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.

  • Teekeeus [comrade/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Australia Plans $3B Fund to Expedite US Nuclear Sub Delivery

    Australia is planning to invest $3 billion over the next five years to expedite the delivery of five nuclear-powered submarines purchased from the US earlier this year.

    In an interview with Breaking Defense, Royal Australian Navy Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead explained that Canberra is putting the money into long-lead items and to “help fund the expansion of American shipyards that will build and retrofit the Australian subs.”

    “It’s partly long-lead items, but it’s also partly working on those yards where our submarines will come out of for us,” he explained.

    No further details were revealed, though Australia’s defense budget will fall from $154 to $152.5 billion over the next five years, meaning the funds will probably not be distributed for at least two years.

    Australia plans to cover two-thirds of its submarine budget for the next decade with savings from a canceled multi-billion-dollar submarine deal with France, and a further $3-billion budget absorption elsewhere in defense.

    Mead estimated that the Virginia-class submarines will be fast-tracked to Australia in the early 2030s.

    Back in March, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described his bilateral talks with US President Joe Biden as “the single biggest leap” in the country’s defense capability.

    The nuclear submarine deal was signed after 18 months of negotiations, made possible by the trilateral AUKUS partnership to promote cooperation on undersea capabilities.

    The agreement will produce the first-ever group of nuclear submarines exported from the US since the 1960s, when Washington backed Britain by designing its undersea fleet.

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

        To be honest its not like this deal is a W for Australia either lol. Only ones winning here are as always the Americans.

        • Teekeeus [comrade/them]
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yeah, the southern anglos are paying billions to increase the nuclear capabilities of the americans as well as (apparently) becoming a nuclear waste dumping ground for america and britain

          how does that in any way benefit the australians lmao

          • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
            ·
            1 year ago

            it doesn't, I only mentioned the french because they're clearly being targeted by the US and getting economically damaged by it