19/04/2016
DOHA, Qatar, 18 April 2016 (IPS) – Thanks to tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, major oil producers couldn’t come to an agreement in Doha to freeze their output to January levels to raise oil prices.
**A historical map of the Persian Gulf in a Dubai museum, United Arab Emirates. The word “Persian” is erased from the “Persian Gulf” phrase on the map. | Seek equilibrium at English Wikipedia | Martin, R.M. ; Tallis J. & F. Arabia. 1851 World Atlas | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. | Wikimedia Commons
The current low oil prices have a lot to do with the grim outlook for global economic growth while supply is growing. China, the second largest economy in the world, is slowing down.
Not surprisingly, global oil demand is much lower at 94.8 million barrels a day vis-à-vis supply of 96.3 million barrels a day in the first quarter of 2016 according to the International Energy Agency.
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Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
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19/04/2016
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, her back to the camera, receives a hug on Monday Apr. 18 by one of the minority of lower house legislators who voted against her impeachment the day before. Credit: Roberto Stuckert/PR
A total of 367 legislators – 71.5 percent, or 25 more than the two-thirds majority needed – voted to impeach her and she now faces a vote in the Senate. Because the makeup of the Senate is similar to that of the Chamber of Deputies, the president’s fate is apparently sealed.
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Posted in Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Others-USA-Europe-etc. |
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19/04/2016
By Johan Galtung*
Alfaz, Spain, 18 April; 2016 – TRANSCEND Media Service – Police? The judges have more social status but the police know better the local situation and possible lawbreakers.
What is happening right now, for our eyes, for instance in Vila Real, north of Valencia, 13-15 April 2016–“II Ibero-American Conference on Police Mediation” is police revolting against the judges.
“We use force to arrest the suspects, deliver them with evidence to the courts, many are found guilty, sentenced to prison, after some time released, presumably born anew–and after some more time we have to rearrest them; old or new crimes, same people.
“The theory of individual and general prevention does not work. We must remove the roots, in them and in the local context causing the crimes. We want to add mediation, prevention, to force and arrest”.
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Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
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18/04/2016
Helen Clark former Prime Minister of New Zealand and Administrator of the UN Development Program is one of four female candidates to be the next UN Secretary-General. Credit: UN Photo/Loey Felipe.
The selection of the ninth secretary-general of the United Nations has been seen as a chance for change within the 70 year old global organisation. Some see 2016 as the time for the first woman to be chosen to lead the global organisation which represents over 7 billion people.
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Posted in Climate Crisis |
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18/04/2016
By John Scales Avery*
18 April 2016
In an amazing display of collective schizophrenia, our media treat oil production and the global climate emergency as though they were totally disconnected. But the use of all fossil fuels, including oil, must stop almost immediately if the world is to have a chance of avoiding uncontrollable and catastrophic climate change.
**A petrochemical refinery in Grangemouth, Scotland, UK. | User:John | GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 | Wikimedia Commons
The recent Doha summit meeting of the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC) aimed at reaching an agreement on limiting the production of oil.
This aim did not stem from the climate emergency but rather a from desire to raise oil prices and profits. However, the OPEC meeting failed to reach an agreement. Production continues to be extremely high and prices low.
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Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
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16/04/2016
By Roberto Savio*
ROME, 15 April 2016 – A total indifference has accompanied the number of refugees injured by Macedonian police in Idomeni, where more than 12 000 people, including 4 000 children have been trapped, since Austria asked Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia, to prevent the continuing passage of refugees. Austria has now informed the Italian government that it will send several hundred troops to its border with Italy.
The illegal agreement with Turkey, that Angela Merkel pushed to defuse her growing unpopularity in Germany, is conducted in a way that has obliged both the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and Doctors without Borders, to refuse to participate in a brutal operation that effectively violates the UN Charter and the European Treaty by bribing the Turkish government.
The use of tear gas and rubber bullets against refugees in Idomeni is deplorable and plays into the hands of growing support among Europe’s right wing parties and even ISIS, which supposedly calls for the dignity and freedom of the Arab world and supports the creation of a war of religions.
What many seem to have forgotten is that the Austrian police actually carried out a survey of refugees and discovered that they were better educated than the Austrians.
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Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
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16/04/2016
A scene from the film, Giraffada, directed by Rani Massalha and produced by Pyramide Films. The film was screened at the UN on 7 April 2016. Photo: Courtesy of Pyramide Films | Source: UN News Centre
Now, while expecting the US president Barack Obama to follow the “tradition” of his predecessors of calling for a big summit in Washington to talk about this crisis as one of his last official acts, an animal heist fable has just appeared as a new try to serve as poignant metaphor for Middle East relations.
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Posted in Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
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16/04/2016
By Uri Avnery*
16 April 2016
I LIKE the President of the State of Israel, Reuven (“Rubi”) Rivlin. I like him very much.
Uri Avnery
This may seem a bit strange, since he is a man of the Right. He is a member of the Likud party. He believes in what is called in Hebrew “the whole of the Land of Israel”.
However, he is a very humane person. He is kind and unassuming. His family has been rooted in Palestine for many generations. He sees himself as the president of all Israelis, including the Arab citizens.
I believe that he harbors a secret contempt for Binyamin Netanyahu and the likes of him.
So how was he elected president? The President of Israel is chosen in a secret ballot of the Knesset. I strongly suspect that he did not get all the votes of the Likud, but was elected by the votes of the Left.
THIS WEEK, President Rivlin published a peace plan. That is not a usual act by a president, whose office is mainly ceremonial.
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Posted in Market Lords, Middle East, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
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16/04/2016
MAPIM | Source: IRIN
Nearly a year later, a crackdown has successfully reduced migrant smuggling and trafficking into Malaysia to a trickle. But for hundreds of the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar who came off the smugglers’ boats hoping for a new life, their troubles are far from over and now no one seems to care.
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Posted in Asia, Market Lords, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples, War Lords |
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16/04/2016
By Jeff Williams*
Mombasa, Kenya, 10 April 2016 (IPS) – There is a ‘Little Boy’ who has nothing to do with the atomic bomb that the United States dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. This time it is about another ‘Little Boy’ who has been devastating the harvests in many regions, especially in Africa.
Credit: Anne Holmes/IPS
This ‘Little Boy’ (from El Niño in Spanish) is a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific including the coasts of South America.
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Posted in Africa, Market Lords, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples |
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 