Saudi Border Killings
Joe Biden can’t figure out how to approach the Saudi issue. On the one hand the administration looks away whenever presented with horrific facts about Mohammed bin Salman’s regime and continues to cooperate with aid and arms. On the other hand, it pays lip service to human rights abuses, which has caused the royal family to explore new allegiances on the world stage, essentially taking our money and munitions and thumbing its nose at us. One of the more heinous discoveries recently reported by Human Rights Watch is the murder of at least hundreds, perhaps thousands of Ethiopian migrants on the Saudi border, which the United States allegedly knew and chose to ignore and cover up.
From the article:
“Saudi border guards have killed at least hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers who tried to cross the Yemen-Saudi border between March 2022 and June 2023. Human Rights Watch research indicates that, at time of writing, the killings are continuing. Saudi border guards have used explosive weapons and shot people at close range, including women and children, in a pattern that is widespread and systematic.”
HRW: “They Fired on Us Like Rain”: Saudi Arabian Mass Killings of Ethiopian Migrants at the Yemen-Saudi Border
BRICS Wall of China
There’s a lot of talk about the world someday moving away from the U.S. Dollar as the standard for international settlements. Never say never, but one can say with certainty that it’s a long way away. The logical competitor would be China, but there’s still too much distrust in the opaque nature of Chinese markets, government interference and economic policies to warrant a serious short-term threat to dollar domination. But that didn’t stop China from inviting six new nations into what’s known as the BRICS trade alliance. The BRIC economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—have been a formidable bloc and the addition of Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE add some muscle to the equation.
My take on it (that literally no one asked for) is that loose trade and cooperative alliances such as the BRICS and the G7, which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the U.S., are just that: loose. Despite President Xi’s call to begin settling certain obligations in renminbi, the mature financial institutions and markets won’t be heeding it anytime soon. In terms of stability, transparency and established systems, the U.S. dollar is so deeply entrenched in the global financial system it’s hard to imagine moving away from it in any meaningful way. Also, who gives a shit? No, seriously. The world is one big marketplace. Whether a transaction is settled in dollars or renminbi, does it really matter? The fuss over the expanded BRICS and shift away from the dollar is more political theater than anything.
From the article:
“The attempts to diminish the reliance on the US dollar have been driven by the manner in which US imperialism has exploited the currency’s global position as a financial weapon against targeted countries. The fear in capitals around the world, including those aligned with Washington, was dramatically increased after the Biden administration froze Russia’s central bank reserves following the onset of the war in Ukraine.”
World Socialist Web Site: BRICS to expand to counter US dollar dependence
What doesn’t lie beneath
What goes up must come down. Unless it’s water. There is an unspoken assumption that water removed from the earth is replenished through rain and irrigation. Turns out, that’s not the case. And we’re burning through our abundant reserves of underground water at an alarming rate. The reason we don’t know as much about this is because groundwater use is completely unregulated at the federal level. The New York Times just released a comprehensive investigative report that is worth checking out and stressing out over.
From the article:
“Many of the aquifers that supply 90 percent of the nation’s water systems, and which have transformed vast stretches of America into some of the world’s most bountiful farmland, are being severely depleted. These declines are threatening irreversible harm to the American economy and society as a whole…One of the biggest obstacles is that the depletion of this unseen yet essential natural resource is barely regulated. The federal government plays almost no role, and individual states have implemented a dizzying array of often weak rules.”
The New York Times: America Is Draining Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow
Unf*cker Comment of the Week
From Pastor Tim:
“Now can we get back to episodes where we kick a little MF ass? In the blessed and holy name of Nettie Mcgee, go, fine folks, and let's make this world just a bit better. #FMF #FRR”