The Post-Partisan Emporium

  The face of hypocrisy in all its glory IRINA SLAV I was planning to shred some recent reports about fun stuff like green job subsidies and keeping oil in the ground but last night I finally got to watch a game from Euro 24 and my plan changed. The reason it changed was that in that game, or rather, the advertising around the pitch, the face of hypocrisy showed itself in all its glory. Now, you might argue that we see that face on a daily basis in every Euractiv report, in every “Europe” section news story on Reuters and other corporate media, but I guess that those ads around the pitch were the last straw. So, as I watched ten German citizens of foreign descent in rather odd purple shirts chase ten Hungarians back and forth, I couldn’t help but notice most of the ads were for companies such as Hisense, Aliexpress, Alicom, BYD, Vivo and some digital wallet or something that Google told me was an Alibaba business. Five of the thirteen Euro 24 official sponsors, in other words, are Chin

  Russia, SCO, BRICS: The Normalization of Afghanistan PEPE ESCOBAR   The whole Russia-Taliban affair involves a humongous package – encompassing oil, gas, minerals and loads of rail connectivity. This past Sunday in Doha, I had a meeting with three high-level representatives of the Taliban Political Office in Qatar, including a founding member of the body (in 2012) and a key official of the previous Taliban government of 1996-2001. By mutual consent, their names should not be made public. The cordial meeting was brokered by Professor Sultan Barakat, who teaches at the College of Public Policy at Hamad bin Khalifa University – set in an outstanding, immaculate campus outside of Doha which attracts students from across the Global South. Prof. Barakat is one of those very few – discreet – players who knows everything that matters in West Asia, and in his case, also in the intersection of Central and South Asia. With my three Taliban interlocutors, we talked extensively about the challeng

  Saudi Water Battle in Arizona A prelude to future resource conflicts? JOHN KLAR (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) An ongoing kerfuffle over alleged Saudi water withdrawals from Arizona to grow alfalfa highlights the complexity of competition for increasingly scarce – and thus valuable – water for crops and residential uses. Revelations about gargantuan volumes of water withdrawn at little cost by a Saudi company to grow hay for export have sparked a passionate dispute that extends outside America’s third-driest state to California and other water-pressed jurisdictions. Water for Saudi Arabia The  Saudi  connection stems from a company named Fondomonte, which reputedly has been withdrawing unlimited amounts of water from lands it leases for merely $25 per acre: The value of the water extracted far exceeds the rent paid. Fondomonte is allegedly growing alfalfa year-round on its 3,500 Arizona acres to ship off to other countries – like China. Outcries of foul play have resulted in an o