Saturday, December 21

Tag: Politics/International Relations

Meet America’s Newest Oil-Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden
31Dec By adminNo Comments
Money

Meet America’s Newest Oil-Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden

Updated Dec. 31, 2023 2:36 pm ETHead of state. Commander in chief. Oil-trading whale?President Biden’s unprecedented release of oil from the U.S. petroleum reserves in 2022 turned the White House into an unusually active player in the volatile crude market. The flood of emergency supplies helped arrest surging oil prices after Russia invaded Ukraine, and pulled billions of dollars into the Energy Department’s coffers in the process.Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Read More
Meet America’s Newest Oil-Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden
31Dec By adminNo Comments
World

Meet America’s Newest Oil-Trader Extraordinaire: Joe Biden

Updated Dec. 31, 2023 2:36 pm ETHead of state. Commander in chief. Oil-trading whale?President Biden’s unprecedented release of oil from the U.S. petroleum reserves in 2022 turned the White House into an unusually active player in the volatile crude market. The flood of emergency supplies helped arrest surging oil prices after Russia invaded Ukraine, and pulled billions of dollars into the Energy Department’s coffers in the process.Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Read More
The Welfare-Industrial Complex Is Booming
31Dec By adminNo Comments
Business

The Welfare-Industrial Complex Is Booming

Dec. 31, 2023 11:23 am ETDrill into the nation’s 3.7% unemployment rate, and you’ll find a growing welfare-industrial complex beneath the seemingly strong labor market. Government, social assistance and healthcare account for 56% of the 2.8 million net new jobs over the past year, and for nearly all gains in blue states such as New York and Illinois.The tens of thousands of migrants pouring into big cities need to be tended to. So do the hundreds of thousands of drug-addled and mentally ill homeless living on the streets. Progressive government doesn’t do anything on the cheap. America’s welfare state has thus become a proverbial Big Dig, and it keeps getting bigger.Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Read More
Congo’s President Has Been Re-Elected. His Climate Policy Will Have Global Significance.
31Dec By adminNo Comments
World

Congo’s President Has Been Re-Elected. His Climate Policy Will Have Global Significance.

Dec. 31, 2023 11:51 am ETCongolese President Felix Tshisekedi on Sunday was declared the winner of this month’s national election, handing him a pivotal role in global efforts to combat climate change thanks to his country’s vast forests and rich mineral reserves. The Democratic Republic of Congo’s electoral commission said the 60-year-old Tshisekedi won a second five-year term with 73% of the vote in the Dec. 20 presidential election, well outpacing his challengers. But the election was fraught with delays: Many polling stations didn’t get voting materials on time, which led the commission to extend the vote by an extra day. The vote also came amid a hunger crisis and the worst fighting in years in Congo’s war-torn east.Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 8...
Read More
The World Is On the Move
31Dec By adminNo Comments
World

The World Is On the Move

Updated Dec. 31, 2023 12:20 am ETListen to article(1 minute)Migration from the world’s poorer countries to more affluent ones is at the highest level in decades. Millions of people are on the move, taking routes both legal and illegal to secure work or refuge.The surge in arrivals is stoking social tensions, helping to topple governments and fostering the rise of right-wing nationalist groups from France to the Netherlands.Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Read More
Jack Smith Asks Appeals Court to Reject Trump’s Immunity Claim
31Dec By adminNo Comments
World

Jack Smith Asks Appeals Court to Reject Trump’s Immunity Claim

WASHINGTON—Special counsel Jack Smith asked a federal appeals court on Saturday to reject Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution on charges he plotted to overturn the 2020 election, arguing that his defense “threatens to license Presidents to commit crimes to remain in office.”In an 82-page court filing, the special counsel’s team used some of its most strident language to date in a bid to bolster the first-ever federal prosecution of a former president. Declaring flatly that Trump is wrong, prosecutors said separation-of-powers principles, legal precedent and history combined to “make clear that a former President may be prosecuted for criminal acts he committed while in office—including, most critically here, illegal acts to remain in power despite losing an election.”C...
Read More
Taiwan Says Chinese Lip-Syncing Probe Aims to Pull Rock Band to Beijing’s Side
30Dec By adminNo Comments
World

Taiwan Says Chinese Lip-Syncing Probe Aims to Pull Rock Band to Beijing’s Side

TAIPEI—A Chinese investigation into purported lip syncing by a rock band from Taiwan is aimed at pressuring the band into supporting Beijing’s stance on the island and is part of a broad effort to interfere in its politics, Taiwanese officials said.Mayday, one of Taiwan’s most commercially successful rock bands, is under scrutiny from authorities in Shanghai after the band declined to publicly back the view that Taiwan is a part of China, the officials said. Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Read More
IDF Faces a Harsh Reality in Southern Gaza
30Dec By adminNo Comments
Health

IDF Faces a Harsh Reality in Southern Gaza

Khan Younis, GazaWhat is happening in southern Gaza—and as important, what isn’t happening—threatens to leave the Middle East violently unstable for years. The battle for Khan Younis is forcing Israel to face a harsh reality: Hamas likely won’t be totally annihilated. And Israel’s two goals, killing Hamas’s leaders and rescuing all the hostages, are coming into contradiction.Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Read More
The Ruined Landscape of Gaza After Nearly Three Months of Bombing
30Dec By adminNo Comments
World

The Ruined Landscape of Gaza After Nearly Three Months of Bombing

Listen to article(2 minutes)The war in the Gaza Strip is generating destruction comparable in scale to the most devastating urban warfare in the modern record.By mid-December, Israel had dropped 29,000 bombs, munitions and shells on the strip. Nearly 70% of Gaza’s 439,000 homes and about half of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed. The bombing has damaged Byzantine churches and ancient mosques, factories and apartment buildings, shopping malls and luxury hotels, theaters and schools. Much of the water, electrical, communications and healthcare infrastructure that made Gaza function is beyond repair. Copyright ©2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Read More