Bulletins and News Discussion from February 17th to February 23rd, 2025 - The Sankara Renaissance - COTW: Burkina Faso

Image is of the Memorial of the Martyrs (or, the Monument of National Heroes), conceived of by Thomas Sankara and constructed in the early 2000s, honouring those who died in the revolution.

The government of Burkina Faso has done that thing that imperialist nations most dread - land reform.

The Council of Ministers has adopted a bill which means that the nation's land now belongs to the state, in order to regulate land use and make it more sustainable, as well as to solve land conflicts. It's important to note that they are respecting the importance of customary rights in rural land for Burkina Faso nationals. Meanwhile, foreigners can no longer acquire titles of property on rural land.

This new law is part of a series of improvements to Burkina Faso implemented by the country under Traore (who, of course, faces assassination attempts on a regular basis). For example, the state has recently recognized the status of chiefs through the country, putting them under a clearer legal framework and involving them more in public affairs. Late last year, Burkina Faso also nationalized two gold mines, Boungou and Wahgnion, owned by foreign corporations. Burkina Faso is the 13th largest gold producer in the world despite its relatively small size, and yet most of the wealth produced is - or, was - siphoned off to the imperialist core. And, after years of research and development, they've made a new electric car - the Itaoua - which can travel up to 330 kilometers after only 30 minutes of charging.

Socialism cannot be stopped - only delayed.

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614 comments

This website exists for me solely as a vessel that carries this beautiful thread, so it's annoying that I have to click like two extra clicks to reach the news mega. Oh well.
Some news that I've found interesting in the last few days:
RSF are heading towards a decisive defeat in Sudan, which is very good if we listen to Sudanese people and their takes on things. The UAE have really taken many Ls recently with the RSF's imminent defeat, failure to save the Assad regime, failure of the Abraham Accords when it comes to reshaping Arab attitudes towards Israel, failure of their involvement in Yemen, and now the Americans and the Russians choosing Riyadh instead of Abu Dhabi for their negotiations. Anything bad for the UAE is mostly good for the world.
Nasrallah's funeral is on Sunday. I'm not ready at all. I'm at a point where I dread opening Facebook or TikTok, because every clip I see of him just breaks my heart. No death has ever affected me this much, not even my actual grandparents. To quote a beautiful Shia saying about Imam Hussein: There's a fire in the hearts of believers that can never be extinguished.
The direction of the new Syrian regime from a pure democratic perspective is very worrying. Seems like we're heading towards another cult of personality, with Ahmed Al Sharaa just taking Assad's place. I totally expect him to pull a classic Sisi move when election come around. "I don't want to run for elections, but the people's demands forced me to humbly seek nomination", then he'll win with like 90%. The Al Sharaa family already has the bourgeoisie origins that makes them capable of converting the country to their little playground like the Assads did. His grandpa was a feudal lord in Golan, his father was a famous author and activist, one of his brothers is a doctor and new health minister, his other brother runs Pepsi's Iraqi division and his wife is from a top bourgeoisie family from the Homs elite.
Russia have smashed the eastern flank of the Ukrainian-held territory in Kursk. They have also extended the Oskil bridgehead. Ukraine have completely lost the ability to sustain bigger counterattacks. Their counterattack near the village of Pischane on the Pokrovsk front has been defeated after just 2-3 days. This is why I believe that Trump's peace proposal will fail, the Russians have no incentive to compromise on anything when their negotiation position improves every single day.
- The one way Trump's peace negotiations could succeed is if he simply gives Russia everything they want. Which is in the realm of conceivable. Think about the following hypothetical deal that's win/win for US and Russia:
  Russia agrees to sign over the rights to their $300 billion in stolen reserves (this is baked into the cake already, Russia is simply never getting these back one way or the other) to the United States to "recoup" their "investment" into Ukraine
  USA agrees to cut all weapons and money to Ukraine permanently, USA is out of the Ukraine business.
  Ukraine agrees to be barred permanently from NATO and to scale down their military. They also agree to new elections. Zelenskyy is out.
  The 5 annexed oblasts are recognized as Russian and handed over to Russia.
  The major thing endangering this sort of win-win agreement for the US and Russia is EU and Ukrainian nationalist meddling. Desperate Slava Ukrainis could definitely do some sort of false flag terrorist operation in Europe to make peace impossible. EU is constantly trying to sabotage these arrangements and escalate themsleves, with Starmer even saying he'll put UK troops on the ground in Ukraine. Western press is sabotaging the talks as well, posting deceitful articles about Trump's positions to poison the well (the article from WaPo stating that Hegseth claimed there would be US troops on the ground as an option was entirely fabricated for example, he said no such thing).
  There's the route that Trump has signaled he may go, trying to acquire the rights to Ukraine's minerals. The problem with that is that the American companies who are willing to go in and extract are demanding US army presence in Ukraine to protect them, which is a deal breaker for Putin and the Russians. Trump needs to drop this entire line of thinking as it will destroy the peace talks entirely if he keeps pursuing it. I feel like some neocons like Lindsay Graham planted this idea in his mind to purposefully make it impossible to come to a resolution with Russia.
- This website exists for me solely as a vessel that carries this beautiful thread
  I've spent like 90% of my time on the site in the news megathreads; everybody here is great. As long as there aren't major and rapidly developing events ongoing, it's in the top 1% of the sanest, most coherent, and comfortable places on the internet. And even when there is, everywhere else is a tsunami of misinformation and propaganda anyway, so it still rates pretty highly. Glad you get so much worth out of it as you're among our most powerful posters.
  
  I love lurking the news mega. Really just the best place to be. It's the only place I can follow the news and stay somewhat sane because people acknowledge the reality of the situation
- Is Qatar worse or better than Saudi-Arabia and the UAE? They arent as visibly active as the emirates and seem to be mostly aligned with Turkey, no?
  
  Qatar is slightly better on Palestine, but not much. At least they employed Palestinian reporters and got the word out a bit, more than anything those Saudi dogs did the entire time.
  
  slightly better on Palestine
  I guess Qatar's support for Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas extended a bit to that, even under the past Saudi-led embargo.

614 comments