davecoggan
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Social media is full of conspiracies. For example, that the USA paid Wagner six billion dollars to stage a coup but it was a hoax on the part of Putin and the head of Wagner. Also, the ‘retreat’ means that the Wagner group has now ensconced itself in Belarus closer to Kiev. Also, the Russians have allegedly stationed nuclear weapons in Belarus when everyone’s attention was taken up with the ‘coup’.
Causes of war; we knew the following but I thought it was worth noting even if it does come from the International Committee of the Fourth International:
“The war in Ukraine is also a battle for raw materials. The country has large deposits of iron, titanium and lithium, some of which are now controlled by Russia.” That’s what the federally owned German foreign trade agency Germany Trade and Invest (GTAI) reported on its website on January 16 under the title “Ukraine’s raw materials wealth at risk.”There are trillions at stake. According to the GTAI, “raw material deposits worth $12.4 trillion” remain beyond the control of the Ukrainian army, “including 41 coal mines, 27 gas deposits, 9 oil fields and 6 iron ore deposits.” Ukraine has not only coal, gas, oil and wheat but also rare earths and metals—especially lithium, which has been called the “white gold” of the transition to new energy and transportation technologies. The country accounts for around one-third of Europe’s explored lithium deposits.
Only the ignorant could believe that this is irrelevant to NATO’s war aims. It would be the first major war in over 100 years that is not about mineral resources, markets and geostrategic interests. The World Socialist Web Site has pointed out in previous articles that deposits of critical raw materials in Russia and China, which are essential to the transition to electric mobility and renewable energy, are an important factor in the war calculus of NATO states.”Totally agree, it is very worrying about Alan. It is getting on for quite a while now. I for one didn’t realise how much work he does in various capacities for the Party. It can only be hoped that we hear from him again soon.
For the record, I’m a wholehearted supported of the Voltaire principle. Lizzie45 I am not white knighting for Paula but might I point out to you Forum Rule 7? Isn’t there also a rule about taking up issues with the moderator privately? Not trying to shut anyone down, see my first sentence, but perhaps it’s time to give this a rest now? That applies to everyone on this thread including me.
MS, oh dear. I would not have questioned Lizzie45’s use of the term misogynist which she applied to you had I have seen your latest post beforehand.
If the moderator should decide to take action based on your latest post then she gets my full support.
However, that’s entirely her call.
I don’t want to come across as a Victorian aunt but even I find such intemperate language as you used unacceptable. And believe me I’m extremely broad minded. That’s my opinion and I’ve expressed it. End.Thank you for those links Lizzie45.I confess I’ve only very recently taken up reading the forum regularly and I certainly wasn’t aware of those previous comments. I based my question to you on the only one comment appearing on this moderator thread from MS that I was familiar with.
I’ll be a somewhat more circumspect in future and do a history search before I jump in with both feet.
There was no intention to stir up a hornets nest and having read the links I’m grateful for having escaped without getting stung too badly.Personally I’m not bothered by what people say about me but I’m puzzled as to why Lizzie45 should call movimiento socialista a misogynist.
I thought the items MS posted here were very supportive of Paula taking over the role of moderator – and of women in general.“in this party we had never had a woman as a moderator,
“but during the war women played an important role in this party ) and in certain occasions women have more courage than men. like in Colombia where a bunch of women built their own city because most of their husbands are dead
Thank you Marcos for your support. I’m happy to join the revolutionary women of the world”.Am I mistaken in believing that the SPGB is gender blind?
“That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.” DofP
I’m sure MS is more than capable of speaking for themselves but I have to admit to being disconcerted at finding such unsubstantiated terms used on this forum. If it was supposed to be humorous I’m afraid the joke completely escapes me.
How do you contact a moderator, specifically this forum’s moderator, if you have a query, need clarification, or even, Marx forbid, have a complaint? I’m presuming that there are some things that necessarily wouldn’t want to be gone into on a public forum?
I haven’t much experience of forums really so I genuinely don’t know how to go about what I’ve outlined.
Enlightenment appreciated.I’ve just posted a piece to SOYMB about the bank rate increase.
It’s certainly not an occasion for levity but if you didn’t laugh you would weep. So in that vein, shouldn’t we give Andrew baily, Governor of the Bank of England, three months free subscription to the Socialist Standard?Paula, I very much hope you made your comment with your tongue firmly in your cheek. That’s the sort of comment a Reddit moderator would make. I’ve never been on Reddit btw but social media is always taking the michael (apologies to anyone named Michael) out of them for there abuse of their power. For the record, i’m a fan and advocate of completely free speech.
Given my initial caveat I wish you good luck in your new role.I’m sure there are lots of sci-fi examples of AI.
My favourites are E.M. Forster’s, The Machine Stops.
Brian W. Aldiss, Comic Inferno and HAL (IBM) the sentient computer in 2001 a space odyssey.
Do Asimov’s Robots fall into that category?
Would workers be classed as Luddite for resisting the implementation of technology which was rather more clever than the self service payment points in supermarkets?
If more and more workers are sacked and machines or AI replace them where does surplus value come from?
Has there been an article explaining all this?Re Burford- levellers Day
Will the SPGB stall be located in the town centre next to the church? Or will it be in a field at the very top of the town?Spotted this on a news site:
In response, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) said it was willing to offer higher residual pay and address concerns about working conditions, but expressed opposition to a number of other proposals “that the Guild continues to insist upon.”
Among the WGA’s myriad requests is a guarantee from producers that scripts will not be generated using artificial intelligence (AI), and that writers will not be asked to edit or rewrite screenplays created using the technology.Almost half of the 4,800 banks in the US are nearly insolvent, as they have burned through their capital buffers, The Telegraph reported earlier this week, citing a group of banking experts.
According to Professor Amit Seru, a banking expert at Stanford University, around half of US lenders are underwater.
“Let’s not pretend that this is just about Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic,” he said. “A lot of the US banking system is potentially insolvent.”
Last week, First Republic was seized by US financial regulators and acquired by JPMorgan, the country’s biggest bank. The San Francisco-based lender had previously received a $30-billion rescue shot from a group of Wall Street banks in the form of deposits. The sale of First Republic Bank followed massive deposit runs in March, which caused two regional lenders, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, to fail within days.
On Thursday, shares of Los Angeles-based PacWest and Arizona’s Western Alliance were suspended after their prices fell dramatically. Earlier in the week, shares of several regional US lenders plunged by at least 15%, triggering investor concerns about the financial health of other mid-sized banks.
Around 2,315 banks across the US are currently sitting on assets worth less than their liabilities, according to a Hoover Institution report by Professor Seru and a group of banking experts, as cited by the media.
The market value of the loan portfolios of these lenders is reportedly $2 trillion lower than the stated book value.
Professor Seru raised questions over the steps taken by US financial watchdogs to tackle the problems faced by crisis-hit mid-sized lenders. The regulators can contain the immediate liquidity crisis by guaranteeing all deposits temporarily, according to Seru, who said, however, that this would not address the greater solvency crisis.
RT 6/5/23A very disturbing piece even allowing for the bias in this particular agency.
Is this being discussed elsewhere? Whatever the outcome of this particular conflict the lasting consequences for very many civilians and workers is literally deadly.Since February of last year, when Russia launched its military offensive in the country, mine explosions have killed about 200 civilians in Ukraine, while hundreds more have been injured.
The UN has already called Ukraine the most heavily mined state in the world. Yet the contamination continues to grow because of how positional warfare is carried out. With the conflict far from over, the further laying of explosive could have disastrous consequences.
Official reports claim that 250,000 square kilometers (almost 62 million acres) of Ukrainian territory have been mined. This is equal to the entirety of the UK (244,000 square kilometers). According to Prime Minister Denis Shmigal, his country has become the world’s largest minefield, which has even spurred the government to create a special center to deal with the fallout.
Experts believe that the situation in Ukraine is worse than in Afghanistan and Syria. The number of unexploded ordnance, anti-personnel, anti-tank, and other mines and explosive shells is estimate to be in the millions of units.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s minefields are growing exponentially. In the past year, the entire length of the front line on both sides has been mined. They are often laid in a scattered manner and without mapping. Given Ukraine’s large size, this greatly complicates the process of finding and neutralizing them.
“Indeed, there is a chance that the mined territories may expand further, both due to the prolongation of the conflict and the likely offensive from either side, which may move hostilities to previously unaffected territories,” Maxim Semenov, a political analyst and specialist in conflicts in the post-Soviet space, told RT.
Official sources also report that the contaminated area is expanding. Last summer, the Ukrainian Deminers Association stated that minefields covered about 133,000 square kilometers of Ukraine, but the number recently announced by Shmigal is already double that.
The sign ‘Caution – mines!’ in the village of Zaitsevo, Donetsk region. © Sputnik / Valery Melnikov
Meanwhile, there are no solutions that can be totally effective, and most importantly, quick and simple. Demining is the exclusive job of sappers. For example, back in the 2000s, an average of 50 people a day were blown up on anti-personnel objects in Angola, one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. To this day, about 500,000 explosive devices remain, despite the fact that dozens of sapper units from all around the world have helped out in the country. It’s also worth noting that both the fighting and the scope of contamination in Angola were a lot less severe than in Ukraine.
“We should note the experience of African and Asian countries, and even of the Soviet Union, where, decades after the end of war, mine explosions occasionally happened. It is impossible to provide guarantees that an area is completely clear of mines. The army may not make maps of minefields, as has been the case with the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Donbass since 2014. Or the maps may be inaccurate, they may get lost, etc. All this complicates the work of the sappers,” notes Semenov, adding that even decades after an area is cleared, mines can still pop up in the most unexpected places. Even sappers cannot guarantee that all mines and shells are found and cleared.
For war-affected regions, this creates enormous problems in the transition to peacetime life, not to mention the possible deaths of civilians and challenges in normalizing the economy. “[This concerns] both agriculture, the industrial sector, and infrastructure. The Armed Forces of Ukraine have been known to mine civilian objects, as for example, in Mariupol, where Russian sappers are still clearing plants, residential buildings, and courts,” the expert added.
In other words, it may take decades. Back in June of last year, Ukraine’s then-Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky said that partial demining would take from five to ten years.
So far, this problem remains in the background because of Ukraine’s total media censorship, the focus on news reports from the front, and people’s understandable desire to stay away from the fighting. But when the heated phase of the armed conflict comes to an end or if the conflict becomes frozen, the problem will emerge as a key issue.
Servicemen of the Russian railway troops conduct technical reconnaissance of the railway tracks in the course of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, at the unknown location in Kherson region, that has accessed Russia. © Sputnik / Evgeny Biyatov
A year ago, the Kiev, Kharkov, Chernigov, and Sumy regions (Ukraine’s north and east parts) were the most heavily mined areas. But now, it’s the eastern and southern regions. “We are currently most active in the Kherson region. Eight thousand square kilometers need to be cleared of mines, of which seven thousand are in the Kherson region, and about 1.5 thousand in the Nikolaev region,” said Sergey Kruk, head of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, in November of last year.
The war-affected areas can be divided into several categories according to the danger levels posed by the mines.
The highest danger level remains in the Donbass region. Its territory has been strewn with mines since the beginning of the armed conflict in 2014. Fishermen and children regularly fall victim to mines in Lugansk, and mushroom pickers suffer the same fate near Slaviansk. Some of these were laid almost ten years ago. Moreover, the bloodiest battles are now taking place in Donbass, which makes it one of the most heavily mined regions on the planet. Sappers from the Russian Armed Forces who neutralize explosive devices in Mariupol believe that the area will remain dangerous for several generations of residents.
A high level of danger also remains along the current front line from the Kharkov to the Zaporozhye regions, as well as along the line of contact in the Kherson region. In these areas, military expediency accounts for most of the mines. The longer the front remains static at some point, the deeper inland the mined areas spread.
The situation is particularly severe in the Kharkov region, where the frequently shifting front lines lead to intensive mining on both sides. The director of Human Rights Watch’s Arms Division, Stephen Goose, has noted that the Armed Forces of Ukraine scattered so-called ‘petal mines’ “across a vast area near the city of Izyum, which led to civilian casualties and still poses a serious threat.”
A heightened threat also remains at the locations of the first battles – namely, in the Kiev, Zhitomir, Chernigov, and Sumy regions. These areas stand apart from the other regions for two reasons. Firstly, at the initial stage of the conflict, the fighting did not yet take on the form of positional warfare. Since the battles were fast-paced, there was no need for heavy mining. Secondly, the mining was mostly carried out by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and therefore it will be much easier for the Ukrainian side to clear their own mines. However, residents of these regions are maimed on mines almost every day.
A Russian military police sapper prepares to destroy improvised explosive device found on patrol, as Russia’s military operation in Ukraine continues, in Zaporizhzhia region territory, that has accessed Russia. © Sputnik / RIA News
A low level of danger remains along the entire perimeter of the Russia-Ukraine and Belarus-Ukraine borders. Late last year, the chairman of the State Border Committee of Belarus, Lieutenant General Anatoly Lappo, said that Ukraine had blown up almost all of the border bridges and mined roads on the Ukraine-Belarus border. “Up to the point that they laid anti-tank mines in three rows on the roads,” the official said. This is backed by the State Border Service of Ukraine, which confirmed the border territories as “mined”.
The rest of Ukraine’s territory is relatively clear. In those places, people can still go fishing and enjoy picnics, pick mushrooms, plant potatoes in their garden, and just walk around freely. However, ‘the rest of Ukraine’ has shrunk to a mere half of the country. Even people who used to go to the sea – to Odessa, for example, are in no hurry to do so, since the entire coast is densely mined.
Every single day is a test of fate for civilians. Danger is hidden everywhere. Agricultural workers are at an even greater risk and are particularly concerned about the endless minefields. During seasonal farm work, every step could be their last.
Farmers cannot cultivate fields, as mines create serious problems for agriculture, which is one of the main sectors of the Ukrainian economy. Before the outbreak of active hostilities, Ukraine accounted for nearly 10% of the world grain market. The country was also among the biggest producers of sunflower seeds, corn, and other crops. Now, many of the fields have been mined and may be left unused, at least in the short term.
Based on the analysis of satellite images, last year the US space technology company Maxar concluded that Ukraine may achieve only half of its usual grain harvest. In 2022, farmers sowed 30% fewer fields than in 2021. In 2023, the harvest of grain and leguminous crops will decrease by another 17% compared to last year.
Currently, the hardest hit region is Kherson, where minefields will affect the planting of gourds. “In the Kherson region, unfortunately most of the territories are mined, the fields are damaged by shells, and it will take time to demine the area. However, onions, watermelons, and cantaloupes will be planted in the Odessa region and in parts of the Kirovograd region,”said Dmitry Solomchuk, a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Agrarian and Land Policy, in March of this year.
Russian serviceman works on demining the territory of Azovstal steel plant in the course of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, in the port city of Mariupol, Donetsk People’s Republic. © Sputnik / Konstantin Mihalchevskiy
Beets, carrots, and potatoes will be planted in Ukraine’s western and central regions. Agricultural farms are focusing on planting vegetables in order to avoid shortages and low export indicators.
About a million hectares of Ukraine’s agricultural land are contaminated with mines and unexploded ordnance. “The minefields will definitely have a negative impact on land turnover and the production of agricultural goods. A lot of the fighting is taking place on so-called ‘chernozem’ lands – that is, areas with the most fertile soil. This will greatly restrict the region’s agricultural potential and reduce Ukraine’s share in the world grain market not only this year, but also in the coming years.’ Maxim Semenov added.
For obvious reasons, no one can predict how long it will take to completely demine Ukraine. But it is clear that even after the conflict is over, its horrific legacy will remain in the form of landmines and explosive ordnance scattered all around the country. For decades to come, this will doubtlessly remain one of the biggest concerns for the country.
By Petr Lavrenin, Odessa-born political journalist and expert on Ukraine and the former Soviet Union
RT 1/5/23
https://www.rt.com/russia/575354-kingdom-of-mines-ukraine/
