The Human Archipelago / L'Archipel humain

  (Texte publié aujourd'hui sur X) Un projet ferroviaire assez prometteur permettra un jour d'étendre le réseau ferré de l'Algérie vers le sud, à travers le désert, jusqu'à Tamanrasset. Selon toute vraisemblance, il s'agit d'une conséquence de la désignation récente de l'Algérie comme pays partenaire de l'association économique des BRICS, un relais important de l'influence chinoise, tout comme l'Organisation de coopération de Shanghai. Les pays bricsiens pourraient d'ailleurs être à la source d'une partie plus ou moins grande des capitaux nécessaires à un tel projet. Un prolongement ultérieur menant jusqu'au sud du désert du Sahara est déjà envisagé, selon l'article ci-dessous, au bénéfice des trois pays sahéliens qui, devant une insurrection armée d'intégristes religieux, se sont regroupés l'an dernier en confédération et se sont placés sous protection russe dans la foulée. Tout naturellement, pourraient ensuite venir s...

  (The fall of the Assad governement happened so fast it surprised everyone, save, of course, those who organized it from the start, out of sight.  Here, the reader will find are a series of short-texts published on X today, November 9th, 2024) * * * Fragmentation is the operative word now in Syria. Two different rebel factions (the largest one US-backed, Turkish-backed and Israeli-backed, while the other is difficult to assess), plus the US-backed Kurds in the Northeast, and quite possibly the Russian-backed Alaouites in the Northwest. The whole thing is a big mess. China is offering her economic help, while Biden is a lame duck, with only a few weeks in front of him, and Trump is looking inward and wants to cut government cost. https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2024/12/07/the-fall-of-syrias-dictator * * * Is the rebels’ victory in Syria the result of a mainly homegrown campaign, as professed in this Foreign Affairs article? The winning side in this event is co...

  The Golan Heights. (December 4, 2024) Military units of the Iran's Revolutionary Guards are among the thousands of irregular fighters from Iraqi groups that are on the move toward Hama (central Syria) to repel the Idlib rebels storming south from recently captured Aleppo. The news is significant since it means a direct involvement of the Iranian government in the conflict against Israel-backed rebels, not just by air (two large waves of missiles so far) but now with ground forces. Turkiye and America are also behind the rebels. All those reinforcements are rushing toward the defensive line hurriedly erected by the Syrian government north of Hama, to repulse the surprise attack. Syria's capital, Damascus, is located southward of Hama. The Revolutionary Guards are the elite forces of the Iranian government, its ideological arm. They are separate from the regular army, which is operated by the ministry of defense. Their presence implies the possible involvement of regular units ...

  Jamais deux sans trois? America may be going toward an imperial presidency. Till Franklin Delano Roosevelt, all US presidents had one or two terms, no more. FDR was the only one to get four terms, one after the other, at an important period in American history, between the Great Depression and the last months of the Second World War. It was only after his death that the American Constitution was modified, limiting the number of terms to a maximum of two. Donald Trump, the President-elect, is presently preparing to take office. He has a firm control over the White House (the Executive branch) and of most of the Senate and of the House of representatives (the Legislative branch), while most of the Supreme Court judges (the Judiciary branch) are on his side, plus a sizable part of the press. The Democrats are clearly on the defensive, at least for the time being. The first half of his term, from the month of January to the midterm elections, will be very important. Things should go ...

  Le monde bricsien actuel, tel qu'annoncé lors de la rencontre de Johannesbourg de l'an dernier. À remarquer que l'Argentine a tourné de dos aux BRICS et que l'Arabie saoudite est un quasi-membre, n'ayant pas encore finalisé l'ensemble des démarches nécessaires. * * * (Texte basé sur un article paru initialement sur X -Twitter-) * * * (30 novembre 2024) Le retrait du Tchad de ses accords militaire avec la France, combiné avec une décision similaire du Sénégal, tout récemment, s'inscrit dans le cadre de la montée en puissance des pays bricsiens en Afrique, aux dépens des pays occidentaux. Les pays du BRICS, notamment la Chine et la Russie, sont de plus en plus présents en Afrique, la première au plan économique, la seconde au plan militaire. Ce ne sont pas les seuls, cependant, loin de là. L'Inde est aussi très active, surtout dans le domaine économique, notamment au Nigéria. C'est aussi le cas des Émirats arabes unis, en Égypte mais aussi ailleurs e...

* * * (Text first published on X, November 28th, 2024) The state of Israel is built upon the ghosts of all those Palestinians that have been repressed or eliminated through the decades. The Israeli dream is the Palestinian nightmare, since 1948. Those who lives in Gaza are being hunted down and killed, or just bombed out of existence, like so many animals, by the Israel armed forces. As for those who lives in the West Bank or East Jerusalem, they are left devoid of political rights, just like the black South Africans who were most of the population in their own country at the time of apartheid, not so long ago. The Palestinians living in that part of the territories that were taken from Jordan in 1967 must live under military occupation, while the West Bank and North-Gaza is slowly prepared for forceful annexation, against the will of its original population, just like East-Jerusalem was forcefully integrated to Jerusalem. Something must be said about the flood of settlers that is bein...

  (Based on a series of recent posts on X (Twitter) * * * (November 9, 2024) The Trumpian movement has decided that climate change is a hoax and that the green transition is therefore irrelevant. "Drill, drill, drill" is the mantra of Trump and of his supporters, convinced that electric cars, solar panels and wind towers are simply parts of a Chinese plot and that the US must rely on fossil fuels.   This is a tragedy for the whole world because their kind of thinking has already infected a good part of US public opinion and because America is still the most powerful country on the planet. That country's potential for disinformation and the dissemination of falsehoods is strong and backed by the full power of the American government: the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives (probably) and the Supreme Court. Political realities and scientific facts do not mix well. At worst, they can form an explosive mix and, at best, have awkward effects and half-bake res...

  L'Alliance des pays sahéliens regroupe, de gauche à droite, le Mali, le Burkina Faso et le Niger. Cette nouvelle entité en cours d'intégration domine tout l'intérieur sahélien des pays de l'Afrique de l'Ouest. Actuellement, la CÉDÉAO (Communauté économique des États de l'Afrique de l'Ouest) peut être divisée en deux secteurs: les trois pays sahéliens, d'une part, et les pays guinéens, d'autre part, ceux-ci constituant une longue bande côtière allant du Sénégal, à l'ouest du Mali, au Nigéria, au sud du Niger. * * * La mise en place d'un espace numérique sans frontières, annoncée récemment par l'agence de presse AES Info, souligne qu'un autre pas a été franchi dans l'intégration progressive des trois pays sahéliens que sont le Mali, le Burkina Faso et le Niger. Déjà regroupées dans une alliance militaire bien établie et un début de confédération politique, les trois entités cheminent aussi dans l'établissement de liens économi...