ALASTAIR CROOKE—Others in the Global South say it more starkly: The BRICS mechanism is seen as a means to slough off the last vestiges of western colonialism and to acquire autonomy. Yes, of course, BRICS 11 initially will be more cacophony than smooth opera, but nonetheless, it represents a profound shift of global consciousness.
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EDITOR—The recent coup in Niger has sent shockwaves throughout West Africa, not to mention Europe and the United States. France was once the colonial power controlling Niger, and still wields tremendous influence over the nation’s economy. But this latest coup threatens all that, especially France’s access to cheap yellowcake to run France’s nuclear power plants.
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ANDREW KORYBKO—The US and France are jointly waging proxy wars against Russia in Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR) since these states function as their respective regions’ multipolar cores. The West fears that Niger and Chad, its last strongholds in West and Central Africa correspondingly, could follow in neighboring Mali’s and the CAR’s footsteps to create a multipolar corridor across a broad swath of the continent.
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Britain has a historically low unemployment rate of 3.6%. Yet poverty levels are breaking all records. It’s a paradoxical situation: almost 15 million Britons are considered poor these days, although there’s almost full employment. The reason: inflation and high energy costs. Galloping inflation and a dramatic spike in energy costs in recent months are forcing millions of Britons into poverty. Wages fluctuate in an “uberized” working world of precarious employment conditions. Over the past 10 years, beginning with David Cameron, the government has scaled back its support to vulnerable members of society. The result: reduced life expectancy.
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EDITOR—When people complain about waves of supposedly unwanted “immigrants”, or the eternal “problem of broken borders”, they are missing the point big time, says Garland Nixon. The problem is not with the desperately poor masses “invading” affluent countries, or crashing the enclaves of the rich, but with the ruling elites that, while hiding their imperialist past of meddling around the globe and super-exploiting nations until such countries are unlivable, are now deliberately allowing the mass infusion of “foreigners” as a way to depress wages and pump up profits. If it sounds ugly and despicable it is because that’s exactly what’s happening, and it has been happening for many decades, generations actually.
