China, Saudi Arabia break ranks on Egypt

China today told the US it should not interfere in Egypt’s domestic affairs. Saudi Arabia told President Barack Obama that it would prop up Hosni Mubarak if the US withheld aid. And Egypt’s foreign minister told EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is planning a visit to Cairo, that he had “no time” to […]

South Sudan preserves past to forge a proud future

Yellowing papers, nibbled by termites and dumped on piles waist high, crowd the sweltering-hot giant tent: the raw documents that make up the history of the world?s newest nation to be. As south Sudan prepares for full independence, due on July 9 after last month’s referendum that saw almost 99 percent of the mostly African […]

Kurt Cobb: Is the modern anti-tax movement a product of increasing complexity?

The anti-tax movement in the United States has evolved from a fringe component of American politics 40 years ago into one that is central today. And certainly, the country has had a long history of tax protests, right? Actually, wrong. While the Boston Tea Party is often cited as the inspiration for today’s so-called Tea […]

Joe Rogan – The American War Machine

A very cool combination of some of my rants connected with some great video editing by a youtube user named “TheParadigmShift” Joe Rogan – Subversive stand up comedian/game show host whore/Mixed Martial Arts fanatic/psychedelic adventurer.

Egypt ruling party leaders resign

The leadership of Egypt’s ruling party stepped down Saturday as the military figures spearheading the transition tried to placate protesters without giving them the one resignation they demand, President Hosni Mubarak’s. The United States gave key backing to the regime’s gradual changes, warning of the dangers if Mubarak goes too quickly. But protesters in the […]

The Story of the Egyptian Revolution

A friend of mine in academia forwarded this e-mail to me from an Egyptian student whose good sense he vouches for. The student tells a story very different from what most of you are seeing on television or reading in your papers. The Story of the Egyptian Revolution One week ago, Egypt was a stable […]

Days of Rage, Oil Prices, and the Suez Canal

Bloomberg warns today that an act of sabotage or a decision by a new regime – possibly headed up by the Muslim Brotherhood – to close the canal and its oil pipeline to punish supporters of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak could send oil prices through the stratosphere. Egyptian troops currently guard the canal and its […]

Peak Oil & Poverty – More Background on the Egyptian Popular Uprising

Another turn in the back story of why the Egyptian people have taken to the streets to oust 30-year dictator Hosni Mubarak: Peak oil–well, nationally peak oil at least. A new article in Le Monde Diplomatique by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed sheds light on how, in addition to food insecurity and political repression, the decline of […]

The (Sordid) Tale of Three Arab Countries

The recent regime change in Tunisia, but more to the point, the exploding unrest in Egypt has once again brought up the sordid past of Arab regimes. However, these two are certainly not isolated cases. The dysfunctionalities of three large North African countries, Egypt, Libya and Algeria are transparent. For decades they have been the […]

Eygpt: Food shortages reported and businesses remain shuttered

Egypt’s week-long political protests have already had serious macroeconomic implications for the country: Banks are closed, stock markets are suspended, and hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign currency has already left the country. But the political crisis is also starting to take its toll on ordinary Egyptians. At the open-air fruit and vegetable market […]

Egypt, Oil and Democracy

Revolutions are, by their very nature, difficult to predict. The unrest that gripped Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union from 1989 to 1992, and led to the fall of Communist governments there, was anticipated by few policymakers and political scientists in advance. If a similar transition is now underway in Egypt, as well as in […]

Lies We Tell Ourselves, By Sharon Astyk

“He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” Although the story that Franklin Roosevelt said this about a dictator (it is variously told about Central American, Caribbean and Middle Eastern leaders) America was supporting is almost certainly apocryphal, our very eagerness to claim these words so often reveals […]

Egypt and Tunisia usher in the new era of global food revolutions

Political risk has returned with a vengeance. The first food revolutions of our Malthusian era have exposed the weak grip of authoritarian regimes in poor countries that import grain, whether in North Africa today or parts of Asia tomorrow. If you insist on joining the emerging market party at this stage of the agflation blow-off, […]

What’s Happening in Egypt?

Events are moving very quickly in Egypt. The Egyptian government has expelled Al Jazeera. Fighter jets flew low over Cairo. However, Al Jazeera just said that the commander of the army tanks in downtown Cairo told protest leader that the army would take no action so long as the protests were peaceful. Al Jazeera also […]

Sudan police clash with protesters

Sudanese police have beaten and arrested students as protests broke out throughout Khartoum demanding the government resign, inspired by a popular uprising in neighbouring Egypt. Hundreds of armed riot police broke on Sunday up groups of young Sudanese demonstrating in central Khartoum and surrounded the entrances of four universities in the capital, firing teargas and […]

Protests Spread To Saudi Arabia

While the biggest threat to the Middle East region is the possibility that the population of Saudi Arabia may try to imitate what has been happening in the area, thereby bringing total chaos to the established regional geopolitical and more importantly, energy, structure, the first protests in the Saudi Arabia city of Jeddah are already […]

New protests erupt in Yemen

Dozens of activists calling for the ouster of Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen’s president, have clashed with government supporters in Sanaa, the country’s capital. Plainclothes police also attacked the demonstrators, who marched to the Egyptian embassy in Sanaa on Saturday chanting “Ali, leave leave” and “Tunisia left, Egypt after it and Yemen in the coming future”. The […]

Egypt: 73 dead; 2,000 injured

AT least 73 people have been killed across Egypt and thousands injured in anti-government riots since Friday, according to medical officials. At least 62 people were killed on Friday and 11 yesterday, and thousands injured in clashes between protesters and police, in unprecedented rallies demanding the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak. Medical and security officials […]

Global Population Pressures

One of Obama’s first acts upon assuming office in 2009 was the restoration of funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). George W. Bush had withheld some $244 million in aid to the UNFPA over the previous seven years. UNFPA works with developing countries around the world to “reduce poverty and to ensure that […]

USA Secretly Backs Egyptian uprising

The American Embassy in Cairo helped a young dissident attend a US-sponsored summit for activists in New York, while working to keep his identity secret from Egyptian state police. On his return to Cairo in December 2008, the activist told US diplomats that an alliance of opposition groups had drawn up a plan to overthrow […]

Dmitry Orlov: US empire will fall due to lack of faith

As many in America longingly talk of “recovery” from the most devastating economic condition since the Great Depression, others have begun thinking in a very different direction, urging fellow citizens to prepare for the worst. Dmitry Orlov, author of “Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects,” is one of the latter. Soon, he told […]

Violent protests escalate outside Egypt’s capital

Violence escalated in two cites outside the capital Cairo Thursday where anti-government protesters torched a fire station and looted weapons that they then turned on police. Egypt’s top democracy advocate returned to the country and declared he was ready to lead the campaign to oust longtime President Hosni Mubarak. In the flashpoint city of Suez, […]

Michael Klare: Resource Revolts

He was a poor 26-year-old trying to eke out a living and help pay for his sisters’ schooling.  He met the deep corruption of the Tunisian regime face to face in the most everyday and humiliating way — in the form of bribes he couldn’t afford just to keep his little stand open and the power […]

EIA Fails to Warn of a 1.8 mb/d Supply Shortfall

Mission failure. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is funded by American taxpayers to warn about energy issues. Every Wednesday the EIA publishes This Week in Petroleum (TWIP). The failure to warn is highlighted in the Jan 12, 2011, TWIP: “EIA expects a continued tightening of world oil markets over the next two years. World oil […]

Kunstler: State of Suspension

I haven’t left the house myself for two days and a Snow Leopard installation put my iMac into a hang-up deepfreeze all its own (I’m on the MacBook now). But enough about me…. I wonder if Barack Obama himself is sleeping in a casket in the White House basement these days, waiting for fairer conditions […]

If Britain starts fuel rationing, could US be next?

This week, a committee of the British parliament released a plan to start rationing fuel within the next ten years. Could the US follow suit? The plan calls for the government to issue an equal number of Tradable Energy Quotas to all British adults for free and to auction credits off to businesses and government […]

Dramatic Shift in the Peak Oil Debate

If you write about, speak about, or talk with your family, friends and co-workers about peak oil, you’ve almost certainly been asked: “Well, who else is saying what you’re saying?” It’s wise not to rely on just one source of information. Humans are fallible creatures. Knowing that, we feel much more comfortable when we can […]

NASA scientist blames democracy for failure to pass climate bill; Declares Chinese government ‘best hope’ to save world from global warming…

November’s election made it quite clear that the people of the United States do not want to radically change our society in the name of global warming. Pretty much every close House race went to the Republicans, while the Democrats won all the Senate squeakers. The difference? The House on June 26, 2009, passed a […]

A dramatic shift in the peak oil discussion: “You don’t have to take my word for it”

If you write about, speak about, or talk with your family, friends and co-workers about peak oil, you’ve almost certainly been asked: “Well, who else is saying what you’re saying?” It’s wise not to rely on just one source of information. Humans are fallible creatures. Knowing that, we feel much more comfortable when we can […]

Joe Bageant has cancer

Joe Bageant’s website advises he has a massive internal tumour. http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2011/01/a-note-from-joe.html I have followed Joe’s writings and my view he is one of the USA’s more gifted and lucid commentators, often working Peak Oil into his unique exposition of the “American Hologram”. He has a lot of heart and a unique and charming American voice […]

« Previous Page — Next Page »

LATEST NEWS HEADLINES

• Why the IEA is Wrong About Peak Oil Demand
• Did we inadvertently speed global warming?  
• Venezuela’s Oil Monopoly Eases
• Why Germany is Choosing Natural Gas Over Nuclear Power
• U.S. coal-fired electricity generation decreased in 2022 and 2023

• America Cracks Down on Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Facilities
• Meet America’s Newest Oil Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden
• Is It Time To Refill America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
• Oil prices set to end year 10% lower as demand concerns snap winning streak
• What’s Driving America’s New Oil and Gas Boom?
• China’s peak oil demand bombshell eviscerates Danielle Smith’s energy strategy