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.

  • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]M
    ·
    1 year ago

    Combating recidivism and promoting reintegration: Brazil’s experiment with prisons without guards

    At the Association for the Protection and Assistance of the Convicted (APAC) of São João del Rei in the eastern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, there are no guards and no weapons. Only a handful of employees take care of administrative duties and assist the inmates in charge of security. This private prison, subsidised to a large extent by public funds, relies heavily on the trust placed in its male and female inmates – imprisoned for drug trafficking, assault, theft, homicide and rape – and prepares them for their reintegration into working life.

    “All I knew about life before was that I wanted to commit crimes, I wanted to beat up other people, I wanted to run away,” recalls Dos Passos, who wears a yellow flower print t-shirt. Today, she no longer thinks of running away. “I have the key, they trust me. I could leave, but I won’t. Because here I’m treated with love,” she says, adding:

    “I’m here to make amends. If I run away, I’ll be sent back to another prison, and who will suffer? I will. I committed a crime in society and I have to pay for that crime. I’ll walk away with my head held high.”

    The concept behind this seemingly utopian approach, developed by a group of Catholics in 1972, is to humanise prisoners. “When prisoners are treated with violence, they respond to society with violence. By humanising them, we give them the opportunity to make a change in their lives,” explains Denio Marx of the APAC International Study Centre. Members of the association employ the term recuperandos, which can be translated as “recoverers” or “people on the road to recovery”.

    Recuperandos wear their own clothes, walk freely in their areas, grow and cook their own food, receive their families on Sundays, clean the premises, inspect their own cells and mediate their own conflicts.

    The monthly cost for recuperandos is also lower than for other prisoners: 1,390 reals a month (around €260), according to the APAC International Study Centre, compared with 1,819 reals (around €340) for inmates in the traditional system, according to a 2023 study by the National Secretariat for Penal Policies. APAC also has a lower re-offending rate than the traditional system. In the entrance hall of the São João del Rei prison, the statistics are proudly displayed. Around 14 per cent of recuperandos reoffend, compared with almost 40 per cent of those in the traditional system (2020 figures from the National Justice Council). Based on these results, 68 such detention centres have opened throughout the country. The system is even being exported abroad.

    • Alaskaball [comrade/them]M
      ·
      1 year ago

      Sounds like the GULAG system but weirdly privatized?

      Be interesting to hear results over time though

    • Parzivus [any]
      ·
      1 year ago

      You would think that this would be a pretty obvious approach. Put almost everyone new in low security prisons and reserve high security for people who cause problems.
      I guess amerikkka does kinda do this, except you start in the shitty prison and get moved to solitary (aka torture)