The Combustible Ice Revolution

<正>What will a new fossil fuel revolution bring about?One of the world’s largest reserves of fossil fuels—"combustible ice"—has come a step closer to commercial exploitation.China’s Ministry of Land and Resources(MLR)announced on June 2 that the country’s trial mining of combustible ice in the Shenhu     

2012年越南政治、经济与外交综述

2012年是越南经济面临困难和挑战的一年。控制通胀和力保经济增长是越南经济工作的重点内容,但在成功控制通胀的同时,经济却出现了下滑,且面临着企业经营困难、银行坏账增多、商品库存压力加大等诸多问题。相比之下,外交工作有序展开并不断拓展,经济外交成为重点。政治、社会领域则继续保持相对稳定的局面。     

Revising the Democratic Revolution--into the Americas

This article examines the claims of the democratic peace thesis by tracing the embedding of democracy in three countries: Nicaragua, Brazil and Colombia. In so doing it highlights the way in which the democratic peace that has spread in the post-cold war period has to be understood as part of a continued imperialist strategy by the core capitalist states and their dominant social forces in the modern world system. The meaning of democracy in this revolution is to promote and instill a form of corporate government that reinforces private power against human needs and rights. Nonetheless, this is an unstable strategy and the three examples considered here illustrate that this creates space for anti-capitalist opposition to organise and challenge this restricted conception of democracy.     

Foreign Influences and Shifting Horizons: The Ongoing Evolution of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

This article details how prior to the establishment of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AGIM), Meghrebis—that is, Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians and others--made up a significant percentage of the foreign fighters in the al Qaeda-led insurgency in Iraq, thus helping to build the trust networks between al Qaeda central and the Maghreb-based groups, culminating in the the 2007 formal affiliation of the Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat (GSPC) with al Qaeda. Since then, an emboldened AQIM has evolved significantly, both strategically and operationally.