news

Check out this Washington Post article.

U.S. intelligence says Ukraine will fail to meet offensive’s key goal

The thing I most want to point out is that map. It shows Ukraine's advances over the past two months of the offensive. Any real mapheads in here won't be surprised by it but I think this is the first time I"m seeing a map like this in a western publication like the WP. The map itself is from the Institute from the Study of War, the one run by the sister-in-law of Victoria Nuland the current acting United States Deputy Secretary of State.

Just the map: https://i.imgur.com/pTOHBxi.png

It really does feel like the US media establishment is slowly laying the groundwork for hanging Ukraine out to dry. I just wish they would do it faster.

So a bunch of Challenger II MBTs were spotted with anti-drone cages in Ukraine, most likely near the frontlines. So I guess it's time to remind everyone of this glorious article:

British-made tanks are about to sweep Putin’s conscripts aside - Telegraph

A statement from a Nigerian socialist group:

As in Nigeria, the mass of the population in Niger suffer horrendous poverty. The military coup will not help these people. It is also likely to see more repression against the much-needed mass movement against poverty and the other anti-people policies. However, an invasion by Nigeria would only make matters so much worse.

Many people will celebrate the coup in Niger against one of the most pro-western governments in West Africa. The removal of French soldiers and their possible replacement with mercenaries from the Russian Wagner group will be interpreted as a victory. But this will not help most Nigeriens. They need a mass movement against poverty and inequality. This is the only way to fundamentally address the problems of inequality, corruption and insecurity.

Half the population of Niger exist below the national poverty line. One and five of the population cannot reliably meet their food needs. Fighting between the corrupt political elite and the military will not fundamentally change the situation.

Niger is Africa’s most important uranium ore exporter (75% of the country’s total exports) and the fourth largest exporter in the world. Other exports include: gold, onions, beans and meat. Niger’s main export partners are France (55% of total exports), the United States, Switzerland, Nigeria and Ghana. Around a third of the uranium for the extensive French nuclear reactors comes from Niger.

So again, like Nigeria, Niger is largely dependent on the exports of a single natural resource. Most of the uranium mines are controlled by Orano (previously named Areva), the French state-owned nuclear power company. The people of Niger suffer environmental devastation comparable to the Niger Delta. “The air, water and land are polluted around the mining towns,” reports a journalist based in the Nigerien capital of Niamey. “And the animals of the pastoralists are constantly falling sick due to their grazing pastures being contaminated with radioactive dust,” he adds.

Studies prove that the concentration of radiation around the uranium mines is almost 500 times higher than normal background levels. Even spending one hour per day over one year at this location can expose a person to 10 times the annual radiation dose.

The Union of Workers’ Trade Unions of Niger (USTN) is the largest of the three main trade union centres with a membership of 60,000. On 25 June 2009, the second largest trade union confederation led a 24-hour general strike across the nation to protest the President’s [constitutional] referendum plans, after a previous strike had been indefinitely postponed on 18 June. All seven trade union confederations took part, in the first general strike since the creation of the Fifth Republic in 1999, and the first joint action by all seven major confederations.

Niger, like all countries, is situated within a global economy and suffers interference from the major imperialist powers, in this case, mainly France. The French government controls the major export from Niger (uranium) and also the currency. This and the French army base in Niger means that there is significant anti-French feeling in Niger. Four days after the coup there was a demonstration involving thousands of people against the French embassy.

The working people of Niger do not need a military coup to further constrain their ability to organise. They do not need the current military “support” provided by Western governments. Equally they do not need interference from the Russian Wagner group or a possible ECOWAS invasion led by Nigeria. As in Nigeria, we need a mass campaign to increase wages of the working people and increase government spending on health and education.

CW: violence, branding

A Palestinian man who was detained by Israeli forces in occupied East Jerusalem said he has been physically abused after officers brutally beat him and branded the Star of David on his cheek, according to Israeli media reports.

At least 16 officers were involved in the arrest of the Palestinian man, however, none had their body cameras on, according to the Ynet news website.

source

We got ourselves an interesting substack, which addresses the crisis in Niger within the terms of local politics rather than just geopolitical jockeying that a lot of people including us tend to limit ourselves to. Some of the highlights are:

• Nigeria is a geopolitical force in it's own right, with control over a number of multilateral organizations and wether intervention happens or not is really down the internal politics of Nigeria.

• Nigeria is going through the motions to build up international legitimacy for an ECOWAS intervention, but it is recalcitrant due to mounting opposition within itself.

• Unlike what some tend to believe, this opposition has nothing to do with pan african or anti imperialist solidarity. Rather the danger of further crisis and displacement right at the border. Not to mention how the president of Nigeria relies on a voting base from the north of the country, which is related to the people of southern Niger.

• Unlike some have reported Algeria has not said that they'll intervene to save the Nigerien junta. They also just think that intervention will worsen the situation. So they are opposed to both the coup and invasion.

• Understandably, the gut reaction of people in the region about military coups comes from the fact that nobody is holding out for a second Thomas Sankara. Everyone sees a military junta as a new kleptocracy in the making.

• When people talk about Nigerien Uranium or Gold, they are oversimplifying the situation. Niger is a resource colony in the era of financial capitalism. Yes, there are french companies that exploit the shit out of Niger's markets. But the larger point is the unravelling of the Francophonie as a whole, on which so much of french finance relies on. France won't be without fuel for it's nuclear plants because they can just buy from Kazakhstan or Canada.

• Incidentally the US doesn't really give a shit about France. It's all about the perceived geopolitical win of Russia's. A perception that is driven by protestors with Russian flags and false videos of Wagner planes touching Niamey. And even so, the Americans can't just tell Nigeria to intervene. If Nigeria was a puppet state it would have already moved in. The Nigerians will ultimately move in according to their own core national interests, and if conditions are ready for it.

• That said, Nigeria's last ECOWAS intervention was in Gambia, and it seemed like it wasn't gonna happen until it suddenly did and the country more or less folded because of how illegitimate the government had become.

UK MI6 to send 100 Ukrainian fighters to Africa and counter Russia

A military-diplomatic source claims that the UK's Secret Intelligence Service or MI6 prepared a sabotage unit of 100 Ukrainian fighters set to be sent to Africa to fend off Russia-Africa cooperation.

The source states: "According to information confirmed by several sources, the British intelligence service MI6 has formed and prepared for deployment to the southern continent a sabotage and punitive detachment consisting of militants of Ukrainian nationalist and neo-Nazi formations to counter the development of cooperation between African countries and Russia".

...

The main objective of the presence in Africa will be "sabotage of infrastructure in African countries, as well as the elimination of African leaders oriented towards cooperation with Russia", per the source who also noted that the unit would be delivered by "a chartered civilian ship from the [Ukrainian] port of Izmail to the [Sudanese] city of Omdurman during the second half of August".

Hexbear helped me realize I was some flavor NB. I present pretty masc, and I'm comfortable with that, but when I think about what I would do with the Magic Gender WandTM, I would probably spend like half my time as a woman and like half my time as a guy

One thing I'll never get over when visiting family in the US is seeing how strong military worship can be in some places. I remember going to some small rural town and having "US MARINE" bumper stickers or decals would have people honking their horns and a few going "YEAH! YOU'RE A HERO!" Another time a guy in a military outfit was buying groceries and some dad loudly said to his kid, "Go to that guy and tell him thank you for protecting us!"

Military people in my country are largely viewed as slackers or people too stupid to pick up a trade or go to school. The only people who do something similar to what I saw in the US are the far-right types that like the fashy aesthetic of it.

I still think of the self avowed "compassionate liberal" who kept starting sentences with "I'm not racist, but-" whenever we passed an asian person

wrong mega plz ignore my silliness

God damn it. I'm trying to start a band with my girls, and we found an old set that's just missing a bass drum. But even severely damaged bass drums are going for over $50 on craigslist here rn, and they'd need new heads and parts.

This wouldn't bother me toooooo much, but approximately 5 years ago I sold a ~$1200 drum set for $300 to get a plane ticket out of my abusive parents' place. I just really miss making music.

Energy costs and supply shortages hit European research infrastructure

Rising energy costs, supply shortages and extended delivery times triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia–Ukraine war have had a ‘profound effect’ on science facilities across Europe, according to a key body that advises European policymakers on research infrastructure.

The European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructure (Esfri) notes in its latest report that synchrotrons have been the most affected by these challenges, with five out of 10 reporting a planned interruption of operations. The report is based on responses to a survey sent to research facilities in December 2022.

According to the 116 survey responses, the most common issue faced was the impact on finance caused by increased energy costs, with energy-intensive sites such as synchrotrons, computing centres, accelerator-driven particle sources, neutron facilities, research reactors, and lasers being the worst affected.

Another issue was the shortage of key supplies, including the gases helium-3, nitrogen, argon and xenon, and materials previously supplied by the Russian Federation, including rare isotopes of calcium and cobalt.

Delivery times have also increased substantially, with some critical equipment taking over six months to arrive on site. Esfri notes that this is having a direct impact on timelines for the construction and upgrades of infrastructure projects and is ultimately affecting scientific output.

John Collier, director of the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Central Laser Facility (CLF), says that the supply chain problems described in the report were issues he and his colleagues were experiencing on ‘a daily basis’.

‘They manifest themselves in two ways; the first is just straightforward availability of stuff, which has gone from relatively straightforward pre-Covid, pre-Ukraine war to really quite complex,’ says Collier.

‘The second thing is cost, which for certain components has seen eyewatering increases compared to the pre-Covid world,’ he adds. ‘It’s almost like capacity has gone, stocks have gone, availability of raw materials has dwindled … it’s impacted the capacity of organisations to deliver.’

Cristina Hernandez-Gomez, who heads up CLF’s high-power lasers division, says that the loss of expertise due to people retiring or leaving work during the Covi-19 pandemic has also contributed to delays.

‘We ordered some crystals from the US … [but] they had lost two people that were experts in growing these crystals,’ she says. ‘They had to grow the crystal three times [and] it failed three times – which means now this crystal is 18 months late.’

Many of the materials required by major research facilities are bespoke and therefore only available from a small number of suppliers. Hernandez-Gomez says that for some components CLF has started approaching new suppliers to see if they can build them to the same specification so that it would have multiple suppliers to draw on. ‘But every approach you take that is novel comes with a price tag,’ she adds.

‘We had some critical components that we sourced in Ukraine, and that that has been held up,’ says Collier. ‘To their credit the Ukrainians managed to eventually get this stuff out to us through Lithuania, but it was non-trivial – it’s probably taken a year plus.’

Collier also highlights the impact that Covid-19 lockdowns had on being able to supply and install equipment.

‘We installed a big laser [at the European XFEL] – a £10–12 million piece of kit, which took us 3 years to manufacture,’ says Collier. ‘We shipped it about two weeks before we had to go into [the first Covid-19] lockdown. [It] then took several years to get it installed and commissioned – we just did the first experiment using it a few months ago.’

Rajeev Pattathil, a group leader at CLF, says that he is particularly worried about the future impacts these challenges will have.

‘Let’s say something was costing £100k a few years ago, it’s now almost £400k,’ he explains. ‘That extra £300k would have gone on developing new technology to make the facility more internationally competitive … instead you have to invest that extra £300k in making sure that you can run the facilities – this will have a knock-on impact in future.’

The Esfri report makes several recommendations aimed at the European Commission and national policymakers to address these challenges, including developing response plans that would reduce energy consumption at major facilities as well as taking action to increase resilience and prepare for future crises. The report also highlights the need to set up specific measures to support the Ukrainian research community.

Esfri also suggests allocating additional funds and energy price capping for the most energy-intensive research infrastructure. However, Collier believes that additional funding in the UK is ‘unlikely at any significant level’.

‘We’re approaching a spending review – the tea leaves are saying it’ll be a one-year flat cash rollover until the general election has passed,’ he says. ‘I think the situation is going to remain pretty constrained for at least for the next year, 18 months.’

In the meantime, Collier says it will be necessary for research facilities to re-optimise their plans to minimise delays and, in some cases, choose not to pursue certain activities to make critical savings.

‘We have been buffered because we hold an inventory of spare components so by and large we’ve been able to weather that, [but] the cost of replacement is greater and therefore [it means] you won’t do something for the future, and that’s where the impact will be felt.’

Exempt from a poem written about the Gulf War in 1991:

Now with noonday headlights in Kuwait and the burial of the blackened in Baghdad let them remember, all those who celebrate, that their good news is someone else's bad or the light will never dawn on poor Mankind.

In case any of you nerds weren't here over a year ago I decided to dig up and repost the CGTN educational infographic on how the CPC is organized. Something that's good for geopolitical news nerds to learn in order to understand how countries governing bodies function and how they come to the decisions they do.

It's great material concidering all the discussions we've seen since Federation on the PRC, so please give it a once-over and don't forget to upbear it so more of the lemmies can learn something new in the fediverse.

Western press fetishizes Ukrainian amputees as limb loss epidemic grows

was the "People of NATO" thing invented solely by that one person in that thread or is this something the NAFO people have been doing for a while? because once I stopped laughing at it, I realized it's the perfect thing for them, pseudo-left rhetoric used to support a genocidal imperialist empire, and thought that there's no way it hasn't been around for a while but I can't find anything on it online

Fortune magazine calls techbros first speak-and-spell the 5th industrial revolution. They interview some old fuck with stolen wealth how they feel about shallow Hal 9000-8999 putting some desk jockeys jobs down old yeller style and he cries in existential dread at the possibility he or his large adult fail-kids may have to get an actual job.

Also Fascism and Communism and Nazism are all unironically the same thing, no don't even think about the system you live under, you have freedom ~~to starve and die~~

https://archive.is/vjHNa

Challenger 2s have finally been spotted on near the frontlines. They've been equipped with some shoddy looking cope cages. I believe both the Challengers and Strykers are being deployed near Robotyne. This is probably from the 82nd Air Assault Brigade that Ukraine has been keeping in reserve in order to exploit a breakthrough in the Russian lines. They're instead being deployed to try and breakthrough the first Russian line of defense. I think that Robotyne is the first and currently only place that Ukrainians have actually gotten within sight of a dragon's tooth.

https://twitter.com/snekotron/status/1691543627439185920

Edit: German Marder IFVs have also been spotted and there's video of a Stryker being hit.

Edit2: Forbes - Ukraine’s Powerful 82nd Brigade, Once Held In Reserve, Has Finally Joined The Counteroffensive

the russian lunar probe Succesfully touched down on the Mooons surface !

spoiler

Source

I like how there is talk of bringing back sailing to combat climate change for maritime trade

You call yourself a tankie yet you don't compete in the tank biathlon