Central Asia has increasingly dazzled players from near and far, once they’ve grasped its worth as a crucial source of energy — oil, gas, and hydroelectric power.
India’s Gambit in the Central Asian Abyss
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Energy
Largest Demonstrations in Half a Century Protest the Restart of Japanese Nuclear Power Plants
On 29 June, Japan witnessed its largest public protest since the 1960s. This was the latest in a series of Friday night gatherings outside Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko’s official residence. Well over one hundred thousand people came together to vent their anger at his 16 June decision to order a restart of Units 3 and 4 at the Oi nuclear plant. This article discusses the events of the last several weeks which sparked this massive turnout as well as the nature of the protest. It begins by outlining the Japanese government’s recent policies affirming nuclear power, from Noda’s nationwide address of 8 June justifying the Oi restarts on the grounds of ‘protecting livelihoods’, and continuing with the move on 20 June to revise the Atomic Energy Basic Law and establish a law to set up a new, yet potentially toothless, nuclear regulatory agency.
Big Meetings
Conservative activist Andrew Breitbart, who died earlier this year, created an empire of websites that attack big, fat liberal targets. There’s Big Government, Big Hollywood, and Big Journalism. In 2010, he intervened into foreign policy with his final effort, Big Peace. Not surprisingly, he never got around to launching websites that attacked Big Money or Big Military. Nor did Big Mouth ever appear, for that would have been a wholly uncharacteristic foray into self-criticism.
Conflicting Sudans Have Corruption, Militias, and China in Common
South Sudanese politicians are using security as an excuse to dodge transparency on oil revenues.
The NATO Afghanistan War and US-Russian Relations: Drugs, Oil, and War
I delivered the following remarks at an anti-NATO conference held in Moscow on May 15, 2012. I was the only North American speaker at an all-day conference, having been invited in connection with the appearance into Russian of my book Drugs, Oil, and War. As a former diplomat worried about peace I was happy to attend: as far as I can tell there may be less serious dialogue today between Russian and American intellectuals than there was at the height of the Cold War. Yet the danger of war involving the two leading nuclear powers has hardly disappeared.
The Court Politics of Russia’s New Shale Oil Drive
Russia’s recent solicitation of ExxonMobil and Norway’s Statoil to develop a field of oil shale in Siberia follows a pattern of President Putin.
Dashed Hopes for Baghdad Breakthrough
The recently concluded negotiations between Iran and the world powers, the so-called P5+1, was perhaps the first serious attempt at resolving the Iranian nuclear impasse since the 2009 botched negotiations. Both sides entered the talks with a strong sense of cautious optimism, thinking maybe this time would be different. Even former top American diplomats joined the euphoric run up to the Baghdad talks. According to the former lead U.S. negotiator on Iran, Nicholas Burns, “for the first time in 32 years, since the Iranian revolution, there is the possibility of serious, substantive and sustained talks with Iran.”
The Failure of the Summit of the Americas VI
Dilma Rousseff interrupted the speech of Barack Obama. The President of the United States was speaking about the advances of various countries in Latin America, commenting that now there exists “a prosperous middle class” that represents a business opportunity for companies from his country. “Suddenly, they are interested in buying iPads, interested in buying planes from Boeing.” “Or Embraer,” interjected Dilma, yielding applause.
Japan, Nuclear Energy, and the TPP
A little over a year since the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in Japan, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced the shutdown of the last of the country’s 50 usable nuclear reactors. However, as the Mainichi Daily News reports, Japan will also be spending billions of dollars importing extra oil and gas to meet its energy demand, which will produce a projected 180-210 million additional tons of emissions this year.
Fearful Iran Hawks Flat Harder
As at least two days of talks on the future of Iran’s nuclear program got underway in Baghdad on Wednesday, neo-conservatives and other hawks escalated their campaign against any compromise agreement, particularly one that would permit Tehran to continue enriching uranium on its territory.