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 @[email protected]'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.
Are there any good summaries of the Ukraine war in The Ukraine so far? I haven't been keeping up with the news on this much for the past seven or eight months.
What's the consensus around here on what the end of the war will look like in general? From the discussion I've seen, it looks like Russia is firmly dug in and fortified, while Ukraine can't seem to make any significant breakthroughs. Does Russia already have all the territory it wants and is now simply waiting for attrition to cause Ukraine to either surrender or rout?
the past year can be summarized in a single sentence tbh: "Russia and Ukraine fought over Bakhmut for months on end, Russia eventually managed to take control in May, all this time Russia constructed defenses in Zaporozhye oblast, Ukraine started the counteroffensive in June, and has made almost no progress since then"
and the end result can be no more clearly determined than a year ago. Russian intentions are unknown beyond the basic maxim of "demilitarize Ukraine". negotiations still don't seem possible, so the result still seems like it will be militarily determined. there is speculation of a Russian offensive in the making, but we've been here before and I will believe it when I see it.
will they retake Kherson city? idk
will they take Odessa? idk
when will they advance on the rest of Donetsk oblast? idk
will they advance to the Dnieper? idk
how do they plan on finishing up Zaporozhye oblast in the wake of Ukraine's counteroffensive, particularly given that one of if not the largest cities they've ever had to fight for in Ukraine is still there to be taken somehow? idk
I remember thinking around about this time last year that 2023 would be the year in which Donetsk oblast would be fully cleared of Ukrainian forces, which was my massive step down from "Russia will win the war soon when Ukraine collapses". even that now seems hopelessly optimistic in retrospect. Truthfully, we're now in a strange period where there's just... nothing really going on. It's very contradictory, because at the same time that we see the Western powers just out of ammunition and weaponry to send to Ukraine now, by their own admission, and Russia increasingly gaining strength, we also see people predicting that this war will last three, five, ten years longer. It's a war that simultaneously seems like it can't go on much longer because there's no gas left in the tank, but also where there's just... nothing happening that would suggest that either side will collapse. For every dramatic proclamation by this or that person that Ukraine is out of shells, or conscription is going badly, or that Ukraine is so out of armored vehicles that it now needs to send men walking towards Russian lines, we get another proclamation that this war will last until 2027. Both cannot, as I see it, be true, and yet I don't see which one is false. The war continues in spite of the fact that it shouldn't be able to.
You haven't missed all that much honestly. Russia finally finished taking Bakhmut. Ukraine released two trailers for its offensive and then launched the offensive itself. It turns out Russia has been massively fortifying every single part of the frontline for over six months. There are multiple defensive lines that Ukraine will have to go through, each of which is composed of sublines. Ukraine has been making incredibly slow grinding progress up to the first defensive line near Tokmak. Ukraine might have finally gotten a few vehicles past the first line of dragon's teeth just this week. Russia has been making some rather minor progress as well in the east.
Somebody destroyed Kakhovka dam. Both sides blame the other. The destruction doesn't seem to have served a military purpose for either side. This dam was necessary for Russia to bring water to Crimea and for Ukraine to control the river. It might not have been blown up but was just a dam failure. I personally think Ukraine destroyed it by opening the dams upstream, flooding the reservoir, and preventing Russia from opening all the sluice gates on the Kakhovka dam.
Nothing is really happening but a lot of people are dying.
Russia's future plans are an enigma wrapped around a mystery.