Opinions

Tullow Oil plc announced that it has completed the farm-down of two thirds of its Ugandan licences to China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) Limited and French oil major Total for $2.9 billion earlier today. The news that British firm Tullow has finally brought in partners to develop its oil fields in Uganda paves the way for commercial oil production to begin in the country.

“The president is wrong.” So says one of the newly appointed co-chairs of President Obama’s re-election campaign.
Those 4 words headline the site of the organization Progressives United, founded by former U.S. senator and now Obama campaign adviser Russ Feingold. He is referring to Obama’s recent announcement that he will accept super PAC funds for his re-election campaign.

Terrible images are circulating through the world’s media, chronicling the desperate plight of the Greek people as they try to stand up to their government and stop the destruction of their society. Kostas Klokas, who wrote for us back in September in graphic terms about a modern-day Greek tragedy and his hope for nonviolent struggle, updates his story.

The state system at its worst: trading insults and threats, sanctions, readiness to use extreme violence, forward deployment of US troops in Israel as hostages to guarantee US involvement, disregard for common people and the effects of warfare in the Middle East and the world.

From February 16th to the 18th, the Empowerment and
Education working group of Occupy Wall Street organized a forum to reflect
on the direction and aims of the Occupy movement and articulate strategies for the
movement’s future. The forum occurred at the Church of the Ascension at
122 Java Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and was open to the public.

New York – UN General Assembly (UNGA) President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser is committed to convening an international conference directed at establishing a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East.

Finally, there is some argumentation in the West supportive of a nuclear free zone for the Middle East. Such thinking is still treated as politically marginal, and hardly audible above the beat of the war drums.

Cairo, 26 January – It started as a day of celebration, with tens of thousands of Egyptians converging on Tahrir Square to mark the first anniversary of Egypt’s revolution, 25 January. The morning crowd — dominated by bearded Islamists — waved flags and strolled peacefully in the Square — flashpoint of the eighteen day uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak last year.

In his State of the Union address, many heard echoes of the Barack Obama of old, the presidential aspirant of 2007 and 2008. Among the populist pledges rolled out in the speech was tough talk against the too-big-to-fail banks that have funded his campaigns and for whom many of his key advisers have worked: “The rest of us are not bailing you out ever again,” he promised.

Berlin – “We want a nuclear weapons free world.” More than 80 percent of people around the globe have expressed this overwhelming desire to authors of a new report. But a close look shows that very little is happening rather slowly in terms of reducing nukes and putting a halt to proliferation. This is cause of profound concern also to atomic scientists.