Bulletins and News Discussion from September 9th to September 15th, 2024 - Viva Sandino! - COTW: Nicaragua

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It takes very little effort to find an article from Western state propaganda decrying Daniel Ortega and the Sandinistas as authoritarian and rife with human rights abuses. This is the natural reaction the US has to any successful liberation movement. This fairly long report from Jason Cohen, a socialist who travelled to Nicaragua one week ago, should quell any suspicions.

He describes a country with high political consciousness among the masses, who are working to construct critical infrastructure for the country and their communities. There is a virtual education system that is free across the entire nation, which serves the dual goal of democratizing education and ensuring that those in rural areas or without much free time for university can still achieve degrees and a quality education; and these classes cover technical skills in the production of infrastructure and agriculture, but also political and ideological education in order to counter the fascist propaganda produced by imperialist nations abroad.

While Nicaragua is deeply invested in its nationality and national figures who led to their socialist revolution, such as Sandino, they are also immensely proud of their indigneous history, recognizing it as also part of their anti-colonial history which continues to the present day. Additionally, they honour the struggles of other nations on the continent, such as the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, as well as Castro in Cuba and Allende in Chile. Countries around the world are also celebrated and admired, such as Burkina Faso; during the Reagan administration, Nicaragua and Burkina Faso were comrades in arms, and now Traore is continuing the legacy of Sankara's anti-imperialism in the present. Perhaps most relevant today is their dedication towards Palestine, involving the creation of the Parque Palestina (shown in the post image), in which the Palestinian flag flies alongside the flag of Nicaragua. In July, Leila Khaled of the PFLP gave a speech in Nicaragua, in which the solidarity of the two nations was highlighted.

The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

The Country of the Week is Nicaragua! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

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Bolivia inks $976mn deal with Russia to tap world’s largest lithium reserves
Bolivia has clinched a significant deal with Russia’s Uranium One Group, owned by state-run nuclear corporation Rosatom, to establish a lithium carbonate production facility in the Salar de Uyuni, one of the world's largest lithium-bearing salt flats.
The $976mn project will use Russian Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) technology, enabling the production of up to 14,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium annually. This is a key step in Bolivia’s ambition to industrialise its vast lithium reserves, which are estimated to be the largest globally, at around 23mn tonnes.
Last year, Uranium One, along with Chinese companies CBC and Citic Guoan Group, was chosen to set up pilot DLE plants in Bolivia, which are expected to expand to industrial-scale operations over time. The Bolivian government has set a target of exporting 50,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent each year, aiming to establish the country as a key player in the global lithium supply chain, particularly for electric vehicle batteries.
This is fairly significant. Bolivia has a lot of lithium reserves (hence elon musk's threat to coup bolivia) but their reserves are jot amenable to the same type of extraction technologies as are used further south in Chile/Argentina in the salt flats. Conventional techniques involve drilling wells to pumping lithium containing salt brine to the surface, evaporating it in the sun, then processing the leftover salt. This requires a lot of disturbance area and leaves a bunch of salt waste. It also requires the right kind of dry climate. Direct lithium extraction involves pumping up that same brine and then recovering lithium through chemical means, then returning the lithium depleted brine back underground. This approach is akin to SAGD oil recovery in Canada or insitu uranium leaching in Kazakhstan.
Setting aside the technical aspect of this project, obviously the ties to Russia and China are an important bulwark against the American Monroe doctrine.
- Also the news site linked here, bne intellinews, is quite good and worth reading. There is a fair amount of lib opeds but it is centered on the material reality of the resource industry and geopolitics in Europe. The founder, Ben Aris, is very sympathetic to ukraine and dislikes Putin, but those facts haven't made him completely turn off his brain like so many other western journalists. He's appeared on the radio war nerd podcast a few times, and is most worth listening to when discussing eastern European energy issues.

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