What was NATO's violent intervention in Libya really all about? Now we know, writes Ellen Brown, thanks to Hillary Clinton's recently published emails. It was to prevent the creation of an independent hard currency in Africa that would free the continent from economic bondage under the dollar, the IMF and the French African franc, shaking off the last heavy chains of colonial exploitation.
French nuclear parastatal EDF is facing problem after problem - zombie nuclear projects in the UK, Finland, China and France, a fleet of 'beyond the grave' reactors, a dropping share price and its drooping credit rating. But is it really as bad as all that? Jonathon Porritt has exclusive access to the leaked Agenda of its latest board meeting. And the answer is - no. It's even worse.
Nuclear giant EDF can't afford to write off the £2 billion sunk into the Hinkley C nuclear plant, write Paul Brown & Oliver Tickell. So its cunning plan is to turn it into a 'nuclear zombie' - officially a live project, but actually stone cold dead - until EDF can find a way out of the hole it has dug itself into.
An occupation of EDF's site office for Hinkley C turned into a celebration today as the EDF Board postponed its 'final investment decision' for the tenth time. With strong opposition among French unions and the project afflicted by severe technical and financial problems, it's not just Hinkley that's going down, but the UK's entire nuclear programme.
Despite the endless rhetoric about a 'nuclear renaissance', there are fewer power reactors today than there were a decade ago, writes Jim Green. The one country with a really big nuclear build program is China, but no one expects it to meet its targets. And with over 200 reactor shut-downs due by 2040, the industry will have to run very hard indeed just to stay put.
Just as EDF was due to make its 'final investment decision' on Hinkley C, writes Oliver Tickell, another delay. In spite of incredibly generous subsidies, the company is unable to finance it. Its last hope is to persuade the French state to take a 10% stake in the doomed project.
The EDF board is meeting tomorrow to reach its 'final investment decision' on Hinkley C. It was meant to be a rubber stamp but now it's anything but, as EDF's share price sinks to a new low, unions and employee directors harden their opposition to the project, and projects in France, Finland and China run way over time and cost with severe technical problems and safety concerns.
A huge march of over 20,000 people including local farmers last weekend marked the biggest protest yet against a new international airport in France's Loire Valley. The peaceful occupation of a bridge was later attacked by riot police with tear gas and water cannon.
The cash-strapped French energy giant EDF may sell off profitable stakes in its in its eight existing UK nuclear reactors to raise money for the Hinkley Point C project. But with no example of the EPR design planned for Hinkley even near completion, it may all prove a risk too far.
The latest text of the Paris Agreement on climate change published today sets 1.5C as its 'long term temperature goal', half a degree lower than previously agreed. It's a big victory for poor 'climate vulnerable' countries - and a blow for Saudi Arabia.
Climate change denier Lord Monckton was making waves at COP21 in Paris yesterday, write Brendan Montague & Kyla Mandel, with his claims of a 'synergy of interests' between 'malevolent scientists' and power-mad politicians intent on setting up a fascist / communist world government under the guise of a climate treaty.
As the Paris climate summit falls under the brutal double cosh of terrorism and a heavy-handed security response targeted at climate campaigners, creative non-violent responses are taking shape to express the collective will of the billions who cannot be there, writes Nadine Bloch: the need for equitable solutions to the climate crisis, as a first step towards a healthy, peaceful, sustainable planet.
‘Climate Smart Agriculture' can be applied to anything from industrial monocultures to agroecology, writes Helena Paul - and fertiliser, biotech and agribusiness corporations are seizing the chance to cash in. Now COP21 host France is proposing to use soils as a giant carbon sink - a fine idea in itself, but not if it's used to 'offset' continued fossil fuel emissions, and to greenwash industrial agriculture.
Amid the human suffering caused by terror attacks, it's easy to forget the economic dimensions, writes Paul Mobbs. But after the 13th November attacks in Paris defence industry shares soared, while a host of connected think tanks, lobbyists and politicians dominated the media in pushing for military responses. Is it time to expose and confront the terror industrial complex?
Turkey's shooting down of a Russian jet near its border with Syria has just revealed the real nature of the war, writes Oliver Tickell, and sharply illustrates the dangers of getting involved in a conflict that is driven more by a battle of two gas pipelines than a clash of ideologies. The message for the UK - keep well out! Or if we are serious about crushing IS, best join in with Assad and Putin.
Luxembourg will join Austria's legal challenge to the UK's support package for the Hinkley C nuclear power station. Meanwhile EDF has laid off 65 engineers working on the project in Paris, and the EU Commission has initiated proceedings against Hungary over its Paks II nuclear project with Rosatom.
There is a sad irony in the security clampdown on the climate 'mobilisations' planned for COP21 in Paris, writes Nick Dearden. Because those affected are the very people who are most commited to building a green, just, peaceful world free of the chaos and disruption that climate change is bringing.
The greatest danger of the Paris conference is that the global South will be bullied into to accepting a terrible deal rather than leave with none at all, writes Brian Tokar. That gives civil society an essential role - to support the resistance of developing country representatives inside the summit to an unjust and ineffective agreement imposed on them by the rich, powerful, high-emitting nations.
Is it a coincidence that the terrorist outrage in Paris was committed weeks before COP21, the biggest climate conference since 2009? Perhaps, writes Oliver Tickell. But failure to reach a strong climate agreement now looks more probable. And that's an outcome that would suit ISIS - which makes $500m a year from oil sales - together with other oil producers.
This December, world leaders will meet at COP21 in Paris to negotiate a global agreement on climate change, writes Kara Moses. But the real action and inspiration will be in a host of parallel events, conferences, action and demonstrations attended by tens of thousands of global climate activists. So here's your definitive guide to what will be happening - and how you can join in!
China's nuclear investment into the UK raises more questions than it answers, writes Oliver Tickell. The £6bn committed is nowhere near enough to see Hinkley C to completion, and EDF has few options for raising the rest elsewhere. The only answer is more Chinese money, and it won't come cheap - not for Britain, nor indeed for France's vulnerable nuclear corporations.
It sounds like a modest ambition: France wants to raise the amount of carbon in its soils by 0.4% a year, writes John Quinton. But that represents a vast amount of carbon, and its capture into soils will bring a host of other benefits. We should all get with the program!
Just as George Osborne is hoping to get China to invest billions in EDF's Hinkley C nuclear plant in Somerset, news from EDF's Flamanville nuclear site threatens to sink the project. French regulators are to demand another lengthy round of tests on its flawed reactor vessel. And if Flamanville isn't working by 2020, £17 billion of UK finance guarantees for Hinkley C will collapse.
UK support for low-carbon energy technologies is running at £250 million a year, writes Chris Goodall. Yet the government wants to throw four times more, every year for 35 years, at the Hinkley C nuclear power station, that could take almost as long to build as Salisbury Cathedral.
