Dictators, Democracy, and Almighty Oil in the MENA Region
January 17, 2016
95% of transport fuels in the world are derived from oil. This makes it hard to argue that renewable or other non-petroleum sources of fuel could cut into oil's market share, at least in the near term. Transportation, and thus petroleum, is essential to growing economies like China and India and petroleum security will continue to be essential for the global economy.
So who controls oil? You guessed it; the Middle East and North Africa dominate the global oil sector and the future of energy security.
http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/dictators-democracy-and-almighty-oil-in-the-mena-region/
Shifting network of jihadi alliances battles for ground across West Africa
In Mali, Algeria and now Burkina Faso, Mokhtar Belmokhtar has made a habit of wreaking havoc upon the lives of Canadians and other Westerners. This has been a constant in the fugitive's life, despite his off-again, on-again relationship with al-Qaeda. And, as ever, he is abetted by a backdrop of weak or failing states, unpatrollable borders, as well as a dynamic where fanatics one-up each other with attacks that shock the conscience.
It was in 2009 when Mr. Belmokhtar's then-al-Qaeda-linked fighting faction first gained notoriety in the North America, by ransoming off two Canadian diplomats who had been abducted in Niger, close to the border with Mali. In 2013, as head of a newly independent splinter group, he lured two Canadian jihadisfrom Ontario into his fold and used them as part of a team of 30 suicide commandos who killed 39 foreign hostages at an Algerian gas plant. Last week, three years less a day after the Algerian hostage crisis started, Mr. Belmokhtar's latest fighting faction killed at least 28 people in Burkina Faso – including six Quebeckers. This time, the carnage was again perpetrated in the name of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
International tourism hits record 1.2 billion in 2015, UN reports
8 January 2016 – International tourism grew by 4.4 per cent last year to a record 1.184 billion as calculated by overnight visitors to international destinations, 50 million more than in 2014, and the sixth consecutive year of above-average growth, UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) reported today.
"The robust performance of the sector is contributing to economic growth and job creation in many parts of the world. It is thus critical for countries to promote policies that foster the continued growth of tourism, including travel facilitation, human resources development and sustainability" UNWTO Secretary-General Taleb Rifai said in a press release.
Results from the UNWTO Confidence Index remain largely positive for 2016, though at a slightly lower level compared to the previous two years, with international tourist arrivals projected to grow by four per cent. Such arrivals have now increased by four per cent or more every year since the post-crisis year of 2010.
By region, growth in 2016 is expected to be stronger in Asia and the Pacific and the Americas by four to five per cent, followed by Europe with 3.5 to 4.5 per cent, and Africa and the Middle East with two to five per cent, though with a larger degree of uncertainty and volatility for the latter two.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=53027#.Vp5-ifmLTs0
UN panel: $40 billion needed to aid people in war, disasters
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An estimated $40 billion is needed annually to help the rapidly growing number of people needing humanitarian aid as a result of conflicts and natural disasters — and one possibility to help fill the $15 billion funding gap is a small voluntary tax on tickets for soccer games and other sports, concerts and entertainment events, airline travel, and gasoline, a U.N.-appointed panel said.
http://www.timesunion.com/news/world/article/UN-panel-40-billion-needed-to-aid-people-in-6764952.php
Posted by: Africa Realities <africarealities@gmail.com>
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The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
I have loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore I die in exile.
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
When the white man came we had the land and they had the bibles; now they have the land and we have the bibles.
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