The Post-Partisan Emporium

  Smart Cities: They’re NOT “Just a Crazy Conspiracy Theory” Marie Hawthorne After the fires in Maui, a local resident nicknamed Auntie  complained that Lahaina was slated  to become a “satellite city”    Residents posted on X (Twitter) that, before the fire,  rumors had been circulating  about a Digital City, or a 15-minute city, being set up on Maui    Naturally the fact-checkers are treating these people like they’re just “conspiracy theorists,” but let’s look at what the new types of cities – also called Smart Cities – really are. What are Smart Cities? “Satellite city”  just refers  to a smaller city next to a larger one.    Think Fort Worth and Dallas.  It’s possible that Auntie got her words mixed up and meant to say “Smart City” instead of satellite city.  Or, she could have meant that Lahaina was supposed to be a satellite city for something bigger that was slated to be built.   Smart Cities are a different matter entirely. (People often use “smart city” and “digital city” int

  Pepe Escobar: No Respite for France as ‘New Africa’ Rises African states are one-by-one falling outside the shackles of neocolonialism. They are saying “non” to France’s longtime domination of African financial, political, economic and security affairs. Day Over, July 2019, Yanounde, Cameroon.  (Rikyelle Momo Nguematio, Wikimedia Commons,  CC BY-SA 4.0) By  Pepe Escobar B y adding two new African member-states to its roster, last months’ summit in Johannesburg heralding  the expanded BRICS 11  showed once again that Eurasian integration is inextricably linked to the integration of Afro-Eurasia. Belarus is now proposing to hold a joint summit between BRICS 11, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).  President Aleksandr Lukashenko’s vision for the convergence of these multilateral organizations may, in due time, lead to the Mother of All Multipolarity Summits. But Afro-Eurasia is a much more complicated proposition. Africa still lags far behi