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to halt new mining approvals, and announced a public referendum on whether the contract with First Quantum should be repealed.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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Last week's thread is here.
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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After ships sailing for European companies (yet somehow the ships are registered in Liberia - curious, huh?) were attacked by Yemen, German fash-libs start clamoring for sending German navy ships to the Red sea. The faction is increasingly called "Strazi" in German, after their Nazi-liberal Führer-Woman Strach-Zimmerman (think a dumber, even more aggressive anti-Russian von der Leyen)
Please make it happen
I mainly wish for the lathe here because these German navy frigates are utter crap. Rather large ships without a clear doctrine, and bewildering weapons assortment. You've got 5000-ton air-defense "destroyers" equipped for anti-pirate stuff, with the odd harpoon missile launcher thrown in for good measure. I wouldn't be surprised if the Houthis manage to launch like 3 ballistic missiles at them without the ships even noticing, because the European radar systems had a software "issue" at the time or something so their claimed 350-mile range was impaired. And of course those crap frigates cost like 50% more than comparable French ships.
Please Mr. Houthi your mission is clear here! You may launch the Al-Farrah when ready.
i dont get how shit the german armed forces are, theyve got more money than france yet their equipment is often inferior while costing twice as much...? It doesnt make any sense lmao.
Permanently Deleted
it makes sense .. imagine baerbock but with an acuall army.. we would be engaged in 13 Frontlines round the globe by now..
Ein Fluch dem falschen Vaterlande,
Wo nur gedeihen Schmach und Schande,
Wo jede Blume früh geknickt,
Wo Fäulnis und Moder den Wurm erquickt -
i didnt know hiterland even had a navy tbh
it has enough of a navy where funny headlines like 'half of german navy sinks in the red sea' are within eyesight
German navy is such shit, this would be very funny.
Some examples:
recent article about problems with 2 of the 5 corvettes they have:
Flotilla Admiral Andreas Czerwinski emphasized to NDR the necessity of the Emden and its four sister ships in view of the current geopolitical situation. However, they have to contend with significant IT problems. According to Czerwinski, the ship is “not registrable and vulnerable to hacker attacks.” Therefore, improvements are necessary for both the Emden and the Cologne corvette. The German Navy estimates that fixing the IT problems will take two to two and a half years.
About general problems in the navy from 2022:
The Navy is one of the hardest hit. There it is openly questioned whether enough ships can be made available for all missions in the future.
Maintenance causes problems. Ships arrive at the shipyards later than planned and sometimes lie there longer than planned. The supply of spare parts remains difficult. According to the Navy, the problems also lie in the awarding of contracts: procedures for tenders drag out the processes and overwhelm management. “Massive declines” in the provision of “ready forces” are to be expected. The Ministry of Defense could find itself in a position to “prioritize” operations. In operations that place particularly high demands on material and crews, less than 30 percent of the warships are "unrestrictedly operational." The situation report goes on to say: "The Navy's operational framework of action is severely limited due to the material availability of the units."
Another one from 2019 I had saved:
“As applies to the entire Bundeswehr, it also applies to the Navy: there are too large material gaps, i.e. missing ships, missing spare parts, and too long dock times. And there are staffing gaps. In some cases the staff simply isn't there and positions simply can't be filled. Some positions are filled, but you cannot do the training because there is a lack of material. Where there is no ship, you cannot go to sea and practice.”
In the 124 class, which also includes the frigate Hamburg, parts of the radar have to be removed from one ship and installed from another because high-quality spare parts are missing. And the new 125 class was actually supposed to be ready for use two years ago. Of six submarines, only two are still operational; the ship's TÜV revoked the operating license of two tankers last year.
Would you have any insight into why the German military is so dysfunctional and has been for seemingly decades?
I am not being rhetorical, I actually am curious.
There are numerous factors that play into this but the major ones are
- German defense funding approvals are relatively short term, which means the MIC is incentivized to price gouge upfront instead of going for long term supply contracts since future funding for a program isn’t assured
- The short term nature of approvals also incentivizes the military to opt for items with big price tickets, overengineered stuff that can “do everything” since that means a single approval instead of multiple approvals
- Long term discomfort with their military past and a historically strong although now greatly weakened pacifist movement means Germany opted for a small but elite army which means they want wunderwaffe
- Byzantine approvals process makes it simply hard to get shit done.
- Culturally, the german management model means getting broad consensus and sharing responsibility between many people, which means there is no benefit in terms of promotion or otherwise for getting things done quickly and efficiently, no single point of responsibility to take the blame when projects run over time and over budget, but if you cut corners instead of doing things by the book then you upset the consensus meaning the management structure is sclerotic and bureaucratic in the worst way