Oil

The birth of a Eurasian century

In his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski argued that “the struggle for global primacy [would] continue to be played” on the Eurasian “chessboard,” of which “Ukraine was a geopolitical pivot.” “If Moscow regains control over Ukraine,” he wrote at the time, Russia would “automatically regain the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.”

That remains most of the rationale behind the American imperial containment policy – from Russia’s European “near abroad” to the South China Sea. Still, with no endgame in sight, keep your eye on Russia pivoting to Asia, China pivoting across the world, and the BRICS hard at work trying to bring about the new Eurasian Century.

Texas Family Awarded $3 Million in America’s First Fracking Trial

Fracking for natural gas has come under a lot of scrutiny lately. The U.S. is in the middle of a fracking boom, with natural gas being touted by the Obama administration as the ideal bridge energy source in order to transition to greener energy. But study after study has linked fracking to air and groundwater pollution, and part of the process has been linked to earthquakes.

White House Lies to EU about US Gas Supply

The White House and State Department have engaged in brazen lying to EU governments regarding the ability of the US to supply more than enough natural gas to replace Russian gas deliveries. Recent statements by US President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are so patently false that it betrays an incredible desperation in Washington over the situation in Ukraine versus Moscow.

Gasland documents our race to extinction

I know that corporations are amoral, profit-driven entities that have no compunction about destroying the planet if they can make a quick buck first. I also know that our political systems have been almost entirely captured by these corporations.

Hazards of Revolution

The uprisings of the Arab Spring have so far produced anarchy in Libya, a civil war in Syria, greater autocracy in Bahrain and resumed dictatorial rule in Egypt.

France fuels sectarian killing in CAR

Rather tellingly, French President Hollande asserted this week: “France is not here in the Central African Republic out of any self-interest… France has come to defend human dignity.” That assertion sounds suspiciously guilt-ridden.

The plain truth is France has intervened in CAR for a neo-imperialist bonanza. But it needs a pretext of humanitarianism and sectarian chaos to cover up its naked criminality. This would explain who is engineering the bloodletting in that unfortunate country; and the blood trail goes all the way to Paris.

UN, EU Subsidize French Crimes in Africa

Some two weeks ago, the Paris government started whipping up sensationalist headlines that the CAR was “on the verge of genocide”.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told French media: “It is total disorder… we have to act quickly.”

Paris did not provide any evidence or victims to back up its blood-curdling claims of imminent genocide.

The Saboteurs

Glittering skyscrapers, monuments to the obscene profits amassed by a fossil fuel industry that is exploiting the tar sands and the vast oil and natural gas fields in Alberta, have transformed Calgary into a mecca for money, dirty politics, greed and industry jobs. The city is as soulless and sterile as Houston. The death of the planet, for a few, is very good for business.

The Dangers of Journalism 101

In a country like Peru there are endless opportunities for journalists who keep their ears to the ground: There are new medicines being found, water and mineral rights being sold out from under the people to whom they belong, archaeological sites being discovered monthly. If you’re a journalist and you find yourself there—or in Bolivia or Colombia or Venezuela or Brazil or almost anywhere in South America—you almost can’t help but run into good stories on a regular basis.