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to halt new mining approvals, and announced a public referendum on whether the contract with First Quantum should be repealed.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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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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"Tonal Shift" sounds like a guitar pedal.
UK and Germany call for 'sustainable' ceasefire in significant tonal shift
UK foreign minister David Cameron and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock have published a joint article calling for a “sustainable” ceasefire, saying the goal must be peace lasting “generations”. In a significant shift in tone by the UK government, the article reads: “Our goal cannot simply be an end to fighting today. It must be peace lasting for days, years, generations. We therefore support a ceasefire, but only if it is sustainable.
We know many in the region and beyond have been calling for an immediate ceasefire. We recognise what motivates these heartfelt calls. It is an understandable reaction to such intense suffering, and we share the view that this conflict cannot drag on and on. That is why we supported the recent humanitarian pauses.
The article was published in The Sunday Times and Welt am Sonntag in Germany. It further said: “Israel will not win this war if their operations destroy the prospect of peaceful coexistence with Palestinians. They have a right to eliminate the threat posed by Hamas. But too many civilians have been killed.”
Following Biden’s comments last week that Israel was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing”, US officials have also told Israel that its window for conducting major combat operations in Gaza is fast closing.
- The Guardian
Israel will not win this war if their operations destroy the prospect of peaceful coexistence with Palestinians.
Seems like it's a little late for that, huh
They don't want to admit Israel's goal isn't ending Hamas - it's genocide, ethnic cleansing and Israeli condos where Gaza used to be.
Oh I see what they are doing here, they are pretending to be the 'adults' in the room by saying 'We need a sustainable ceasefire' so they can excuse themselves not pushing for a ceasefire because it wouldn't be sustainable. No you don't see if we force Israel to stop bombing them they'd stop but only for months what we need is a peace lasting generations, literally that techno-bro cult thinking 'What about the millions of future palestinians?'
They're basically saying they do not support a ceasefire now, because it's not ... err ... sustainable. Yeah let's go with that.
Before that it was "No ceasefire until Hamas is destroyed! Unconditional support for Israel!" Not that different in practice, since it means no ceasefire now either way, but I guess they decided being seen giving tongue baths to Israel is no longer such an excellent look.
Canada aus nz did the same thing a few days ago, calling for a ceasefire that required unconditional surrender by gaza as a prerequisite. It's not serious
They're just preparing to come out as the clueless smol bean good guys for when the genocide becomes even more satanic
I keep going back and forth over whether Western governments actually understand what type of government and society they are dealing with in Israel.
Not that I expect them to do anything good but the West sees Israel as part of their group. It's like they expect Isreal to have the same taste and class as the rest of the Western elites. But why should Israel care whether Biden gets elected or care about international support when the US has reiterated time and time again that their material support is unconditional.
It's definitely all cynical, but are they cynical enough to understand the huge liability that is Isreal?
The West sees Israel as part of their group.
I only understand English and I have no idea what the leadership of most countries thinks about that but Biden certainly does.
Are they cynical enough to understand the huge liability that is Israel?
I don't think Biden understands Israel at all.
I keep going back and forth over whether Western governments actually understand what type of government and society they are dealing with in Israel.
When it comes to Biden in the last couple months I've seen variations on the following a handful of times. Leverage is pointless if you don't use it.
It seems bred in bone for dems to be squeamish about using leverage. Biden has done the opposite of using leverage on Israel. He anchored a couple strike groups plus a sub in the Eastern Med to help Israel by threatening Hezbollah and he's given Israel everything they wanted. He's made it clear everything is unconditional.
Why would Israel help him in any way, shape, or form? Not only would Israel not care about him in any circumstance - Trump would be even better for them. If Trump becomes president again - it's easy to imagine him literally saying "War crimes are good because it makes your enemy afraid."