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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By: Kamal Raj Sidgel
Kaleo
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Latin America is entering a period of profound economic recession, financial crises, collapsing stock market quotations, prices, deep devaluation of its currencies, growing unemployment, declining revenues and the prospect of a prolonged socio-economic recession. The economic breakdown, which is still unfolding, affects the entire political spectrum, extending from the far-right Uribe regime in Colombia to the social-liberal Chilean and Brazilian governments of Bachelet and Lula da Silva to the 'center-left' regimes of Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador and even to the leftist government of Hugo Chavez.
James Petras
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On the brief occasions when the President now appears in the Rose Garden to "comfort" or "reassure" a shock-and-awed nation, you can almost hear those legions of ducks quacking lamely in the background. Once upon a time, George W. Bush, along with his top officials and advisors, hoped to preside over a global Pax Americana and a domestic Pax Republicana -- a legacy for the generations. More recently, their highest hope seems to have been to slip out of town in January before the you-know-what hits the fan. No such luck.
Tom Engelhardt
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After Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans in 2005, the U.S. Army occupied the city and reported gun battles with local gangsters. While Generals held new conferences, reporters missed a chance to expose the bombing culture of the U.S. military by asking Generals if they used precision-guided bombs to kill gunmen in New Orleans. Bombing is used daily against gunmen in Iraqi and Afghan cities, so why not New Orleans?
Carlton Meyer
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In a recent policy paper by the New American Foundation (among whose board members sits Francis 'End of History' Fukuyama), it is argued that the next U.S. administration must engage Iran with a 'grand bargain', which addresses both Iran and the U.S.'s strategic concerns. The paper argues that the piecemeal approach the U.S. has taken towards Iran has clearly failed to change the behavior of the regime in Iran, and a détente is not a desirable option. The only stable and strategically appropriate path to take is a full rapprochement.
Reza Fiyouzat
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The unexpected rejection by the US Congress of the Bush Administration financial rescue plan, TARP on September 29 has opened up the spectre for the first time of a 1931-style domino wave of worldwide bank failures. That is already underway across the US banking spectrum with the failure, nationalization or forced liquidation in the past two weeks of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, of the giant Washington Mutual mortgage lender, of the nation’s fourth largest deposit bank, Wachovia. That was on top of a wave of smaller bank failures that began with IndyMac in the spring. For some it is appealing and more simple to grasp the magnitude of these titanic events in the US-centered financial world by assuming it is all part of a pre-planned grand conspiracy by the Money Masters, what in the 1920s in the USA was termed the Money Trust, to control the entire financial world.
F. William Engdahl
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This is no longer the muscular and arrogant United States the world knows, the superpower that sets the rules for everyone else and that considers its way of thinking and doing business to be the only road to success. A new America is on display, a country that no longer trusts its old values and its elites even less: the politicians, who failed to see the problems on the horizon, and the economic leaders, who tried to sell a fictitious world of prosperity to Americans. Also on display is the end of arrogance. The Americans are now paying the price for their pride.
Spiegel online
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An analysis of the joint report by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) entitled: “Uranium 2007: Resources, Production and Demand”
John Busby
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Tuesday's 449 point bloodbath on Wall Street is the beginning of an unavoidable market crash. Regardless of Paulson's plan, there's more pain on the way. According to Bloomberg: "More than $19 trillion has been wiped off global stock market value since a high on Oct. 31 as the worst U.S. housing recession since the Great Depression and a resulting global credit crisis slowed the world economy." All of the economic indicators point to greater losses. Once the system begins to deleverage, there's nothing anyone can do to stop it. Paulson can place himself in front of a market avalanche if he so chooses, but it won't change the outcome.
Information Clearing House
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Cubicle Mercenaries, Subcontracting Warriors, and Other Phenomena of a Privatizing Pentagon
Information Clearing House
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