Bulletins and News Discussion from March 17th to March 23rd, 2025 - The Kafue River Dies - COTW: Zambia

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.

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Nixon’s vice president asked Saudis for money to fight US ‘Zionists’. Spiro Agnew, in letter to crown prince, said ‘Zionists orchestrated organized attack on me’ as ‘I’d never agree to continuance of unfair and disastrous favoring of Israel’ The late US Vice President Spiro Agnew requested money in 1980 from Saudi Arabia to “continue to fight” against American Zionists.
Agnew, who served for three years under Richard Nixon before resigning in 1973 in a corruption scandal from his time as the governor of Maryland in the 1960s, wrote to Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, then crown prince of Saudi Arabia, saying “I need desperately your financial support,” MSNBC reported Thursday.
“You highness is already familiar with the unrelenting Zionist efforts to destroy me,” Agnew wrote, adding that Elliot Richardson, who was attorney general when Agnew was vice president, “attacked” him because Agnew “could not be trusted to act properly in the Middle East.”
The reason, he also wrote, “was that the Zionists in the United States knew that I would never agree to the continuance of the unfair and disastrous favoring of Israel and they had to get me out of office there so that I would not succeed Nixon.” Since 1974, “The Zionists have orchestrated a well-organized attack on me” through lawsuits, Agnew said, “to bleed me of my resources to continue my effort to inform the American people of their control of the media and other influential sectors of American society.”
Agnew, who died in 1996, resigned amid revelations that he had engaged in corruption while governor and did not contest his conviction. But in his letter to the prince, he said the Zionists “framed” him. He spoke out frequently about what he called the “Zionist influences in the US.”
He stated that he would use the funds to "continue my effort to inform the American people of their (i.e., Zionists') control of the media and other influential sectors of American society." He also congratulated the crown prince on his call for jihad against Israel, whose declaration of Jerusalem as its capital he characterized as "the final provocation". A month later he thanked the crown prince for giving him "the resources to continue the battle against the Zionist community here in the U.S.". Agnew's anti-Zionist views seemed to have developed after leaving office—as vice president, he expressed admiration for Israel and was friendly with his Jewish staff members.
- Is this from the new files? What source is msnbc using?
  
  Old news, just thought it was a bit weird and I was expecting people here to share some more info on this.
  
  Very weird. Hopefully someone does, cuz I don’t know a thing
- Agnew's anti-Zionist views seemed to have developed after leaving office—as vice president, he expressed admiration for Israel and was friendly with his Jewish staff members.
  
  All these people who switch it up so suddenly sound like they're a honeypot or a PR company got a hold of them. That CIA director, Jimmy Carter, and everyone else.

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