Image is from this article on the excellent Canadian environmental journalism outlet, The Narwhal.
The Giant Mine just outside of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada is one of the country's largest recognized environmental liabilities. The mine's 100 plus year history illustrates the continuity between resource colonialism in the late 19th/early 20th century and neoliberalism at the turn of the millennium.
There were several gold rushes in northern Canada/US in the late 19th century, such as the Klondike. The Giant gold strike on was first discovered by settlers about the same time as the Klondike, but as Giant is on Great Slave Lake (named for an Anglicization of the name of local peoples, not after slavery) instead of the Pacific Ocean, it is much less accessible and didn't take off like the Klondike. Parallel with displacement of local Yellowknives Dene people https://ykdene.com/, the town of Yellowknife sprung up around small mining operations through the 30s. It wasn't until after WW2 that the mine was developed at a large scale. Starting operation in 1948, Giant was owned by a Canadian mining conglomerate through the 80s, then some Australians, and for the last ten years of its operating life, by Americans, who went bankrupt and abandoned the property in 1999. The Canadian federal government is responsible for the site and its remediation now, similar to the way the EPA has Superfund sites in the USA.
The project is infamous for poisoning the people and environment of the surrounding area through arsenic poisoning. The ore at giant is arsenopyrite, an arsenic sulphide mineral that often contains gold. Roasting it in large furnaces or kilns releases the gold as well as fine arsenic trioxide dust. The most infamous arsenic poisoning incident was in 1951 when a Yellowknives Dene toddler in died after eating contaminated snow in the fallout area, 2 kilometers from the processing mill's smokestack. Over the years, improvements to the mill reduced the amount of toxic dust released to the environment. This is better than blasting it into the air wildly, but meant that the site accumulated hundreds of thousands of tonnes of arsenic trioxide dust that they chucked in empty mine workings underground. Unfortunately, arsenic trioxide dissolves in water as easily as sugar and so represents a tremendous risk to groundwater and waterbodies nearby, like Great Slave Lake and Yellowknife's water supply.
Arsenic issues contributed to labour disputes as well. In 1991 the union workers of the plant went on strike, refusing management's demand to reduce their salary and wanting better safety measures for workers . The company brought in Pinkertons and strikebreakers, backed by RCMP thugs. The situation escalated, culminating in a bomb planted on a train track deep in the mine. When it was triggered, it killed 6 scabs and 3 Pinkertons. For the next year, the RCMP interrogated mine workers, their family and community without determining who did it, supporting the company in their refusal to sign a new contract until an arrest was made. Finally a worker named Roger Warren confessed to doing it alone and was sentenced to life in prison. He was released in 2014 and died in 2017.
Since 1999, the site has been the responsibility of the Canadian federal government and is being every so gradually remediated. Operated through what are effectively private-public partnership contracts, environmental engineering companies are attempting to clean up and isolate the huge amounts of arsenic trioxide dust. The concept is move the dust into specially ventilated chambers of the underground mine, where it is frozen in place and thus prevented from leaching into groundwater. Active remediation is supposed to be finished in about 15 years at a cost of $1 billion CAD, but will surely take longer and cost more than this. Also, freezing material in place will definitely work because the climate isn't changing, and the Canadian north is definitely not seeing extreme levels of temperature rise.
After active works are complete, the site will require perpetual care.
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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.
I understand everyone is excited that chairman 72T isn't home but that's no reason to track american electoralism all over this thread
take it to the containment thread or c/electoralism . you don't have to go home but you can't stay here
Edit: I've been informed that a second ban has hit the containment thread and it is now closed. I have also been requested by 1% of the hexbear electorate to maintain the red terror on low effort electoralism posts.
For the rest of the week, high effort electoralism posts are allowed but low effort posting will be deleted and you will never reach Valhalla.
https://xcancel.com/TameeOliveFern/status/1853136289144459387
Remember all that talk about Hamas “stealing aid”?
As it turned out & via Israeli media: Hamas chief Sinwar didn’t eat anything in his last three days alive.
Well the way the propaganda works is that they took all the aid, and save none for the rest of the Palestinians, which obviously would be bad.
Why the fuck israhell is Admitting L after another L. Are they stupid. OK but like are they that stupid?
the kinds of crimes they commit (and celebrate) not only require erasing the humanity of their victims - it requires the erasure of their own humanity.
As a result, there is not a shred of humanity left among zionists, so they cannot recognize the humanity in Sinwar who gave everything and more to fight on the frontlines against his oppressor through to his very last moments, even when he was sick from malnutrition and severely injured. They confuse humanity, determination, and courage for weakness.
The only thing I can think it could be some kind of culture clash Israeli have with... every other culture, somehow? Maybe all these action that make Sinwar look noble and heroic to most people look like something only a chump or loser would do to Israelis or something. That or Israelis have dehumanised Palestinians to the point where they don't think they have any real agency and assume everyone else sees Palestinians that way.
I imagine some sort of 'enemy is both weak and strong' type of mindset. Like the Palestinian resistance are simultaneously authoritarian tyrants that can deny food and medicine to the whole of Gaza and pathetic losers who can't feed themselves. That might be what's going through their heads.
- Show
This hot dude threw one of the Israeli hooligan fascists in the river. Happy he's on our side, we need more hot dudes with winner energy.
Megathread activity has dropped from moving the megas into a single holding thread, the extra click it takes to get here matters and people can't see how many new comments are in the thread at a glance from the main page.
@carpoftruth@hexbear.net is hosting the news megathread this week while I'm busy irl!
Make sure to head to the US electoral containment thread for everything to do with the election on a domestic level, as we don't want too much US-centric news to flood this thread. Discussion of Harris' or Trump's potential geopolitical impacts is still perfectly fine here.
The onion is on top of the hexbear mass line
Neo-Nazi Pulls Off Surprise Victory In Long-Held KKK District | Onion News Network
An American soldier has died in Israel. US military won't say how he was killed other than that it was non-combat related, which sure is interesting.
They took down Palestine’s flag and then it all started.
An eyewitness stated: “It all kicked off when they pulled a Palestinian flag off a facade. Then they started provoking and destroyed a taxi driver's car and beat up the driver themselves.”
Some Maccabi fans were seen with metal chains, ready to attack.
Also during tonight’s match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv, the Israeli supporters refused to hold a minute of silence for Valencia flood victims. They even started illegal fireworks.
They sang racist extermination songs
“Let the IDF win to Fuck the Arabs”
Maccabi Tel Aviv hooligans chant their genocidal song while being protected by the police in Amsterdam, this song they’re chanting has a part that says “there are no schools in Gaza because there are no children left”.
https://x.com/SuppressedNws/status/1854701760385872270
Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico's first Jewish president: “I'd like to thank Jesus for accompanying me.” The co-chair of @DemMaj4Israel tried to smear the incoming Mexican president by implying she isn't Jewish enough. He said she even "thanked Jesus for her victory." There was just one catch. She was thanking her HUSBAND, whose NAME is Jesús María Tarriba.
This US election outcome seems to be testing the resolve of a lot of leftists who were earlier discussing how both parties served the same masters and change wouldn’t be that different under either one. A lot of them have quickly turned to doomerism after years of seemingly expecting this outcome.
In Guatemala it’s more of a shoulder shrug. We weren’t expecting much from Kamala and Trump didn’t really have any major impact on us. No more than every other President that’s been increasingly anti-immigrant
The decision to include the Gaza genocide in the list followed Wikipedia’s formal Request for Comment process, which began in July. Editors supporting the inclusion argued that it met the page’s criteria of events “classified by significant scholarship” as genocide. They also pointed out that the Gaza situation had stronger scholarly consensus than some existing entries on the list, such as the Darfur and Rohingya genocides.
Even
pedia has agreed that it is genocide, in case any libs in your life still have doubts they love Wikipedia don't they?US officially announced donald trump as the next elected president, all the news sites from CNN to FOX have called it for trump
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2024/11/06/trump-harris-presidential-election-live-updates/ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/11/5/us-election-results-live-polls-shut-in-trump-harris-indiana-kentucky-race https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/2024-presidential-election-results-news https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/election-trump-harris-11-06-24/index.html
it seems kamala's strategy of not trying fucking flopped, who knew?
It also seems that republicans have gained a majority in every branch of government. the senate and the governors have a republican majority, while the house is still heavily contested, but leaning towards republicans.
what does this change? nothing. America is descending towards fascism either way.
banger
