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 Monday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Tuesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
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.
Your Monday Briefing
Also available on the website.
Poland's Morawiecki has been appointed for another term as Poland's Prime Minister with a minority government, for some bizarre reason. He will probably very quickly lose a vote of confidence and be forced out and replaced with Donald Tusk and his party.
The worst storm in a century hit Crimea over the weekend, cutting power for half a million people and with some potential damage to Russian military defenses. It also affected Odessa and is expected to hit Kiev today.
Leaked documents reveal that the UAE is planning to seek oil and gas deals at the COP28 climate talks.
Something like a failed coup attempt seems to have occurred in Sierra Leone, with men in uniforms associated with former President Koroma shooting at/in barracks and freeing people from jails. Whatever happened, it was stopped relatively quickly with deaths and arrests, as well as a curfew.
Zambia restructured its $6.3 billion debt in June, of which about two thirds is owed to China. As part of this deal, China pushed for private bondholders to offer comparable debt relief. In November, China and other creditors shot down a deal with private bondholders that Zambia and the IMF deemed sustainable, as China wanted private bondholders to take a larger haircut. The restructuring deal is now in stalemate, and might discourage other nations from trying to pursue a similar path.
South Africa has returned to stage 6 power outages, the highest level of load shedding yet implemented - President Ramaphosa said that this was a shock to him.
The DPRK has said that it will continue launching satellites, and they are apparently restoring some demolished guard posts on the border.
The People's Liberation Army will conduct military drills near the Myanmar border as the situation inside Myanmar deteriorates, with the junta in charge taking significant Ls lately.
Indonesia and Malaysia, which account for 85% of global palm oil production, are deeply unhappy with the EU Deforestation-Free Regulation (which will ban imports of cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy, and wood if produced on land deforested in 2021 or later), set to begin at the end of 2024. They have accused the EU of "regulatory imperialism" and "crop apartheid", while other governments and producers in the region are being a little more diplomatic and worrying about passing the hurdles.
The Western double standards on Israel's war crimes in Gaza compared to Russia's much smaller war crimes in Ukraine have caused the periphery to become increasingly disillusioned with the West, with China stepping in as a leader figure with a consistent desire for ceasefires, thus boosting their soft power yet further - but there are limits, of course, due to America's global imperialism.
Ukrainian casualties + deaths + missing may total 400,000 for the war so far, based on estimates from analysing a statement by the Ukrainian military leadership, and General Zaluzhny reportedly does not have a plan for 2024, big or small, beyond taking 20,000 citizens per month.
Big "our units are just passing through..." energy
They're both right.
Deforesting needs to be combatted, but also Europe's being ridiculous. They already deforested their own continent and polluted the world for their high living standards and are now telling others not to. At the very least the Deforestation-Free Regulation needs to come with tens of billions of dollars of technology and capital transfers to state-owned enterprises in Indonesia.
I vaguely know a photographer in SA and they frequently mention having to work around load shedding. I never realized what an incredible luxury relaible 24/7 power was until I started talking with people internationally. America does have some perks. : (
Related, I have electric appliances and after an outage during winter I got hold of a gas powered camping stove in case it happened again. Perks or no, America is increasingly unstable. : (
On the U.S. West Coast, PG&E still refuses to do the necessary maintenance so that heavy winds don't turn their ancient electrical infrastructure into a fire hazard (and at this point everyone just shrugs their shoulders and is used to the idea that they won't fix it, because they've gotten away with it for so long). So the solution for keeping large chunks of the state from burning up in wildfires (TBF "wildfires" should be in quotes since PG&E starting them over and over again isn't exactly a "wild" origin...) again is to turn off the power to whole sections of the population, and to try to predict winds and decide on shutoffs a few hours ahead so that people on e.g. oxygen machines at home theoretically have enough notice to prepare and avoid dying in their sleep. I guess you could say it's a privilege for some people to assume the grid will always be there to keep their oxygen flowing, but it's worth recognizing that e.g. the available (and accessible/affordable) equipment and home-care options have been designed with that assumption in mind, so it's not very reasonable to put the responsibility 100% on the victims and their relative privilege....
I remember that quote where a guy was like "I lived through a collapse. It doesn't happen all at once. It happens a little at a time and you mostly don't notice it", something like that.