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Bulletins and News Discussion from July 31st to August 6th, 2023 - A West African Federation? (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by SeventyTwoTrillion@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net

210 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Image is of coup supporters in Niamey, waving the flag of Niger and Russia.

While the coup in Niger is an obvious reason for this megathread's subject, the inspiration to focus here rather than somewhere else in the world this week came from @solaranus@hexbear.net's comment here.

Anyway, as a quick introduction to Niger - the country won independence from the French in 1960 and has since been in an alternating cycle of military governments and more democratic arrangements. In 2010, a junta took over the country from the military junta already ruling it, and then successfully transitioned the country to democracy within a year. President Issoufou was elected and then re-elected in 2016. President Bazoum was democratically elected in 2021, and has just been overthrown last week. General Tchiani looks to be the new head of state.

Like many countries that were previously colonies, outright colonialism by its imperial country has been replaced by neocolonialism by that same country. France issues their currency, thus allowing France to do what the US does with its dollar around the world but in miniature. The country is incredibly poor, surviving on subsidence agriculture, with much of its exports being minerals like gold and uranium, which many children under the age of 14 are employed in extracting. Also like other previously French colonies, the new guys in charge appear to be flipping them the bird, with Burkina Faso and Mali relatively recently asking them to fuck off. It is unlikely to be a coincidence that this is happening as internal dissent inside France itself continues to boil. Given the Russian flags being waved and Putin's promises to supply free grain to some African countries (and though Niger isn't mentioned, Burkina Faso and Mali notably are), one imagines that Russia also might have a hand in things.

Burkina Faso's president, Traore, has been talking with Mali and Guinea, and now Niger - all ruled by military governments - and asking if they're interested in federation, with Mali showing some interest. Traore follows in the tradition of Thomas Sankara, and has appointed a Prime Minister who is similarly aligned. Traore has recently met with a Chinese representative and has firmly aligned himself with Russia, saying that Burkina Faso has "one and the same outlook" on building a new world order, saying:

"Russia made great sacrifices to liberate Europe and the world from Nazism during World War II. We have the same history,"

"We are the forgotten peoples of the world. And we are here now to talk about the future of our countries, about how things will be tomorrow in the world that we are seeking to build, and in which there will be no interference in our internal affairs,"

"However, a slave who does not fight [for his freedom] is not worthy of any indulgence. The heads of African states should not behave like puppets in the hands of the imperialists. We must ensure that our countries are self-sufficient, including as regards food supplies, and can meet all of the needs of our peoples. Glory and respect to our peoples; victory to our peoples! Homeland or death!"

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

This week's first update is here in the comments.

No update on Wednesday because I am still busy.

Friday's update is here in the comments.

Links and Stuff

The bulletins site is down.

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists

Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Add to the above list if you can.

Resources For Understanding The War

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.

Telegram Channels

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

Pro-Russian

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

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.

Last week's discussion post.

(page 4) 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] Teekeeus@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

With China in sights, New Zealand signals major defense policy shift

New Zealand apparently wants to run with the pack now countering China — and may seek to join AUKUS, too.

Those are the key takeaways from a barrage of new plans to reshape New Zealand’s defense policy. Not just one, but three new reports were released simultaneously on Friday morning by the country’s Minister of Defence, Andrew Little.

These include New Zealand’s inaugural National Security Strategy, along with a military-focused Defence Policy and Strategy Statement. A third document, the “Future Force Design Principles,” spells out some further general recommendations for reconfiguring New Zealand’s military.

Collectively, the publicly released plans – which run to over 12,000 words on 82 pages — add up to the biggest shake-up for New Zealand’s foreign and defense policy in a generation.

New Zealand currently spends around 1.4 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on its military, according to figures from the World Bank. But spending is already on the way up: Labour announced a $NZ747 million cash injection in its recent May budget — a significant boost in the context of New Zealand’s $NZ5.3 billion annual defense outlay and the country’s population of just five million people.

The pace of change is also accelerating: the Defence Policy Review panel that the Labour Government appointed in 2022 to assess the country’s military capabilities was not originally scheduled to report back until mid-2024. Andrew Little fast-tracked the review after he became defense minister earlier this year, following then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s resignation.

The new defense blueprint has not come entirely out of thin air. A hawkish new assessment was released in 2021, which was followed by New Zealand’s guest participation at NATO summits in 2022 and 2023.

A major theme of the new Defence Policy and Strategy Statement is a drive for New Zealand’s military to become “combat-capable” and expand its activities in the contested Pacific region located immediately to New Zealand’s north. It’s clear from the text that “improving the effectiveness of our combat and other military capabilities” will mean spending a lot more on both personnel — which received the bulk of the boost in May — and new military hardware. New Zealand recently took possession of the last of four Boeing P-8A Poseidon aircraft that were ordered in 2018, at a total cost of over $NZ2 billion.

China, meanwhile, is mentioned by name in the new documents only around a dozen times, but it’s crystal-clear that Beijing is the main target of New Zealand’s updated blueprint.

According to the National Security Strategy, “China’s rise is a major driver of geopolitical change.” The authors argue that Beijing is becoming “more assertive and more willing to challenge existing international rules and norms” — and is employing “economic coercion” to achieve its aims.

By U.S. or Australian standards, this might seem par for the course — even on the mild side — when it comes to characterizations of Chinese foreign policy. But for Wellington, which has largely kept on good terms with Beijing even as China’s relations with the West have deteriorated, the words and the overall tone and substance of the documents reflect an historic shift.

For decades, New Zealand has prided itself on what has become known as an “independent foreign policy.” The positioning emerged in the 1980s after the United States suspended its obligations to New Zealand under the ANZUS Treaty (made up of Australia, New Zealand and the U.S.), in retaliation for the introduction of a nuclear-free policy by the Fourth Labour Government that then held power.

Fortuitously, the end of the Cold War was just around the corner, and for the next three decades, New Zealand took full advantage of the resulting new opportunities that opened up everywhere, from Beijing to Bogotá.

That era now seems to be over.

A key theme threading through the just-announced plans is the idea that New Zealand needs to “partner” with “like-minded countries.” The National Security Strategy suggests these are predominantly Five Eyes and Western nations, including Australia, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, EU members, Japan, and South Korea.

Unsurprisingly, China does not make the cut.

New Zealand’s backing of more hawkish Western foreign policy positions comes despite China being the country’s biggest trading partner by a significant margin. Over a quarter of New Zealand’s exports head to China every year.

One of the biggest talking points from the new roadmap is an apparent green light for New Zealand to join ‘Pillar Two’ of the AUKUS pact that currently involves Australia, the United Kingdom and United States. That is signified by the line, “AUKUS Pillar Two may present an opportunity for New Zealand to cooperate with close security partners on emerging technologies,” which is buried deep in the Defence Policy and Strategy Statement.

Little, the defense minister, appeared to open the door to AUKUS in March when he said New Zealand would be “willing to explore” joining a new chapter of the pact that is focused on advanced technologies.

Until then, New Zealand’s position has been to steer clear of AUKUS because of its nuclear dimension — which would cross the red line set in the 1980s by the nuclear-free policy — but also because joining the deal would run counter to the spirit and letter of New Zealand’s independent foreign policy.

But there seems to have been a tug-of-war of sorts inside the Labour Government over AUKUS.

Nanaia Mahuta, the foreign minister, has been far less keen on New Zealand’s involvement — when U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently visited Wellington, the minister told local media “I’ll be really clear, we’re not contemplating joining AUKUS.”

Chris Hipkins, the Prime Minister, has been somewhere in the middle. In May, he said the question of New Zealand joining AUKUS was “purely hypothetical.”

But during his press conference with Antony Blinken, the Prime Minister said New Zealand was “open to conversations” about AUKUS membership.

With New Zealand’s general election to be held on October 14, any decisions on AUKUS will be for the next Government to take.

There is an irony that a Labour Government is now paving the way for New Zealand to join AUKUS, three decades after it effectively elected to take the country out of ANZUS. After all, it has always been Labour that has flown the flag for New Zealand’s “independent foreign policy” most strongly.

Helen Clark, a Labour Prime Minister who served from 1999-2008, reacted furiously to the hawkish new plans released on Friday. She wrote on Twitter that the blueprint suggested New Zealand was “abandoning its capacity to think for itself and is instead cutting & pasting from Five Eyes partners,” and that there was an “orchestrated campaign” to join the next stage of AUKUS.

With no final decisions made on AUKUS, there is certainly still time for New Zealand to change course and take a different path more in keeping with the independent foreign policy tradition. This could include taking a role focused more on de-escalation, dialogue, and diplomacy in an effort to lower the geopolitical temperature as tensions build in the Indo-Pacific.

New Zealand’s new National Security Strategy describes itself as “just the beginning.” It is certainly the opening salvo, but it is unlikely to be the final word.

anglos being anglos

[–] BynarsAreOk@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

MoA: Three Polls On Support For The War In Ukraine

spoiler

In the poll, those identified as "Millennial," between 27 and 42 years old, were most likely to "strongly support" committing U.S. troops to Ukraine. However, more respondents aged between 18-26 (Gen Z) said they would support the measure overall, 47 percent saying they supported or strongly supported sending U.S. troops. Nearly a third of respondents aged over 59 said they opposed pledging U.S. troops to Ukraine, with a further 25 percent "strongly" opposing the suggestion.

The pro-war Gen-Z-lers should be put through a boot camp to be shipped off to Europe. I have no doubt that it would change their opinion in no time.

In contrast to Newsweek the CNN poll pice is correctly headlined:

CNN Poll: Majority of Americans oppose more US aid for Ukraine in war with Russia

Overall, 55% say the US Congress should not authorize additional funding to support Ukraine vs. 45% who say Congress should authorize such funding. And 51% say that the US has already done enough to help Ukraine while 48% say it should do more. A poll conducted in the early days of the Russian invasion in late February 2022 found 62% who felt the US should have been doing more.

The CNN poll seem to contradict the one by Newsweek on the most important question:

When asked specifically about types of assistance the US could provide to Ukraine, there is broader support for help with intelligence gathering (63%) and military training (53%) than for providing weapons (43%), alongside very slim backing for US military forces to participate in combat operations (17%). There is a strong partisan divide about supporting the war:

Within both parties, there are splits by ideology. On providing additional funding, liberal Democrats are far and away the most supportive, 74% back it compared with 51% of moderate or conservative Democrats. Among Republicans, about three-quarters of conservatives oppose new funding (76%) compared with 61% of moderate or liberal Republicans. Independents mostly say the US has done enough to help Ukraine (56%) and that they oppose additional funding (55%).

The progressives in the U.S., like the Greens in Europe, are now the fringe that is most eager to pursue the war. They are, of course, also those who are the least eager to serve in the military.

It is interesting to compare that with a change in opinion of young Poles, aged 16-34:

There has been a fundamental shift when it comes to the stance that young Poles think their government should adopt in the war in Ukraine. In 2022, an overwhelming majority of 83% argued that the government should support Ukraine – but this number has changed drastically. Now, 65% of respondents back continuous support for Ukraine, whereas the remaining 34% wish for Poland to stay neutral. Clearly, more than one and a half years into the current phase of the conflict and amid fears of other countries being pulled into the war, young people have become more cautious.

TL;DR Millenials and Gen-Z support the war more than everyone else. Contrast to the same shift in Poland where support for Ukraine is decreasing rapidly.

My own explanation is the liberal media successfully evaded every other issue regarding the root causes and the history of the conflict and managed to brand the war entirely as an Good vs Evil fight, "dictator" vs "democracy".

Younger generations are more willing to go out and do something, it is why young people lean so much further left and it is why it is easiest to convert and educate the younger generations. But as we age we obviously get demotivated and start to care less and less about doing "good", the MSM message about the morality of the war isn't effective towards older people, they simply don't care anymore.

You can insert materialist analysis here too obviously, as we grow older we are also more fatigued by our real world material issues e.g bills, expenses, debt etc so who actually cares more about evil Putler than paying rent this month? Only the people that can afford to care and have the emotional space to give a shit while not looking back fatigued and demotivated i.e the younger generation going through the war machine experience for the first time.

[–] Teekeeus@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

scientists of chinese descent leaving america at record pace

shocked-pikachu

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[–] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

Venezuela made its bid to enter BRICS

[–] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

Lula Signs Decree Allowing Brazil to Buy Energy From Venezuela

The decree will allow the installation of a new transmission line that will integrate the state of Roraima to the National Interconnected System.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signed this Friday a decree that guarantees the purchase of energy from Venezuela, thus resuming a supply interrupted in 2019 by former President Jair Bolsonaro.

"The decree will allow the execution of contracts to bring clean and renewable energy from Venezuela, from the Guri plant, which once again plays an important role in guaranteeing cheap and sustainable energy for Roraima and for Brazil," said the Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira.

The decree was signed in a ceremony in the Amazonian city of Parintins, and will allow the installation of a new transmission line that will i>ntegrate the state of Roraima to the National Interconnected System, in an investment of 2.6 billion reais.

The decision is part of the relaunching of the Light for All Program, initially launched by Lula in 2003. On this occasion, the objective is to benefit up to 500,000 families by 2026, with priority for the states of the Northern region and remote regions of the Legal Amazon.

The Guri hydroelectric power plant, in the state of Bolivar, supplies mainly the Amazonian state of Roraima, the only one outside the Brazilian electricity system. At present, Roraima is supplied entirely by thermoelectric power plants fueled by diesel and natural gas, which raises the cost of energy.

According to Silveira, the decree also allows for greater connection with all neighboring countries. Currently, Brazil exchanges electricity with Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay through the Itaipu Binational Hydroelectric Power Plant.

It also provides for the possibility of importing energy to supply isolated systems. The objective is to reduce the expenses of the Fuel Consumption Account, budgeted at R$ 12 billion for 2023 and paid by all electricity consumers in the country.

The transmission line to Brazil from the El Guri power plant, with 10,200 megawatts of installed capacity, was inaugurated in 2001 by Presidents Hugo Chávez and Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

[–] SimulatedLiberalism@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

Thread: Debunking some myths about coups in Africa.

Good read.

[–] Parzivus@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This week on Eastern Europe Speedruns Fascism, the Polish government knocks down a statue commemorating their own Red Army soldiers that died fighting the Nazis in WWII

[–] NPa@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

The other day, for some reason, my co-worker asked the Polish guy at work: "Hey Pawel, you like Germans or Russians more?" He didn't hesitate at all, answering: "Germans. Russians killed more."

They really did some revisionism the last few decades

[–] Parsani@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I saw someone posted this interview with Michael Hudson in this thread but is now deleted (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSBvXCwUQYQ this is part 2 which is quite spicy especially towards the end).

God damn are these podcast hosts grad-school-brained losers. "Is there a good billionaire out there who can do good things?" "What if a company bought back stock and gave it to employees?" - Questions by the utterly deranged.

Edit: I found the transcript: https://michael-hudson.com/2023/07/global-economic-history-in-2-5-hours/

some highlights

Anastasia Bendebury

Okay. So, let’s say a corporation decided to do a long-term stock buyback. And what they did is instead of destroying the shares, they would then distribute them to the employees exclusively. So, you can take a public company…

Michael Hudson [Exasperated]

You don’t need to buy them back; you can just give it to them. I see you’re saying, that’s so utopian, I don’t even want to get into that. I’m good at describing how the economy works. There’s no way that I can get into this. You’re looking for a solution to the problems that there are today. We don’t have a problem; we have a quandary. There is no solution to a quandary.

You’re trying to solve it, forget it. You can’t solve it. It’s nice for you to think, “Wouldn’t it be nice if they could work this way?” Of course, it would be nice if corporations could buy back the stocks and give it to the workers. But look at how bizarre this would be for an oil company. Suppose you have 10 employees that make $10 billion a year for the company because the 10 employees run the well. Are you really going to say we’ll buy back the stock and 10 employees each get a billion dollars? That’s crazy.

And that would be the case with any highly capital-intensive corporation. It would make some labor people much richer than the rest of the labor force. It’s an anti-social solution to benefit a small group against the other, and it’s so dysfunctional, that I’m sure that the Chicago school would love to push it, because it can’t possibly be done because it’s so unfair and predatory.

lol get em

Anastasia Bendebury

But let’s take something like Walmart, for example. So, Walmart is notorious for generating an enormous amount of profit for the owners, very little profit for the wage earners. And so, let’s say that some revolutionary arm of the Walton family becomes the controlling CEO and takes over the board of the company. And they’re like, “You know what, we have a legacy of doing really really screwed up things to our workers. And so, what we’re going to do is we’re going to buy back all of our shares. And as we buy them back, we will redistribute them equally to the workers.”

Michael Hudson

Why not just pay the workers more? Instead of making the profits, why not ease the working conditions? Why not say we’re going to have a four-day work week and we’re going to have people work six hours a day. We’re going to pay them more. We’re going to give them more vacations. We’re going to give them free medical care. And we’re going to contribute to their pensions. Why do it financially? You don’t need a financial solution to a real economic problem. The real economic problem is workers’ conditions. What is their standard of living? It’s not how they’re going to own shares of a company that acts by being predatory and making money in a predatory way, big profit and profiteering, like a Walmart does.

like lol lmao, what kind of fucking question is that? What if the capitalist class acted in opposition to their own interests as a member of the capitalist class? galaxy-brain

Michael Hudson

Well at least a revolution. Not a Constitution yet. A revolution.

Michael Shilo DeLay

Well, I don’t think a revolution is a good idea, unless we have a better idea of what comes next. I’m actually really opposed to revolution that doesn’t have a better solution in mind.

Idealism and its consequences... We have a solution, we have had it for a hundred fucking years.

Not to even mention all the brainless anti-China rhetoric they tried to slip in at every moment. Like my dudes, you live in the most powerful dictatorship of the bourgeoisie in the history of earth. You are the bad guys.

Anastasia Bendebury

Okay, so I don’t want to create a dichotomy of you know, that the United States is better than China or China is better than United States, because I think that it’s one of those topics that you could probably start to take apart and point into totally opposite directions. But it seems like the state is particularly repressive in China. Like we saw what happened during COVID, right? And so, people were locked into their apartments. People were basically at the mercy of the government saying, you know, “No, this is what we’re going to do. You have no voice. You have no option.” And it was pretty dark to look at from the outside because for all of the problems that the United States has, and for all of the political wrangling that happened over the course of the last few years, at the very least, we weren’t barricading people inside their apartments.

1,170,006 Americans died from COVID.

[–] AssortedBiscuits@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

The totally-not-backed-by-the-West-bro-trust-us-bro jihadist separatist groups are coincidentally going to begin intensifying their activities in Africa but only in the parts of Africa that support Niger.

[–] Torenico@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

That british intelligence report on Ukraine is nuts. Literally vegetation is proving to be an obstacle for the ukrainian offensive?

WHO WOULD WIN? NATO tactics, the absolute best in the world

some grass and bushes

When the grass starts speaking russian. Maybe complete worldwide deforestation and destruction of all plant matter is now a top priority for NATO strategists?

[–] Eldungeon2@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

https://youtu.be/nAffbda7MGs

Guinea affirms it's pan African vision. Leftwing internationalism having a moment in West Africa.

[–] Zrc@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

putin-wink : "stop wasting my time and launch the counteroffensive already"

zelebobik: "stfu orkkk, nobody can set the schedule of ukraine"

biden-harbinger : "commit suicide by minefield, jack"

zelery: "yes commander in chief, glory to the United states of America"

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