Russia & Central Asia

It’s late December and an icy fog cloaks the northeastern state of Uttar Pradesh. Here, far from the cities, smoke rises in dense, choking spirals from meagre wood fires and scantily-clad children shiver against the cold. These are largely farming families, and their mud huts fortified by the occasional brick wall are for the most part devoid of light, heat or clean water. But it is here in Uttar Pradesh, one of India’s largest and poorest states, far away from the country’s straining power grid, that US-born entrepreneurs Nikhil Jaisinghani and Brian Shaad have started to pioneer a wholly different energy system, designed to meet some of the most basic needs of the poorest.

If only the rest of the world could emulate the Government of Rajasthan in India in adopting public policies to promote the commons! As the Times of India reports "Rajasthan has become the first state in the country to have drafted a policy underlining the importance and the need to preserve and secure common land (commons) in rural areas." There may be other such government policies around the world, but they are few and far between.  The Rajasthan policies are a real breakthrough.

- Nigeria union chiefs urge general strike amid fuel protests
- Global unrest: how the revolution went viral
- Hungary set for protests over constitution
- Stephen Cohen: Russian Protests and the Soviet Union's Afterlife

- Faces of Russia's protest movement
- What If We Occupied Language?
- The 'Arab spring' and the west: seven lessons from history
- Occupy Y'All Street: Three Generations Try To Escape Poverty Through Occupy Columbia (South Carolina)

Kazakhstan is moving fast to pacify its restive west as a new video circulates in which police shoot and beat retreating oil workers protesting labor conditions. Two reasons: With parliamentary elections three weeks away, President Nursultan Nazarbayev (pictured above) wants to stamp out any political narrative conflicting with his long-time assertion of keeping Kazakhstan stable. Abroad, the jittery global oil market is already starting to factor in a possible disruption of Kazakhstan's 1.5 million barrels a day of oil exports

- Egyptian Military Advisor: Protesters Should "Be Thrown Into Hitler’s Ovens"
- Krugman: Will China Break?
- China's epic hangover begins
- China's top paper praises settlement of village dispute
- Greek woes drive up suicide rate to highest in Europe
- Fragments of a Defunct State (haves vs have-nots in Russia)

- Wukan, China: Revolt Begins Like Others, but Its End Is Less Certain
- The Struggle Emerges in Russia
- Occupy! Connect! Create!
- Occupy and the Tasks of Socialists

There are many uncertainties to how a European collapse might unfold, but Europe is at least twice as able to weather the next, predicted oil shock as the United States. Once petroleum demand in the US collapses following a hard crash, Europe will for a time, perhaps for as long as a decade, have the petroleum resources it needs, before resource depletion catches up with demand.

Europe is ahead of the United States in all the key Collapse Gap categories, such as housing, transportation, food, medicine, education and security. In all these areas, there is at least some system of public support and some elements of local resilience. How the subjective experience of collapse will compare to what happened in the Soviet Union is something we will all have to think about after the fact.

Just how far gone is Putin's government? The evidence so far is that they are still feeling invincible, and are willing to resort to repression in order to make the election results stick. But the Russian people want to express themselves; they want to be heard; they want those who hear them to make the required changes in response.

- Putin and Medvedev try to calm Russian election outcry (50,000 protestors in Moscow; 50+ cities affected)
- Quiet after the storm - official silence after Russia protests (video)
- Russia's Great December Evolution
- Putin’s Big Mistake?

- In Uniform at Protests, and in Trouble as a Result
- My Occupy LA Arrest (Fox "Family Guy" writer)
- Russian Vote Wrath Swells Protests as Putin Blames Clinton
- Putin Contends Clinton Incited Unrest Over Vote

- Why Occupy Protesters Marched from Wall Street to DC
- Annie Appel's Photography of Occupy Los Angeles
- Occupy the Kremlin: Russia's Election Lets Loose Public Rage

To minimal serious coverage in the media and on the internet, the Nord Stream was inaugurated in Lubmin on Germany's Baltic Coast on Nov. 8 in the presence of Pres. Medvedev of Russia and the prime ministers of Germany, France, and the Netherlands, plus the director of Gazprom, Russia's gas exporter, and the European Union's Energy Commissioner. This is a geopolitical game-changer.

What is Nord Stream? Very simply, it is a gas pipeline that has been laid in the Baltic Sea, going from Vyborg near St. Petersburg in Russia to Lubmin near the Polish border in Germany without passing through any other country. From Germany, it can proceed to France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Great Britain, and other eager buyers of Russia's gas.

- Barbara Ehrenreich: Why Homelessness Is Becoming an Occupy Wall Street Issue
- At Zuccotti Park, Conflict Arises Among Occupiers
- Michael Kinsley: Four Iron-Clad Demands for OWS
- Global indignation inspires Spanish movement
- Chinese web censors block terms related to "Occupy," to stamp out movement's spread in China

- New York Times: The Arctic and the Lessons of the Gulf
- Sen. Murkowski: U.S. Must be a Leader in Offshore Oil Production
- Putin’s Russia will lead a ‘new era of Arctic industrialisation’