Category: Columns

The John James Newsletter 43
31 January 2015

Syria joke
How can you say that al Qaeda doesn’t have an air force? They have the Israeli air force.

The Anti-Science Climate Denier Caucus
The 38 climate deniers in the Senate who have publicly misrepresented the science behind global warming have received from the fossil fuel industry received an average of $73,300 each, while the 62 who haven’t denied the science have received an average of $18,400. In the House on average deniers took $273,000 from coal, oil and gas interests while the rest took $80,100.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/01/08/3608427/climate-denier-caucus-114th-congress/

The Strategy Behind Israel’s Attack on Iran and Hizballah
Israel appears to prefer that the Syrian army, Hizballah and Iran remain trapped in an endless struggle against the opposition – whatever their hue – that saps their resources and military strength, leaving Israel to control the playing field. Hizballah, by contrast, has every reason to want to cement its position in southern Syria. Sunni opposition forces now control both the border with the Golan Heights, giving them access to Israel, and with south Lebanon, home to much of Lebanon’s Shia majority and Hizballah’s heartland.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40782.htm

Syria’s President Speaks: “The War Will End with a Political Solution”
We refer to “the West’s quiet retreat from its demands that Syria’s president step down immediately.” Given this shift in the Western attitude, is Assad more open to a negotiated solution to the conflict that leads to a political transition?
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/discussions/interviews/syrias-president-speaks

Analysis of proposed Nicaragua canal
To be built by the Chinese in the heart of the Americas with profound long-term political implications.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/20/-sp-nicaragua-canal-land-opportunity-fear-route?CMP=ema_565

Snowden: iPhones Have Secret Spyware That Lets Govt’s Monitor Unsuspecting Users
The NSA whistleblower’s lawyer says the secret software can be remotely activated to watch the user.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/snowden-iphones-have-secret-spyware-lets-govts-monitor-unsuspecting-users

Map: How the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria has surged since October
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/01/27/map-how-the-flow-of-foreign-fighters-to-iraq-and-syria-has-surged-since-october/

Iran moves away from US dollar in foreign trade
http://rt.com/business/225919-iran-switches-from-dollar/

“Panic in Kiev: Ukrainian Forces Surrender Donbass”
The following article appeared briefly on censor.net.ua and was quickly pulled. It succinctly lays out the situation from multiple Russian- and Ukrainian-language sources.
http://www.informationcl

US a dangerous ally: Former Australia PM
“Australia effectively ceded to America the ability to decide when Australia goes to war,” said Fraser. He labelled the US a “dangerous ally” as Australia has become progressively more enmeshed in American strategic and military affairs.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40815.htm

What Syriza’s Victory Means for Greece—and for Europe
The election was a triumph for anti-austerity politics and a rejection of corruption—the godfather politics, the jobs for votes, the backroom union deals, the bribes under the table, the yards of red tape and, above all, the asphyxiating power of Greece’s oligarchs, who buy politicians by the dozen and feed the population a debilitating diet of pap on their private TV channels.
http://www.thenation.com/article/196001/what-syrizas-victory-means-greece-and-europe

The victory of Syriza ‘bad news for Israel’
Alexis Tsipras, whose party Syriza won general elections in Greece on Sunday, stated last year during a rally in Athens that “the world should make every possible effort so that Israel ends its criminal attack and brutality against Palestinians.”
http://ejpress.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51403&catid=10

Ukraine: The Rise of The Right
Ukraine’s bloody conflict faces a new fight against the rapid rise of far right groups. Filmmaker Ross Kemp saw first-hand how militias, made up of football hooligans and current and former soldiers, are now fighting on the front line. Just a few years ago they were on the fringes of society – shunned for their violent behaviour and xenophobic beliefs – but since the fighting against pro-Russian groups their popularity has grown.
http://features.sky.com/ross-kemp-ukraine/

Military-clad English-speakers caught on camera in Mariupol
From the port city in eastern Ukraine, under Kiev’s control, there are videos showing armed men in military uniform, who speak English fluently.
http://rt.com/news/226079-ukraine-foreign-military-mariupol/
Identified as English
http://tinyurl.com/me46n4d

The John James Newsletter 59
9 May 2015

Men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, while men who can manage money manage all
Will Durant

Two degrees of global warming is not ‘safe’: James Hansen
2 degrees is actually a prescription for disaster. That’s well understood by the scientific community. We know that the prior interglacial period about 120,000 years ago – the Eemian – was less than 2C warmer than pre-industrial conditions and sea level was a least 6 to 8 metres higher, so it’s crazy to think that 2 degrees is a safe limit.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/two-degrees-of-global-warming-is-not-safe/6444698

The Case That Blew the Lid Off the World Bank’s Secret Courts
The tobacco giant Phillip Morris demands $2 billion from Uruguay for the sin of strengthening health warnings on cigarette packages. The people of El Salvador face a $300-million case from a Canadian-Australian mining company because El Salvadorans were able to block toxic mining operations. Germany faces a demand of €700 million from a nuclear energy company because, in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, popular movements won a moratorium on new nuclear power plants in the country.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30464-the-case-that-blew-the-lid-off-the-world-bank-s-secret-courts

King Canute is alive and well !!
US Senate votes that climate change not caused by humans
The Senate rejected the scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change, days after NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared 2014 the hottest year ever recorded on Earth.

In 50-49 vote, US Senate says climate change not caused by humans

Tesla Battery Will ‘Fundamentally Change the Way the World Uses Energy’
“Our goal is to fundamentally change the way the world uses energy. We’re talking at the terawatt scale. The goal is complete transformation of the entire energy infrastructure of the world.” Tesla hopes that its $5 billion “gigafactory” under construction near Reno, Nevada will drive down the cost of the batteries for both cars and energy-storage products through mass production.
https://ecowatch.com/2015/05/01/elon-musk-tesla-battery/

World’s mountain of electrical waste reaches new peak of 42m tonnes
The biggest per-capita tallies were in countries known for green awareness, such as Norway and Denmark, with Britain fifth and US ninth on the UN report’s list. Last year, 41.8m tonnes of so-called e-waste – mostly fridges, washing machines and other domestic appliances at the end of their life – was dumped.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/19/worlds-mountain-of-electrical-waste-reaches-new-peak-of-42m-tonnes?CMP=ema_565

Arctic Sea Ice At Record Low On April 9 2015
expanded effect of methane hydrate detabilization along the Gakkel Ridge and the high temperatures caused by the onshore methane eruption vents.
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/arctic-sea-ice-at-record-low-on-april-9-2015.html
To see the importance of the Gakkel Ridge in perspective read
http://www.planetextinction.com/documents/Methane,%20the%20Gakkel%20Ridge%20and%20human%20survival.pdf
or my talk

and Methane levels as high as 2845ppb on April 25
http://arctic-news.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/methane-levels-as-high-as-2845ppb.html

Thirty years on, scientist who discovered ozone layer hole warns: ‘it will still take years to heal’
One of the three UK scientists who discovered the hole in 1985 warned that the real lessons of the story had not been learned. “Yes, an international treaty was established fairly quickly to deal with the ozone hole, but the main point shows how rapidly we can produce major changes to our atmosphere and how long it takes for nature to recover.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/18/scientist-who-discovered-hole-in-ozone-layer-warns?CMP=ema_565

Pope Francis, climate change, and morality
Pope Francis is emerging as one of the world’s foremost campaigners on global warming. Many in the environmental and scientific community think that if he injects himself into international climate politics later this year, the ramifications on the climate debate could be dramatic.

Pope Francis, climate change, and morality

Food, Farming and Climate Change is Bigger than Everything Else
Few are familiar or prepared for “peak coffee.” Farmers and scientists now openly discuss the notion of “endangered crops,” including everything from cocoa and wine grapes to salmon and peanuts. The emergence of super-charged pests related to climate change, like the “La Roya” coffee fungus in Central America, is threatening not only our morning cup of joe, but the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of small-scale farmers.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/04/13/food-farming-and-climate-change-its-bigger-everything-else

Israeli soldiers cast doubt on legality of Gaza military tactics
Describing the rules that meant life and death in Gaza during the 50-day war – a conflict in which 2,200 Palestinians were killed – the interviews shed light on what individual soldiers were told and on policy.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/04/israeli-soldiers-cast-doubt-on-legality-of-gaza-military-operation?CMP=ema_565

Air pollution costs Europe $1.6tn a year in early deaths and disease
The costs is 600,000 premature deaths each year, and the sickness caused to hundreds of thousands of other people from preventable causes, such as pollution from small particles that come from the exhausts of diesel vehicles, and nitrogen dioxide that can inhibit breathing.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/28/air-pollution-costs-europe-16tn-a-year-in-early-deaths-and-disease-say-who?CMP=share_btn_tw
Photo of the Arc de Triumphe on a bad day.

ISIS-Linked Fighters Tighten Grip in Afghanistan, Outmatch Taliban Brutality
Foreign militants fighting under the black flag of ISIS are conquering territory in northern Afghanistan. The development suggests ISIS is expanding its sphere of influence beyond the Middle East and North Africa, and are moving into areas previously controlled by the Afghan Taliban. Most of the fighters hail from Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and the Caucuses — and are even more brutal than the Afghan Taliban.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/atmosphere-terror-isis-linked-fighters-tighten-grip-afghanistan-n347801

The Saudi 9/11 Cover-Up
At least 11 members of the Bin Laden Family were spirited out the country in 24 hours after the 9/11 attacks with the assistance of the Bush Administration.  The FBI still denies knowing about the seven airplanes used to move them out when all private, commercial and military air-travel was grounded.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41743.htm

Pushing Back Against a Chinese Lake in the South China Sea
ASEAN condemned China’s efforts to muscle aside neighbours with an aggressive program of island building in the South China Sea, prompted especially by Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. “China is reaping the fruits of this strategy in a reinvigorated US-Japan alliance, a completely transformed US-Vietnam relationship, a closer US-Philippine alliance.”

Pushing Back Against a Chinese Lake in the South China Sea

and

Reefer Madness: Why Is China on a Building Spree in the South China Sea?

and
China fires back at South China Sea claimants with reclamation accusations
http://news.yahoo.com/china-fires-back-south-china-sea-claimants-reclamation-093122224.html

Fossil fuel subsidies to coal miners costing billions
The cost of subsidising the diesel fuel used by five of the nation’s biggest coal companies – Glencore Xstrata, BHP Billiton, Peabody, Rio Tinto and Anglo American – is around $360 million a year.  The Government will spend more on the Fuel Tax Credit Scheme than on overseas aid
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/graph-of-the-day-fossil-fuel-subsidies-to-coal-miners-costing-billions-67876

Did a Chinese-Russian-Iranian Coalition opposing NATO have its debut in Moscow?
Moscow’s delivery of the S-300 package is meant to cement Russo-Iranian military cooperation and to enhance Eurasian cooperation against Washington’s encircling missile shield. It is one step closer to the creation of a Eurasian air defense network against the missile threat posed by the US and NATO.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41749.htm
Russia Invites China to Join in Creating Lunar Station
Russia plans to launch its national orbital station by 2023.
http://sputniknews.com/world/20150428/1021463835.html

The Day After Damascus Falls
The horror that would unfold with either Al-Qaeda’s Nusra Front or the Islamic State using Syria as a base for terror attacks on the West and continuing to decapitate infidels would be hard for the world to watch and there would be demands to “do something.” But realistic options would be few, with a shattered and scattered Syrian army no longer a viable force capable of driving the terrorists from power.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41724.htm

Prior to 2001 the US did not recognize any terrorist organizations in sub-Saharan Africa.
The numerous groups that have sprung up in the intervening years have destabilised the countries the US had sought to strengthen.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/04/15/us-militarys-battlefield-tomorrow

Who is bombing whom in the Middle East?
The Saudis are bombing Yemen because they fear the Shia Houthis are working for the Iranians, and also in Iraq and Syria. So are the United Arab Emirates. The Syrian government is bombing its enemies in Syria and the Iraqi government is also bombing its enemies in Iraq. America, France, Britain, Denmark, Holland, Australia and Canada are bombing Isis in Syria and in Iraq. The Egyptians are bombing parts of Libya, the Iranians have acknowledged bombing in Iraq and of course the Israelis have  bombed Syrian government forces in Syria but not Isis (an interesting choice, we’d all agree).
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/robert-fisk-who-is-bombing-whom-in-the-middle-east-10222938.html
What is the Saudi-led coalition’s end game in Yemen?
The coalition is dropping weapons and arming various factions in a country already awash with guns. With the right spark, the highly volatile environment falls into an explosive domino effect, where the worst is yet to come and we brace for a Syria scenario on steroids.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/saudi-led-coalition-game-yemen-150504124934102.html

Is email killing off the art of conversation?
Most replies contain just five words. Younger people send shorter emails than older users who also spend more time composing their emails.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3037312/Is-email-killing-art-conversation-messages-replies-contain-just-five-words-finds-biggest-study-email.html#ixzz3ZCEwFwxh

Peruvian farmers restoring 7th century canals
Non-governmental agency helping farmers restore ancient system in Andean region and revitalise their water supplies.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/peruvian-farmers-restoring-7th-century-canals-150503084636928.html

What are the most controversial points in climate science?
This promises to be a rewarding and informative discussion

What are the most controversial points in climate science?

States meet on climate, renewables, in effort to lead Australia as feds stall
ACT environment minister Simon Corbell said on Monday that the Capital Territory with its ambitious 90 per cent renewables and 40 per cent emissions targets hoped to lead a state-based climate effort that would more than make up for Australia’s distinct lack of ambition on the federal front.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/states-meet-on-climate-renewables-in-effort-to-lead-australia-as-feds-stall-35220
RET deal struck, but policy bastardry continues
Coalition and Labor agree on a big cut to renewables target, but big coal, as usual, is the biggest winner.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/ret-deal-struck-but-policy-bastardry-continues-55314

The John James Newsletter 44
7 February 2015

A billion falsehoods told a billion times by a billion people are still false.
Travis Walton

Paradise Stolen: Don’t Show Your Children
Five Minute Video.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40867.htm

Senior Abbott MP concedes Australians ready to leave the grid
and rely instead on solar and storage. He suggested that state-owned assets such as electricity networks need to be sold quickly before they lose too much value. it is the first time a senior Abbott government member has acknowledged that rooftop solar and the emergence of battery storage is going to devalue network assets.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/senior-abbott-mp-concedes-australians-ready-to-leave-the-grid-38525

Ebola outbreak moves into endgame
The massive effort that went into building treatment centres for thousands of sick people was now being diverted as quickly as possible into contact-tracing. All previous Ebola outbreaks, although on a far smaller scale, have been stopped by the efficient tracing and monitoring of every person who might have come into physical contact with someone with the virus.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/29/ebola-outbreak-response-enters-endgame?CMP=ema_565
and
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/world/africa/small-rise-in-new-cases-shows-ebola-hanging-on.html?_r=0

Liberia

Ice-free Arctic in two years heralds methane catastrophe
An ice-free summer (September) Arctic is clearly nearly upon us, and will be achieved within three years or less – this is plain from the observational data on ice extent (satellites) and thickness (submarines and altimeter satellites).
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/jul/24/arctic-ice-free-methane-economy-catastrophe

Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Anti-Semitic attitudes in Britain
Thirty years ago most people still saw Israel as an admirable project of healing and renewal for a people broken by the Holocaust. Now a state that was once seen as the underdog of the Middle East is now the regional superpower and the local bully. It is the Palestinians who have become the new archetype for a dispossessed and downtrodden people.

#JeSuisUnJuifBritannique

Germans equate Israeli policies toward the Palestinians with Nazi policies towards the Jews
The study of 1,000 Germans aged 18 found that while many Germans would prefer not to discuss the Holocaust, they are willing to compare Israeli policies toward Palestinians today with those of Nazi Germany.

One-third of Germans: Israeli and Nazi policies similar

Merkel Fears Devastating Defeat Of The Ukrainian Army
The Germans seem to anticipate the economic and military collapse of Ukraine.  To avert fiasco, Merkel must now discuss a truce with Putin. In return for a ceasefire, separatists would be granted broad autonomy in eastern Ukraine, covering a larger area that than previously planned.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40909.htm

Ukraine’s Government Is Losing Its War. Here Is Why:
The Ukrainian Government’s problem is that there just aren’t enough nazis, and there’s also not enough money, to do the amounts of killing that need to be done in order to enable Obama’s Ukrainian regime to retain the land in Donbass while eliminating the people there.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/01/ukraines-government-losing-war.html

Why Are So Many Of The Super Wealthy Preparing Bug Out Locations?
A lot of ultra-rich people are quietly preparing to “bug out” when the time comes.  They are buying survival properties, they are buying farms in far away countries and they are buying deep underground bunkers. What are they scared of?
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/what-do-they-know-why-are-so-many-of-the-super-wealthy-preparing-bug-out-locations

Grassroots sports at risk from heatwaves due to climate change
The extreme heat policies of sports such as tennis, Aussie rules and cricket will have to “dramatically improve” to protect the health of competitors at all levels,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/30/grassroots-sports-at-risk-from-heatwaves-due-to-climate-change-report-warns?CMP=ema_632

Climate change is lifting Iceland
Researchers have known for some time that land freed from the weight of ice sheets tends to rise. But they did not anticipate just how swiftly the bounce in Iceland was occurring. at 1.4in every year
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jan/30/climate-change-lifting-iceland-volcanic-eruptions?CMP=ema_565

Global Temperature time line
Series shows the variation of global surface temperatures from 1884 to 2014.
http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/

The John James Newsletter 60
16 May 2015

(I will be overseas for the next three months, mainly in France with my beloved churches. I will continue to send out Newsletters each Saturday, though they may have a few less goodies.)

In a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, thinking people should not to be on the side of the executioners
Albert Camus

This is a most interesting assessment of US policies. Well worth considering.
Chaos – not Victory – is Empire’s Game
That’s the way (i) to control people, nations and their resources; (ii) to assures the west a continuous need for military; and (iii) to push a country into disarray or chaos so it becomes broke so it needs money – money with hardship conditions attached by the World Bank that equals enslavement.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41771.htm
Clinton made Libya a ‘jihadist wonderland’
“It was a big mistake for us to go in there in the first place, because a lot of the times when we topple secular dictators, we’ve gotten chaos and then we’ve gotten the rise of radical Islam, It made Libya a hotbed for jihadists.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/241555-paul-clinton-made-libya-a-jihadist-wonderland
To protect Washington’s unique power status following the Soviet collapse, Paul Wolfowitz in 1992 penned what is known as The Wolfowitz Doctrine. This is the basis for Washington’s foreign policy.
“Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.”
In March of this year the Council on Foreign Relations extended this doctrine to China. Washington is now committed to blocking the rise of two large nuclear-armed countries. This commitment is the reason for the crisis that Washington has created in Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda. China is now confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington’s control of the South China Sea, which is now defined as an area of American National Interest.
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/05/11/war-threat-rises-economy-declines-paul-craig-roberts/
The Blindness of the European Union in the Face of US Military Strategy
EU officials are completely wrong regarding Islamist attacks in Europe and the migration of people fleeing wars. This is not the accidental consequence of conflict in the broader Middle East and Africa, but a strategic objective of the United States.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article187529.html

Snowden says Australia watching its citizens ‘all the time’
He warned that journalists are at risk of having their contacts exposed by mass surveillance. “Under these mandatory metadata laws you can immediately see who journalists are contacting, from which you can derive their sources.”
http://rt.com/news/257193-snowden-australia-surveillance-metadata/

The Big Business Of Cancer
100 billion dollars was spent on cancer drugs last year. At the beginning of the last century, one person in twenty would get cancer. In the 1940s it was one out of every sixteen people. In the 1970s it was one person out of ten. Today one person out of three gets cancer in the course of their life.We live in a society that is highly toxic, and it is getting worse with each passing day.
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/the-big-business-of-cancer-100-billion-dollars-was-spent-on-cancer-drugs-last-year-alone

Sea level rising faster in past 20 years than in entire 20th century
Sea levels are predicted to rise by close to a meter in the next 85 years. That would affect more than 150 million people living in low-lying coastal communities.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-12/sea-level-rise-accelerates-faster-in-past-20-years/6461752

The Greek Endgame: Time to Choose between Default and Defeat
A nearly-botched pension payout last week revealed just how critical the government’s fiscal position has become. It’s time to forget about all the friendly rhetoric about Greece reaching a “mutually beneficial” deal with its creditors. The endgame is here. The Eurozone will not back down. Either the Greek government defaults, or it will be defeated. There is no other way.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41816.htm
These are the payments due, including to the IMF, to June 30.
May 12 — 757 million euros to IMF
May 30 — 1.5 billion euros in pensions, salaries
June 5  —  303 million euros to IMF
June 12 — 341 million euros to IMF
June 16 — 568 million euros to IMF
June 19 — 341 million euros to IMF
June 30 — 1.5 billion euros in pensions, salaries
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102667914
Greece Invited to Join New BRICS Development Bank
The BRICS Development Bank is a new initiative that will help member states lessen their dependence on the IMF.
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Greece-Invited-to-Join-New-BRICS-Development-Bank-20150512-0039.html
The IMF’s Struggle for Relevancy
It was created to defend free market economics after the start of the Cold War. It was never meant to help less developing countries but was meant to help steer them away from socialism.
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/The-IMFs-Struggle-for-Relevancy-20150416-0037.html

US “Operation Rooms” Backing Al Qaeda in Syria
US policy think-tank Brookings Institution confirms that contrary to propaganda, US-Saudi “moderates” and Turkey-Qatar “Islamists” have been coordinating all along.

US “Operation Rooms” Backing Al Qaeda in Syria

The Real Lessons of the Tory Victory
We cannot imagine a different world, a different economic system, a different media landscape, because our intellectual horizons have been totally restricted by the media conglomerates that control our newspapers, our TV and radio stations, the films we watch, the video games we play, the music we listen to.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41803.htm

Russia’s Stumbling Pivot to Asia
Moscow and Beijing are trying to cement closer ties, but delays in high-profile energy deals highlight lingering tensions between them.  The reality is that competing interests and clashing visions everywhere from Central Asia to China’s own backyard are keeping Moscow and Beijing from consummating their courtship.

Russia’s Stumbling Pivot to Asia

The Short Life and Speedy Death of Russia’s Silicon Valley
In 2009, Moscow unveiled an ambitious plan to build a world-class technology incubator. Then corruption, brain drain, and Putin killed it.

The Short Life and Speedy Death of Russia’s Silicon Valley

Extreme secrecy eroding support for Obama’s trade pact
Classified briefings and bill-readings in basement rooms are making members queasy. If you want to hear the details of the TPP trade deal, you’ve got to be a member of Congress, and you’ve got to go to classified briefings and leave your staff and cellphone at the door. You are handed one section at a time, watched over as you read, and forced to hand over any notes you make before leaving. And no matter what, you can’t discuss the details of what you’ve read.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/secrecy-eroding-support-for-trade-pact-critics-say-117581.html

Scientists weigh up new evidence on Antarctic ice melt
“Most scientists would be hard-pressed to find mechanisms that do not include human-made climate change.”  Since 2003, ice loss over the whole continent increased at the rate of six billion tons a year. West Antarctica’s melting rate, however, accelerated by 18 billion tons a year during the same timespan.
http://www.climatenewsnetwork.net/scientists-weigh-up-new-evidence-on-antarctic-ice-melt/

The first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season formed off the South Carolina coast  nearly a month before the season officially begins.
http://abc13.com/weather/first-named-storm-forms-before-atlantic-hurricane-season-begins/704610/

Iran welcomes Saudi Arabia inspection of its aid ship
The Iranian cargo ship carrying 2,500 tons of humanitarian aid including food and medicine left Iran’s southern Bandar Abbas port on May 11 to the Yemeni port of Hodeida. The ship also carries rescue workers from the Iran’s Red Crescent Society as well as some 20 journalists.
http://en.trend.az/iran/politics/2394001.html
Iran Warns of War if Aid Ship to Yemen Attacked
The deputy chief of staff of the Iranian armed forces warned on Tuesday that Iran would retaliate in force against any country, which attacks an Iranian ship with humanitarian aid on board.
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20150513/1022078061.html

Yemen’s War Is Redrawing the Middle East’s Fault Lines
Saudi Arabia’s ongoing war in Yemen does more to highlight the kingdom’s isolation than its power.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/05/12/yemens-war-redrawing-middle-easts-fault-lines

Turkey’s Gas Game
Europe hoped Turkey could help the continent wean itself off Russian fuel. But Ankara might have other plans. This one pipeline, which could deliver gas as early as next year, could endanger a critical alliance the West has spent decades cultivating, and upend Eurasia’s entire energy and security landscape. Turkey would become a middleman for Europe’s energy buyers, and it would be precisely the linchpin Moscow needs to keep an energy hold on the continent.

Turkey’s Reckless Gas Game