Bulletins and News Discussion from March 4th to March 10th, 2024 - The Coalition of Losers - COTW: Pakistan

Image is of a protest in Pakistan after the attempted assassination of Imran Khan in November 2022.

What a clusterfuck of an election.

Imran Khan, the previous official Prime Minister of Pakistan, was removed by the command of the United States in April 2022 in a no confidence motion. This made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. Imran Khan and his supporters have protested since then against the Pakistani state, which is more-or-less governed by the military despite the furnishings of civilian rule. This has ranged from largely peaceful protests to trying to burn down and occupy houses and headquarters.

It was assumed by the Pakistani elite that they could make the problem go away by arresting Imran Khan and effectively forcing many PTI candidates to run as independents while hounding them with police raids and stopping them from campaigning - and adding salt on the wound by disabling social media access and mobile services on the day of the election to make it more difficult to co-ordinate. Fortunately, these people don't seem to quite understand how the internet works in the current day, and so Khan's supporters started up WhatsApp groups and improvised websites and apps to spread the word about which candidates to vote for, leading to Khan's party getting the plurality, though not the majority, of votes in the election.

This has created a rather depressed mood in the Pakistani elite. A coalition of eight parties joined together, obviously excluding the PTI, but this coalition is shaky and lacks much legitimacy, with two major parties inside it, the PML-N and PPP, being ideologically opposed on several issues. It has been regarded as "the coalition of losers" by Khan's supporters. The new Prime Minister is Shehbaz Sharif, who also ruled from April 2022 until August 2023 and is the younger brother of Nawaz Sharif, who served as Prime Minister three times before in the last few decades. With inflation at 30% and the economy greatly struggling, there are fears that things may only stay together for months, not years, before the coalition fragments and something else has to be done.

Your Monday briefing is here in the comments and here on the website. Your Thursday briefing is here in the comments and here on the website. Your Sundary briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.

The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.

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

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1.1K comments

Your Monday Briefing:
Syphilis treatment drugs are in short supply, and it’s a disease which can spread from pregnant mother to the baby in the womb and often results in death, and if not, in severe deformities. Cases of syphilis are on a dramatic rise even before the shortage of shots. 20 years ago, there were three manufacturers of syphilis shots, and then Pfizer acquired the other two companies, became the sole US supplier, and there are now frequent manufacturing issues.^PP
Slovakia’s foreign minister met with Lavrov in early March and has faced a lot of criticism from the opposition and the country’s liberal President, Caputova, because diplomacy with your enemies is for pussies and real, heroic men sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives and destroy a country in order to inconvenience a nuclear superpower as much as possible and then actually fail at doing even that, strengthening that nuclear superpower.^BNE
Armenia is freezing its participation in the CTSO and a permanent exit appears imminent as Armenia blames Russia (not entirely without merit) for their recent defeats. While the US tries to stir up trouble in the Caucasuses to try and weaken Russia and Iran, what’s actually happening is that everybody is banding together against Armenia.^NC
Putin has proposed a raft of new projects to update the 12 National Projects, which were launched in 2019, in order to improve the conditions of the public. For example, Putin has proposed a six-year long-term financial plan of Russia’s development, as well as progressive tax rates, doubling public and private investment in research and development, new housing construction, support for families with children due to the demographic crisis, extending life expectancy, and so on.^BNE
A study has found that China will need 6 terawatts of renewables (2 TW of wind and 4 TW of solar) by 2060 to become carbon neutral on time. This is double China’s current energy generation and over five times the generation of the United States. This would also require a large amount of land dedicated to those energy sources.^SCMP
According to a government official, China’s middle-income population has passed the 500 million mark, or a rise of 100 million over five years.^SCMP
The Turkish government is keeping a close eye on credit card spending, which has increased 126% year-on-year in January and inflation is at 65%, leading to panic-buys by people ahead of possible measures that would curb that credit spending.^BNE
With Nigeria in its worst economic crisis in years, with inflation at 30% and the naira at an all-time low against the dollar, citizens are taking food from storage facilities after calls from one of the most powerful trade unions demanded measures to quell hunger. The government is reacting by boosting security rather than distributing food.^AN
Ghana is planning to establish a $450 million manganese refinery and is banning the export of raw bauxite, and thus refine minerals inside the country and foster economic growth. Ghana is also Africa’s leading gold producer.^BNE
Haiti has declared a state of emergency and curfew to try and regain control after an explosion of violence over the weekend, with armed gangs storming prisons and releasing those inside. Additionally, there was gunfire towards police stations and the international airport, notably as the Prime Minister Henry was out in Kenya to try and hurry along the deployment of police to Haiti which the US and Canada wants so desperately.^AN
- A study has found that China will need 6 terawatts of renewables (2 TW of wind and 4 TW of solar) by 2060 to become carbon neutral on time. This is double China’s current energy generation and over five times the generation of the United States. This would also require a large amount of land dedicated to those energy sources.
  The IEA expects China to add 2 TW by 2028, so they should hit that number well ahead of time.
  Side note, I love when western journalists say shit like this:
  China has several advantages that sometimes aren't available in other countries. These include being able to approve and build transmission grids and renewable energy projects more quickly than in countries where democratic processes and the objection of local communities can constrain infrastructure development.
  Not more solar panels
  
  Meanwhile, democratic process in China is an actual Peoples Democracy. The difference is incredible and not only do burgers have no idea, I try to tell them and they instantly lose their minds.
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=64FHSkc5ORs
  
  I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
  yewtu.be
  inv.nadeko.net
  yt.artemislena.eu
  piped.video

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