Global Shale Fail: Fracking Fields Abandoned Across Europe, Asia

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With some analysts predicting the global price of oil to see another drop, many oil majors have deployed their parachutes and jumped from the hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) projects rapidly nose-diving across the world.

As The Wall Street Journal recently reported, the unconvetional shale oil and gas boom is still predominantly U.S.-centric, likely to remain so for years to come.

“Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC have packed up nearly all of their hydraulic fracturing wildcatting in Europe, Russia and China,” wrote The Wall Street Journal. “Chevron halted its last European fracking operations in February when it pulled out of Romania. Shell said it is cutting world-wide shale spending by 30% in places including Turkey, Ukraine and Argentina. Exxon has pulled out of Poland and Hungary, and its German fracking operations are on hold.”

Obama’s Reactionary Doctrine For American Exceptionalism

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In his recent State of the Union, Obama made many bold statements which people have said were “progressive” and hopeful. These include: his support for paid sick leave for American workers, a pathetic increase of the minimum wage to $10.10, meant to hurt the ‘Fight for $15’ movement; a promise to veto legislation that overturns deficient Wall Street “reform;” support for “affordable” quality childcare; minimal raises in taxes for the wealthy, which isn’t nearly enough; sorta free community college [1]; supposedly protecting “a free and open Internet,” and so on.

Obama also made a number of ‘firsts’ by mentioning transgender and lesbian people in his State of the Union, claiming that the United States government protects them (oh really), which seems great but ignores the fact that not only is Obama “a born again” evangelical Christian, but he has, during his presidency, allowed federal money to fund groups that supported the anti-gay bill in Uganda and “conservative faith-based groups affiliated with the Family Research Council, anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers and an entire network of evangelical abstinence-only educators,” according to an exhaustive investigation in The Nation.

It is important to focus on other parts of the speech, often missed by other analysis, which emphasize American exceptionalism [3], including a section where he hypocritically criticizes Russia for actions that the US has done in the past:

Corporations Are The New Conquistadors : Ukraine

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Ukraine has become a nation synonymous with the daily headlines, from the trail of western intervention and subversion that lead to a violent coup in 2013 to the devastating civil war that has torn the nation apart. These stories, as crucial as they are to investigate, have provided the perfect cover for international corporations to exploit Ukraine’s resources.

This exploitation accelerated when Ukraine declared its independence in 1992. From this period onward, Ukraine has experienced the colonization of its vastly important agricultural sector. International agribusiness and biotechnology firms have steadily been reforming Ukraine’s agricultural laws in order to eventually allow for an explosion in the production of genetically modified organisms.

Recent efforts to speed up this annexation of Ukrainian agriculture have been documented by the Oakland Institute. Their fact-sheet on the “Corporate Takeover of Ukrainian Agriculture” shows how the law firm Frishberg and Partners found loopholes in a moratorium on Ukrainian agricultural land sales. The law firm suggested a two-pronged approach to circumventing this moratorium, which remains in force until January 1, 2016. These loopholes are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the multinational effort to subdue and mold a potentially lucrative agriculture market for maximum profit. While Ukraine currently enforces a ban on GMO products, it has become apparent that this is a temporary state of affairs.

The stage was set for the impending removal of this ban when Ukraine and the EU signed an association agreement in 2014.

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