The fall of the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan gave Taliban fighters access to more than $7 billion worth of American military equipment, according to data in a report submitted this week to U.S. lawmakers and confirmed by the Pentagon.
The United States and the European Union have warned against giving in to what they called Russian “blackmail” over gas supplies to Europe.
Russia, which supplies about 40% of Europe’s gas needs, had demanded that what it called “unfriendly” European countries pay their gas bills in rubles — seen as a way to prop up the currency in the face of Western sanctions on Russian banks, including its central bank. Some EU states have set up Russian bank accounts to try to work around the sanctions.
U.S. President Joe Biden asked Congress Thursday to approve $33 billion in additional aid for Ukraine to help it resist invading Russian forces over the next five months. The House overwhelmingly passed legislation aimed at removing obstacles that slow the delivery of military assistance.
Does Russia need workers?
The labor force in Russia is gradually declining. This indicator reached its peak in 2008-2011. Then the labor market was 76 million people, or 53% of the total population of the country. By 2020 that figure has fallen below 73 million, less than 51% of the total population.
Many people would quite correctly argue that the conceptual pair of “communication and capitalism” are more about capitalism than communication and the media. While the imperatives of capitalism carry on, the requirements of corporate media become ever more determining.
Sanctions are a form of warfare, and few would deny that we have moved into a new era of economic warfare with sanctions, led by the US, have become the norm, rather than the exception. This was the conclusion recently of the pro-Western World Economic Forum. If there is general agreement that sanctions are a form of warfare, and not selectively, but regardless of who imposes them and for whatever reason, the next question is the cost-benefit ratio on the country or countries imposing them.
The euro plummeted to a five-year low against the US dollar during Wednesday’s trading, amid heightened fears of a possible energy crisis and an economic slowdown in Europe.
Media reports from Europe said:
As of 11:01am GMT, the euro/dollar exchange rate was down to $1.061 from the previous closing level of $1.0636. Earlier in the day’s trading, the index fell to $1.0586, dropping below $1.06 for the first time since April 2017.
The Idlib-based group’s decision to hand over several jihadis to Turkey, including two men affiliated with the Islamic State, come as part of HTS’s attempt to present itself as more moderate.
The Idlib-based group’s decision to hand over several jihadis to Turkey, including two men affiliated with the Islamic State, come as part of HTS’s attempt to present itself as more moderate.
The New Face of African Warfare
On August 1, 2018, the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo declared an outbreak of Ebola in the country’s war-torn northeast. It was Congo’s tenth recorded outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic fever, but the first in an active conflict zone. Determined to avoid a repeat of the West African Ebola epidemic in 2014, when outside help was too little, too late, donors threw caution to the wind and pumped more than $700 million into northeastern Congo to fight the disease over the next 20 months. To protect their staff members, the World Health Organization and its partners put both Congolese security forces and local militia members on their payrolls. This created perverse incentives: although the combatants had reason to refrain from attacking aid workers, they also had an interest in prolonging the epidemic so they could keep profiting from it. Between August 2018 and June 2020, when the Ebola epidemic was finally declared over, some militiamen and members of the government security forces stoked violence and instability so that the disease would continue to spread and the international aid agencies would continue to pay them. A well-meaning effort to contain the disease ended up doing the exact opposite.
Depuis l’invasion de l’Ukraine le 24 février, les pays européens ont décidé de diversifier leurs sources d’approvisionnement en gaz en misant sur l’Afrique.
L’Afrique fournit en ce moment, 10% du gaz européen. Un chiffre qui devrait augmenter dans les trois prochaines années. L’Italie par exemple, très dépendante du gaz russe, multiplie les contacts en vue d’importer plus d’hydrocarbures africains.