I truely can't believe the most contentious and contested aspect out of the 1000+ datapoints of human rights abuse we managed to map with the Xinjiang Data Project, the one that almost every tankie troll has been latching onto as a gotchya, is a location we never said was a camp.
I guess that speaks to the quality of the data, of 380+ camps, nearly 1,000 cultural sites (about 2/3 of which have been demolished or damaged), the only fault that people are trying to pick, is by 'disproving' a school that we never said was anything but a school.
It's also astounding that this aboslute torrent of abuse (you should see my mentions, every couple of seconds someone with a hammer-and-sickle name calls me a nazi), is stemming from misinformation by a professor at an Australian university. Who was told of his error hours ago
After being told of his mistake he has blatently refused to offer any clarification or correction to the misinformation that is causing this abuse.
Of course, this concern with out data and literally every single other disputed datapoint I've seen from dozens of mostly bad-faith actors, is addressed in this thread.
Not a single complaint has been substantiated, which is why there's such a pileon.
You can see the whole findings at xjdp.aspi.org.au
if there's anything youre confused by or concerned about, hit me right up.
It was my mistake to assume that an academic was acting in any better faith than anonymous trolls and would be interested in dicussing his concerns and misunderstandings. No, he soley seems interested in piling on mischaracterisation and false accusations.
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🧵Look towards the light.
As Rebel forces in Syria advanced across Syria & never stopped a key question was why the Regime evaporated. Syria by night provides some clues on how the Regime's social contract collapsed.
Read my analysis here
& read onaspistrategist.org.au/just-look-at-t…
There are three pillars to why the Regime collapsed so suddenly and drastically: 1. Complete lack of foreign firepower and air support 2. Increased professionalism and good governance in Opposition territory 3. Economic stagnation and the collapse of Assad's social contract.
I'm sure lots will be written on that first pillar, @azelin recently wrote a detailed and helpful article on the 2nd (warontherocks.com/2024/12/the-pa…), and @E_of_Justice's thread here is helpful too x.com/E_of_Justice/s…
I think the rest of the world just has to realise the US we thought we all knew probably just doesn't exist and hasn't for a while. We need to shift our assumptions and look at the US in the same way we look at India.
Harris didn't lose this race, and post mortems are useless. America made an informed and considered choice and picked the man they did. There's probably not much a reasonable democratic campaign could've done to change that. America saw Trump. And they liked him.
This also isn't a slight on India, it's a remarkable (and deeply flawed) country that we work with productively and well, it's just an entirely different ballgame (and sense of exceptionalism), and honestly the lens we will need to look at the States through imo.
🧵On May 17, fire swept through Rohingya neighbourhoods in Buthidaung.
Satellites show what burnt and when, and my new investigation reveals an arson campaign against 50-60 villages & demonstates who carried it out.
Through April and May, arson attacks burnt around 900 acres and over 10,000 homes across Buthidaung township in the most concerning and dangerous bout of sectarian and communal violence since the 2017 pogrom that expelled Rohingyas from much of northern Arakan state.
As flames rose above Buthidaung town on the night of May 17th, the activist community and eyewitnesses pointed the finger at the Arakan Army, an ultra-nationalist Ethnic Resistance Organisation rapidly capturing that part of Burma. Something the AA viciously denied.
🧵A very brief OSINT methods thread to share how I found the location of a Burmese junta camp that was captured by the resistance today, it's a method I've used a lot for more obscure unnamed places that would be nearly impossible to find otherwise.
Today news came out from a reputable local media source of a junta camp that was captured in Southern Myanmar, normally news in Burma is reported with the name of a nearby village or at least the township. But not here, only that it was in the KNLA's 4th Brigade 11th Battalion.
The KNLA's 4th Brigade operates in Tanintharyi Region, and google searching for info about the 11th battalion shows it is mainly active in Bokpyin township
But of course, finding one tower with a loose lead of maybe a township is going to be tricky.bnionline.net/en/news/killin…
I've started reading Our Enemies Will Vanish, a masterful book on the Ukraine War by @yarotrof. Highly recommend it. It contains heaps of tidbits and insights that even someone who followed the invasion closely (i'll count myself) had no idea of.
I'll share some threaded here.
@yarotrof (get your hands on the book if you possible can, the tidbits here are just the tip of the iceberg, truly recommend reading the whole thing).
Firstly, this account of a meeting between Bill Burns and Putin months before the invasion where Putin cited US' impotence post Afghanistan
@yarotrof And that Ukraine's military preparations on the heel of US intel warnings were so secret that even Washington had no idea about them (to prevent info going from GUR > DC > Kyiv > Russian Fifth Column)
I was wanting to check if this IDF graphic was an approximation or a measured/to-scale diagram, so by tracing the various video walkthroughs, I was able to make my own NOT TO SCALE map, suggesting it was a pretty accurate representation but missing some 'branches' explored since.
The most notable difference is a partially-blocked tunnel leading beyond where the walkthroughts turn left to go towards the spiral staircase. A seperate IDF video showed a 3rd entrance around 125m beyond that intersection, so I've assumed that's where it leads.
I've done my best geolocating that entrance by looking for a wide-ish street (with no road markings), that curves slightly to the right & goes downhill, and that has two visible small but distinct orange-roofed areas, along with some vegetation in a front yard. Decent match.