Image is of container ships waiting outside the canal. While there is usually some number of ships waiting for passage, the number has increased significantly lately.

In order to move ships through the Panama Canal, water is needed to fill the locks. The water comes from freshwater lakes, which are replenished by rainfall. This rainfall hasn't been coming, and Lake Gatun, the largest one, is at near record low levels.

Hundreds of ships are now in a maritime traffic jam, unable to cross the canal quickly. Panama is attempting to conserve water and have reduced the number of transits by 20% per day, among other measures. The Canal's adminstrators have warned that these drought conditions will remain for at least 10 months.

It is unlikely that global supply chains will be catastrophically affected, at least this year. Costs may increase for consumers in the coming months, especially for Christmas, but by and large goods will continue to flow, around South America if need be. Nonetheless, projecting trends over the coming years and decades, you can imagine how this is yet another nudge by climate change towards dramatic economic, environmental, and political impacts on the world at large. It also might prompt discussions inside various governments about nearshoring, and the general vulnerability of global supply chains - especially as the United States tries, bafflingly, to go to war with China.

After some discussion in the last megathread about building knowledge of geopolitics, some of us thought it might be an interesting idea to have a Country of the Week - essentially, I/we choose a country and then people can come in here and chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants, related to that country. More detail in this comment.

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

Okay, look, I got a little carried away. Monday's update usually covers the preceding Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but I went ahead and did all of last week. If people like a more weekly structure then I might try that instead, if not, then I'll go back to the Mon-Wed-Fri schedule.

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.

  • Redcuban1959 [any]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Nicaragua Announces Its Intention to Join the BRICS

    "BRICS is where the most powerful countries come together with the most impoverished countries because they join forces to fight poverty and hunger," Ortega said.

    On Monday, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega announced his nation's interest in joining the BRICS, the group of emerging economies led by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

    "We are knocking on the door because that is the multipolar world," the leader of the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN) said during a ceremony on the occasion of the 44th anniversary of the constitution of the Nicaraguan Army.

    "BRICS is where the most powerful countries come together with the most impoverished countries because they join forces to fight poverty and hunger," he added.

    "Over there the agenda is not defined in function of war as it happens in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, headed by the United States," Ortega pointed out.

    "BRICS is making its way in the world and the earth's empires are trying to avoid integration between the nations that want to cooperate not to invade or bomb another country but to strengthen economic and social relations in the fight for peace," he added.

    "Nicaragua recognizes in the BRICS a powerful initiative that will allow us to strengthen the multipolar world and change the unfair, colonialist, and imperialist economic model," the Nicaraguan government said on August 24, when it greeted the entry of Argentina, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran to the BRICS.

    These six countries will become full members of the BRICS from January 1, 2024. The expansion of the group is part of its plan to gain influence and be able to reshape global governance towards a multipolar world order, which places the voices of the South Global at the center of the world's political agenda.

    • CTHlurker [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Is Nicaragua about to be couped again? I can't imagine a smaller country in latin america being "allowed" by the Americans to join anything that is China-led.

      • Redcuban1959 [any]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Is Nicaragua about to be couped again?

        Ashtually the Somoza family came to power in the 1930s without US support. But I don't think there is coup plot, the only thing that happened recently is that the Sandinistas stopped pretending to be a bourgeois democracy that elected a random liberal just to appeal to the United States. I think Daniel Ortega has built enough ties with China, Iran and Russia to survive U.S. sanctions. They are also building their canal, which is terrible for the U.S. because it means they can no longer pressure Panama to close their canal to U.S. enemies.