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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The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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.
The Pentagon today attempted to reassure its international partners in the F-35 program that there is no “kill switch” on the stealth fighter jet
Fundamentally it boils down to what is stated by Justin Bronk, 2nd professor at the Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy. If your entire air force infrastructure is dependent on the United States, the F-35 Is the least of your issues. There is no literal "kill switch", but that doesn't really matter, because there is no need for a "kill switch" given the above dependence. There's no "kill switch" on Ukrainian F-16s, but they had to wait for US intelligence sharing to resume before carrying out frontline operations again.
Also, Europe do not have a domestic stealth fighter that can replicate the F-35s stealth characteristics, so they are stuck with the F-35, the complex infrastructure it needs, and the US dependence until they do have their own 5th generation stealth platforms. Development of that is at least a decade away. And the F-35 was purchased (in the context of Germany and some other nations) for carrying out roles in the NATO nuclear umbrella, carrying American tactical nuclear weapons like the B61. Such nuclear capabilities are dependent on the United States regardless of the aircraft used.
Justin Bronk's statement on twitter
Xcancel mirror
full text of statement.
Acronyms:Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS).
ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance).
Mission Data Files (MDF).
Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS).
Operational Data Integrated Network (ODIN).
Dual Capable Aircraft (DCA).
On F-35 fears, I get it - there is real dependency. But if all your targeting capacity, BLOS comms, penetrating/orbital ISR and the munitions you assume you’d fight with in a war are US-provided; then dependency on the US for MDFs and ALIS/ODIN for F-35 isn’t your main problem.
The F-35’s capabilities vs Russian air defences also cannot currently be replaced or replicated with other platforms.
For Germany it’s also worth remembering that the F-35 was bought for nuclear DCA role with US supplied B61 Mod 12 so 100% dependent on US whatever the aircraft.
On questions about the US being "on Russia's side:
If the US is on Russia’s side, a credible plan B force for that scenario would take a decade [or more] and vast investment to generate. Uncomfortable but true
Not saying it shouldn’t or can’t be done, but we need a thorough capability audit and honesty about the results as a first step…
Justin Bronk also recently published an article on RUSI about the large aerial electronic warfare gap between Europe and the United States, something I've been going on about for months/years. Europe is almost entirely dependent on the United States for this, and Australia has more capability here (albeit with US made EA-18G Growler aircraft) than the vast majority of European nations.
I bet there is a literal kill switch too though. There’s just no way the US didn’t sneak a backdoor in somehow.
You have a pending software update with critical security fixes. Install now, or postpone for 4 hours?
The plane just stops in the sky and plummets to the ground until you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy as well as set your cookie policy (essential only or enhanced?)
Given the nature of the F-35 contract, if the vendor decides to stop servicing your jets it's basically the same thing as a kill switch because you won't have any technicians capable of doing whatever it is.
It's like those "security cams" and "nature cams" you can buy, which don't tell you that you are actually buying an online service, without which (e.g. if the company goes belly-up) your hardware will be useless unless you can find a way to hack into it.
In a way yeah, theprogramming of the AN/ALQ-131 Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) pod could only be done by United States companies and squadrons.
My "There Is No Kill Switch on F-35s" t-shirt is raising a lot of questions answered by my shirt
the thing kills itself. don't need a switch