The eternal flames that erupt from the rocks in the Caspian region give an eerie backdrop to Dilip Hiro's book on oil.

Long-term unemployment in the US is steadily worsening. In 2007, according to analysis by the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute, 1.2 million people were unsuccessfully seeking jobs for more than six months, the federal time limit on unemployment compensation benefits.

As this article is being written, expectations are that the US Federal reserve would cut interest rates by a quarter to half a percentage on top of an unscheduled and unprecedented 0.75 percent cut it announced recently.

In "The Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski (Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, and star consultant to several US Administrations) boasts of how he lured the Soviets into Afghanistan in order to bleed them in their own version of Vietnam.

Under existing EU rules there is no such thing as the G5 or an "inner circle"; but it is clear that the major economic powers will increase their political co-operation and, given their voting strength, will ensure that they get their way in most matters at the EU Council of Ministers.

The global stock market meltdown occurred in the wake of the U.S. sub-prime mortgage meltdown that begun last summer, followed by the U.S. real economy gradually entering a recessionary stage since late last year.

Like coffee beans, the cacao seeds from which we derive chocolate can only be grown successfully in equatorial regions—right where the world’s few remaining tropical rainforests thrive.

Reports that the target Israeli fighters struck in Syria last September 6th was a nuclear reactor being assembled with North Korean help cannot be substantiated, according to a report by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.