Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
New from Michael Klare: Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet
Metropolitan Books
No longer does the possession of a powerful military guarantee the United States its dominant position in the world. A new political landscape has formed, one in which nations with colossal reserves of oil, natural gas and other sources of primary energy wield disproportionate power.
Bestselling author of the now-classic Resource Wars Michael Klare argues that the struggle over energy has become the central dynamic of world affairs in his revealing new book, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Metropolitan Books; April 15, 2008).
A preeminent expert on resource geopolitics, Klare examines how an intensifying competition for energy is changing the way policymakers are looking at our world. Regions that once held abundant raw materials, but have been depleted of their original natural wealth, are losing much of their power, while areas with untapped energy and mineral reserves have suddenly acquired global significance. Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet shows how this changing situation is causing energy-deficient countries to forge strategic partnerships with friendly energy-rich states, often cemented by massive arms transfers, troop deployments, and military alliances.
Klare warns that if we continue to compete for the planet’s vital resources, “we will witness unending crisis and conflict over what remains of value on our barren wasteland.” And he points to the innovative policy changes at the national and international level- including the development of new energy sources and climate-friendly industrial processes-that can make a difference.
(April 2008)
Articles by Michael Klare on Energy Bulletin.
China’s shopping spree
Joanne Lee-Young, Vancouver Sun
Firms are buying Canadian mining assets in search for resources
—
It has taken over three years, but a growing string of transactions suggests that China, in its quest to buy mining resources anywhere and everywhere, is back in town.
In late 2004, when a political firestorm sabotaged a $5-billion bid by China’s state-owned Minmetals Corp. to buy Noranda, one of Canada’s oldest mining companies, the Chinese took their money elsewhere — first to Chile and then a myriad of other destinations.
… In a phone interview from Beijing, Toronto-based Bianchini said: “The focus by the Chinese [state-owned enterprises] is to grow … and they need to fuel that growth in a lot of commodities. There’s a real shortage here.
“They are looking for iron ore, copper. Based on that, that there are going to be more deals.”
He added that China’s “needs are more acute than anyone else’s, just by virtue of how quickly their economy is growing.”
“The Chinese companies are focused. They are disciplined. And they know what they need and they are going about it in a very systematic way.
(7 April 2008)
The battle for Basra timeline: footsteps to U.S. war in Iran?
Sarah Meyer, Index Research
The War for oil in Basra appears to be metastasizing into Cheney’s U.S. War on Iran.
Before the Battle for Basra
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was making his third vice presidential trip to Iraq, where 160,000 American troops are deployed and the U.S. death toll is nearing 4,000.
… The following roundup is an attempt to make sense of the battle for Basra. This is not easy for anyone, as reporters are a discouraged species in Iraq.
… “With over 80 percent of the country’s known oil reserves, Basra holds the key to Iraq’s economy. Without its revenues the central government in Baghdad would collapse. The struggle for power in Basra is central to the larger battle for control in the new Shiite dominated Iraq.”
(8 April 2008)
A wealth of resources on the Basra conflict by indefatigable researcher Sarah Meyer.
