Image is of President Hakainde Hichilema and President Xi Jinping on September 15th, from this article.

Zambia is a country of 20 million people, located in southern Africa. Breaking free from British rule in the 1960s, the new government was a one party state ruled by the socialist UNIP party with its leader Kenneth Kaunda, who was a strong supporter of the Non-Aligned Movement (and was its chairman from 1970-73). Its economy has been and remains characterised by copper exports - it is the second-largest copper exporter in Africa - and the economy deeply struggled in the 1970s due to the price of copper plunging. After the fall of the USSR, and due to violent protests, Kaunda stepped down and instituted a multiparty democracy, which has been maintained without (successful) coups to this day, though there are warnings by the leader that some are plotting a coup, given the trend right now.AA

Earlier this year, in June, Zambia struck a deal to restructure the $6.3 billion in debt that they are burdened with, of which China is the single largest creditor.Reuters Though he has typically been more West-friendly, last week, President Hichilema traveled to China for two days, meeting with various companies, and Xi Jinping himself. They elevated their relationship to that of a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.Xinhua He and Xi have agreed to the increased use of local currencies in trade.BB

Hichilema said Zambia thanks China for supporting the African Union's entry into the G20 and China's positive role in resolving the Zambian debt issue. The Zambian side abides by the one-China principle, highly appreciates the guiding philosophy and principles of Chinese modernization, and hopes to learn from China's development experience.

Hichilema has also said:AN

"We can do more, faster, because the needs are tremendous in Zambia. I heard some of the solutions are here. All we need to do is to combine the two together."

Check out @Othello@hexbear.net's discussion of The Wretched of the Earth!

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

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

The news summary for last week is here!

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.

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

    https://ghostarchive.org/archive/nRZ6k

    Ukraine says it will sue Poland, Hungary and Slovakia over food import bans

    Protectionist trade policies in play, baby!

    KYIV, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Ukraine plans to sue Poland, Hungary and Slovakia in the World Trade Organization over bans on Ukrainian agricultural products, Ukrainian officials said on Monday.

    The appeal could be sent "in the near future", a senior official said, and followed a decision by the three countries bordering Ukraine to ban imports of the country's key export commodities.

    Politico had earlier on Monday quoted Ukrainian Trade Representative Taras Kachka as saying in an interview that Kyiv planned to sue the three countries.

    Restrictions imposed by the European Union in May allowed Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia to ban domestic sales of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seeds, while permitting transit of such cargoes for export elsewhere.

    Poland, Slovakia and Hungary announced their own restrictions on Ukrainian grain imports on Friday after the executive European Commission decided not to extend its ban on imports into Ukraine's five EU neighbours.

    Warsaw, Bratislava and Budapest say they are acting in the interests of their economies and their farmers.

    REVENGE FOR THE POLISH FARMERS UKRAINE MURDERED!

    Kachka told Politico that Ukraine could also impose reciprocal measures on the import of fruit and vegetables from Poland if Warsaw did not drop its additional measures.

    TRADE WAR TRADE WAR pog-fish

    Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus said Warsaw's ban covers four cereals, but it was also extended to include meals from these cereals: corn, wheat, rapeseed.

    PAP news agency quoted Radoslaw Fogiel, the head of Poland's parliamentary foreign affairs commission, as saying Ukraine's decision to sue would "reverberate badly in Poland" and that Ukraine should be aware of this.

    Oh hell yeah! Shoot yourselves in the foot over flour!

    "Our decision is not aimed at Ukraine, it is dictated by the protection of the Polish farmer and the protection of Poland's interests," he said.

    The EU allowed its ban to expire on Friday after Ukraine said it would take measures to tighten control of exports to neighbouring countries.

    Kachka said Kyiv was ready to "take on the responsibility to ensure that export from Ukraine is not creating any tsunami in neighbouring countries" and would impose a system of "real time" export licenses for grains.

    Farm ministry data showed 1.4 million tons of Ukrainian farm goods left the country by train in the first three months of the 2023/24 July-June season out of a total export volume of 4.5 million tons. Ukraine ships grain by train via crossings with Poland, Slovakia and Hungary. Ukraine also shipped by rail an additional 1 million tons of oils and oilseeds.

    Lmao now that the grain deal was sunk because Ukraine was overwhelmingly biased in shipping its foodstuffs to Europe instead of countries that actually need it, ukraines going full mask off to the point its threatening to destabilize European agricultural markets with their flood of foods

    • TheLastHero [none/use name]
      ·
      1 year ago

      in the World Trade Organization

      Funny that its not mentioned but Ukraine literally can't sue anyone in the WTO. No one can, because the US has for years blocked the appointment of new judges to serve on the dispute & settlement court. America doesn't want anyone winning a trade dispute against them so they just destroyed the whole mechanism for everyone, sucks for you Ukraine.

    • DoghouseCharlie [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Is this the start of Ukraine's "allies" turning against them? "Sorry, I mean we loved the fascism and all but you're starting to be an inconvenience. Keep this up and you'll be downgraded from European back down to slavs."

      • BynarsAreOk [none/use name]
        ·
        1 year ago

        Not really, these import bans are at least 6 months old maybe even from last year. It is just that the EU successfully managed to get these countries to go back and forth, delay or create exemptions etc.

    • D61 [any]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Holodomor 2: The Holodomoring