Image is of the breach in the tailings dam near Kitwe.
On February 18th, 50 million liters of acidic waste from a copper mine was accidentally released into the Kafue River after a tailings dam collapsed. The Kafue River stretches for a thousand miles across Zambia and a majority of the country - millions of people - rely on it, for both the economy and drinking water.
The results have already been catastrophic. The water supply for the city of Kitwe, home to 700,000 people, was completely shut off. As the wave of contamination moved downstream, a wave of death accompanied it as dead fish dotted the river surface. The government is dropping lime into the river to try and counteract the acid with an alkali and neutralize the water, but the tailings also contain toxic heavy metals that will undoubtably seep into the nearby environment and affect the area for years to come.
A considerable portion of the media attention to the accident has been devoted to the fact that the mine was Chinese-owned, as well as China’s broader influence and investment in the region. Western anti-China propaganda aside, it has been clear to those in the know that these mines have been badly managed and needlessly dangerous for years now, and it is disappointing - to say the least - to see disasters of this magnitude occur from Chinese businesses. Hopefully this prompts a wave of investigations into China-owned mine managers all around the continent, who will then hopefully face real consequences for their actions.
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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 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.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
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.
Countries “condemning” Israel’s actions is really irking me. They’re practically just saying “uhhh you can’t do that that’s bad and stuff” and calling it a day while Israel continues to slaughter innocents. Something tells me none of them are serious about it.
I’ll only take their words seriously if they cut off trade/relations or otherwise start lobbing bombs at Israel, otherwise it’s a fucking nothingburger.
The fact that almost the entire world continues to sit by and watch this happen while going “Ooohhh that’s bad nonono don’t do that!” and doing nothing else once again reinforces my stance that this world is not worth living in.
I have said this before: no country is going to sacrifice 100s of millions of their own citizens to save 2 million Gazan Palestinians. This is simply the harsh reality of the world.
Most developing countries are far too precarious to have their economy disrupted by sanctions. Sure, if you’re Cuba or North Korea and your people are willing to ideologically commit to your vision that will certainly invite international sanctions and deterioration of material wellbeing, you might be able to pull that off but if you think any other developing country wouldn’t just devolve into complete chaos and right wing coups and hundreds of thousands of people killed, then you’re not learning from history. Even if you’re a leftist government. Indonesia tried to be the beacon of the Non-Aligned Movement, look at where they are now.
We are not living in a world where the USSR exists anymore, and even the USSR had its restraints, though it would certainly have played a far more active role compared to what we have today.
The only country that has the weight to directly intervene is China, but as a major beneficiary of the dollar hegemony, the Chinese economy is far too intertwined with the US that it would be completely foolish to put the lives of 1.4 billion people in jeopardy for the sake of 2 million Palestinians.
Mao used to taunt the Americans to drop their atomic bombs and see who lasts longer (he loves talking about fighting a 10,000-year struggle with American imperialism), and you can imagine how the Americans would take the Chinese threats seriously back then. China is way too comfortable to be doing that today.
These geopolitical conflicts aren’t going to be resolved until there is an alternative economic order/vision that emerges, but since that is not coming anytime soon (the entire BRICS dedollarization project that people have been touting since 2022 is essentially dead), every country is now on their own.
The Ukraine war in 2022 was supposed to be that watershed moment, but in the end it proved not enough.
Hardly what is demanded of them by anyone. Doing to israel half of what they’re doing to russia is the least