Image is of General Abdourahamane Tiani, leader of Niger (left) and Ibrahim Traoré, leader of Burkina Faso (right).
The Alliance of Sahel States (ASS) formed on September 16th in the wake of the coup in Niger in late July, in which Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso created a military and increasingly economic alliance in which attacking one would result in the other two joining. This was initially most relevant militarily, as ECOWAS was threatening an invasion of Niger if they did not restore civilian rule. Nonetheless, due to a mixture of a lack of real strength in ECOWAS due to Nigeria's internal problems, and the influence of Algeria, a very strong regional military power who negotiated against a war which could further destabilise an already destabilised region, and the vague promises of future civilian rule, the external military threat seems to have mostly dissipated.
However, internal threats remain. Burkina Faso is fighting against ISIS and al-Qaeda, which commit regular massacres of civilians; the government controls only 60% of the country. In Mali, the government is fighting against similar groups as well as the Tuareg, which inhabit the more sparsely populated north of the country - the government is in the process of kicking out the UN mission to Mali, and in the process retaking rebel stronghold cities like Kidal, which is raising some eyebrows as to what exactly the UN was doing all this time; and Niger is fighting against similar Islamic groups too, and is kicking out the French for being exploitative motherfuckers. Combine this with the sanctions against Niger which are crippling the country, disease outbreaks in Burkina Faso, and just the general shitty state of the world economy, and the situation is not looking very good currently.
That all being said, economy and trade ministers from all three countries have met this past weekend in Bamako, the capital of Mali. There, they recommended that the countries: improve the free movement of people inside the ASS (don't laugh!); construct and strengthen infrastructure like dams and roads; construct a food safety system; establish a stabilization fund and investment bank; and even create a common airline. This is all attracting foreign attention too - Russia has signed a deal to build Africa's largest gold refinery in Mali, and China is the second largest investor into Niger after France, ploughing money into the gold and uranium industries there. And, of course, the Wagner group is in the region - though I'm unsure if they're having a major or minor impact on events there.
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Your Wednesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Thursday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
The Country of the Week is Burkina Faso! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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. Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
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.
China's pharmaceutical price negotiations are fucking ruthless holy crap
China is so fucking stupid. If you make your pharmaceutical drugs cost 30 times less than in the US, then that'll reduce your GDP. Morons.
(/s to be safe)
Sarcasm for the overall tenor, because the reality is that’s exactly how GDP works.
Edit: my understanding is, let’s say China sells this for $280 domestically and exports it for the same amount. Some US drug company buys for $280 and sells it in the US for $9,000. US GDP goes up by $8,720. I think even if the Chinese company sells it direct in the US for $9,000, US GDP goes up by $8,720 but I could be mixing up GDP and GNP there.
It depends on the method of calculation, but that is generally how GDP ks calculated, yes. If a hospital buys an aspirin pill for $0.10 and charges a patient $10 for it, GDP is increased by $10.00.
GDP gap that the US has over everyone is just bullshit
It's not even just bullshit, it's actually actively detrimental at a certain point. You could have a country that is socialist as fuck with low prices for most goods and services and low income inequality and no tax loopholes etc, and that country could be healthy and happy and powerful and industrial as fuck, even the sole world superpower. So not China now, but maybe in a few decades, or a century or so, idk.
And that hypothetical country could have a lower GDP than a country which a desolate capitalist hellscape where people have the absolute bare minimum amount of money to survive and have to pay unbelievable amounts of money just to access basic services, rent is sky high, etc etc, which has a miserable, unhealthy population both physically and mentally, and with military gadgets that don't really work and with industries that pump out useless garbage.
People calling China the "second-largest economy" is like comparing two elephants, one which is large and healthy, and the other which is horrifically malformed with throbbing tumors and bone growths, and saying "Well, as the second one is heavier than the first, I think we can all clearly see the superior elephant here." After all, infinite growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
Buying and reselling magic cards to raise my houshold's gdp
Even if you want to discard this as CCTV propaganda, it's telling that state propaganda in China shows the government playing hardball with pharmaceutical companies instead of giving the sacklers another fucking day in open air when they should be in the bottom of a pit filled with lye.
Still, I will never forgive the Chinese government for wanting to charge for Covid vaccine.
It wasn’t until the Delta strain started to circulate that they were worried enough about the persistent economic impact to roll out a nationwide free vaccination program.
The way that was delivered killed me, you can hear the camera person appreciated it too.
four is an unlucky number in Chinese culture (sounds similar to the word for die)
I got the vibe that was just a “we have you over a flame, we can justify it however we want” kind of thing. Who wouldn’t enjoy telling a Purdue rep they have to charge less because Venus is in retrograde?
I think it's the opposite. The rep purposely said 4.40 knowing that it would be rejected because no one is going to want to buy medicine priced at 4.40. As a bad faith offer, it's a subtle "fuck you" to the CPC rep.
Correct read. Non-Chinese need to understand that this is more like a cultural norm/rule than a mere superstition. No way pharm rep wasn’t fully aware.
I think you could even read the CPC rep saying 再降四分钱 to imply "how about you drop dead and divvy up your money" (but I'm a noob + definitely reading too much into it)
Best thing I've seen in months lol.