Image is of President Hakainde Hichilema and President Xi Jinping on September 15th, from this article.


Zambia is a country of 20 million people, located in southern Africa. Breaking free from British rule in the 1960s, the new government was a one party state ruled by the socialist UNIP party with its leader Kenneth Kaunda, who was a strong supporter of the Non-Aligned Movement (and was its chairman from 1970-73). Its economy has been and remains characterised by copper exports - it is the second-largest copper exporter in Africa - and the economy deeply struggled in the 1970s due to the price of copper plunging. After the fall of the USSR, and due to violent protests, Kaunda stepped down and instituted a multiparty democracy, which has been maintained without (successful) coups to this day, though there are warnings by the leader that some are plotting a coup, given the trend right now.AA

Earlier this year, in June, Zambia struck a deal to restructure the $6.3 billion in debt that they are burdened with, of which China is the single largest creditor.Reuters Though he has typically been more West-friendly, last week, President Hichilema traveled to China for two days, meeting with various companies, and Xi Jinping himself. They elevated their relationship to that of a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.Xinhua He and Xi have agreed to the increased use of local currencies in trade.BB

Hichilema said Zambia thanks China for supporting the African Union’s entry into the G20 and China’s positive role in resolving the Zambian debt issue. The Zambian side abides by the one-China principle, highly appreciates the guiding philosophy and principles of Chinese modernization, and hopes to learn from China’s development experience.

Hichilema has also said:AN

“We can do more, faster, because the needs are tremendous in Zambia. I heard some of the solutions are here. All we need to do is to combine the two together.”


Check out @Othello@hexbear.net’s discussion of The Wretched of the Earth!

The Country of the Week is Singapore! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.


Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The news summary for last week is here!

Links and Stuff

The bulletins site is down.

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists

Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Add to the above list if you can.


Resources For Understanding The War


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.

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.


Telegram Channels

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

Pro-Russian

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

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.


Last week’s discussion post.


  • Teekeeus [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    SMIC Well on Its Way to 5-nm Breakthrough, Observers Say

    In summation:

    Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) is likely to, in the next few years, again defy the U.S. government by manufacturing chips with feature sizes as small as 5 nm, industry insiders told EE Times.

    The production of 7-nm silicon by China’s largest chipmaker just days ago has crossed a red line set by the U.S. government to keep its rival nation stalled at the 14-nm node. SMIC’s widely reported breakthrough erodes the U.S. strategy to use export controls and blacklists to halt China’s technological progress, according to Dick Thurston, former chief legal counsel for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC).

    “I never had any doubt that they would be doing 7 [nm], and I still don’t have any doubt that they’ll do 5 nm without the EUV tools,” he told EE Times.

    The number of new phones suggests the yield at SMIC for the new process node is much higher than the 10% that some have suggested, according to Paul Triolo, who advises tech clients at Albright Stonebridge Group.

    “Industry sources within China suggest that the yield is in the 70% range and getting better, which is usually the case with these types of efforts to push existing equipment beyond what it was intended for,” he told EE Times.

    There is a limited roadmap for SMIC/Huawei to reach advanced nodes beyond some layers at 5 nm, Triolo added.

    Given that SMIC has figured out multi-patterning for 7 nm, they can likely figure it out for 5 nm, Semiconductor Advisers President Robert Maire said in a newsletter provided to EE Times.

    “SMIC has clearly proven it can get around the EUV ban,” Maire told EE Times. “Applied Materials, Lam, KLA and others are still shipping tons of tools to China, which is their largest market by far and growing.”

    The only source interviewed by EE Times last week who would hazard a guess about how soon SMIC might have a 5-nm chip was Maire.

    Maire’s estimate? “Likely somewhere between one and three years,” he said. “If SMIC is keeping pace, probably about two years.”

    The U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC) controls on SMIC have been ineffective, he added. “European, israel-cool, various companies are not 100% following what the U.S. has asked them to do.”

    While it is likely that U.S. officials will consider some further measures against both SMIC and Huawei, both are already on the Entity List and subject to the FDPR provision, leaving the “nuclear option” of Treasury Department sanctions, Triolo said.

    “Any move in this direction would have a major negative impact on U.S.-China relations, which have seen some minor improvement after four Cabinet-level visits of U.S. officials to Beijing,” he added.

    Whether DoC restrictions can successfully inhibit China, “my answer is no,” Thurston said.

    “We’ve let the cat out of the bag. We’ve opened up competition to countries that can access all these tools. All this can be replicated.”

    China’s chipmaking capabilities are not well-understood in Washington, Thurston said. “How do you actually estimate China’s technological capability? We don’t really understand. U.S. companies have done a poor job. I’m sure TSMC understands much better than others.”

    The “high walls, small yard” strategy of U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to keep China behind the U.S. as many technology generations as possible faces a challenge.

    “While U.S. officials have stressed that export controls are narrowly tailored to national security-related issues, no U.S. official has clearly explained how a consumer smartphone like the Mate 60 rises to the level of a national security concern,” Triolo said. “It remains unclear whether extraterritorial export controls like the FDPR, which would restrict one Chinese company from selling to another Chinese company, would stand up to serious scrutiny in terms of international law.”

    amerikkka-clap some-controversy