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.
The weekly update is here on the website.
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 Wednesday Briefing
In Italy, in opposition to the national budget to be approved on December 31st, the main trade unions have tried and failed to reach an agreement with the government to reduce the worst parts of it, including a pension law. The unions will therefore go on strike on December 15th.
The Bulgarian Socialist Party - which has 10% of the deputies in parliament - has announced that they will form a broad left-nationalist coalition with 16 pro-Russian, anti-EU parties. The leader, Ninova, has said: “The pendulum swings from extreme liberalism to the other extreme – fascism. We have to stop it in the middle,” and is reactionary on gender.
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine are boycotting an Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meeting if Lavrov attends.
Iran's President Raisi was a no-show for a visit to Turkiye yesterday which was personally announced earlier this month by Erdogan, which some are interpreting as Iran being unhappy with Turkiye for their lack of action on the Israel-Palestine war. Despite Erdogan regularly insulting Israel and calling Hamas a liberation group, Turkiye continues to allow oil to be sent from Azerbaijan to Israel, which constitutes 40% of Israel's crude.
120 people have been killed and 90,000 households displaced due to massive flooding in Kenya caused by El Nino, just after eastern Africa experienced its worst drought in four decades. Heavy rain will likely continue until January 2024.
Two colonels in the Madagascar army have been detained on suspicion of trying to contest the election and destabilise the government. as the opposition against President Rajoelina continues to oppose the election and do not recognize the results.
Mozambique has unveiled an energy transition plan that will take them to 2050, with the goal of securing investments totalling $80 billion. It will be formally presented at the COP28 climate summit on December 2nd. It will involve a substantial boost in hydropower and electric vehicles, and will use recent natural gas discoveries to fuel economic growth and uplift millions from poverty.
The Panama Supreme Court has declared that the Cobre Panama mine, the largest open-pit copper mine in Central America which mostly exports copper to China, is unconstitutional, opening the door to international arbitration by the concessionaire, Minera Panama, which is a subsidiary of the Canadian company FQM. The controversy over the contract has generated the largest peaceful protests in Panama in decades, as well as road blockades by environmentalists, labor unions, and indigenous groups, as well as strikes.
ExxonMobil is urging Guyana to provoke Venezuela into attacking it over the dispute over Esequibo, so that the United States has a pretext to invade Venezuela and finally destroy the socialist country. Venezuela, on the other hand, is seeking a peaceful outcome, and is holding a referendum on the issue. Votes over Esequibo have typically attracted even more votes than over elections, and unites most sections of the country.
Meanwhile, the US has found Guaido's replacement in Machado, who calls herself the "Iron Lady of Venezuela" and went through the same Yale program as Nalvany. She won the primary opposition election with 93% and Maduro has declared the election illegitimate because... I mean, it probably fucking was, to be honest. Polls show that Maduro would handily win an election against Machado. With the US's sanction regime deteriorating as it places everybody else on the planet except for them and their buddies onto the Naughty List and thus prompts them to just trade with each other instead - and as Maduro receives more support from the region as leaders realize he probably isn't going to be ousted any time soon (kinda like Assad) - the pressure that the US can exert on Venezuela is gradually falling. Hence, ExxonMobil.
what the fuck is it every county a party in bulgaria
I'm assuming it's like that list of Nepalese communist parties but right-wing
every household a new contribution to marxism
Kazakhstan is also shipping more oil through the BTC pipeline, and is either the #1 or #2 supplier of Israeli oil imports, depending on who you are reading. They have shifted more of their exports away from the CPC pipeline to reduce reliance on Russia and avoid sanctions issues.
So, this month we have:
Understandable, sounds normal, have a nice day