Bulletins and News Discussion for December 11th to December 17th, 2023 - What's Yours is Mine - COTW: Canada
Bulletins and News Discussion for December 11th to December 17th, 2023 - What's Yours is Mine - COTW: Canada
Image is of the Cobre Panama open-pit copper mine, located 120 kilometers west of Panama City.
Canada is a prolific mining country, hosting many of the world's top mining corporations. Some of its extraction is local - for example, Saskatchewan is the world's largest producer of potash, a critical agricultural nutrient. Much of the extraction is abroad. Naturally, this means that Canada has cut a bloody, but often ignored, path through the global periphery, extracting minerals and causing environmental degradation.
A notable recent example is that of the Cobre Panama copper mine, which is owned by First Quantum Minerals, one of the largest mining companies in Canada. The company earned $10 billion in revenue in 2022, of which the Cobre Panama mine generated $1 billion. Protests in Panama about this mine have gone on for over a decade, urging for a greater share of the profits, protection of indigenous people, and stronger environmental protections. Canada has maintained a stoney silence (pun somewhat intended) on these movements.
On October 20th, the president of Panama, Cortizo, renewed the company's mining concession for 20 years, after a halt in production since the end of 2022 due to negotiations and reform. Everybody hated this. In October, protestors took to the streets in sufficient numbers that Cortizo was forced to halt new mining approvals, and announced a public referendum on whether the contract with First Quantum should be repealed. This was immediately cut down, but the government decided to invalidate the new concession anyway in late November, calling it unconstitutional, and closing down the mine.
First Quantum Minerals has lost about half its market value since October. Various international banks have said that Panama could lose its investment-grade credit rating next year due to the income hit - the mine generated 5% of its GDP. The international arbitration process which First Quantum has initiated against Panama could last years.
The book Canada in the World: Settler Capitalism and the Colonial Imagination handles Canada's role as an imperialist, anti-indigenous, extractive state throughout its history, and is on our geopolitical reading list.
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Your Friday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Saturday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
The Country of the Week is Canada! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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Israel-Palestine Conflict
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.
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The United States has requested Australia send a warship to the Red Sea in response to Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacking ships passing through the sea lane.
The rebel group has vowed to block ships heading to Israel until the offensive on Gaza is ended, and yesterday fired a missile at a Norwegian tanker travelling through its strait.
The US request would mark a major escalation in Australia's involvement in Israel's war on Hamas, just a day after the nation signed onto a United Nations resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.
Speaking to the ABC, Treasurer Jim Chalmers confirmed the government was considering a US request to send a warship.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-14/us-request-australia-warship-red-sea-houthi-rebels/103227056
jerking off noises
"It is important to recognise we already make a contribution to maritime security in that part of the world, often dangerous part of the world. When we get these kinds of requests from time to time, the usual practice would be for the defence minister to consider that," Mr Chalmers said.
A US Pentagon press secretary yesterday said the international community must support a task force to guard ships in the Red Sea.
"The actions that we've seen from these Houthi forces are destabilising, they're dangerous, and clearly a flagrant violation of international law," the official said.
"And so this is an international problem that requires an international solution."
Meanwhile Labor backbencher Josh Burns, who is in Israel with a cross-party delegation, has criticised the UN ceasefire resolution which Australia signed onto.
Mr Burns said he supported the prime minister's statement in support of a ceasefire — on the condition that Hamas releases hostages it took in the October 7 terror attack on Israel.
But the MP was critical of the motion passed by the UN, which did not include a condemnation of Hamas.
"Any ceasefire has to be a two-sided negotiated outcome. Any ceasefire has to be an agreement between two parties. And the foreign minister, and the prime minister in his statement, has reiterated that Hamas cannot be a part of the future governance of Gaza, and they need to be disarmed," Mr Burns said.
Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Birmingham, also speaking from Israel, said Australia should not have signed the resolution.
"We have to face up to the reality: Hamas is a violent terrorist organisation who deliberately targeted individuals, civilians, in their attacks, did so in the most barbaric ways and have said publicly given the chance they would do so again," Senator Birmingham said.
"And so the risk of voting for ceasefire, or calling for ceasefire is that Hamas just uses that time to re-arm, to regroup and to repeat those horrors all over again and so the cycle of violence continues."
Rebel group? They run ~80% of the country and are literally the government. This is like England calling the US "the French-backed American rebels". Are they still stuck on the part where they harp on about how three guys in a suit in some DC office is the real Yemeni government?
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I can smell this guy's desperation
Debunked. He actually sweats like that all the time.
i know who to send to YemenLies, damned lies, and statistics.
They do this all the time. De facto control and popular support don't matter if washington says they're not really the real government.
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You have it all wrong. See, Australian politicians Choose to deep throat american boots and stuff the laces in their nostrils. They live for this kind of chance to prove how obedient they can be. They are so subservient that when one politician suggested sending a ship the others all shouted in unison "Shut up fuck wit. If america wanted us there they'd ask."
The Australian PM started very gently criticizing the ongoing genocide and this move is to remind Australia who is boss and to demonstrate fealty.
The United States has requested Australia send a warship to the Red Sea in response to Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacking ships passing through the sea lane.
Awww is someone feeling a little inadequate?
"It is important to recognise we already make a contribution to maritime security in that part of the world, often dangerous part of the world"
yes
We have to face up to the reality: the "Israeli Defense Forces" are a violent terrorist organisation who deliberately targeted individuals, civilians, in their attacks, did so in the most barbaric ways and have said publicly given the chance they would do so again.
Uncle Sam seems to think they can avoid escalation by having lackeys come in to do the dirty work
They just want it to be someone else's ship and sailors who inevitably get blown the fuck up by a Yemeni cruise missile during an election year.
(Though if they're doing this it seems to me that the US really doesn't want escalation in Yemen right now, since they've never been shy about blowing up their own ships to justify imperial interventions before, that's like the go-to casus belli for them)