Canada: A Shy Energy Giant

"Canada holds 163,108,000,000 barrels of proven oil reserves as of 2025, ranking #4 in the world and accounting for about 9.24% of the world's total oil reserves of 1,765,151,568,000."

"Canada has proven reserves equivalent to 188.6 times its annual consumption levels (based on 2024 data). This means that, without net exports, there would be about 189 years of oil left (at 2024 consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves)."

world0meter  

Visual Capitalist 

"Canada has significant reserves of conventional and unconventional oil and gas resources. Canadian oil production is focused in the west of the country, especially in Alberta. Canada’s proven oil reserves remain among the world’s largest — estimated at around 168 – 170 billion barrels (about 10 % of global reserves), with the majority in oil sands. The largest oil reserves are found in Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, which have around 18.2 % and 16.2 % of the total reserves, respectively."

"Canada also produces natural gas, with reserves and production primarily in provinces such as British Columbia, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories. Producing natural gas involves extracting gas from underground reservoirs and processing it so it is suitable for various uses, such as heating. In 2025, Canada’s natural gas production averaged about 19 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), making it the fifth-largest producer globally and accounting for roughly 5 % of world natural gas supply."

"Canada is currently the fourth-largest oil producer in the world, with production near 6.0 million barrels per day in 2024, including oil sands, conventional, offshore, and liquids."

Olivia Bush, Made in CA   

A large oil refinery along the Athabasca River in Fort McMurray, Alta.  dan_prat/iStock/Getty Images 

 

New Brunswick, an eastern province of Canada was the second place in the world in 1859 to discover oil and gas would bubble to the surface when a hole was drilled in the ground. New Brunswick has a wealth of fossil fuel; an estimated 77.9 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to Natural Resources Canada. New Brunswick held the knowledge of its great natural resources close to its chest, making the choice not to develop its reserves. The province imposed an indefinite moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (fracking) in 2014 judging it to be environmentally unfriendly. 

 

Yet it is precisely that system of extraction that is required to draw up the provincial gas reserves. New Brunswick is not alone among Canadian provinces in the abundance of its energy resources, given the Canadian total of about 1.4 quadrillion cubic feet. And according to an analysis conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy, that plenitude of energy is sufficient for Canada to provide natural gas needs for the entire world for a period of 200 years. 

 

When Japan's prime minister travelled to Canada in 2023 and a year later Germany's chancellor followed, both leaders had a distinct and direct purpose in mind. To persuade the Canadian government of those countries' dire need for a reliable energy source in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, when the U.S. and the EU took punitive steps against Russian aggression by sanctioning Russian gas whose sale helped to fuel the war. Their persuasive efforts fell on deaf ears. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's off-handed response was that there was no business case to be made for Canada to export gas.

 

 

 

Under the new Liberal government headed by Marc Carney that succeeded the Trudeau government, Canada re-elected yet another figure influential in environmental circles dedicated to ensuring that energy resources were kept underground, as a source of carbon dioxide that was adding fuel to global warming, responsible for dramatic weather changes and adding to natural disasters in extreme weather conditions. Resistance to oil pipelines to tidewater for shipping abroad, to continued exploitation of the Alberta heavy crude oil to a world hungry for energy, continues under the current prime minister.

 

A situation where a country's vast natural resources are being left underground, with the full potential of extraction not to be realized on the basis of the harm it would do to the environment already in a situation of degradation from climate change. This despite vast technical advances in the extraction of oilsands for a cleaner product. And in the face of the fact that Canada's contribution to global greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is slightly more than 1-percent of the world total. 

 

A situation that has led Canada to export its oil to U.S. refineries at a discount, and where the U.S. sells that refined oil elsewhere at a profit denied to Canada. In turn, Canada continues to import oil from the Middle East for the energy needs of New Brunswick and Quebec, lacking a pipeline that would provide them with Canadian oil from the Western provinces; pipelines are dirty words to environment-dedicated British Columbia, New Brunswick and Quebec. 

 

The Maran Gas Hector

 

And out of this impasse the absurdity of an Australian oil tanker, the Maran Gas Hector, sailing 25,000 kms from Gladstone, Australia, across the Atlantic to New Brunswick's Saint John harbour where it docked and proceeded to unload its cargo to fill the need of the very province sitting atop a wealth of untapped oil reserves.  A decade ago four LNG export terminals were proposed for Canada's Atlantic coast, but the prospect failed to resonate. Leading to the shipping across a vast distance, of Australian natural gas. 

 

Unlike Canada, Australia has exploited its reserves for export since the 1980s as supercooled liquefied natural gas through its 10 LNG export terminals and thousands of kilometres of natural gas pipelines. As opposed to Canada's single LNG export terminal in Kitimat, British Columbia, just a year old, following a lengthy process of environmental reviews and legal confrontations, amidst civil environmental insurrectionists. 

 

The only LNG terminal on the Canadian Atlantic coast, and it's to import LNG, rather than export it. Photo by Twelve O'Clock High Drone Services

 

  

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Penal Law

Women wait in a hospital in Ghazni, August 2025.  Elise Blanchard (Getty Images)

"On 4 January 2026, the Taliban adopted the “Criminal Procedure Code for Courts” (De Mahakumu Jazaai Osulnama). Until then, Taliban leader Hibabullah Akhundzad simply posted new rules on X, which were subsequently applied – often inconsistently – by Taliban “judges” with no formal legal education. "

"A formal written code is an improvement, standardising the applicable law and making it more predictable."

"However, the new Code substantively contradicts international human rights standards by formalising discrimination against religious minorities, restricting basic freedoms, and enabling arbitrary arrest and punishment."

"It simultaneously omits core fair-trial safeguards; weakens legality and the presumption of innocence; and relies on confession and testimony, heightening risks of torture and abuse."

Oxford Human Rights Hub  

 

"[There is] no article, clause, section or ruling that is not in accordance with Islamic sharia and has no sharia source, but is completely in accordance with Islamic sharia."

"[Any objection to "Emirate laws is therefore] an objection to sharia, [a protest based on] ignorance or neglect [and itself constitutes] a crime that will be punished."

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Ministry of Justice 

 

"It provides for the use of corporal punishment for numerous offences, including in the home, legitimizing violence against women and children."

"And it criminalizes criticism of the de facto leadership and their policies, in violation of freedom of expression and assembly."

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk  

Taliban officials and members look on during the public flogging of 27 people, women and men, in front of a large crowd at a football stadium in Charikar city in Parwan province on 8 December 2022. Photo: AFP

Harsh punishments have been formalized within a new penal code in Afghanistan issued by decree. Signed by Afghanistan's Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, the decree "defines several crimes and punishments that contravene Afghanistan's international legal obligations" according to Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as he spoke before the Human Rights Council in Geneva of the decree issued in early January.

 

The 60-page Decree No.12, comprised of 119 articles, sets penalties for women who visit their relatives without having first obtained permission of their husbands. Husbands and heads of households are permitted to mete out punishment in their own homes. A man who beats his wife sufficiently severely to cause a visible cut, wound or bruise, can face 15 days in prison, with the proviso that the women is able to prove her case to a judge (a difficult task to begin with since any man's word has precedence over a woman's).

 

On the other hand, a woman who leaves her home to go to her father's house and remains there        without her husband's specific permission stands to be punished with three months in prison. That punishment extends as well to her family members should they fail to return her to her husband. What can be read into that item within the decree relates to an abused women leaving the marriage home to seek shelter at the home of her parents. 

 

Taliban operatives intimidate/threaten Afghan women to obedience.

 

Married women in Afghanistan become the chattel of their husbands; they no longer have personal agency in complete subordination to a man who has brought her into his home with the expectation that she will obey him completely and implicitly in every facet of their common life together; an indentured servant/slave to share his bed, work in his kitchen, tend to his every comfort, and raise their children.

 

The mistreatment of animals has its own onerous category of punishment. Which in other circumstances where there is no comparison to any other issues, would seem enlightened. Where anyone arranging for animals or birds to compete in a fighting arena faces penalties of five months in prison. Such fighting matches featuring animals and birds have a popularity as a social custom in Afghanistan, banned following the Taliban's return to power in 2021.

 

Similar types of crime are also treated differently on the new penal code, depending on social class, where scholars and "high-ranking people" can be penalized with a warning issued by a judge. A warning plus a court summons becomes standard for tribal leaders and businessmen, while "average people of society" face imprisonment.  The harshest punishment, however, is reserved for "the lower classes" who are subject to physical beatings/public floggings for their unlawful infractions of the penal code.

Zan Times

"In such a system, obedience to the imam or religious ruler is obligatory; a woman is half a man; Muslims have superiority over non-Muslims; and followers of one Islamic sect are superior to those of others. Thus, the authority to punish is granted, in order of hierarchy, to the imam, the husband, the master, and then to any Muslim. If one accepts a penal system rooted in sharia and does not question the concepts of hudud and taʿzir, it becomes impossible to demand equality before the law or the abolition of slavery-based and husband-dominated rules."

"The Taliban have not limited this categorization to criminal punishment. They have applied the same gender, class, religious, and sect-based discrimination to education, dress, employment, travel, religious practice, and freedom of expression. Why would granting a husband the right to punish his wife seem “new” or “abnormal” when a woman’s presence outside the home is conditional on a male guardian, when a man’s marriage to four wives is legally sanctioned, and when male superiority is embedded across all laws and social norms?" 

"The words slave and master may sound offensive today to many. Even in Afghanistan, formal slavery no longer exists as people are not openly labeled as slaves and masters. In practice, however, the Taliban system is quasi-slaveholding. The obedience they demand from the public and the restrictions and conditions they impose on women are manifestations of bondage."

Zan Times 

In Memory of the Fallen in a War of Criminal Attrition

People visit the graves of their relatives, who were killed during Russia's attack on Ukraine, as a large-scale light installation illuminates the Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine, on Feb. 23, 2026, marking the fourth anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion. (Roman Baluk/Reuters)

 

"Looking back at the beginning of the invasion and reflecting on today, we have every right to say:We have defended our independence, we have not lost our statehood."

"[Russian President Vladimir Putin has] not achieved his goals."

"He has not broken Ukrainians; he has not won this war."

"I believe that stopping Putin today and preventing him from occupying Ukraine is a victory for the whole world. Because Putin will not stop at Ukraine."

"We'll do it [get our land back]. That is absolutely clear. It is only a matter of time. To do it today would mean losing a huge number of people - millions of people - because the [Russian] army is large, and we understand the cost of such steps. You would not have enough people, you would be losing them. And what is land without people? Honestly, nothing."

"And we also don't have enough weapons. That depends not just on us, but on our partners. So as of now that's not possible but returning to the just borders of 1991 [the year Ukraine declared its independence, precipitating the final collapse of the Soviet Union] without a doubt, is not only a victory, it's justice. Ukraine's victory is the preservation of our independence, and a victory of justice for the whole world is the return of all our lands."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, European leaders attending the ceremony at the memorial to the fallen Ukrainian soldiers on Independence Square in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 24, 2025. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

 

Over a dozen senior European officials arrived in Kyiv to help Ukraine mark the anniversary of the conflict imposed upon the country by Moscow. A conflict which has killed tens of thousands, a conflict that has disrupted life for millions of Ukrainians, both the internally displaced forced to find haven elsewhere within Ukraine and the millions more made refugees by the exigencies of war. Four years of conflict where a rabid aggressor has been held back by stout defence that morphed into a counter-offensive keeping the barbarians at bay.

 

Eastern European countries well know that if Ukraine falls, Putin's territory-hungry eye will look further into Russia's near-abroad, and they are on the menu. As it is, beyond well-placed concerns over the scale of Putin's territorial ambitions, the conflict has created instability in Russia's near-abroad target countries, feverishly supplying Ukraine with funding and war materiel, while at the same time modernizing their own conflict-imposed defence resources and strengthening ties with their neighbours.

 

Russia, after initiating its 'special military operation'  managed to gain close to 20 percent of Ukrainian territory which Moscow has declared part of greater Russia, according to the Institute for the Study of War, while the past year of fighting has gained Russia a mere 0.79 percent of additional territory. Rather putting Putin's aims off kilter in his initial confident expectation that this would be a time-limited enterprise, tucking Ukraine back into Russia's pocket in a mere matter of weeks. 

 

Russia's aerial bombardments over the years have targeted Ukraine's cities throughout the country while Moscow keeps insisting it targets only military installations. Ukrainian civilians have been denied power and water time and again as basic civic infrastructure, including hospitals shopping centres and apartment blocks, become deliberate targets time and again in Moscow's efforts to demoralize Ukrainians. 

 

A woman places flowers at the memorial to fallen Ukrainian soldiers in Independence Square to mark the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday. (Efrem Lukatsky/The Associated Press)

 

For its part, turning defence into offence, Ukraine has increasingly deployed long-range drones of its own technical design and increasingly more sophisticated and effective manufacture to strike Russian oil refineries, ports, bridges, ships, fuel depots and military logistics hubs well within Russia; over 1,000 kilometres beyond the border, reaching as far as Moscow. Negotiations led by the Trump White House have  yielded no relief as the war of attrition stretches toward its fifth year of combat.

 

Russia's demands of Ukraine feature the Donbas, the industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine mostly occupied by Russian Forces, while Ukraine continues to hold possession of a portion. For Russia to draw back its forces it demands that Ukraine comply with its demand to withdraw from the Donbas allowing 

Russia to annex it entirely as it did with the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Ukraine must also surrender its weapons and reduce its armed forces, and never again attempt to join NATO; the conditions that Moscow seeks to impose.

 

Thousands of flags and portraits of the fallen in this war appeared at a memorial in Kyiv's central square. The Kremlin celebrated the fourth-year anniversary of its invasion when Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated that Moscow's resolute plans include the continuation of the invasion until Moscow's goals are accomplished; until Ukraine cedes vast areas of territory to Russia. 

 

 

 

 

Cultural Human Trafficking in Child-Sex Predation

(Peel Regional Police)

"It's very surprising when you have an adolescent performing this. Whether it is an adult or a child, it's appalling."

"Human trafficking is such a psychologically and physically violent offence. I think it's one of the most harmful offences that's being perpetrated because of the trauma that survivors endure, sometimes for months or years."

"There is a demand. There is an interest in the community for people wanting to have  sex with children. We are doing proactive initiatives to prevent that."

"It takes a lot of guts for victims to come forward. We want them to come forward. They don't necessarily have to come forward to police, but talking to social services and getting themselves out of the place they've found themselves."

"Traffickers are using social media, like Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, to communicate with young people to engage them and then offer opportunities to meet. And once they meet, they groom them."

"They provide them with gifts, they shower them with compliments, make them feel good about themselves and show them the good life."

"Then things change. The trafficker might say 'you owe me, and you have to do this to pay it back', or they might say, 'hey, can you do me this favour because I've been so good to you? And the favour might be to have sex with an older person for money."

"It is very much a psychological offence. They don't understand what they are getting themselves into. they think they're getting into a relationship with someone who loves them, but unfortunately, it is not true."

Det.-Sgt. Bob Hackenbrook, Peel Police Service Vice and Human Trafficking Unit 

 

This is happening. And what is  happening is not a reflection of what could be identified as 'Canadian values' in the sense that this type of social offence is not a common ingredient of the conventional Canadian psyche. It is also not a common occurrence within Canadian society. While predators exist everywhere that psychopaths can be found, the practise of stalking, grooming and trafficking young girls is a fairly recent phenomenon. And it is one that has a definite cultural background with racial dimensions. 

 

The men in northern England were sentenced to jail terms from 12 to 35 years after sexually abusing and raping two girls from the age of 13.  AP Photo

 

Grooming gangs are a common phenomenon in Britain, for example. Their prevalence and their tactics, their countless victims forced into the sex trade by unscrupulous monsters are acknowledged. Yet very little police action has taken place and the reason that this occurs is simple enough; an  unwillingness to confront the traffickers for fear of risk of being called out for racism. And that would be because this is a favoured tactic of 'racialized' people, for some of whom the practise has become business as usual.

 

Mohammed Shahzad, Mushtaq Ahmed and Kasir Bashir denied the offence charges brought against them in Britain   GMP/BBC

 

In the Toronto-area Peel Region, a 15-year-old boy has been accused of operating a child sex trafficking operation in and about the Toronto Metropolitan area, with girls as young as 11 years of age. Also arrested were three customers who Peel Regional Police have taken into custody to face sex charges. The police investigation revealed that girls aged 11 to 14 had been trafficked and sexually exploited. 

 

The suspects made use of coercion, manipulation and physical violence threats to influence and control the victims where violations of their human rights resulted in financial benefits to their exploiters. Peel Police found 32 victims under the age of 15, victimized through sex trafficking since 2022. Interest in child sexual abuse is a real and dangerous problem in Canadian communities, pointed out Det.-Sgt. Bob Hackenbrook, in charge of the Human Trafficking Unit. 

 

In an undercover operation last year dubbed project Juno,Peel police posted an advertisement offering sex with an underage teen that resulted in investigators facing a flood of eager calls amounting to an average of 100 such calls daily for several weeks. Police made 35 arrests on that occasion, on charges of communications for the purpose of having sex with a person under 18, by the time the operation was shut down. 

Peel has the highest percentage of racialized people in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). 

• 69% of people in Peel identify with a racialized group.
• By comparison, just 34% of Ontarians and 27% of Canadians overall identify with a racialized group.
• Since 2006, the racialized population in Peel increased 72%. 

"The demographics were astounding" said Officer Hackenbrook. From several Ontario cities and towns, businessmen, students, construction workers, retirees and a college teacher were among those responding. "It was very alarming. And a lot them were married, so their families got a rude awakening when they went to bail court the next day."  

The 15-year-old male offender in the current arrest, cannot be identified by law due to his age, despite that he is charged with two counts of trafficking in persons under age 18, three counts of procuring a person under age 18, two counts of receiving a benefit from human trafficking, two counts of material benefit from sexual services by a person under age 18, and three counts of exercise control, direction, or influence.

 

Three of his clients, Mohamad Omar Al-Saleh, 21, from Toronto, Mustafa Abdo 22, from Toronto, and Yousif Al-Gburi, 20 from Mississauga, each stand charged with sexual assault of a female under age 16, sexual interference, and obtaining sexual services of a person under the age of 18 for consideration. It is the minor who recruited/induced young girls into the sex trade, profiting from them, while the adult males were clients whose indecent contact violated the young girls' human rights. 

 

Mohamad Omar Al-Saleh, 21, from Toronto; Mustafa Abdo, 22, from Toronto; and Yousif Al-Gburi, 20, from Mississauga have all been arrested and charged in connection with a human trafficking investigation. (Peel Regional Police handouts)

 

Photographs of the three adults were released by police, but the Youth Criminal Justice Act forbids identifying a minor charged with a crime, leaving name and likeness out of the public eye. One of the young victims two years earlier had reached out for help, leading police to open an investigation. That there are additional victims seems likely to investigators who have reached out to anyone with information to contact police. 

 

Part of the modus operandi of these human smuggling operatives is to move their victims frequently to other locales, and to keep them from having any contact with friends and family. The situation of the growing prevalence of sexual predators and their abused victims has impelled Peel Police to host a provincial human trafficking symposium with the expectation that survivors, victim services providers, police, justice and social services officials, and politicians across Ontario will attend to discuss experiences and help to coordinate greater efforts to disrupt human trafficking.

 

There is in fact, a toll-free, around-the-clock Canadian Human Trafficking Hotline: 1-833-900-1010 

 

 

Hargeisa, Republic of Somaliland

The flag of Somaliland seen at a fruit farm between the capital city of Hargeisa and Port city of Berbera, Somaliland, on February 19, 2026. (Tony KARUMBA / AFP)

"The recent recognition of Somaliland as a sovereign state by Israel, the first and only country to have done so in 34 years, has reignited international debate, drawing attention not only to a long-standing post-colonial anomaly but to the lived reality of the people of Somaliland. Too often reduced to a geopolitical abstraction, Somaliland is first and foremost a society that has spent more than three decades building stability, democratic institutions, and a shared civic identity despite lacking formal statehood."

"This unresolved status is inseparable from the legacy of colonialism. The modern borders of the Horn of Africa, like those of much of the continent, were drawn in European capitals with little understanding of, or regard for, the peoples who inhabited those territories. This externally imposed cartography fractured historical communities, fused incompatible ones, and laid the foundations for conflicts that persist to this day. Africa is not the empty reservoir of resources or the passive geopolitical playground it has been treated as throughout colonial, Cold War, and neo-colonial eras alike. It is a continent of diverse societies, rich histories, and deeply rooted cultural identities that have long been constrained by the political frameworks imposed from outside and by the continued influence of external powers."

"In this context, Somaliland’s situation is emblematic of what it means to be an unrepresented state today: functioning governance without recognition, democratic legitimacy without a seat at the table, and a population whose political will is acknowledged at home but ignored internationally. In a region marked by protracted conflict and chronic insecurity, Somaliland stands out not as a legal anomaly but as a community that has demonstrated resilience, coherence, and the capacity to govern, despite an international system still shaped by the colonial legacy that once defined it."

Elena Artibani, Academy Analyst Assistant, UNP Academy (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization)

Hargeisa, capital of Republic of Somaliland

 

 Somaliland is an authentically sovereign nation, not part of Somalia, and awaiting world recognition for its democratic credentials, its peaceful existence in the Horn of Africa surrounded by nations embroiled in conflict -- most particularly Somalia, a functionally unstable, violence-prone state. The Islamist groups that hunt down and kill other Muslims who reject the fundamentalist demands of Sharia law are a plague in Somalia, but are non-existent in Somaliland. The U.S. military recently conducted  an aggressive bombing campaign in Somalia against the world-threatening presence of jihadist-Islamist predators.

 

The U.S. Africa Command targeted 150 hits in Somalia to eradicate the presence of those dangerously militant terrorist groups. U.S. President Donald Trump is less than convinced of Somaliland's presence as a completely separate nation, aspiring to be recognized as the African continent's 55th sovereign country.

For its part, the state of Israel had no problem recognizing Somaliland as an independent sovereign nation, sharing democratic values of freedom and rule of law. Both countries use their natural resources and their people-power to meet their prosperous futures. 

 

And when Israel formally recognized Somaliland in response to its search for recognition from the global community, emphasizing its independence from Somalia, Israel was the first nation in the world to form an alliance with Somaliland, in full recognition. Almost instantaneously, the world responded, with China, France, Britain, Denmark, Russia and the African Union criticizing Israel's move of diplomatically legitimizing Somaliland's independence. Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt made it clear that they deplored Israel's action verifying the Republic of Somaliland's right to declare itself independent of Somalia.

 

Hargeisa's street markets where large quantities of money that money changers stack around them without fear of theft.

Regional countries in the Horn are concerned with access to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, considered among the most vital waterways worldwide for global shipping trade. Yemen's Houthi rebels linked to the Islamic Republic of Iran in its global Shiite jihad, have been particularly troublesome for global shipping in their hijacking of shipping vessels, in particular targeting any shipping that may have an Israeli component, linked to the Tehran-led Shiite terrorist axis supporting the Hamas invasion of October 7, 2023 in southern Israel where sadistic barbarism and mass slaughter led Israel to invade Gaza to eradicate Hamas terrorists.

 

According to analysts, Israel's recognition of Somaliland is being interpreted as a measure whereby the conflict with the Houthis can be mitigated. Israeli foreign policy expert Asher Lubotzky at the University of Houston in Texas, stated his interpretation that a greater Israeli footprint in Somaliland could assist in the deterrence of weapons smuggling by the Houthis into Yemen. Israel and Somaliland in their mutual recognition, however, are looking toward agreements in security, trade, technology and agricultural techniques.

 

According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the agreement with Somaliland reflected the spirit of the Abraham Accords, that series of agreements since 2020 that have established amicable relations between the Jewish state and Muslim-majority countries that include Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates. Just as Israel defends Somaliland's right as a sovereign state conducting diplomacy, so too does the United States defend Israel's right to do likewise, even as the U.S. itself holds back yet from recognizing the Republic of Somaliland.  

 

Afar tribe cultural show in Hargeisa

 

Somaliland is a federal republic with a series of  semiautonomous regions. The country broke from Mogadishu in 1991 following a war of independence, during which Hargeisa, Somaliland's capital, and other cities were bombed by the Barre regime. Since then, support by the United Arab Emirates, and relations with Ethiopia and Taiwan have buoyed Somaliland's prospects for future prosperity. The UAE invested in the development of a modern port in Berbera on the Gulf of Aden in recent years. In response, Somalia retaliated by canceling all contracts with the UAE, a move in which it is Somalia that loses. 

 

China is enraged over Hargeisa's decision to maintain ties with Taiwan. Ethiopia, on the other  hand, signed a 2024 deal to build a naval facility on Somaliland's coastline, in exchange for recognition. 

 

Formalities and diplomacy have moved apace between Israel and Somaliland, with Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Saar, visiting Hargeisa in January. And according to Mohamed Hagi, Somaliland's minister of state for foreign affairs, Somaliland would soon join the Abraham Accords. Reciprocal embassies are shortly to be opened and business leaders in Israel are viewing investment possibilities with the Somaliland government.

 

On the cusp between rural tradition and urban modernity, donkey carts can still be seen on Hargeisa streets amidst vehicular traffic.

 

Reducing the Nature of Nuclear Proliferation to the Status of State Profit

"[The documents raise] concerns that the Trump administration has not carefully considered the proliferation risks posed by the proposed nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia or the precedent this agreement may set." 

"[The document contends that reaching a deal with the kingdom] will advance the national security interests of the United States, breaking with the failed policies of inaction and indecision that our competitors have capitalized on to disadvantage American industry and diminish the United States standing globally in this critical sector."

"Nuclear cooperation can be a positive mechanism for upholding nonproliferation norms and increasing transparency, but the devil is in the details."

"This suggests that once the bilateral safeguards agreement is in place, it will open the door for Saudi Arabia to acquire uranium enrichment technology or capabilities — possibly even from the United States."

"Even with restrictions and limits, it seems likely that Saudi Arabia will have a path to some type of uranium enrichment or access to knowledge about enrichment."

"It behooves Congress [to provide a check on the administration's power to strike an agreement with the kingdom and] consider not just the implications for Saudi Arabia, but also the precedent that this deal will set, and vigorously examine the terms of the proposed 123 Agreement." 

Kelsey Davenport, director for non-proliferation policy, Arms Control Association, Washington 

 

"[If Iran obtains the bomb], we will have to get one".

[A weapon would be necessary] for security reasons, and for balancing power in the Middle East, but we don't want to see that." 

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmon

President Donald Trump (R) shows Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia the "Presidential Walk of Fame" as they walk on the colonnade at the White House on November 18, 2025 in Washington, DC   Getty Images

 

It could be done differently. There is the example of the United Arab Emirates neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which signed a '123 agreement' with the United States. With that agreement by the UAE and the U.S., with South Korean assistance the Barakah nuclear power plant will be built. The United Arab Emirates however, unlike Saudi Arabia, expressed no interest in achieving enrichment as part of its agreement. Instead it chose to opt for nuclear power generation for energy use, signing an agreement considered to be the 'gold standard' for nations seeking atomic power, according to nonproliferation experts. 

 

However, it seems the Trump administration has decided that Saudi Arabia could after all have some form of uranium enrichment under the proposed agreement with the U.S. as suggested by congressional documents. Raising proliferation concerns by arms control groups, in the midst of an atomic standoff between the Islamic Republic of Iran which has always denied its nuclear program would have a military component, now facing off against an American ultimatum to surrender all current and future prospects of nuclear research and production.

Any spinning centrifuges within Saudi Arabia, warn non-proliferation experts, could lead to a potential weapons program for the kingdom. A certain likelihood, given past assertions by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince whose past statements were emphatic that should Tehran achieve the production of atomic bombs, he would pursue a similar program for Saudi Arabia. As it is, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan signed a mutual defence pact last year following Israel's attack on Qatar targeting Hamas officials.

Pakistan's own expertise in producing atomic bombs for its own arsenal could certainly ensure that under that mutual defence pact, a sharing of nuclear know-how could consolidate that pact. At the time of the signing, Pakistan's defence minister said as much when he declared that his country's nuclear program "will be made available" to Saudi Arabia should it be required. A declaration that some view as a threat meant to draw Israel's attention that it will not long remain the Middle East's sole nuclear-armed state.

 

The Trump administration, it seems, is aspiring for 20 nuclear business deals with world nations, one that includes Saudi Arabia, a deal that could be valued in billions for U.S. coffers. Perhaps the administration is that short-sighted it is incapable of looking beyond the wealth it could accrue to itself, to the situation as it appears to the non-proliferation crowd; lighting a match in the gas-saturated environment of the Middle East where conflicts are constant and a conflagration of immense significance could be enabled in an area where tribal and sectarian conflict and bloodshed are business as usual.

 

The United States views with its jaundiced eye competitors such as China, France, Russia and South Korea among those leading nations selling nuclear power plant technology. While the draft deal            would in theory have the U.S. and Saudi Arabia enter safeguard agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency to include oversight of the "most proliferation-sensitive areas of potential nuclear co-operation", listing enrichment, fuel fabrication and reprocessing as potential areas of concern, there is the sobering example of years of fruitless negotiation with Tehran. 

 

Workers on a construction site at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant in November 2019. Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

 

Brain Talk

"So then for example, even if you're sitting in front of a You Tube video that's a 20-minute tutorial, you're going to be uncomfortable."

"Because it's just longer, and it needs more of your attention."

"What we measured [in our research] is called functional brain connectivity. It doesn't measure laziness or IQ or anything of the sort, but it actually measures, in layperson terms, which regions of the brain talk to each other." 

"Out brains do love shortcuts, but if you don't use a skill, you will lose it." 

Natalyia Kos'myna, MIT research scientist

 

"We do know that there are certain parts of the brain, certain connections between regions of the brain, that look like they are differentiated in people who are online more, who spend more time on social media, who are more attached to their phones."

Jason Chein, professor of psychology and neuroscience, Temple University 

 

"The No.1 reason why kids are not getting the recommended eight hours of sleep a night is that they're using screens too much. They're often using them in bed." 

"So an interesting study showed that across every single measure of cognitive functioning whether it was impulsivity or reading comprehension or vocabulary, it was all lower among the highest screen users."

"Are we choosing how much time we spend on our screens, or are the platforms influencing that choice?"

"We need a little friction, we need a little struggle, we need a little challenge. That's part of learning." 

Mitch Prinstein, senior science adviser, American Psychological Association

Studies are increasingly finding associations between heavy consumption of short-form video and challenges with focus and self-control.  Justine Goode / NBC News; Getty Images

 

Dr. Kos'myna was inspired to launch a study on the effects of constant screening of short videos when she began noticing her students' use of chatbots to aid them in completing assignments. Curious whether or  how that use affected the learning capabilities of the students, she and her colleagues designed a study geared to measure what effects were being experienced. 

 

The study was initiated by giving essay prompts to students. Among the students, some used their own brainpower to respond to questions; others were allowed the use of a search engine, the AI summaries turned off. And a third group made use of an AI Chatbot without restrictions. The resulting brain activity was recorded for all the students in the experiment. Following the experiment the students were asked questions of what it was that they wrote.

 

Potsdam

Of the 54 students involved, striking results were seen. Those students who made use of the chatbot were unable to retain the sense of what they wrote evidenced in an inability to quote from their own essays, even within a few moments of the essay completion. Their brains were not actively involved during the experiment. 

 

In the journal Translational Psychology researchers studied over 7,000 children across the United States in a 2025 study, finding reduced cortical thickness in certain areas of the brain to be associated with more screen use. The outer layer cortex, sitting above the more primitive brain structures is associated with higher-level thinking, memory and decision-making. "We really need it for things like inhibitory control or not being so impulsive", explained professor of psychology Mitch Prinstein of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

 

According to research, what which can become habitual for many people; scrolling through short videos on TikTok, Instagram or You-Tube Shorts affects attention, memory and mental health. Increased use of short-form video, according to a recent meta-analysis of the scientific literature, was linked to poorer cognition and increased anxiety. Naturally distractible, our brains are wired to respond to unusual background interruptions. 

 

image: iStock/tommaso79

Frequent switching from topic to topic in scrolling is the fragmentation of attention that makes it difficult to remain focused for longer attention-requiring tasks, just as constant interruptions like continual telephone ringing or children nagging for attention interrupting mind focusing. Whether long-term complications may arise from these interrupted interactions is not known.

 

The cortex being vital for controlling addictive behaviours, bypassing its normal function through greater screen use for short, distracting videos results in impulsivity prompting users to seek out dopamine hits from social media, leading to greater screen time presenting with incidents of attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms. Insufficient sleep particularly in the adolescent years, over time reduces white matter in the brain, a fatty substance that coats neurons and accelerates brain signals.