Africa

When the price of oil was above $100, many of the less developed oil exporting OPEC members decided to capitalize on the high price and cash out by taking loans using the precious liquid as collateral very much the same way corporate CEOs use their inflated stock (thanks to buybacks they authorize) to issue loans against said stock. And why not: even if the price of oil were to drop, they could just pump more until the principal is repaid.

A reader who lives in a poor neighborhood writes:

“This past weekend, at the festival in Oklahoma, I talked to a Christian from the Midwest who said that many of his fellow middle-class Evangelicals have no idea what’s really going on in America.”

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

It is not only American generals who are irresponsible and declare on the basis of no evidence whatsoever that “Russia is an existential threat to the United States” and also to the Baltic states, Poland, Georgia, Ukraine, and all of Europe. British generals also participate in the warmongering.  UK retired general and former NATO commander Sir Richard Shirreff, Deputy Supreme Allied Commander in Europe until 2014, has just declared that nuclear war with Russia is “entirely possible” within the year.  

The UN has warned that Africa could be facing the worst food crisis in 25 years as the continent struggles with severe drought. By Christmas up to 50 million people will need food. ITV reports: Severe weather conditions caused by the worst El Niño – a weather phenomenon that affects rainfall patterns – in 30 years are worsening and drought has ravaged crops and driven up food prices. More than 31 million need food now and 20 million more are likely to run out this year, the UN said.

China denies claims of selling canned human meat labelled as corn beef to Africa. After rumours on social media made tabloid headlines, the ambassador was forced to deny claims that companies in China were marinating dead human bodies and then packaging them as corned beef to be sent to Zambia. i News reports: Yang Youming, the Chinese Ambassador to Zambia, was not impressed. “Today a local tabloid newspaper is openly spreading a [rumour], claiming that the Chinese use human meat to make corned beef and sell it to Africa,” he said, Xinhua news agency reported.