Author Archives: Nick Corbishley

Strawberry fields forever? Maybe not in water-starved south-eastern Spain.

The World Health Organization (WHO) adopts the EU’s expiring digital vaccine passport as a global standard, as we warned would happen over a year ago. 

“Under Commission President von der Leyen, the tendency of EU institutions (and officials) to evade their due accountability by collectively hiding behind a democracy-defying bulwark of opacity has reached alarming proportions.”

The dirty “e” word — expropriation — is doing the rounds once again in Mexico, this time in relation to a highly strategic stretch of railroad in the country’s south east.

The ostensible goal of the operation is to provide “support and assistance to the Special Operations of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces and National Police of Peru,” including in regions recently engulfed in violence.

Against a backdrop of triple-digit inflation, severe drought and ever-rising economic uncertainty, the idea of abolishing the peso and adopting the US dollar gains ground.

“The EU’s own top court has ruled on multiple occasions that the USA does not offer adequate privacy protections for non-citizens, yet the Commission and the member states are planning to open up their biometric databases to the [DHS].”

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China has sought new suppliers, including fellow BRICS members Brazil and South Africa, to reduce its dependence on US producers, while Mexico is determined to push through with its partial ban on GM corn. 

China continues to pull off big commercial and diplomatic coups in the US’ neighbourhood — this time with Ecuador, whose government is (or was) so closely aligned with the US that it recently asked Washington to directly intervene in its drug wars.

Even at the very heart of the EU’s political establishment a majority of people believe that a cashless society would not be beneficial for the general public or the economy.

Ukraine is “building the most convenient digital state in the world — without corruption, without bureaucracy, absolutely paperless, and open for everyone”. And the UN is on board.

Although China accounts for only a small fraction of Mexico’s total Foreign Direct Investment, it has significantly expanded its portfolio in recent years.

After pulling off one last stunt, which resulted in his expulsion from Colombia, Gauidó has not only outlived his political usefulness but has become a source of embarrassment to his erstwhile handlers (primarily the US).  

Mexico’s Chamber of Deputies “hosted” a video conference with Zelensky last week, becoming only the second Latin American government to do so. But the event turned out to be a lot less than met the eye.

Ajay Banga, in his former senior executive roles at Mastercard, waged a decade-long “war on cash.” Under his tenure, the company did more than just about any other to demonise the role of physical money around the world.