Much is being made across the political spectrum in the United States about Washington's waning influence in Latin America. The region has seen an emergence of left and center-left presidents voted into office, many as a result of budding social movements growing democracy from the grassroots. Some pundits and analysts are suggesting that this phenomenon is occurring because of the Bush Administration's perceived neglect of the region. Rather, what is happening is blowback from Washington's continued meddling in the economic and political affairs of an area arrogantly referred to as the United States’ "backyard." Latin America's growing unity in rejecting the Washington Consensus remains fragile in the face of U.S. opposition. Washington has been quietly using the war on drugs, the war on terrorism, and a neo-cold war ideology to institutionalize a militarism in the region that risks returning us to the not so far off days of "dirty wars."
Cyril Mychalejko
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The US is slowly shifting its military needs towards Africa and Sudan in particular. While the Barack Obama administration will force the UN to declare a no-fly zone over Darfur, the US forces in so called peacekeeping missions will establish their bases in Darfur or Kenya and other surrounding nations in order to keep Sudan under its umbrella.
Ali Cordoba
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Only yesterday, it seems, we were bemoaning the high price of oil. Under the headline "Oil's Rapid Rise Stirs Talk of $200 a Barrel This Year", the July 7 issue of the Wall Street Journal warned that prices that high would put "extreme strains on large sectors of the US economy". Today, oil, at around US$40 a barrel, costs less than one-third what it did in July, and some economists have predicted that it could fall as low as $25 a barrel in 2009.
Michael T Klare
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The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves.
Michel Chossudovsky
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The aerial bombings and the ongoing ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli ground forces must be analysed in a historical context. Operation "Cast Lead" is a carefully planned undertaking, which is part of a broader military-intelligence agenda first formulated by the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2001:
Michel Chossudovsky
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Bernie Madoff showed us how it was done: you induce many investors to invest their money, promising steady above-market returns; and you deliver – at least on paper. When your clients check their accounts, they see that their investments have indeed increased by the promised amount. Anyone who opts to pull out of the game is paid promptly and in full. You can afford to pay because most players stay in, and new players are constantly coming in to replace those who drop out. The players who drop out are simply paid with the money coming in from new recruits. The scheme works until the market turns and many players want their money back at once. Then it’s game over: you have to admit that you don’t have the funds, and you are probably looking at jail time.
Ellen Brown
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The disinformation by the global financial dailies in the last twelve months as to the cause of the global financial tsunami, serve the same purpose as the global mass media when they perpetuated the lies that lulled the people to support the war criminals Bush, Blair and Howard to launch the barbaric war against Iraq and Afghanistan which resulted in the genocide of millions, the mutilation of hundreds of thousands, physically and psychologically, and the devastation of an entire nation.
Matthias Chang
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Mamdani, Mugabe and the African scholarly community: The Africanisation of exploitation
Horace Campbell
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In the last two weeks, two federal interest rates hit all-time record lows. On December 16, the market was taken by surprise when Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke lowered the federal funds rate (the interest banks pay to borrow the reserves they need to meet their reserve requirement) to zero. The explanation given was that the Federal Reserve was just setting the rate closer to where banks had already been trading with each other for weeks.1
Ellen Brown
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The Federal Reserve has bluntly refused a request by a major US financial news service to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from US taxpayers and to reveal the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Their lawyers resorted to the bizarre argument that they did so to protect 'trade secrets.' Is the secret that the US financial system is de facto bankrupt? The latest Fed move is further indication of the degree of panic and lack of clear strategy within the highest ranks of the US financial institutions. Unprecedented Federal Reserve expansion of the Monetary Base in recent weeks sets the stage for a future Weimar-style hyperinflation perhaps before 2010.
F. William Engdahl
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Nuclear power currently provides only 6% of the world's primary energy as heat, with 36%, 24% and 29% of it coming from the combustion of oil, natural gas and coal respectively. A MIT study estimated that in 2050 1500 MWe of nuclear electricity would be available but that will come at a time when only 10% of the oil, 15% of the gas and 35% of the coal will be left. As all three tail off to insignificance by the end of the century, to meet the world's anticipated energy needs beyond 2050, some 30,000 MWe of nuclear generation would be required, or 20 times the 1500 MWe specified by MIT. . . .
John Busby
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China's response to the current global financial crisis is predicated on the reality of the international situation and the separate responses of other major economies around the world.
Henry C K Liu
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Just weeks after President George W. Bush signed the Order creating a new US military command dedicated to Africa, AFRICOM, events on the mineral-rich continent have erupted which suggest a major agenda of the incoming Obama Presidency will be for the son of a black Kenyan to focus US resources, military and other, on dealing with the Republic of Congo, the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea, the oil-rich Darfur region of southern Sudan and increasingly the Somali ‘pirate threat’ to sea lanes in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. The legitimate question is whether it is mere coincidence that Africa appears just at this time to become a new geopolitical ‘hot spot’ or whether it has a direct link to the formal creation of AFRICOM.
F. William Engdahl
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"There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Rome's allies; and if Rome had no allies, the allies would be invented. When it was utterly impossible to contrive such an interest -- why, then it was the national honor that had been insulted. The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors. The whole world was pervaded by a host of enemies; it was manifestly Rome's duty to guard against their indubitably aggressive designs."
Carlton Meyer
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Will an Obama Administration Reverse the Tide?
Michel Chossudovsky
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