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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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1.1K comments

  • A decent twitter thread of what exactly the United States has targeted in Yemen over the past week, using satellite imagery and photograph/video geolocations. Lots of factories, government buildings, industrial facilities, underground military complexes, ammunition depots and bases hit, along with universities and farmland linked to the Ansarallah government/movement (property seized by them). And right at the beginning, before the rest of the Ansarallah leadership likely went into hiding in underground facilities in the mountains, the bombing of their homes, leading to civilian casualties and killings (that I would argue were deliberate).

    Twitter thread

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    Highly recommended going through the thread to get an idea of what is being targeted. Overall it looks like the United States is trying to degrade Ansarallah's ability to run the country and industry, along with bombing any sources of revenue, along with targeting military facilities.

    • leading to civilian casualties and killings (that I would argue were deliberate)

      Yeah, I mean, Trump has openly talked about "taking out" the families of "terrorists". And he is directly involved in these strikes (judging by the photo ops).

      That's hard evidence of the premeditated and deliberate targeting of civilians, which is a cut and dry violation of international law, but we all know there will be no consequences.

1113 comments