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Bulletins and News Discussion from November 27th to December 3rd, 2023 - Pain in the ASS - COTW: Burkina Faso

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.
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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.

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1.5K comments

  • There was more sympathy in most of the Western media for that billionaire bozo who got owned in that Titanic submarine than for all the civilians murdered in the Gaza Strip, I swear to god

  • Israel has violated the ceasefire by moving their forces inside Gaza. The Resistance responded by attacking the moving force.

    Our brave fighters in the Engineering Unit successfully targeted a military force while it was passing through the Al-Ma'ani Street with a powerful explosive device of the Amjad-1 type. Additionally, our heroes engaged in fierce clashes with an infantry unit of the occupation forces in Al-Fawwar area, delivering concentrated and intense barrages of bullets, achieving confirmed hits.

    If this does escalate into a full-blown breaking of the ceasefire, I can already predict the future in perfect clarity: Israel will claim (and the western media will dutifully report) that Hamas singlehandedly broke the ceasefire by firing upon their forces, without mentioning that the terms of the ceasefire prevented them from moving their forces. Then, once people start/continue protesting against the war and demanding a ceasefire, the media's message will be something like "Why are you demanding that we make a ceasefire against the group of terrorists that just broke it? You should demand that Hamas agree to the ceasefire, not us." This squirt of squid ink will only confuse a minority of people and the rhetoric will be forgotten within two weeks when the Israelis create some new horror, just like every other major event in this war (the Baptist hospital massacre, the refugee camp massacre, the Al-Shifa occupation, etc).

    So predictable and so very, very tiring.

  • Hitler is knocking on the doors of the homes of the European and North American middle class—and many have already let him in.

    —Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia

    article

    man last year i would have never expected that the president of colombia would be the most based leader of continental latam

    we need a Petro emote

  • Israel's lack of momentum and them living through their "damn this shit is harder than expected" moment in Gaza reminds me of the Russians near Kiev back in March 2022. Difference is that Russia didn't mobilize like 10% of their population and pulling them out of the work force, and didn't have daily massive protests and internally displaced people being mad 24/7. Really feels like Israel fumbled their big moment, now they're out of momentum while Hamas is basically trolling them, and Hezbollah is making life difficult in the north and keeping everyone busy. Every single hyped PR event has failed for Israel and I'm starting to think that the US is slowly encouraging them to take a step back before internal issues tear Netanyahu's regime apart and massively destabilise the war effort.

    My respect for the Qataris has massively increased in recent weeks. They could've easily fully normalised with Israel like the UAE did, but they've carved their own little political power position that I've recently understood and appreciated. They maintain a political relationship with Israel, but that relationship has been genuinely used to improve and save Palestinian lives, like we're seeing now with the ceasefire and the prisoner swap. The traitor Emiratis normalised, fully absorbed themselves into the zionist mindset, have like 40 direct flight's to Tel Aviv every week and are slowly intertwining their economy with Israel's economy. Qatar has never accepted commercial flights from Tel Aviv directly and

  • https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-koreas-kim-received-photos-taken-by-spy-satellite-white-house-pentagon-2023-11-27/

    North Korea says its new spy satellite photographed White House, Pentagon

    SEOUL, Nov 28 (Reuters) - After decades of satellite surveillance by foreign governments and analysts, North Korea has sent its first spy satellite on a global orbit with a message to the world: we can watch you too.

    On Tuesday North Korean state media said leader Kim Jong Un had reviewed spy satellite photos of the White House, Pentagon and U.S. aircraft carriers at the naval base of Norfolk.

    North Korea last week successfully launched its first reconnaissance satellite, which it has said was designed to monitor U.S. and South Korean military movements.

    Since then state media has reported the satellite photographed cities and military bases in South Korea, Guam, and Italy, in addition to the U.S. capital.

  • He just died? Wow. I didn't know that... He led an amazing life. What else can you say? He was an amazing man, whether you agree or not. He was an amazing man who led an amazing life. I'm actually sad to hear that. Thank you very much.

  • On terf island today we have spent all fucking day long talking about Keir Sturmer because he has piled praise on Maggie Thatcher.

    I am not joking.

    Every moment of meaningful change in modern British politics begins with the realisation that politics must act in service of the British people, rather than dictating to them.

    Margaret Thatcher sought to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism.

    Labour is fucking dead mate. I mean it was a shit bougie party before but now it's a fucked up monster beyond anything Blair would have even imagined.

    If this shitbag gets into power he will kill another 2million people. Or try to do even more. Can't let Blair have the bigger death toll.

  • Just in case nobody heard, the president of the Korean Friendship Association, Alejandro Cao de Benós, was arrested in Spain because of American interference bullshit stating that he violated international law by violating American sanctions on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and is to be extradited to the U.S.A to face trial. Good news is that the comrade appeared before a Spanish judge who released him from police custody without conditions, and he states fearlessly "There will be no extradition. The US accusation, besides being false, does not exist in Spain,"

    He's a really great guy and it bothered me that he had his feathers ruffled over bullshit.

    Article from france24

  • ⚠️ CHRISTMAS ON WAR! ⚠️

    Jordan cancels Christmas festivities in light of Gaza war Jordan says the move comes in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

    Christmas is a public holiday in the Muslim-majority nation.

    But congregations will forgo public tree lightings and other celebrations to focus on religious services, the Jordan Council of Church Leaders said.

    Last week, the Bethlehem municipality in the occupied West Bank had also said it would not hold traditional festivities in Jesus’s birthplace “in mourning and in honour” of Palestinians killed in Gaza

  • the power of American wunderwaffe (archived)

    The Biggest Problem With Ukraine’s M-1 Tanks: They Don’t Like Staying Dirty

    The biggest problem with Ukraine’s new fleet of 31 American-made M-1 Abrams tanks isn’t the tanks’ 1,500-horsepower turbine engines. Not really. No, it’s the filters in the engines’ intakes. The filters keep dirt and debris from fouling and wrecking an M-1’s delicate—but powerful—engine. They require constant cleaning. If an Abrams’ four-person crew neglects to clean its tank’s filters every 12 hours or so, it might so badly damage the engine that the battalion has no choice but to remove the engine, and potentially the transmission, and ship it away for a lengthy overhaul. That would remove one of Ukraine’s few M-1s from the battlefield as surely as a Russian mine or missile might do. Deep maintenance of Ukrainian Abrams takes place in Poland.

    Twice a day, an M-1 crew must rev its tank’s engine to high revolutions-per-minute in order to trigger a pulse-jet system that blasts air out of the tank rather than into it, shooting dust and debris from the back grille. That keeps the filters clean across lengthy deployments. Before the Americans added the pulse-jet system to the M-1, in the early 2000s, tank crews—especially those fighting in the desert—openly complained about their vehicles’ reliability.

    “Army officials are aware of the problems with high fuel consumption, unreliable fuel pumps and sand-ingestion,” the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported in 1992. “They are working on solutions.” The solution to the sand-ingestion problem was the twice-a-day pulse-jet cleaning process. It works just fine, as long as crews rigorously adhere to its schedule. Even when they’re getting shot at. "All those things can be taught to the crew, but if ever they make a mistake—and they will—it blows a million-dollar engine that can't be repaired in the field," Mark Hertling, a retired U.S. Army general, told The Kyiv Independent.

    I'm just a smol bean $10 million tank (or a lot more depending on the upgrades), I couldn't possibly handle a bit of dust in my engine!

  • My mom has CNN on and they are HOUNDING Pramila Jayapal for having the most milquetoast opinion of "maybe don't do war crimes" it's utterly jawdropping

    Meanwhile IDF colonels and shit get to come on their show and justify ethnic cleansing and every CNN anchor is like "oh okay, if you say so 🙂"

  • Reminder on this day that Anthony Bourdain thought bombing Libya back to slavery was fucking sick(positive), said he wanted the same thing to happen to Iran, and if he were alive today he would absolutely support flattening Gaza to get Hamas.

  • I wake up, two children are executed for throwing rocks, I go to work, another hospital is bombed, i drive back, more abductions by the IDF during a “ceasefire”

    Death to the West

  • Hamas:

    We were able to blow up a booby-trapped tunnel with a Zionist infantry force inside or near of it, in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, causing certain casualties. Then we finished off the rescue forces with mortar shells.

    nitter

  • Made by me, feel free to screenshot. 1.9 million Palestinian were ordered to leave their homes by the IDF, thats about the population of Vienna, the capital city of Austria. Also this can be used as a area size comparison between the Gaza strip and the city of Vienna.

1457 comments