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Bulletins and News Discussion from March 17th to March 23rd, 2025 - The Kafue River Dies - COTW: Zambia

Image is of the breach in the tailings dam near Kitwe.

On February 18th, 50 million liters of acidic waste from a copper mine was accidentally released into the Kafue River after a tailings dam collapsed. The Kafue River stretches for a thousand miles across Zambia and a majority of the country - millions of people - rely on it, for both the economy and drinking water.

The results have already been catastrophic. The water supply for the city of Kitwe, home to 700,000 people, was completely shut off. As the wave of contamination moved downstream, a wave of death accompanied it as dead fish dotted the river surface. The government is dropping lime into the river to try and counteract the acid with an alkali and neutralize the water, but the tailings also contain toxic heavy metals that will undoubtably seep into the nearby environment and affect the area for years to come.

A considerable portion of the media attention to the accident has been devoted to the fact that the mine was Chinese-owned, as well as China's broader influence and investment in the region. Western anti-China propaganda aside, it has been clear to those in the know that these mines have been badly managed and needlessly dangerous for years now, and it is disappointing - to say the least - to see disasters of this magnitude occur from Chinese businesses. Hopefully this prompts a wave of investigations into China-owned mine managers all around the continent, who will then hopefully face real consequences for their actions.

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1K comments

  • The Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum has recognised the State of Palestine and also welcomed the ambassador.

    Mexico also continues support South Africa's case in the ICJ against piSSrael even after the elections.

    Death to ameriKKKa, Death to isnotreal

  • VOA is officially gone, 1000 staff now jobless. I think even I have underestimated how much this is going to harm the US' propaganda machine. That is a huge fucking number. To put this in perspective BBC news has 7000 staff and that is global and absolutely fucking massive. 1000 is incredibly large for a propaganda outfit.

    Chen does not fuck around in celebrating

  • BBC newscaster literally just used the words “kidnapped from his tank” to refer to an Israeli prisoner shortly before David Mencer, the Israeli spokesperson, blew up on him for “spreading Hamas propaganda”

    What the fuuuuck

  • The UK and Germany have updated their travel guides and added alerts for their nationals wishing to enter the US. There are several cases of foreigners from the Global North being detained and even arrested when trying to enter the US legally: A Frenchman, who was barred for criticizing Trump online; A Canadian woman, who spent two weeks detained at the border with Mexico; A British woman, who was detained for 10 days at the border; Three Germans who were detained and deported.

    Germany and the UK now put in their guides that no matter what your documentation, "you can be arrested or detained" and that "the final word is with the border agent", who can refuse entry to the tourist for no apparent reason.

    • Telegram

  • Countries "condemning" Israel's actions is really irking me. They're practically just saying "uhhh you can't do that that's bad and stuff" and calling it a day while Israel continues to slaughter innocents. Something tells me none of them are serious about it.

    I'll only take their words seriously if they cut off trade/relations or otherwise start lobbing bombs at Israel, otherwise it's a fucking nothingburger.

    The fact that almost the entire world continues to sit by and watch this happen while going "Ooohhh that's bad nonono don't do that!" and doing nothing else once again reinforces my stance that this world is not worth living in.

  • In this clip, Elon Musk and Ted Cruz inadvertently discovered that what MMT has been saying all along is, in fact, true lol.

    The Treasury simply orders the Fed to create new money out of nothing. The US government doesn’t need to tax before it can spend, nor does it need to “borrow” from private investors or foreign countries via bonds before it can spend.

    • Well obviously. There are so many people who believe that money literally grows on trees and the government can't spend more money because the money harvest wasn't good this year! Even during the gold standard era that wasn't true, the government and the banks were still allowed to print money out of nothing.

      I find it best to always start the explanation with "so we both agree that at some moment in the past, there was zero [insert currency] on planet Earth, right?".

    • Did he just call them magical money computers, lol. His tone was almost like 'this is bad, we should shut these down.'(they will never do that).

    • You'd think that as a fucking billionaire capitalist, he would know this. I guess he has financial and legal and tax advisors who know that stuff for him, though. When he bothers to listen to them.

      Still, like, while the meritocracy was always fake, industrial capitalists used to educate themselves reasonably well in order to effectively defend their property. Not hard to do when you have the time and resources and don't really have to do anything else.

      This is so fucking pathetic.

      • he was obsessively tweeting Milton Friedman, so did he eat his own class' propaganda? or does he know the reality now? maybe now he knows federal government isn't financially constrained but still goes with the neoclassical nonsense publicly to further his own class interests.

    • This is not even half of what MMT says but sure. Its like saying Musks discovers Marx was right because he actualy needs to hire workers in order for Tesla/SpaceX to actualy make anything.

    • As someone who's not an expert on MMT, why is our debt so high then? Why do we borrow at all? Just to maintain the illusion?

      Also, how come countries in the past would have super high inflation creating too much money out of nothing? How does that not happen to the US? They destroy enough money they take in through tax to make up for it?

      Been following MMT discourse on hexbear for awhile and am halfway through Randall Wray lecture you posted before, but those are two questions that popped in my head during it.

      • Interest on debt is free money for debt holders. Whenever Fed raises rates, the bondholders get more money while those who are indebted (more likely to be poor) pay more in interest on their debts.

        As for Zimbabwe and Weimar

        As for the U.S. and the West, it's through coercion they create an external demand for their currency despite large trade deficits, U.S. having the reserve currency (but even other currencies like Pound, Euro, Yen to a lesser extent) can have others hold financial assets denominated in their currencies. Countries like Argentina and most other global south countries don't have that privilege, they have to obtain these first world currencies to import, they do this by trying to export commodities (but this can be problematic since primary commodity prices in international markets fluctuate widely due to bubbles), by going to IMF/WB who then force the country to open up to foreign investors and austerity or trying to attract 'investors', though in many cases they can be more speculators.

        For example, developing countries try to attract western capitalists to invest in their local stock market, they buy up all the stocks (appreciating the exchange rate and undermining export capacity of the country), in order to please them further they offer full capital account convertibility (i.e. no capital controls). This does bring in the Dollars and can build up foreign currency reserves. But when, say U.S. raises interest rates or investors think currency might depreciate and lower their returns, they flee back to U.S. Treasuries' free zero-risk money. This has been happening recently, since October 2024. In this process, the country's currency depreciates and cause pass-through inflation, especially because subsidies on essential goods are discouraged by the neoliberal institutions like WTO, IMF etc.

        And global south countries tend to have large informal sectors where taxes can be difficult to collect. For example, sales taxes can be easy to collect from formal sector companies but difficult in petty production and informal sector.

        ...

        So, external debt whether in foreign currency or domestic currency can be problematic for developing countries. Former much more so than latter. With domestic currency denominated debt owned by foreigners, the foreigners could sell their debt for domestic currency and simply exchange it for Dollars in the forex market (capital account convertibility). Of course, in this case, a floating exchange rate acts somewhat as a deterrence since if the foreigners exchange too much currency at once, the exchange rate depreciates and reduces their Dollar returns. And, there have been cases where countries have told foreigners to fuck off and prevent such conversions or offer 'artificially' low rates to limit depreciation.

        External debt in foreign currency is very problematic, this can be done by both domestic private and public sector. Since the country has to acquire foreign currency through exports and/or capital inflows. If the country's trade/capital flows gets compressed (say, due to COVID), they are in trouble, they'll have to draw down their forex reserves they built up in the past and/or try purchasing foreign currency in the forex market, this can be very damaging and can trigger a continuous depreciation and potentially, hyperinflation. In case of private sector foreign currency debt, they are more likely to just default since they are financially constrained (unless govt rescues them). However, for sovereigns, foreign currency debt default creates political problems for the country.

      • Apart from what the other user has said, let’s walk through this in a manner that I hope is as simple as possible.

        First, bear in mind that “debt” simply means promise. I owe you something. I am indebted to you. It means I promise to pay/give something back to you at some point in the future.

        If you take some money from your checking account and buy a Certificate of Deposit of 2 years to earn, say, 3% interest, you are effectively transferring the money from your checking account to a new savings account. The bank “borrows” from you by safekeeping the money for the next 2 years in the new savings account, then return that same amount of money + interests when it matures. Note that nothing actually changes, except that you cannot use that money for 2 years.

        The government debt functions the same way by “borrowing” from private investors. This used to serve a function in the old days when national currencies were tied to gold, or another currency. This is known as the “fixed exchange” currency regime, as opposed to the “floating exchange” system we have today in the modern financial system where for many countries, their currencies are not tied to anything.

        To understand why government debt matters in the past but not today, we need to learn about the difference between fixed and floating exchange regimes.

        In the gold standard era (or the Bretton Woods era when currencies were pegged to US dollar, and the US dollar itself was pegged to gold), you need to accumulate reserves (e.g. gold) before you can issue the currency of an equivalent amount. That’s because in a fixed exchange system, you are promising that, say, 1 oz of gold can be exchanged for $35. If you do not have enough gold reserves to back your exchange rate of $35 to 1 oz gold, then you have to devalue your currency if you want to print more money.

        This becomes a problem when it comes to government spending. Let’s take a simple example of a small economy with $100M worth of gold reserve. In principle, you can issue $100M of currency into the economy. You have enough gold to support the exchange rate you have set.

        Now, let’s say you want to build a hospital that costs $10M - you can simply print the $10M into the economy, but you would end up with $110M of currency in the system, but only $100M worth of gold reserve.

        To defend that exchange rate, you have to take $10M out of the circulation. There are two ways you can do this: first, by taxation (this is where the myth of “taxing billionaires to fund healthcare” comes from - the government doesn’t need the money itself creates, it simply wants to take the money out so it can defend its own exchange rate).

        Second, by issuing government bonds. Unlike taxation, which collects money from the people and then destroys the money, government bonds act exactly like a savings account - you let the government safekeep the money for you over, say, 10 years while you get to earn interests. This way, you still get to keep your money, you simply can’t use them for 10 years, and you get interest payment every year as a bonus. This is another way to take $10M out of the system - but note that the government “borrows” not because it needs your money, it simply wants to take the money out of the system to defend the exchange rate.

        Of course, there are other ways, like increasing your gold supply. You can dig for more gold within your national boundary, you can export goods to other countries and use those revenues to purchase gold, you can colonize another country and steal their gold. Many ways to do that. The government can even choose to devalue its own currency, or simply default when it can no longer keep its “promise” (paying its “debt”).

        The upshot here is that when your currency is pegged to something else (fixed exchange rate), you have limited fiscal space to grow your economy. This is why the Bretton Woods system didn’t last long and, when the US overspent its dollars during the Vietnam War, culminated in the French asking the US to pay them in gold instead of dollars. Nixon ended the Bretton Woods and we have since entered a new phase of fiat monetary system.

        So, what is the role of the government bond in a “floating exchange” system, then?

        First, we need to learn a bit about central banking operations. It’s pure accounting but you will need to understand this to make sense about why the US government still continues to issue treasury bonds.

        The Central Bank (Federal Reserve in the US) has special accounts known as Reserve accounts. These reserves are only accessible to other banks, and not the general public. Commercial banks have Reserve accounts with the Central Bank. The Treasury also has an account (Treasury General Account, or TGA) with the Central Bank.

        When the Federal Government wants to spend $10M to contract a company to build a hospital, the TGA goes into negative $10M at the Central Bank. The Central Bank then creates an equivalent positive $10M at the Reserve account of the Commercial Bank, where the Private Contractor’s deposit account is linked to. The Commercial Bank then creates $10M deposits at the Private Contractor’s deposit account, which it can then spend to hire labor, purchase raw materials etc. to build the hospital.

        Note that the Commercial Bank now still has +$10M in its Reserve account. Because these are dead money, the Commercial Bank will want to lend it out to earn some interests. These reserves are only accessible in the Central Bank (not available to the public), so it will try to lend them out in the interbank market at the Central Bank, where other banks have their reserve accounts linked to.

        What are reserves then? They are what banks use to clear everyday payments! When you take a $1000 check (payer has a different bank to yours) to a bank to deposit the money, Bank A doesn’t have to “send” any money to Bank B. Instead, Bank A (payer bank) subtracts $1000 from its Reserve account and Bank B (recipient bank) adds $1000 in its Reserve account, then creates an equivalent $1000 in your Deposit account. Therefore, the reserves allow banks to clear payments very rapidly (we’re talking about billions of transactions every single day!) and this is an essential component to support a highly efficient modern economy.

        As you can see, by the end of every business day, some banks will have less reserves (because more money is withdrawn from their banks) and some banks will have more reserves. There is a legal requirement to keep a minimum amount reserves relative to the bank’s assets (Reserve Requirement Ratio). To meet this legal requirement, the banks will have to make sure they have this minimum amount of reserves by the end of every day (of course, in reality this is audited over an average of period).

        There are two ways a bank can increase its reserves: it can directly borrow from the Central Bank (Discount Window lending), but because the government doesn’t want to encourage banks to keep borrowing to fill their reserves, they will usually set some penalty. So, the second way to increase reserve is to borrow reserves from another bank via the interbank market within the Central Bank.

        Now we’re back to the above scenario where the Commercial Bank has racked up an extra $10M reserves it wants to lend out via the interbank market. However, many other Commercial Banks also want to lend out their excess reserves, and will compete with one another by lending at a lower rate. Without any intervention, this competition will quickly drive the interest rate down to 0%.

        Usually, this is not a problem if the government wants to run a 0% interest rate policy. However, if the government is targeting, say, 2% interest rate, then it will have to intervene at the interbank market.

        Remember that the Treasury General Account (TGA) went into negative $10M after government spending? This account also needs to be balanced out so it runs a surplus or at zero balance.

        Usually there are laws where the Central Bank is not allowed to purchase bonds directly from the Treasury, so to fix this, the government simply issues Treasury bonds at the target rate it wants (2%) to “borrow” from the secondary market (the Commercial Banks).

        This solves two problems at the same time: first, by setting an interest of 2%, the government has guaranteed that the interest rate will not be driven down to 0%, because every bank with excess reserve will rather lend to the government’s 2% interest. (This is how the Fed rate determines interest rate in commercial banks); and second, the negative TGA account can be filled up.

        Thus, government debt simply soaks up the excess reserve created by the Treasury to finance a $10M hospital in the first place! Government debt = deficit = spending - tax!

        To re-iterate:

        1. Congress passes spending bill, which includes building a $10M hospital
        2. Treasury spends by having the TGA going into negative $10M
        3. Federal Reserve adds $10M matching reserves in the Commercial Bank from the TGA deficit
        4. Commercial Bank adds $10M deposits in the Private Contractor account, which it can then use to build hospital
        5. Commercial Bank still left with $10M reserves, and wanting to lend out these excess reserves
        6. Treasury issues bond to soak up the $10M reserves that itself created in the first place

        Steve Keen has a nice double entry bookkeeping illustration to keep track of how the spending works, if you’re interested in the details:

        The final point to make is that this only applies if the government wants to run a >0% interest rate. If it doesn’t want to target any interest rate, it can simply let the reserves build up in the system. This whole system is inherited from an already defunct financial structure during the gold standard/Bretton Woods era.

      • Also, how come countries in the past would have super high inflation creating too much money out of nothing?

        They have debt obligations in foreign currencies or their productive base collapsed

        Why do we borrow at all?

        A percentage of our debt is bought by the federal reserve already. They can buy 100% of it if needed like how Japan has been doing it for decades now. Perhaps the system exists to act as a lever to either juice or slow down the economy?

        I like this link for a shortish explanation of MMT https://www.law.georgetown.edu/environmental-law-review/blog/federal-taxes-do-not-finance-spending-and-cost-benefit-analysis-must-change/

  • The British troops I talked about being on a secret mission in Ukraine came back suspiciously at the exact same time US intelligence sharing was restarted. One of them reported to me that they were in a place close enough to the lines where artillery fire was constant, never stopped. My guess is they were in or near Kursk.

  • The Vatican announces that Pope Francis will be discharged from hospital tomorrow, the 23rd. He was hospitalized five weeks ago with a polymicrobial infection, bronchitis and pneumonia in both lungs.

    The Pope is now breathing without an apparatus and will appear at the window of Gemelli Hospital before embarking for Santa Marta House, the official papal residence. Francis will need to rest for two months to complete his treatment.

    • Telegram

    Tradcaths in shambles rn

  • The first footage has been released, Xcancel mirror of the US Air Force, Navy or Marine Corps using APKWS laser guided rockets to shoot down Ansarallah (known as the Houthis in western media) drones and cruise missiles. I was talking a few days ago about how this was already happening, but now it's confirmed by video footage from CENTCOM themselves.

    What is APKWS? To put it simply, APKWS is a conversion kit that turns unguided Hydra-70 rockets (of which 5 million exist) into laser guided short range missiles. Similar to how a Paveway kit turns an unguided bomb into a laser guided bomb, or a JDAM kit turns an unguided bomb into a GPS guided bomb, APKWS turns unguided rockets into guided missiles. APKWS was first designed only to be used against ground targets, but the Ukrainians, when firing them from their VAMPIRE ground and sea based launch systems, proved that it can be used successfully against cruise missiles and drones, and as a result the US military is doing the same, and even planning modifications to APKWS to make it even more effective against air targets, such as adding infrared terminal guidance.

    Ukrainian VAMPIRE system taking out Russian cruise missiles and drones

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    Why is this significant? For two reasons: cost and magazine size. APKWS is very cheap, the guidance section only costs $15 000, and the warheads and rocket motors, of which millions are currently in US stockpiles, only cost a few thousand dollars each, for a total cost of between $20 000 - $25 000 per missile/guided rocket. In comparison, an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile launched from US fighter aircraft costs upwards of $400 000 each, and the ship launched SM series of interceptors cost anywhere from $2 -$9 million, depending on the model. So this is a very significant cost saving for the US, the APKWS guided rockets might even be cheaper than the drones and cruise missiles they shoot down.

    The second is magazine size. While a fighter aircraft can only carry a handful of sidewinders and other air to air missiles at a time, it can carry dozens of APKWS rockets at a time, as these rockets can be fitted on seven shot rocket pods, which only take up one hardpoint each. This F/A-18 has 14 APKWS guided rockets on one wing (two 7 shot launchers), for a total of 28 guided rockets if the loadout is replicated symmetrically on the other wing. Note with the adaptor, that two seven shot rocket pods are only using a single hardpoint.

    These two factors make defending against drone swarms a possibility, both in terms of being cost effective, and in terms of the amount of guided rockets available at a single given time for intercept missions. This could be why drone and cruise missile attacks on US Navy ships are not as effective as before. While in Ukraine the use of APKWS guided rockets is limited to their ground and sea based launching systems, such as technicals and fastboats, the United States does not have such limitations and can fit these to aircraft, enabling defence over a much wider area. The APKWS guided rockets themselves have a very short range, only a few kilometres/miles, meaning that they can only defend a very limited area from ground/sea based launch platforms. So mounting them to a fighter aircraft vastly increases the area that can be defended by them, and detection capabilities for drones out of range of the APKWS (fighter aircraft have their own radar).

    Make no mistake, the US military is learning their lessons when it comes to the Ukraine war, the confrontations with Ansarallah in the Red Sea, and defending against Iranian ballistic missiles.

  • I'm quite bothered by burned teslas ngl. This is what crosses threshold for property destruction in america? not making bombs, or selling oxycodone, or closing factories, or shipping bombs for genocide, it's fucking doge closing usaid. I dunno how to interpret it, is it opportunity vs premediation? Batshit civic religion?

    It puts me roughly in the same bafflement as gore vidal meeting kissinger and just thinking of quips

  • It turns out Traore has a Twitter account:
    https://xcancel.com/CapitaineIb226/status/1902814032848982264

    Frncais:

    C'est avec une légitime fierté que j'ai inauguré, ce jour 20 mars 2025, à Laongo dans la commune de Ziniaré, région du Plateau-Central, la cimenterie de la Société Industrielle Sino Burkina de Ciments SA (CISINOB SA).

    D'une capacité de production de 2000 tonnes par jour, elle procurera à la jeunesse de mon pays des centaines d'emplois.

    Je félicite les promoteurs!

    Cet investissement est le symbole d'un partenariat respectueux de notre souveraineté et mutuellement avantageux entre la République populaire de Chine et le Burkina Faso.

    À tous les amis du Burkina Faso, nous restons ouverts aux partenariats sincères et respectueux de notre souveraineté.

    Englsh:

    It is with legitimate pride that I inaugurated, today, March 20, 2025, in Laongo in the commune of Ziniaré, Plateau-Central region, the cement plant of the Société Industrielle Sino Burkina de Ciments SA (CISINOB SA).

    With a production capacity of 2,000 tonnes per day, it will provide hundreds of jobs for the youth of my country.

    I congratulate the promoters!

    This investment is a symbol of a partnership that respects our sovereignty and is mutually beneficial between the People's Republic of China and Burkina Faso.

    To all friends of Burkina Faso, we remain open to sincere partnerships that respect our sovereignty.

  • US airstrikes continue on Yemen for the 8th night in a row, with multiple strikes on Hodeidah International Airport. Also lots of Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon and Syria over the past few days.

    Multiple strikes in Marib Governorate.

    Sixth round of airstrikes at Hodeidah International Airport.

    More strikes on Saada (apparently these strikes targeted new areas for the first time), and no statement from the Yemeni Armed Forces tonight. There were reports of the US Navy intercepting a ballistic missile heading towards Israel. Given that the Carrier Strike Group (CSG) can operate around Jeddah (only around 700km from Yemen) now, it's feasible for them to perform interceptions of Yemeni ballistic missiles heading towards Israel now if necessary, earlier than Arrow 3 interceptors launched from Israel itself. This stops the air raid sirens from going off inside Israel if the intercept is successful.

    Also strikes reported at missile launch platforms and military sites in Marib and Al-Jawf governorates.

    Another ballistic missile fired at Israel from Yemen, this one was intercepted by Israeli Arrow 3 interceptors over Saudi Arabia or Jordan, and the air raid sirens did go off. So the US Navy did not intercept that one. Still no statement from the Yemeni Armed Forces on these activities.

    Al Masirah TV twitter

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  • Looks like the feds are properly starting Anonymous back up again. This dude seems to take them seriously as a "decentralised group". They're feds, they've always been feds, this shit is fake resistance intended to fuck with us and gain influence among anarchists. I suspect it'll turn into anti-tankie left splitting or whatever at some point.

    https://youtu.be/RjuX1VbTsto

  • I'm usually yapping about Lebanese government formations and Iraqi shia cults here, but this time I want other nerds to yap here. What's going on in Zambia or Zimbabwe or Mozambique or Angola or Botswana or Malawi or any African nation that isn't under French financial strangulation like the ones in West Africa? How are their economies doing? Native corruption or European shenanigans? Are the Chinese cooking anything there? Are they producing anything interesting? Any cultural output that is interesting? How does an average day look in Maputo or Lusaka or Luanda or anywhere? I only hear about these nations whenever their football team is playing in the AFCON, but I literally haven't read anything interesting about these countries in a long time.

  • I want to share a short article published a while back (Dec 2024) made by one of the most progressive organizations in my country and the continuation of colonial-era suppression of communism and socialism.

    Who is promoting communism?

    Many years ago, I wore a Che Guevara T-shirt at a rally near Parliament. A special branch officer approached me and asked whose portrait it was, as he had seen it many times before. I jokingly told him it was an actor. The policeman immediately replied, “No wonderlah, so familiar,” explaining that he had seen it at football matches and in theatres. Indeed, Che Guevara’s image was popularized further by the movie The Motorcycle Diaries. Che has long been a symbol of liberation and resistance. He was killed in Bolivia under orders from the CIA.

    Recently, I was baffled to hear about the arrest of a restaurant manager for using food and beverage utensils featuring images of Mao Zedong, the former leader of the Chinese Communist Party. It made me reflect on how I was let off for wearing a T-shirt with the image of another leftist leader. I imagine the police might now be busy Googling Che Guevara. Interestingly, our second Prime Minister, Tun Razak, met Mao in 1974, and the iconic image of their meeting was widely used by the newly minted Barisan Nasional during the 1974 General Election. This was part of their effort to gain the support of Malaysian Chinese voters after losing their two-thirds majority in the 1969 election.

    The recent raid in Klang reportedly involved police seizing five white ceramic bowls with Chinese inscriptions and images of Mao Zedong and his associates. This comes barely two weeks after the government lost a lawsuit over the seizure of 172 Swatch watches from 11 shopping malls in May 2023. At that time, the watches were accused of promoting LGBTQ themes. The Kuala Lumpur High Court ruled that the Ministry of Home Affairs must return the rainbow-themed watches, finding the seizure to be illegal.

    Do the authorities not realize that the internet and social media are the primary tools for people to learn about ideologies? Ironically, by drawing attention to Mao, they may spark curiosity among young people who might now Google him and learn more.

    Similarly, in 2011, police arrested 31 PSM activists, accusing them of “waging war against the King” because they allegedly sought to resurrect communism in Malaysia. Among the items seized were T-shirts featuring the names of Rashid Maidin and Suriani Abdullah, both associated with the MCP (Malayan Communist Party). However, the real reason for the crackdown was PSM’s “Udah La Tu, Bersaralah BN” campaign, a roadshow launched on June 24, 2011, as part of the buildup to the Bersih 2.0 rally on July 9, 2011.

    All 31 PSM members were eventually released. However, six leaders were later detained under the Emergency Ordinance (EO) for being “movers” of Bersih 2.0, not for any communist activities. Interestingly, the government’s 37 affidavits in reply to the detainees’ habeas corpus application did not mention communism, socialism, or Chin Peng at all.

    Fortunately, PSM pursued a civil suit against 82 individuals for wrongful arrest and false imprisonment of the EO6. In 2013, the six detainees were awarded RM201,000 in damages through an out-of-court settlement.

    The lesson here seems clear: the shop owner in the recent case may similarly file a civil suit and potentially walk away richer. The Attorney General might charge them with something other than promoting communism, but in doing so, they could inadvertently publicize Mao to those who were previously unaware of him.

    And yes, more taxpayers’ money and police resources wasted.

  • Canada claims China executed four of its citizens this year for "drug related offenses".

    I am always highly sceptical of 'China bad" news. The identities of the victims have not been made public. Nor the specific charges or details of the alleged crimes.

    However on the other hand, China does have the death penalty, and does not fuck around when it comes to drugs.

    I haven't had time to look into this closer. Chat, what say you?

  • “I am saddened by the resumption of the intense Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, with so many deaths and injuries.” Pope Francis has called on Israel to cease its attacks on Gaza and for a “definitive ceasefire”.

    • AL Jazerra English

  • A decent twitter thread of what exactly the United States has targeted in Yemen over the past week, using satellite imagery and photograph/video geolocations. Lots of factories, government buildings, industrial facilities, underground military complexes, ammunition depots and bases hit, along with universities and farmland linked to the Ansarallah government/movement (property seized by them). And right at the beginning, before the rest of the Ansarallah leadership likely went into hiding in underground facilities in the mountains, the bombing of their homes, leading to civilian casualties and killings (that I would argue were deliberate).

    Twitter thread

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    Highly recommended going through the thread to get an idea of what is being targeted. Overall it looks like the United States is trying to degrade Ansarallah's ability to run the country and industry, along with bombing any sources of revenue, along with targeting military facilities.

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