A number of commentators have discussed a middle east worse case scenario over the past couple of months. The Futurist joined in with their September-October issue. The discussion is interesting and you can see a summary online here. The lead article acknowledges that a regional war engulfing the Middle East is still a “low probability …
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Category:2 Geopolitics
A quick solution to climate change from the US: stop fighting
This linked article by Daniel Kammen at GreenBiz offers simple options to change the US energy consumption profile. His six point plan is: A national commitment to saving money and energy through energy efficiency measures at every step of the economic value chain (some states, including California are fully 40 percent more efficient than the …
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Israel secretly bombs Syria for nukes …
former Israeli prime minister and Likud opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that Israel launched an air strike against Syria on September 6, aafter weeks of refusing to confirm the operation. It appears the rationale for the strike is that Syria had nuclear weapon making materials from North Korea. While this may have been true and …
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Blackwater plays a Hollywood reality show
A great name for a security company staffed with mercenaries paid to look after top American officials in a hot spot with immunity from prosecution for killing anyone. Will Matt Damon be the good guy? In fact, Blackwater USA is a private contractor employed by the US State Department. The ban on their operations for …
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Watching Myanmar atrocities
The past couple of weeks have brought an unusual bout of coverage of politics in Myanmar. But now the killing has started publicly. Unfortunately we will do nothing. Myanmar has suffered under a brutal military regime that has been propped up by oil deals with western companies and countries while it enslaves and tortures peaceful …
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Iran’s defiance of the security council might motivate arms reduction …?
Iran’s defiance of security council resolutions (declared again this week by President Ahmadinejad at the UN general assembly) is discomfiting, but not unreasonable. Iran’s stubbornness is fueled by the autocratic approach of the security council and its members, particularly the US. Iran’s testament that the security council should lead by example is more appropriate than …
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Let poor children suffer
Despite the rhetoric being bandied about by Presidential candidates Bush has threatened to veto additional federal funding for a the State Children’s Health Insurance Program which insures children from low-income families. Another sad sign of where the current administration’s priorities are. Our hope for enlightened leadership from the global superpower dims a bit more.
Hacking government IT systems – the next level of war.
There are increasing media reports of the vulnerability of government IT systems to hackers. While much of the media attention has been to Chinese attacks on systems at the US Pentagon, UK government and German government, we should not be deluded into thinking that this is a one way street. US, UK and German forces …
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Terrorist plot in Germany foiled
In early September three men were arrested in Germany on suspicion of planning a “massive” attack on US facilities in the country. Federal prosecutor Monika Harms said the three had trained at camps in Pakistan and procured some 700 kg of chemicals for explosives. She said the accused had sought to target facilities visited by …
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Japanese leadership crisis – new PM
September has not been a good month for politics in Japan. At the beginning of September, Agriculture Minister Takehiko Endo resigned only a week after being appointed. He admitted that a private farm group he heads was involved in illegal dealings – it had been paid 1.15m Yen ($9,900) by the state after overstating crop …
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