The Insurgency Against Big Oil

While Australian politicians languish in a world blotched by climate change scepticism and fossil fuel love-ins, global oil and gas companies have been shaken. Three titans of oil fame – Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron – faced a range of decisions in May that promise to dramatically shape their future operations. The point is not negligible, given that this triarchy produced, between 1988 and 2015, 5% of total global scope 1 and 3 emissions.

Living with World’s End in Plain Sight

Groton and New London, Connecticut, are home to about 65,000 people, three colleges, the Coast Guard Academy, 15 nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed submarines capable of destroying the world many times over, and General Dynamics’ Electric Boat, a multi-billion-dollar private corporation that offers stock options to its shareholders and mega-salaries to its top executives as it pockets taxpayer dollars and manufactures yet more of those stealthy, potentially world-ending machines. Whew! That was a long sentence!

When a President Lies

“Did you, too, O friend,
suppose democracy was only for
elections, for politics, and for a party name?”

– Walt Whitman, “Democratic Vistas” (1871)

Joe Biden received much media praise for his meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin on June 16th. However, little attention has been paid to an issue posed by an Associate Press reporter in a press conference following the meeting: “U.S. intelligence has said that Russia tried to interfere in the last two presidential elections, and that Russia groups are behind hacks like SolarWinds and some of the ransomware attacks you just mentioned.”

Capital, Profits and Wages in 2021

Long before Karl Marx and Jenet Yellen, some might have suspected that there are three elements that define the core of capitalism. These are, of course, capital. But capitalism is also a system that is defined by profits – commonly camouflaged as shareholder values – as well as wages.

From Smith to Yellen the existence of these three fundamentals was never threatened. Yet the relationship between the three has altered somewhat in recent years. This is the argument of Belgian economist Jan Eeckhout.

The Palestinian Jihad Summer Camps

As the international community seeks ways to help the residents of the Gaza Strip after the recent war between Israel and Hamas… and PIJ are diverting their budgets to training children to become soldiers in the war to destroy Israel.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad confirms that… the Palestinians “are preparing the liberation generation for the ‘great liberation’ battle for this blessed land.”

Containing the Volatile Sudan-Ethiopia Border Dispute

In mid-December, Sudanese troops moved into al-Fashaga, an agricultural area on the frontier with Ethiopia, expelling Ethiopian farmers and building fortifications. Fighting threatens to escalate. With assistance from outside mediators, the two countries should convene talks about restoring the shared land-use agreement that prevailed beforehand.

What’s new? Ethiopia and Sudan are locked in a dangerous standoff over al-Fashaga, a swathe of fertile borderland from which Khartoum evicted thousands of Ethiopian farmers in December 2020. Clashes between the two countries’ troops have claimed dozens of combatant and civilian lives.

Cryptomonnaie : l’afro deviendra-t-il le « bitcoin africain » ?

Trois ans après sa création, en 2018, l’afro, cryptomonnaie gérée par la fondation éponyme, n’a pas encore rempli sa vocation panafricaine.

Lors de la fondation de l’afro, en 2018, la trentaine de membres de la fondation éponyme n’ambitionnait rien de moins que de devenir la première cryptomonnaie africaine.

Une dizaine de «touristes» russes interpellés dans une zone «rouge» au nord du Tchad

Une dizaine de touristes, des Russes et un Lituanien, ont été interpellés il y a un peu plus d’une semaine dans le Sahara tchadien, du côté de Faya-Largeau, dans le nord du pays. Ramenés manu militari dans la capitale Ndjamena, ils ont été logés dans un hôtel huppé, en attendant la fin de l’enquête en cours, pour déterminer les raisons de leur présence dans une zone considérée comme « rouge ».

Mali : un prêtre et un groupe de fidèles catholique enlevés

Un abbé et un groupe de catholiques maliens ont été enlevés par des hommes armés alors qu’ils se rendaient à l’enterrement d’un autre abbé à San, au centre du Mali, a-t-on appris auprès de leur communauté et des autorités ce 22 juin.

Les rapts sont monnaie courante au Mali, en proie depuis des années à une crise sécuritaire profonde, en particulier dans le centre, un des foyers des violences djihadistes, intercommunautaires ou crapuleuses qui ensanglantent le Sahel.