At the start of last week concluded the Summit of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES in French), in which, among other significant news, was the announcement of the creation of a unified military force for the alliance - called, rather straightforwardly, the Unified Force - which currently consists of about 5000 soldiers. Strictly speaking, joint military operations between the three countries had already been taking place for over a year before this point, but I imagine this organization streamlines the internal processes and makes it truly official.
Mali’s Goïta delivered a speech during the summit in which he stated there were three main threats to the alliance: military, economic, and media. While this new military force is a major effort to combat military threats, the three countries have also mutually launched television, radio, and print media organizations to combat disinformation and psychological warfare. The economic aspect is the most tricky aspect of all, as (albeit decaying) American hegemony is not friendly to states which seek an independent economic path, most especially if that path does not directly benefit Western international corporations. Nonetheless, the three countries are doing what they can; they mutually launched an AES passport earlier in 2025, and this month, Mali has taken a bold move, recovering $1.2 billion after renegotiating mining deals with mining corporations after a comprehensive audit. Gold mining in Mali is a major sector of the economy, comprising about 20% of annual government revenue.
The three countries have also withdrawn from ECOWAS. The remaining countries consist of a small collection of West African countries, most significantly among them Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire. ECOWAS is increasingly seen by the AES leadership - quite rightfully - as an organization which seeks to contain the radical shift in West Africa and return the region to the neocolonial French-governed status quo. As I talked about in a semi-recent news megathread, Nigeria is experiencing its own suite of internal problems, so perhaps in the coming years, ECOWAS will crumble from within and the AES can push back the terrorist organizations threatening them.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
Only random civilians and military people or cops. Still no confirmation if Maduro is alive or not.
The main problem about taking for granted what the us says about maduro is that we are forced to believe in people like rubio, trump and american far right internet personalities. i think its quite a bad variation of sources and that the sophisticated epistemological method people take in liberal american internet of “they would not appear weak” is not enough and that for some reason skepticism drops when its not pro-US favourable outcomes or premises. Also, what do they intend to do? they cannot hold caracas forever and the state will not fall because of its lack. if some say its a cope to think otherwise i think its cope of people who cannot seem to understand nation-states are subject to the interest of a class, which is now depositing power over the hands of the general. Compradors do not hold the consensus in Venezuela nor the army.
For the US to place machado or someone else, they need to first occupy the rest or Venezuela.
I think Trump is all about short term victories, he wanted a quick victory.
Indeed.
Actually they just need to occupy the capital.
Set up a green-zone, call for a “stabilization force” from “coalition of the willing” types, install their puppet, recognize them as legitimate, give them the UN seat, give them embassies, give them all foreign held assets, say all oil revenue belongs to them and so on and they then sign an agreement to give 98% of oil revenue to Chevron. If they can just hold that green zone and prop up compradors, set up local reactionary militias and train a loyal army they can keep control of the oil or at least make it illegal and challenging for other countries to get at due to sanctions on “unauthorized” export of it and they’ve achieved their goals. No need for widespread pacification or Vietnam 2.0 considering its the oil they’re mainly after. At the most just the capital and oil fields but realistically they just need the capital and international recognition and preventing easy payments for any shipments of oil.
They probably really want to decapitate and fragment the regular Venezuelan military first though. But they might try something weird like trying to ransom Maduro back for oil control too. Or it could just be a gangster play to brandish their power even if they can’t get control of the oil right now.
There won’t be international recognition nor support for foreign boots to protect a micro-client state in Caracas. It is not simple as Syria and it is to underestimate the capabilities of infantry operation in jungle to think they will just weaken the venezuelan army with ease like this, too. Destroying the barracks was a good move but it is extremely unlikely the soldiers and regular army light and heavy equipment were buried under over the whole country.
The energy (does not include only oil) is for europe to ease up the strain and therefore to keep imperial capitalism going and slow down/prevent a world war in effect, at least as intention. If not, it is for propping up the LLM bubble foundations for some more years.
That I 100% can see happening. They want to hold Maduro ransom in exchange for oil rights.
Oh, is that all?