The Agrinautica

Saturday, June 24th, Day 51 - today was just the closing ceremonies, two or three hours of speeches and wrap up, and photos.

   This group was half the size of prior groups (25ish vs 50) and I think because of that it felt a bit more personal. Less a sea of faces. But also the majority of this group were from the same agricultural college bee club so it also helped that they all knew eachother really well.
   Several of the students, members of said beekeeping club, thanked me at the end emphatically saying how much they learned. It's still a marvel to me that people who are even already in a beekeeping club at an agricultural college can learn so much from me. And one of the leaders said to me that they learned more in this four day course than they had in a two week course they'd put on last year -- which had me thinking "damn and here I'm always desperately trying to figure out how to fill the time" ahaha -- though part of that dynamic is that I'm deeply allergic to any busywork timefilling beating-around-the-bush type activities. Same as why I don't mind public speaking but am not good at making fluffy five minute speeches about absolutely nothing. I can't help but get right to my points.

   In the evening Williams and I went out into town because I needed to get cash from an ATM for our planned travels the next day (the actual today as I'm writing this in the morning) -- the plan is to go to the tallest waterfall in Ghana (maybe even West Africa?), another canopy walk, and the tallest mountain in Ghana (maybe also West Africa).
   While out, since we hadn't had dinner, Williams suggested we get something. There's KFC advertisements all over town so I suggested KFC. While the KFC in the capital had had all the usual products I found this one very limited -- I like to get the chicken burgers ("chicken sandwiches" as is official parlance in the USA, one area in which I'm not on the American side. Its a burger!) but they had none of those. I got a bucket of boneless chicken though. They also had no bbq sauce. And I found out later they gave me a unit of icecream, which, because we spent a bit of time looking for someplace where Williams could buy some alcohol, by the time I finally got to my room to dig in to my food the icecream I hadn't anticipated having had been reduced to a liquid state. I've put it in the freezer in my hotelroom minifridge though. Investigating just now, it appears to have refrozen into two subtly different layers. But anyway the important thing, what I'd been curious about the chicken was that normally all chicken you get here is a bit chewy, sometimes even rubbery, and I was wondering if the KFC chicken quality would be similar or more Western standard. And I can report the KFC chicken in Ghana in both cases I've tried it has been white and soft and more or less exactly the same as you'd get in the West. I always feel guilty for eating at an American fast food chain while abroad but its nice to have the familiar every now and then.


Meanwhile in Russia
   So also all day I was reloading the news about Prigozhin's ongoing march ("truck stop thunder run" I've seen it amusingly referred to) on Moscow. This I did via twitter, which, I've found in the current state of the app the main "for you" feed gives you a random assortment of things from the last 24 hours so it's no good at all for following breaking news but the "followers" does load more or less the very most recent first and since by now I'm following a lot of accounts that are reporting such news as soon as they get it it was pretty good.

   So one surprising revelation was that the "ammunition shortage" Prigozhin has been banging on about for the past two months may have never existed, he was just saving ammunition up for this planned mutiny/coup. Which is ironic since "the Ministry of Defense isn't adequately supplying us" seems to have been one of his biggest complaints. So the justification was because of his own preparations?

   Anyway so Prigozhin got definitely within 350km of Moscow, possibly 200km and into Moscow region. There was surreal footage of Russian MoD airstrikes against the convoy and fuel depots along the way, entrenchment and sandbagging around Moscow, bridges being blown. Eight Russian aircraft were shot down by Wagner forces. It was madness, full on civil war in Russia!

   And it looked like he'd succeed, he had many heavy tanks in his convoy and apparently there were none on the opposing side in Moscow. Putin and other elites fled Moscow (a very stark contrast to Zelenskyy "I need ammo not a ride" sticking it out in Kyiv through the worst of it).

   And then inexplicably Prigozhin announced he had agreed to a deal negotiated by Belarussian dictator Lukashenko, that he'd turn his convoy around, leave Russia for Belarus, and it appears that Wagner will be disbanded. This seems really baffling to me, it appeared Prigozhin was in a position of absolute strength but agreed to a deal as if he'd completely been defeated. I saw a funny quip that "did the writers of the final season of Game of Thrones write this?" as for the weirdly anticlimatic ending.

   To be clear Prigozhin isn't a good guy by any means. I was hoping he'd win because he'd topple the Putin regime and then I couldn't see him holding on and Russia would fracture to pieces and Ukraine would get all its territory back. It could be I suppose that he saw he couldn't hang on to the whole thing as well, but still this outcome seems baffling -- it at this point looks like he's left himself completely neutered of power from his former position of strength. Did he just completely lose all nerve at the critical moment or .. is there a lot going on behind the scenes that we don't know about?

   Will be very curious to find out if more light is shed on this in the future.

   So Russia's at war. I don't think most of America noticed, though I have heard a few random people talking about it. Anyway, I wrote several papers about Georgia and its breakaway provinces and Russia's interests in the area, so this development is interesting to me.

   For those who haven't noticed yet, Russia has invaded neighbouring Georgia. Ostensibly because either Georgia killed some of its peacekeepers there, or to "protect its citizens." Both of these explanations are more or less bullshit.

   Firstly, you should ask, well why were Russian peacekeepers IN GEORGIA. The answer is that a norther province of Georgia, South Ossetia, has been fighting for independance from Georgia. The fighting has been pretty low key thus far I believe, but Georgia had better things to worry about and left it alone. Russia's been backing the South Ossetians though, mainly to annoy Georgia.
   I say mainly to annoy Georgia because all other things being equal, Russia has compelling reasons NOT to support the South Ossetians. North Ossetia is in southern Russia and also, I believe, wouldn't mind being independant. Also the Ossetians are members of the Confederacy of Mountain Peoples along with the Chechen seperatists, who Russia has been at war with. So Russia's only interest in supporting South Ossetia is really just to mess with Georgia.

   Additionally, Russia has issued Russian citizenship to the people of South Ossetia. That is, they've given Russian citizenship to people living in Georgia. These people aren't ethnic Russians, and they haven't historically been part of Russia any more than Georgia itself has. Russia was just being saucy. So Russia now says they're "defending their citizens" but thats about as accurate as if America gave citizenship to half the Iraqis and then claimed in the invasion was to protect American citizens.

   And as to the Russian peacekeepers getting killed, considering Russias belligerancy on the issue and militant protection of South Ossetian seperatist forces, I don't believe for a second those "peacekeepers" weren't already actively engaged in military activities against Georgian forces.

   And word on the street is Georgia is doing remarkably well! Reportedly Georgia has destroyed 40 Russian tanks and downed 10 aircraft. Thats quite the pwnage! Too bad Russia can just keep sending hundreds of them things in.


   Also Georgia and (the government of) the USA are basically BFF. Russia conveniently waited until 2,000 American troops left Georgia this last month before beginning the offensive. American forces have been there on and off training Georgian troops. The Pankisi Gorge which is in Georgia but neighbours Chechnya has long been a hideout for Islamic militants, and jihadists are also believed to hang out in South Ossetia and the other seperatists provinces. So training the Georgian forces to be able to "pacify" these regions has been in US's interest in the War On Terror. Additionally Georgia is one of the biggest contributers to the coalition in Iraq, with about 3,000 troops there.

"ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Scores of paramilitary troops blocked access to the Supreme Court and parliament. Streets in the capital appeared largely calm, with only a handful of demonstrations. But one, attended by 40 people at the Marriott Hotel, was broken up by baton-wielding police.
...
Around 200 police with assault rifles and sticks* stormed the rights commission's office in the eastern city of Lahore, breaking up a meeting and arresting about 50 members, said Mehbood Ahmed Khan, legal officer for the activists.
...
"Many people in Pakistan believe that it has nothing to do with stopping terrorism, and it has everything to do with stopping a court verdict that was coming against him," [former Prime Minister Bhutto Benazir] told the weekend edition of ABC News' "Good Morning America." - Associated Press, 33 minutes ago.

   Phone service is back in the capital but independant media is still offline. Hundreds of arrests have been made in the last 24 hours of specific political targets of Musharraf's, such as the presidents of the bar associations, as well as prominant members of political parties other than Musharraf's.


   I think its rather significant that he needs to go all nutso like this to stop the Court from making a decision. If he was in a strong political position he could surely just ignore the Court (lots of countries do that all the time), and/or the Court would avoid putting itself in such an awkward position by not actually disqualifying him (indeed, it would be shockingly saucy if they actually DID DQ him). So he must be in an extremely tenuous political situation in order to be resorting to this.
   Additionally, he is an idiot. (A) Unless I'm very mistaken, the only reason he could potentially be disqualified from the recent election is because the constitution forbids him from being Army Chief of Staff and President concurrently -- it seems like he could very very easily drop the Chief of Staff title, while even retaining its de facto duties and responsibilities. (B) There's no way this "state of emergency" suspension of the Constitution is going to help his political position.
   I think Musharraf is in his political death throws.

And I thought the metal detectors at the Woodland Courthouse were a hassle!
(And apparently the stahlhelm didn't go out of style in 1945 for everyone)

   So the new US Chief Justice has had a seizure apparently. Interesting.

   As you may recall I had previously mentioned that President Musharraf of Pakistan had been trying to remove their Chief Justice from his position using the kind of twisted interpretation of constitutionality usually reserved for student governments.
   Anyway, Musharraf, who as you may recall successfully overthrew the previously elected president and has held on to power for eight years, has been unable to topple the Chief Justice. The legal system and concerned citizens stood behind Chief Justice Chaundhry and he was restored to his full position. He presumably will go on to hear challenges to Musharrafs power.


   And Russia has withdrawn from the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty. NATO members of course have officially expressed grave concern .. but thats only a formality as I don't think anyone is really concerned that Russia has the conventional military forces to do anything alarming at all.


Picture of the Day

Grand Tetons, Wyoming

   As you may recall I've been covering the Darfur situation in this blog a bit.
   Anyway, the United Nations Special Envoy to Sudan, Dutch diplomat Jan Pronk has been expelled by the Sudanese government ... for blogging about the Darfur conflict!
   "It is not his right to comment," says the Sudanese Minister of Foreign Affairs. A BBC correspondant reports that Mr Pronk's blog "has got him into trouble before, and he has ignored requests from within the UN to stop writing on it."
   The specific quote that has caused this diplomatic crisis: "The morale in the government army in north Darfur has gone down - some generals have been sacked; soldiers have refused to fight" (Oct 14th) (source: BBC)

   Such sauce! Clearly, Mr Pronk needs to discover the art of friends-only entries!


Completely Unrelated Picture of the Day

   So yesterday was my birthday. In accordance with tradition I was going to go out to dinner with my best friends, but no one could make it. Probably because I'm seen as something of an ogre or something. But Kristy and her roommate Joe went to dinner with me at Caffe Italia. I got the spicey "Pasta Kabloom," it was good.

   Afterwords I planned on chillaxing at Kristy's place and feeling sorry for myself as no one took up my invitation to chillax with us. This self pity plan was foiled however, when my frat-siblings from Phi Alpha Delta began showing up, eventually totalling about a dozen. Other than them, there were the people that lived there, Sashie, Gabi, and three friends of Gabi's (briefly). In conclusion, its a good thing I'm a frat boy now or I'd basically have no friends, basically. (=


   In other news: Philip Neustrom has made me obsolete with his new digital SLR camera.
   The (new) Secretary General of UCDMUN has resigned, time for another election.
   300 protestors have been killed in Uzbekistan. I told you recent events in Kyrgestan would cause unrest in Uzbekistan and Kazahkstan.
   On Friday I caught the end of The Deadutants playing on the quad, another show organized by Roxie. Then I participated in this community service thing aimed at getting kids from Davis High hepped up for college. At one point they were supposed to make a poster with the benefits and obstacles of attending college, but my group spent more time drawing pictures of things like darth vader on the poster. I tried to steer them in teh right direction, so I helped add Trogdor to the poster.


VIDEO of the Day!!: FROLICKING SQUIRRELS - "pinninated!!" (squirrel exclamation during the video, according to Kristy)


Picture of the Day