US-based SSI Energy Solutions plans to construct the largest solar power plant in the southern hemisphere in the southern African country of Namibia (population 2 million). The plant is expected to cost $1.6 to $2 billion US to construct. Namibia typically has 300 days of sunshine a year. Namibia is heavily dependent on imported coal, […]
Ambassador Ford’s Departure a Defeat for al-Assad
With the departure of the US ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford, from Damascus and the summoning home of Syrian ambassador Emad Moustafa, President Obama’s original Syria policy has now crashed and burned. There is no immediate danger of Obama going in the direction recommended by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), of military action against Syria. But […]
Surprises of the Tunisian Election
Tunisia kicked off the Arab Spring, with its urban crowds effectively protesting the decades-long dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his nepotistic in-laws, the Trabelsi clan. The Tunisians were the first to demonstrate that flashmobs could, if sufficiently determined, outmaneuver the secret police and send a dictator into exile. Even more remarkable than […]
Karzai: Afghanistan would Side With Pakistan in War with US
Admiral Mike Mullen, outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently told Congress that the Haqqani Network, a guerrilla group accused of hitting the US embassy in Kabul, is an “arm” of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) immediately suggested that if the US military wanted to attack Pakistan, it would have […]
US out of Iraq, but Peace remains Elusive
The Iraq War is over except for the packing, President Obama announced on Friday. He held out hope that the US would be at peace for the first time since 2001 in the coming years. The Libya war is ending, and US troops will steadily come out of Afghanistan through 2014. Alas, the peace will […]
Qaddafi’s People’s Temple
The final weeks of Muammar Qaddafi’s violent and coercive life reminded me vividly of Jim Jones and the People’s Temple Cult. It was obvious from late last August that Qaddafi had lost. The people in his own capital of Tripoli rose up against him in all but a few small neighborhoods, courageously defying his murderous […]
Turkey Goes into Iraq after Kurdish Attack
Many catastrophes ensued from George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq (launched in order to, he told an astonished and puzzled Jacques Chirac, then French president, thwart the biblical monsters Gog and Magog in the Middle East ahead of the Judgment Day.) Among them was a revival of the Kurdistan Workers Party guerrilla group (Turkish […]
Iran Alleges Saudi Plot Story is MEK Sting
The state-backed Iran Times carries a report from Iran’s Mehr news service that alleges that it learned from Interpol that Gholam Shakuri is a member of the People’s Holy Jihadis guerrilla group (the Mojahedin-e Khalq or MEK). The MEK wants to see the rule of the ayatollahs in Iran overthrown. Shakuri is the second person […]
News that Makes you Go ‘Hunh’?
Simple explanations for perplexing news headlines. * A poll shows that the US public blames politicians in Washington, D.C., more than they do Wall Street, for the bad economy. While legislative changes and lack of regulation, pushed in Washington, had a role, the economic crisis was mainly caused by criminality and/or criminal irresponsibility on the […]
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