Image is of the Cobre Panama open-pit copper mine, located 120 kilometers west of Panama City.

Canada is a prolific mining country, hosting many of the world’s top mining corporations. Some of its extraction is local - for example, Saskatchewan is the world’s largest producer of potash, a critical agricultural nutrient. Much of the extraction is abroad. Naturally, this means that Canada has cut a bloody, but often ignored, path through the global periphery, extracting minerals and causing environmental degradation.

A notable recent example is that of the Cobre Panama copper mine, which is owned by First Quantum Minerals, one of the largest mining companies in Canada. The company earned $10 billion in revenue in 2022, of which the Cobre Panama mine generated $1 billion. Protests in Panama about this mine have gone on for over a decade, urging for a greater share of the profits, protection of indigenous people, and stronger environmental protections. Canada has maintained a stoney silence (pun somewhat intended) on these movements.

On October 20th, the president of Panama, Cortizo, renewed the company’s mining concession for 20 years, after a halt in production since the end of 2022 due to negotiations and reform. Everybody hated this. In October, protestors took to the streets in sufficient numbers that Cortizo was forced to halt new mining approvals, and announced a public referendum on whether the contract with First Quantum should be repealed. This was immediately cut down, but the government decided to invalidate the new concession anyway in late November, calling it unconstitutional, and closing down the mine.

First Quantum Minerals has lost about half its market value since October. Various international banks have said that Panama could lose its investment-grade credit rating next year due to the income hit - the mine generated 5% of its GDP. The international arbitration process which First Quantum has initiated against Panama could last years.

The book Canada in the World: Settler Capitalism and the Colonial Imagination handles Canada’s role as an imperialist, anti-indigenous, extractive state throughout its history, and is on our geopolitical reading list.

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The Country of the Week is Canada! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

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Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

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.

  • SoyViking [he/him]English
    40•2 years ago

    Zelensky held a council with generals and the Minister of Defense, they say without Zaluzhny, where he instructed to build defense lines from Kupyansk to Ugledar in the east, and in the north of Ukraine - along the borders with Belarus and the Russian Bryansk and Kursk regions.

    But that’s not all, the “Zelensky line” will be created in the Nikolaev region and in sections of the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.

    The total length of the defensive lines that should be created by order of Zelensky can be from 2.8 thousand km.

    It is estimated that to make fortified areas for 2.8 thousand kilometers it will be necessary to spend at least 10 billion dollars.

  • ioenEnglish
    63•2 years ago

    Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF believes that beyond the operational investigations of the events, it would not be morally sound to investigate these incidents due to the immense and complex quantity of them that took place in the kibbutzim and southern Israeli communities due to the challenging situations the soldiers were in at the time.

    https://www.ynetnews.com/article/rkjqoobip

    lmao

  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]English
    39•2 years ago

    A photojournalist took the photo in Gaza.

    [CW: A photo that includes a corpse]

    I believe he was peacefully making a cup of tea before the Israeli warplanes bombed the house. Israel must be proud about their speed to kill, they can do it before the cup of tea is ready, especially if the target is Palestinians. I don’t want to imagine, I don’t want to photograph more of this. Please take action to end this before the next cup of tea ! (you know what I mean)

    Nitter

  • the_kid [he/him]English
    58•2 years ago

    Today is the last Sunday that the Brooklyn Public Library (one of the largest library systems in the country) will be in operation. Remember that Eric Adams is responsible for this. Our kids and families will suffer because of his cuts.

    twitter | nitter

    how long until we straight up just don’t have libraries anymore? it’s pretty wild they’ve even lasted this long

  • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]OPMEnglish
    45•2 years ago

    Russian aluminum producers warn of crisis

    Russia’s Aluminium Association has issued a grim warning for the industry as it faces Western sanctions, tariffs and a drop in prices for one of the world’s most widely used metals.

    In its latest overview of the current state of the industry, the association has warned that the entire sector is on the verge of a serious crisis, adding that several enterprises of Russian aluminum giant Rusal are at risk of closure.

    “A number of Rusal enterprises are already operating on the verge of zero or even negative profitability,” the association said on Monday, adding that further deterioration of the economic situation or an increase in the fiscal burden may lead to the need to shut them down.

    It warned that the crisis could affect 5,000 jobs in the sector, while up to 30,000 jobs in related sectors may also be lost. The union highlighted that aluminum prices had dropped to their lowest level since March 2021, while the US and EU markets have been almost entirely closed to Russian exporters.

    Oh no! It looks like the state may have to step in and nationalize it! What a tragedy!

  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]English
    41•2 years ago

    Emphasis mine.

    “It can barely be described as living conditions anymore,” aid official says of situation in Gaza hospital

    There are barely “living conditions” for the people of the Gaza Strip, the emergency coordinator of operations for Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said Tuesday.

    “Living conditions…I mean it can barely be described as living conditions anymore. People are displaced once, twice, sometimes more. They just don’t know where to go anymore,” Marie-Aure Perreaut, who is based in the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, told CNN’s Isa Soares in an interview.

    People sheltering in hospitals in Gaza are living in “horrendous conditions” without access to health care, she said. While Gazans traveled to hospitals in search of safety, Perreaut said, they know that “this is just not the case.” She described a lack of food and water, cold temperatures, overcrowding, and widespread diseases in hospitals, saying that the situation is “very, very tough.”

    Many people are suffering from respiratory tract infections, diarrhea, and skin diseases such as scabies, she said. "All of these are clear illustrations of the extremely tough and precarious living conditions,” Perreaut said, adding that, since health care centers were ordered to evacuate, people “just don’t have access to health care anymore.”

    Half of the patients that MSF was treating were children under the age of five, she said.

    “All those children are still living in those conditions, facing multiple evacuation orders in the south, and now, just do not have access to health care on top of it," Perreaut said. Several hospitals in northern Gaza have ceased operations in recent weeks, saying they received orders from the Israeli military to evacuate. The Israeli military disputes issuing such an order.

    Fuel shortages have forced several hospitals in Gaza to close, while others have shut down due to airstrike damage, the World Health Organization has reported. The Israeli military says it only carries out operations in and around hospitals where they are being used by Hamas and other armed groups.

  • zed_proclaimer [he/him]English
    58•2 years ago

    Remember, it’s not the Israel-Hamas War or the Israel-Gaza War, it’s the Palestine-Zionist War. The Zionists are not targeting Hamas, or even just Gaza, but all of Palestine in a total war against a whole people. “Israel” is an illegal entity that should not be recognized as legitimate.