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.

  • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Joe Biden urges world leaders to stop Ukraine from being ‘carved up’

    US president Joe Biden called on world leaders to oppose early peace talks that would lead to the break-up of Ukraine, arguing that standing firm against Russia’s goal of winning a big chunk of land would deter future invasions of independent nations. Biden made the appeal in his annual speech to the UN’s General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the audience.

    Biden warned that Russia was betting the world was growing “weary” of the conflict and would let Moscow “brutalise Ukraine without consequence”. While the US supported a diplomatic resolution to the war, Russia’s “price for peace” was “Ukraine’s capitulation, Ukraine’s territory and Ukraine’s children”, Biden said.

    Perhaps this could have been avoided if you went with Russia's terms in April 2022? Hell, if you tried to talk with them to avoid the conflict altogether?

    “I ask you this: If we abandon the core principles of the UN Charter to appease an aggressor, can any member state feel confident that they are protected? If we allow Ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure?” Biden asked. “The answer is no. We must stand up to this naked aggression today to deter other would-be aggressors tomorrow.”

    The United States doesn't give the slightest fuck about the core principles of the UN Charter!

    • JuryNullification [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      The day the [Iraq] war commenced, Biden told CNN: “There’s a lot of us who voted for giving the president the authority to take down Saddam Hussein if he didn’t disarm. And there are those who believe, at the end of the day, even though it wasn’t handled all that well, we still have to take him down.”

      Opinion discarded

      • Parzivus [any]
        ·
        1 year ago

        He was actually in favor of carving up Iraq as well, into a three way Sunni/Shia/Kazakhstan split.

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

      US president Joe Biden called on world leaders to oppose early peace talks that would lead to the break-up of Ukraine, arguing that standing firm against Russia’s goal of winning a big chunk of land would deter future invasions of independent nations.

      Reminds me of when Biden went to the UN and denounced Russia’s “imperial ambitions” a few weeks after awarding medals to Vietnam war vets

    • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      This is really cruel to the IMF, it's like Joe doesn't even remember that they're already doing their own carving up in Ukraine.

    • Swoosegoose [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      “I ask you this: If we abandon the core principles of the UN Charter to appease an aggressor, can any member state feel confident that they are protected?

      Is the US the most shameless country in history?

      • Teekeeus
        ·
        25 days ago

        deleted by creator

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

      geordi-no Russia taking back territory given to Ukraine by Lenin.

      geordi-yes The USA giving Ukraine a ton of loans and demanding they privatize the entire nation to pay it off.

    • DanComrd [comrade/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      My brother in Christ, the US is one of the biggest causes of a global crisis of this magnitude in recorded history. anglo-burn

    • edge [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      If we allow Ukraine to be carved up

      "Carved up" implies multiple countries taking bits. More fuel for the Poland Lwów fire.

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

      “If we allow Ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure?”

      Translation: "If we can impose this on white people, just imagine what we will do to the lesser nations"