this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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Image is of General Abdourahamane Tiani, leader of Niger (left) and Ibrahim Traoré, leader of Burkina Faso (right).


The Alliance of Sahel States (ASS) formed on September 16th in the wake of the coup in Niger in late July, in which Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso created a military and increasingly economic alliance in which attacking one would result in the other two joining. This was initially most relevant militarily, as ECOWAS was threatening an invasion of Niger if they did not restore civilian rule. Nonetheless, due to a mixture of a lack of real strength in ECOWAS due to Nigeria's internal problems, and the influence of Algeria, a very strong regional military power who negotiated against a war which could further destabilise an already destabilised region, and the vague promises of future civilian rule, the external military threat seems to have mostly dissipated.

However, internal threats remain. Burkina Faso is fighting against ISIS and al-Qaeda, which commit regular massacres of civilians; the government controls only 60% of the country. In Mali, the government is fighting against similar groups as well as the Tuareg, which inhabit the more sparsely populated north of the country - the government is in the process of kicking out the UN mission to Mali, and in the process retaking rebel stronghold cities like Kidal, which is raising some eyebrows as to what exactly the UN was doing all this time; and Niger is fighting against similar Islamic groups too, and is kicking out the French for being exploitative motherfuckers. Combine this with the sanctions against Niger which are crippling the country, disease outbreaks in Burkina Faso, and just the general shitty state of the world economy, and the situation is not looking very good currently.

That all being said, economy and trade ministers from all three countries have met this past weekend in Bamako, the capital of Mali. There, they recommended that the countries: improve the free movement of people inside the ASS (don't laugh!); construct and strengthen infrastructure like dams and roads; construct a food safety system; establish a stabilization fund and investment bank; and even create a common airline. This is all attracting foreign attention too - Russia has signed a deal to build Africa's largest gold refinery in Mali, and China is the second largest investor into Niger after France, ploughing money into the gold and uranium industries there. And, of course, the Wagner group is in the region - though I'm unsure if they're having a major or minor impact on events there.


The weekly update is here on the website.

Your Monday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Tuesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Wednesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Thursday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.


The Country of the Week is Burkina Faso! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

The bulletins site is... up!

RSS feed here.

Last week's thread is here.


Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

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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[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa Presents His First Cabinet

He has sought a rapid symbolic and political distancing from the far-right VP Veronica Abad.

On Sunday, the Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa and his inaugural cabinet posed for an official photo. Notably absent from the picture was Vice President Veronica Abad, who was appointed as a "Collaborator for Peace" between Israel and Palestine.

His team includes the Minister of Women and Human Rights, Arianna Tanca, and the Minister of Telecommunications, Cesar Martin. In the coming days, Noboa will appoint Juan Carlos Vega Malo as the Minister of Economy.

On his first day in office on Thursday, Noboa had already appointed most of his ministers. Among them were 8 women and 8 men. Niels Olsen, the Tourism Minister, was the only one who served in the previous government led by Guillermo Lasso.

The cabinet also includes Monica Palencia (Government), Gabriela Sommerfeld (Foreign Relations), Giancarlo Loffredo (National Defense), Daniel Calderon (Education), Roberto Luque (Transportation and Public Works), Ivonne Nuñez (Labor), Franklin Palacios (Agriculture), Sonsoles Garcia (Foreign Trade), Franklin Encalada (Public Health), Andrea Arrobo (Energy), Zaida Rovira (Economic and Social Inclusion), and Humberto Plaza (Urban Development).

In the official photo of the first cabinet, Vice President Veronica Abad was not present. So far, she has not directly commented on her appointment as "collaborator for peace and to safeguard the de-escalation of conflict between Israel and Palestine" in Tel Aviv.

On Saturday, however, she took advantage of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, to convey a message through social media.

"Violence is not just about killing others. There is violence when we use derogatory words, when we make gestures to disdain other people, when bad actions intimidate your children and force you to silence injustices, when we obey out of fear, and when, abusing power, they belittle you and send you to die in war," she expressed.

"This violence leaves very deep scars, difficult to heal. Women are peace. We are life, justice, courage, strength. They may distance us, but the echo of our voice will set us free," Abad added, without making any mention of Noboa's appointment.

The relationship between Noboa and Abad appeared distant even during the electoral campaign, where they barely shared public events. On the day of Noboa's inauguration, Abad did not attend the official lunch at the Carondelet palace. Instead, she visited a market in northern Quito, where she had lunch and interacted with the merchants.

Abad has been criticized on multiple occasions for her far-right ideological stances, including positions against the women's movement and rights to health and education.

How long until the US removes Noboa from the power and replace him with his VP?

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I'm gonna probably not be as thrilled until Blinken or one of the Bush era NeoCons go.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Previously it was reported that the Danish warships patrolling around Greenland and the Faroe Islands were struck by lack of sailors. The 30 year old ships are also reported to be worn out and have frequent technical issues.

Now politicians are angry as several former naval officers connected to weapons industry lobby groups are criticising the state of the ships, pointing to publicly available information that the ships fails most of NATO's demands for warships of their class despite having been promised to NATO. Allegedly many sensors and weapons systems has been removed from the ships as a cost-cutting measure.

Despite the apparent state of the ships naval bureaucrats has reported to politicians that the ships were performing as they should and were planning to renovate them rather than replace them.

Politicians are angry about not meeting their American overlord's demands, about the military bureaucracy lying to them and also about receiving very limited information about the classified NATO demands despite being the ones who has to approve funding to meet them.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO sicko-jammin

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago

https://t.me/PalestineResist/21677

🚨🇾🇪 - Yemeni Armed Forces:

This morning, with the help of Allah the Almighty, the Naval Forces in the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a targeting operation against two "israeli" ships at Bab Al-Mandab, namely the ship "Unity Explorer" and the ship "Number Nine," where the first ship was targeted with a naval missile and the second with a marine drone.

The targeting operation came after the two ships ignored the warning messages from the Yemeni Naval Forces.

The Yemeni Armed Forces continue to prevent "israeli" ships from navigating in the Red and Arabian Seas until the "israeli" aggression against our steadfast brothers in the Gaza Strip stops.

The Yemeni Armed Forces renew their warning to all "israeli" ships or those associated with "israelis" that they will become a legitimate target if they violate what has been stated in this statement and previous statements issued by the Yemeni Armed Forces.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago

https://fortune.com/2023/12/02/ai-chip-export-controls-china-nvidia-raimondo/

‘We cannot let China get these chips’: Commerce Secretary Raimondo says more funding needed for AI export controls

"Protecting our national security matters more than short-term revenue," she told chipmakers, with a call-out to Nvidia.

xibe-check

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago (16 children)

Unexpected hot take: russia will elect someone other than putin

reason: he is lawful evil lib, and their shenanigans with constitution actually bar him from running 3rd time in a row

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago

Salvadoran President Will Request Leave to Run for Re-Election

This is a requirement for him to compete for a new mandate in the elections on Feb. 4, 2024.

On Thursday, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele will formally request a leave of absence from his position before the Legislative Assembly starting December 1, six months before his term concludes. This move is to focus on the electoral campaign for his reelection.

The absence leave is the final requirement, established in a 2021 ruling by the Supreme Court's Constitutional Chamber, for Bukele to compete for a new mandate in the elections on Feb. 4, 2024. Here are five key points to explain the current Salvadoran political situation:

Bukele's Absence.

The 2021 Supreme Court ruling dictates that "the President who has applied as a presidential candidate for a second term must request a leave of absence during the six months prior" to the start of the next term.

Bukele would be absent from his position starting December 1. The Legislative Assembly, with a broad majority from the ruling party, is expected to consider the leave request on Thursday.

This aims to achieve compliance with the Constitution's article 218, which prohibits the use of the position for electoral propaganda. However, analysts warn that Bukele has already engaged in electoral propaganda, even using state funds and government resources.

The Salvadoran constitution states that, in the absence of the president and vice president, one of the designated individuals will lead the Executive branch.

Along with granting permission, it is expected that Congress will ratify the persons proposed by Bukele for the presidency to fill his role.

Bukele assumed the presidency in 2019 with the far-right party Grand Alliance for National Unity (GANA) as the electoral vehicle due to the delay in registering his New Ideas party (NI).

The Salvadoran constitution allows the president's resignation "for a duly proven serious cause, as determined by the Legislative Assembly," without specifying that it should be for an electoral campaign since reelection is prohibited.

Bukele can submit three proposals for the designated presidential role to Congress. If he does not, the Legislative body will be responsible for choosing the person. The designated individual will assume the presidential role on December 1 and leave on May 30, 2024.

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