Wolfgang von Skeptik

DIRE INDICATIONS ON TWO CONTINENTS

ONE MORE DAY BACK on the beat – no, I’m not doing investigations again; I’m speaking metaphorically – and then I’ll (probably) be caught-up enough to finish (and post) an essay on a topic I’ve been thinking about for several years: how the collapse of the Soviet Union contributed to the present-day political and socioeconomic impasse in the United States, and how the this conflicted reality offers several clues as to how its problems might be resolved. Meanwhile here are two more vital links to keep you entertained while I am off chasing the Greenback Dollar.

The first link, to a cogently disturbing report in The New Republic, warns in very specific terms of the growing Chinese influence in Africa, even linking it to the genocide in the Sudan:

...China's march could scuttle Washington's efforts. In a searing 581-page report, Human Rights Watch recently argued that Chinese companies are complicit in Khartoum's efforts to displace populations in southern Sudan to clear the way for oil rigs. It also charges that China's oil purchases have enabled the Sudanese government to buy arms--sometimes from Beijing itself--fueling the violence in Darfur that Washington says it is now trying to stem. And who knows how much of the $1 billion in arms that Beijing sold to Ethiopia and Eritrea during their 1998-2000 war has migrated over the border into Sudan?

The rest of this well-researched, frightening (and surprisingly pro-Bush) analysis, which should be read by every spook on the Central Intelligence Agency’s Chinese and African desks, is available here.

Next and last comes a link to an equally spooky speculation that grave mischief is again a-brewing in Central America, complete with an ominous threat to Miami. I can’t help you evaluate it because I’m not familiar with the writer (though the on-line publication itself seems to have a reasonably good reputation). Here’s the link. I provide, you decide.

Posted by Loren at November 11, 2004 07:10 AM