mining

Earlier this month nearly 400 students were arrested in front of the White House protesting the Keystone XL Pipeline. The next group of people to head to Washington, D.C.

In February the World Bank announced an ambitious plan to initiate a $1 billion fund to finance an effort to map the mineral resources of the African continent. Their plan is to use advanced satellite and surveillance technology to, in the words of a World Bank senior manager, “identify the areas with more profitability.”1

Packed with distortions and outright lies, Mongolia’s privatized former state media called them the ‘enemies of Mongolia’.  On 16 September 2013, the leaders of Mongolia’s Fire Nation  (Gal Undesten in Mongolian), an environment and human rights coalition, organized a mass protest in front of the Mongolian Parliament. Decades of grassroots organizing to establish environmental protections were at risk: on September 16 the Great State Khural (State Parliament) gathered with intentions to dismantle the so-called ‘Law With A Long Name’ (LLN).

The below photo of my parents reveals much about their personalities (hers vivacious and outgoing, his withdrawn and closed off), their relationship (little real contact), and also the times (could be captioned Gender Roles in the 1950s: The Bathing Beauty and the Soldier).

Significant changes in Latin America have mystified writers, journalists, academics, and policy-makers who purport to comment on developments in Latin America. The case of Bolivia and two-term President Evo Morales (2006-2014) is illustrative of the utter confusion in political labelling.

Should the primary purpose of Canadian foreign policy be the promotion of corporate interests?
Canada’s business class certainly seems to think so. And with little political or ideological opposition to this naked self-interest, Harper’s Conservatives seem only too happy to put the full weight of government behind the promotion of private profits.

There’s new growth forest covering the hill, maybe fifty years old, and it’s denseness is the only theoretical escape from riot cops, its cover the only consistent break in their line of sight. Everthing else is just plowed fields. Pungesti is the first target for Chevron’s nation wide fracking attack on the Romanian water supply, and the site is just 500 meters away from the village.

Oh, drats, someone in my family line, in Scotland, sent me this link as an example of, paraphrasing, great American stick-to-it gumption, superiority and bad-ass imperialism.
Quote: “No wonder the Iranians want this ship (aircraft carrier) out of the Persian Gulf. This is a great example of United States of America technology, teamwork and strength in action.  Hang on for the ride!”
Yep, this is the export of America, North America, that is — a nuclear powered, $4.5 billion dollar junk-killing-droning-child-wedding party-bombing-human death toll creator.

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The world political economy is a mosaic of cross currents: Domestic decay and elite enrichment, new sources for greater profits and deepening political disenchantment, declining living standards for many and extravagant luxury for a few, military losses in some regions with imperial recovery in others. There are claims of a unipolar, a multi-polar and even a non-polar configuration of world power. Where, when, to what extent and under what contingencies do these claims have validity?