashkelon Prison in 1994, he promised his comrades still inside that he would help them achieve freedom. A few years after he arrived in Gaza, he, alongside Ahmed Al-Jabari and Marwan Issa, engineered and executed the Operation Dissipated Illusion.

    On June 25, 2006, at 5:15 a.m., a group of Palestinian Resistance fighters infiltrated through a tunnel to the outskirts of the Kerem Shalom border crossing east of the Gaza Strip and attacked an occupation military outpost. That day, the occupation army woke up to an announcement from Abu Obeida, the military spokesperson for Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, stating that the resistance succeeded in killing two Israeli soldiers and injuring five others, in addition to capturing the soldier Gilad Shalit. Abu Obeida summed it up: “Shalit will not be released except through a prisoner exchange.”

    …

    Netanyahu tasked Ofer Dekel with pressuring the resistance leadership in the prisons. He asked him to go to the Prisons Service to arrange a meeting with Hamas leaders in Hadarim Prison to have them pressure the leadership outside. The security official met with prisoners Tawfiq Abu Naim, Yahya Sinwar, and Abdel Nasser Issa. A few days after this meeting, whose echoes reverberated in the prison and were conveyed through the prison administration to other prisons, the Prisons Service transferred all the Hamas leaders in the prisons, including Sinwar and all the detained members of the Legislative Council, to the Negev desert prison. The prison administration provided the prisoners with a cell phone and asked them to contact the Hamas leadership outside so that they would soften their position in exchange for releasing all of them in a preliminary exchange. The prisoners’ leadership noticed the trap that the Israelis had set and how they sought to sow confusion and dissent among the prisoners, especially those sentenced to life imprisonment, not to mention the sick, elderly, children, and women. However, the resistance factions, in all exchange operations that they conduct, ensure that the release does not include only specific individuals from the same party, but primarily aims to include all categories of prisoners from all organizations.

    The prisoners’ leadership handed over the phone to the prison administration and informed them of its position and condition: that only Yahya Sinwar would be released and that he must be delivered safely to the Gaza Strip for consultation with the leadership on the issue of the exchange deal. Of course, Dekel rejected Sinwar’s offer, which thwarted the Israeli plan. In less than an hour, the Prisons Service returned the prisoners to the prisons from which they had been gathered.

    Negotiations remained frozen throughout 2010, especially after Sinwar learned the details—from his lawyer visiting him in prison—of the negotiation agreement that had been presented at al-Zahar’s house. The planned agreement excluded many senior prisoners, especially those who had planned and executed major operations, including Hassan Salameh, Abdullah Barghouti, and Ibrahim Hamed.

    Through a phone smuggled to Room 11 of Beersheba Prison, Sinwar made a call to al-Zahar informing him of his position and the prisoners who rejected the proposed deal. Sinwar then made another call to the leader Khaled Meshal, informing him of his objection and that of all the prisoners. Meshal promised Sinwar that he would halt the deal, and this is what happened.

    Before dismantling the phone and hiding it to avoid detection, Sinwar made his final call to his brother Mohammed Sinwar, saying to him: “Say hello to Hajj [referring to his former cellmate Ahmed Al-Jabari] and tell him that the trust he has is not in vain” (referring to the captive Shalit).

    Sinwar specified from inside his prison the price for the release of Gilad Shalit. The agreement was concluded on October 11, 2011, with the Netanyahu government announcing its approval of the deal with Hamas which achieved the liberation of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, including Yahya Sinwar.