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Image is of the breach in the tailings dam near Kitwe.


On February 18th, 50 million liters of acidic waste from a copper mine was accidentally released into the Kafue River after a tailings dam collapsed. The Kafue River stretches for a thousand miles across Zambia and a majority of the country - millions of people - rely on it, for both the economy and drinking water.

The results have already been catastrophic. The water supply for the city of Kitwe, home to 700,000 people, was completely shut off. As the wave of contamination moved downstream, a wave of death accompanied it as dead fish dotted the river surface. The government is dropping lime into the river to try and counteract the acid with an alkali and neutralize the water, but the tailings also contain toxic heavy metals that will undoubtably seep into the nearby environment and affect the area for years to come.

A considerable portion of the media attention to the accident has been devoted to the fact that the mine was Chinese-owned, as well as China's broader influence and investment in the region. Western anti-China propaganda aside, it has been clear to those in the know that these mines have been badly managed and needlessly dangerous for years now, and it is disappointing - to say the least - to see disasters of this magnitude occur from Chinese businesses. Hopefully this prompts a wave of investigations into China-owned mine managers all around the continent, who will then hopefully face real consequences for their actions.


Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

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 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.
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.

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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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.


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[–] SoyViking@hexbear.net 1 points 1 week ago

Lazy Bastards: Danish Cops Admits Closing Cases Without Investigating And Lying to The Public To Fudge Crime Statistics

The Danish police are embroiled in yet another scandal, this time over the systematic "washing" of criminal cases—deliberately closing investigations without proper inquiry while lying to the public about it. Thirty current and former police officers have come forward, revealing that police leadership routinely pressures investigators to abandon cases under false pretenses. This practice, known as "washing cases," has resulted in violent crimes and large-scale financial fraud being ignored, all to make case backlogs disappear on paper.

Read more...

According to whistleblower cops, the police manipulate cases in several ways: pressuring victims not to file reports, misclassifying serious crimes as minor offenses, delaying evidence collection until surveillance footage expires, and conducting superficial or non-existent witness interviews. These tactics allow police departments to appear more efficient while quietly discarding cases that require real investigative work.

One officer, Martin Bjørnvig, has publicly admitted that he and his colleagues routinely deceive the public. "We violate citizens' legal rights by failing to investigate reported cases. And we lie to citizens about the reasons," he told Danish state media. He told how he was tasked with processing a large backlog of cases involving economic crime save was instructed to close cases, even if there were named suspects or fraud for large amounts. An anonymous ex-cop admitted to having "washed" assault andremoved cases.

Other officers, speaking anonymously, confirm that leadership not only tolerates but actively encourages this practice. One states: "You have no choice. Management decides. In the end, you’re just a number with an attractive detective job"

The motivations behind this fraud are clear. On an individual level, officers seek to meet internal performance metrics while avoiding complex, time-consuming cases. As an institution, the police force prioritizes bureaucratic efficiency over justice, preferring tidy statistics over meaningful law enforcement.

Despite overwhelming testimony from rank-and-file officers, senior police leadership denies everything. The National Police has flatly rejected the existence of "washing," dismissing the accusations as mere "prioritization." Yet officers describe an environment where questioning these methods leads to professional retaliation, confirming that the deception is systemic.

The Liberal Party, one of three parties making up the Nordic hermit kingdom's Social Democrat-led right-wing regime, has reacted to the scandal not by demanding accountability but by pulling out an old reactionary hobby horse and demanding more money for the police. The party’s justice spokesperson, Preben Bang Henriksen, called the revelations "deeply troubling" but framed the issue as a lack of police resources rather than a structural failure of law enforcement itself.

The government, eager to maintain its pro-police "law and order" stance, has signaled no intention of holding the police accountable. Instead, it continues to lavish funding on both law enforcement and the military, while slashing education, healthcare, and social services. This demonstrates the regime’s true priorities: protecting the state’s coercive apparatus while neglecting the well-being of ordinary citizens.

The Danish "washing" scandal is yet another reminder that, under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the claim that police exist to "protect and serve" is a lie. The police exist to uphold the existing social order, ensuring that the state’s priorities—not justice—are enforced. Any protection the public receives is incidental; their real purpose is to maintain control.

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

The first footage has been released, Xcancel mirror of the US Air Force, Navy or Marine Corps using APKWS laser guided rockets to shoot down Ansarallah (known as the Houthis in western media) drones and cruise missiles. I was talking a few days ago about how this was already happening, but now it's confirmed by video footage from CENTCOM themselves.

What is APKWS? To put it simply, APKWS is a conversion kit that turns unguided Hydra-70 rockets (of which 5 million exist) into laser guided short range missiles. Similar to how a Paveway kit turns an unguided bomb into a laser guided bomb, or a JDAM kit turns an unguided bomb into a GPS guided bomb, APKWS turns unguided rockets into guided missiles. APKWS was first designed only to be used against ground targets, but the Ukrainians, when firing them from their VAMPIRE ground and sea based launch systems, proved that it can be used successfully against cruise missiles and drones, and as a result the US military is doing the same, and even planning modifications to APKWS to make it even more effective against air targets, such as adding infrared terminal guidance.

Ukrainian VAMPIRE system taking out Russian cruise missiles and drones

Xcancel mirror

Why is this significant? For two reasons: cost and magazine size. APKWS is very cheap, the guidance section only costs $15 000, and the warheads and rocket motors, of which millions are currently in US stockpiles, only cost a few thousand dollars each, for a total cost of between $20 000 - $25 000 per missile/guided rocket. In comparison, an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile launched from US fighter aircraft costs upwards of $400 000 each, and the ship launched SM series of interceptors cost anywhere from $2 -$9 million, depending on the model. So this is a very significant cost saving for the US, the APKWS guided rockets might even be cheaper than the drones and cruise missiles they shoot down.

The second is magazine size. While a fighter aircraft can only carry a handful of sidewinders and other air to air missiles at a time, it can carry dozens of APKWS rockets at a time, as these rockets can be fitted on seven shot rocket pods, which only take up one hardpoint each. This F/A-18 has 14 APKWS guided rockets on one wing (two 7 shot launchers), for a total of 28 guided rockets if the loadout is replicated symmetrically on the other wing. Note with the adaptor, that two seven shot rocket pods are only using a single hardpoint.

These two factors make defending against drone swarms a possibility, both in terms of being cost effective, and in terms of the amount of guided rockets available at a single given time for intercept missions. This could be why drone and cruise missile attacks on US Navy ships are not as effective as before. While in Ukraine the use of APKWS guided rockets is limited to their ground and sea based launching systems, such as technicals and fastboats, the United States does not have such limitations and can fit these to aircraft, enabling defence over a much wider area. The APKWS guided rockets themselves have a very short range, only a few kilometres/miles, meaning that they can only defend a very limited area from ground/sea based launch platforms. So mounting them to a fighter aircraft vastly increases the area that can be defended by them, and detection capabilities for drones out of range of the APKWS (fighter aircraft have their own radar).

Make no mistake, the US military is learning their lessons when it comes to the Ukraine war, the confrontations with Ansarallah in the Red Sea, and defending against Iranian ballistic missiles.

[–] carpoftruth@hexbear.net 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This is a pretty important development. The cost of interceptors is less important than their availability. Good catch.

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

It's quite a depressing development from a resistance perspective (which I guess almost all of us share) because it means now that the US Carrier Strike Group (CSG) only needs to remain out of range of Ansarallah's anti ship ballistic missiles(ASBMs), (max range 500km for Tankeel/Raad-500, maybe 700km if Iran gives them Zolfogar Basir), and that the CSG can just absorb the long range drone and cruise missile attacks, the few that get through the air patrols can be dealt with by the ships themselves. While remaining outside of the range of ASBMs is blunting the CSG's attacks and US airstrikes as the US fighter planes have to fly longer distances, airstrikes are still happening, and the CSG is not being driven to the extreme north of the Red Sea or anything like that anymore (aside from maybe day two of this lastest conflict).

Editing to say that satellite imagery from the 19th March 2025 has confirmed this, the USS Harry Truman is operating off of the coast of Jeddah, around 700-800km from Yemen. So outside of ASBM range (Zolfogar Basir has a 700km range), but within the range of cruise missiles and drones. This explains why Ansarallah did not launch any ASBMs over the past two nights, the CSG was out of range.

The solution is probably to give Ansarallah longer range ASBMs, but that's an idea with its own big issues. The short range ASBMs Ansarallah currently use don't have any midcourse guidance updates, they fire them at the general location the enemy ship is expected to be at, the Manoeuvrable Re-entry Vehicle (MaRV) of the missile does a pull up manoeuvre and performs a short glide phase, in which it's terminal guidance systems (EO/IR sensors or radar) locate the target and dive down to it. This all happenes in a handful of minutes, the Tankeel/Raad 500 has a burnout velocity of Mach 8 (2.7 kilometres per second), and an impact velocity of probably around Mach 1.5-2. A ship can't move that far in that time, which is why this approach works, from missile launch to glide phase, the ship can't move out of the effective range of the terminal guidance systems on the MaRV. Once you start trying to hit ships over longer ranges, the ships can move further, and you need midcourse guidance updates to ensure that the MaRV arrives in a close enough proximity to the target for the terminal guidance systems to work. Who is going to provide that midcourse guidance? Iran with their own ships, or Iran giving Ansarallah long range radars that datalink to the ASBMs? I think the US would consider that an act of war. I also don't think Ansarallah has this capability themselves. China's ASBMs use AWACS aircraft to provide midcourse guidance updates for instance. That's a capability not currently in the possession of Iran or Ansarallah.

Another solution would be really fast (Mach 3+) cruise missiles or really stealthy subsonic cruise missiles. But I don't see Russia or China giving these weapons to Ansarallah.

[–] miz@hexbear.net 1 points 2 weeks ago

how about underwater drones, like a submarine version of their drone boats?

[–] CyborgMarx@hexbear.net 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The only recourse Ansarallah has that I can see given their current technological limitations would be to increase the quantity of missile deployments (any missiles or drones), screen attacks through decoy maneuvers to confuse and distract radar teams/aircraft and stagger attacks to disrupt sleep/rotation schedules on US naval ships.....keeping all this up continuously day after day

And most importantly threaten critical infrastructure across the Peninsula to increase the scale of the zone of engagement, every time the beast turns its head or wanders over to a decoy it burns calories

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 1 points 2 weeks ago

And most importantly threaten critical infrastructure across the Peninsula to increase the scale of the zone of engagement

Abdul-Malik al-Houthi gave a speech yesterday specifically calling out all the Arab regimes for collaborating with Israel, so I guess striking them is an escalation option they are considering, and it makes sense given their capabilities. A lot easier to hit a static oil field or refinery than a moving ship.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yanis is throwing Die Linke in the bin.

https://xcancel.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1903411093071876601

spoilerGoodbye, LINKE!

In its quest to become a ‘normal’, ‘acceptable’ party, Die Linke has joined the warmongering radical centrists in their rearmament folly

This past week was one for the history books. The German parliament amended the constitutional debt brake so as to enable unlimited military spending, irrespectively of how deeply into the red it will push the federal government’s budget. Meanwhile, none of that fiscal generosity is to be extended to investment in hospitals, education, firefighters, kindergartens, pensions, green technologies etc. In brief, when it comes to funding life, austerity remains part of Germany’s constitutional order. Only investments in death have been released from austerity’s constitutional clutches.

The underlying reason for introducing this stunning change to Germany’s constitution is simple: German automakers are now too uncompetitive. They can’t profitably sell their cars to civilians in Germany or abroad. So, they demand that the German state buys tanks that Rheinmetall will be making on Volkswagen’s disused production lines. To get the state to pay for this, the constitutional brake of government deficits had to be bypassed. Always eager to serve their Big Business masters, parties of permanent centrist governments were deployed to usher in this cynical constitutional change, one that annuls Germany’s post-war commitment to peace and disarmament.

To change the constitution, the centrist parties needed a two-thirds majority in both houses of Germany’s federal parliament: the lower house, the Bundestag, but also the upper chamber, the Bundesrat where each state is represented by its size and via the coalition state government ruling over it. While the centrist parties secured their two-thirds majority in the outgoing Bundestag, they faced a serious problem in the Bundesrat. Die Linke, the “left Party”, whom we congratulated for their good election result recently, had the opportunity to cause the state governments in which it was party to (as part of a state-level coalition) to abstain in the Bundesrat vote. That would have blocked the constitutional amendment and would have dealt a lethal blow to military Keynesianism’s insidious return. Alas, the leadership of Die Linke chose not to use their power, their vote in the Bundesrat, to do this. They, in short, joined the warmongering radical centrists in their dangerous, extremely costly rearmament folly.

The voters of Die Linke are, rightly, enraged, with some of them even calling for breaking up the state coalitions in which the party participates and expelling the officials involved. Already Die Linke’s failure to rise up against the genocide in Palestine, and the subsequent totalitarian treatment by the German state of those protesting the genocide, has tarnished Die Linke in the eyes of progressives not just in Germany but beyond too.

Nothing obliterates the ethical standing of a political party of the left more efficiently than a leadership overly keen to be ‘accepted’ by a radicalised centre constantly moving towards the xenophobic, warmongering ultra-right. It was terrible enough that the leaders of Die Linke felt the need to turn a blind eye to Israel’ genocidal apartheid project. Now, this week, they have taken the next step to political oblivion: they have used their votes in the Bundesrat to ensconce, for the first time since 1945, military Keynesianism in the German constitution.

Good night Die Linke. And good luck.

[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Die Linke should have been thrown in the bin over a year ago after their "Rosa Luxemburg Foundation" published this horrific piece on Palestine - Israel.

https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/51112/against-the-logic-of-violence

full article, warning: both sides nonsenseThe horrific images of murder, hostage-taking, and destruction in Israel and Palestine bear witness to an inhuman brutality that deeply disturbs us. We are shocked by the attacks of Hamas on innocent civilians in Israel. We are also shocked by the closure and bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which primarily affects a defenceless civilian population. More death, suffering, and a humanitarian catastrophe are the consequences.

The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation mourns all the victims of the massacres, bombings, and acts of violence. Our thoughts are with the families and friends of the victims.

The renewed escalation of violence in Israel and Palestine is an expression of the political failure to find a just and lasting peace solution to the conflict that has lasted for decades. This political failure is also a failure of the international community. If the escalation of violence cannot be contained quickly, the conflict threatens to become internationalized with unforeseeable consequences.

Together with our colleagues in the offices in Tel Aviv and Ramallah as well as numerous partner organizations, we have camnpaigned on the ground for years for an end to the logic of violence. The people on both sides of the barriers and checkpoints need peace, social justice, full democratic participation, equal rights, and solidarity. For this to happen, an end to Israel’s occupation policy, which violates international law, and the construction of settlements in the West Bank is just as indispensable as the strengthening of a secular and democratic civil society, towards which we work in both Israel and Palestine.

The Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung is affiliated with the «Left Party» [Die Linke] in the Federal Republic of Germany. As is the case with other German party-affiliated foundations, it receives funding from the public budget

[–] LargePenis@hexbear.net 0 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I'm starting to doubt myself when it comes to Hinkle honestly. Everything about him screams the most obvious fed, but surely Ansarallah know something that we don't know if they're granting him such access. Who is more correct here, the bear unemployment forum or the most significant anti-imperialist group in the world right now?

[–] Redcuban1959@hexbear.net 1 points 1 week ago

He was also able to talk with Nicolas Maduro, I think he has some very strong ties with the Russian goverment/FSB. Or he is an USian agent that they use to speak with the USA "enemies" and he gets to take pics with cool people and brag about it online.

[–] ZWQbpkzl@hexbear.net 1 points 1 week ago

Pretty clearly a Russian asset like Black Hammer. Don't have to be a Russia Gater to see that.

[–] Z_Poster365@hexbear.net 1 points 1 week ago

everything about him screams russian fed. The Russian paid dudes are so obvious and unsubtle, and they all have these weird esoteric positions and brainworms. Not one of them is a straightforward leftie and commie, but they all have anti-America views.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Looks like the feds are properly starting Anonymous back up again. This dude seems to take them seriously as a "decentralised group". They're feds, they've always been feds, this shit is fake resistance intended to fuck with us and gain influence among anarchists. I suspect it'll turn into anti-tankie left splitting or whatever at some point.

https://youtu.be/RjuX1VbTsto

[–] ziggurter@hexbear.net 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

TBF, I don't know a single anarchist in real life who ever took "Anonymous" seriously. Especially given the tight coupling between people who used that name all over the place (and their aesthetics) and 4chan reactionary doxxers and shit.

Though shit like that Mr Robot series probably helped whitewash it for the normies....

[–] RollaD20@hexbear.net 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Do you, or anyone reading, have a good article/book getting into the history of anonymous especially regarding fed shit? I'm bumping up against people around me talking them up and haven't had a chance to find a good deboonking and I don't remember the specifics about it.

Edit: meant to respond to Awoo, but same deal.

[–] ziggurter@hexbear.net 1 points 1 week ago

I'd be interested too. I don't know anything about the fed stuff personally.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

You're only going to get vibes on this one, because it's all people really have. I've talked about it a few times, for example: https://hexbear.net/comment/5937484

My take is that it was an early experiment in crowdsourcing intelligence online. Feds liked 4chan because feds could blend in there but also do intelligence gathering experiments with a willing crowd. This is where all the ideas about 4chan being the greatest detectives of the internet started, with intelligence agencies with intelligence agency levels of skill and experience running threads there in various ways.

Anonymous itself started as an op to attack the Church of Scientology, which suited the feds because the cult has historically infiltrated the US government to an extreme degree. They wanted to slap down their operations some.

It worked extremely well.

Then later on some groups latched onto the name, and they were arrested for it. Lulzsec etc. Around 2014 I think. This suits the feds too because anonymous becomes a useful honeypot for would-be hackers who would do real activities.

If you watch that Church video then watch this fed psyops recruitment video you'll get why I specifically believe these are the same people involved in both: https://youtu.be/_uNPZKJqbE8

To use some old language from back in those days - samef*gs