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1651
 
 

Ecuador has 65 oil and gas lease blocks, 88% of them in the Amazon, covering a quarter of the country’s total area. That’s according to a new data set from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). Many of the lease blocks overlap with several Indigenous territories, including the Cuyabeno-Imuya Intangible Zone, which is home to 11 Indigenous communities from the Secoya, Siona, Cofán, Kichwa and Shuar nations. Oil and gas leases also overlap with other Indigenous Shuar communities in Pastaza and Morona Santiago provinces, among others. A Mongabay estimate based on the dataset found that roughly 21% of the leases overlap with protected areas and 61% overlap with Indigenous territories in Ecuador. Image by Andrés Alegría/Mongabay. The SEI data set also shows lease blocks overlapping with protected areas, including the west side of Yasuní National Park.  In a historic referendum in 2023, more than 5.2 million Ecuadorians voted to halt all current and future oil drilling in the park. Cofán-Bermejo Ecological Reserve (RECB) and Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, both home to a great diversity of wildlife including pink river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis) and jaguars (Panthera onca), also host active oil and gas production blocks, according to the data. Combined, the blocks cover 7 million hectares (17 million acres), one-fourth of Ecuador’s total land area. Alexandra Almeida, president of Ecuadorian environmental organization Acción Ecológica, told Mongabay via WhatsApp messages that the chemicals used for oil production are highly toxic to both the environment and human health. “Many of these are released into the environment…This article was originally published on Mongabay


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A federal judge allows oil exploration near Nuiqsut despite a rig collapse.


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Early in development, many animals pick a team—male or female—based on their genetics, and, with time, acquire the characteristics to match. New research from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) explores how one species of frog evolved its own distinctive genetic system for determining sex.


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For decades, families in communities around Johannesburg have been living close to huge gold mining waste dumps. For many residents, the dust that is released there is just part of everyday life—but it can contain natural uranium compounds that come to the surface with the mined rock. A new study in the journal Environmental Geochemistry and Health reveals how this exposure is reflected in children's hair.


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People living on the low-lying shores of the Bristol Channel and Severn estuary began their day like any other on January 30, 1607. The weather was calm. The sky was bright.


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When I worked for the Environmental Protection Agency in the 2010s as an Obama administration appointee, I helped write and review dozens of regulations under the Clean Air Act. They included some groundbreaking rules, such as setting national air quality standards for ozone and fine particulate matter.


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1657
 
 

In the first days of 2026, the Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries (ABIOVE), which represents the largest soybean traders in Brazil, announced its withdrawal from the Amazon soy moratorium.


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1658
 
 

The King's Trough Complex is a several-hundred-kilometer-long, canyon-like system of trenches on the North Atlantic seafloor. Its formation was long thought to be the result of simple stretching of the oceanic crust. An international research team led by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel has now shown that the so-called "Grand Canyon of the Atlantic" was formed about 37 to 24 million years ago through the interplay of a temporarily existing plate boundary and an early branch of the Azores mantle plume. Their findings have been published in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems.


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1659
 
 

26041469627 02b0a12111 oLast Updated on January 29, 2026 In a significant win for Indigenous custodians, the Queensland Court of Appeal on Thursday restored a landmark case that challenges the environmental and cultural impacts of the Carmichael coal mine on the ancient Doongmabulla Springs complex in central Queensland. The unanimous ruling by the state’s highest appellate court upheld […]

Source


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Biologists have uncovered a new mode of communication inside cells that helps bacterial pathogens learn how to evade drugs. Their findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, describe how these mechanisms drive antimicrobial resistance in Listeria monocytogenes, the foodborne bacteria that causes listeriosis. The work is a collaboration between researchers at the University at Albany and the New York State Department of Health and could inform the development of new drugs and, potentially, future approaches for personalized medicine.


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To reduce air pollution associated with ocean transport, the International Maritime Organization tightened restrictions on sulfur content in ship fuel, resulting in an 80% reduction in emissions by 2020. That shift created an inadvertent real-world experiment in how man-made aerosols influence cloud formation over the ocean.


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At least one of Colorado's collared wolves roamed widely across southwestern Colorado in the last month, a new map of wolf locations released by Colorado Parks and Wildlife shows. One of the state's 19 collared wolves traveled quickly through a number of watersheds in that region, including near tribal land, according to a CPW news release. The map shows a wolf presence in a string of watersheds stretching from Alamosa west to Durango and then north, near Grand Junction.


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Whether it's digging up weathered bones from a paleontological site or reexamining forgotten trays in museum and university collections, the study of dinosaurs still throws up something new.


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1664
 
 

A team of scientists from EPFL and Alaska Pacific University has developed an AI program that can recognize individual bears in the wild, despite the substantial changes that occur in their appearance over the summer season. This breakthrough holds significant promise for research, management, and conservation efforts. The study is published in the journal Current Biology.


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1665
 
 

When most of us look out at the ocean, we see a mostly flat blue surface stretching to the horizon. It's easy to imagine the sea beneath as calm and largely static—a massive, still abyss far removed from everyday experience.


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After the tragic death of Canadian backpacker Piper James on K'gari (Fraser Island) on January 19, a coroner found the 19-year-old had been bitten by dingoes while she was still alive, but the most likely cause of death was drowning.


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The body conditions of polar bear (Ursus maritimus) populations around the Norwegian island of Svalbard have improved despite sea ice losses, according to new findings. The findings differ from previously published observations of polar bear population declines coinciding with sea ice loss across the Arctic.


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Wetlands make up only about 6% of the land area but contain about 30% of the terrestrial organic carbon pool. Therefore, CO2 emissions from wetlands are central to the global climate balance. In Denmark, the plan is to flood 140,000 hectares of low-lying land such as bogs and meadows as part of the Green Tripartite Agreement. Flooding such areas will slow down the decomposition of organic material in the soil and keep the CO2 in the soil rather than allowing it to be released to the atmosphere and contribute to the greenhouse effect. At least, that has been the rationale until now.


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1669
 
 

Amelia Schafer
ICT

RAPID CITY, South Dakota – A three-day trial over whether or not NDN Collective founder and chief executive officer Nicholas Tilsen had committed aggravated assault against a law enforcement officer in 2022 resulted in a mistrial.

The 12-person jury was unable to come to a unanimous decision on Tilsen’s three charges after deliberating for nearly six hours Wednesday afternoon. At 8:20 p.m. Mountain Time, a spokesperson from the Pennington County States Attorney’s office reported a hung jury resulting in a mistrial.

The State of South Dakota will have to decide whether to dismiss the charges against Tilsen or retry the case.

The state will be discussing matters over the next few days and come to a decision, the spokesperson said.

“I’m grateful for everyone who stood with me through the latest iteration of this lengthy legal battle – the support of my family, lawyers, spiritual leaders, medicine people, and community means everything to me,” Tilsen stated in a news release. “The fight is not over.”

Tilsen was charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and obstruction of law enforcement stemming from a 2022 incident in downtown Rapid City. The jury also had the option of finding Tilsen guilty of simple assault, rather than aggravated, if they felt his vehicle did not constitute a deadly weapon.

Tilsen took the stand Wednesday morning to recount his side of the story in a trial that has drawn dozens of elders and community members to the courthouse from across South Dakota and neighboring states.

Tilsen said that on June 11, 2022, he was driving back to NDN Collective headquarters where he was staying overnight following his son’s birthday party on the west side of Rapid City. At the time, Tilsen was living over an hour away on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

While driving down St. Joseph’s Street in downtown Rapid City, Tilsen testified that he saw a police officer speaking with a Native American man whom Tilsen said appeared to be homeless. The officer, Nicholas Glass, was conversing with the man at the intersection of St. Joseph’s and Seventh Street on the west side of the Rushmore Pawn building.

Tilsen, who said he intended to monitor Glass’s interaction with the man, circled the block until he drove northbound on Seventh Street, approaching a vacant parking space where the two men were speaking. Glass was standing inside or near the furthest left parking spot on the row and the Native man was standing on the curb, leaning on a parking meter, Tilsen told jurors.

Supporters of Nick Tilsen gather at NDN Collective Headquarters in Rapid City on Jan. 26 for a prayer circle following the first day of his criminal assault trial. Credit: Courtesy of NDN Collective

Tilsen, who said he was unable to see where the officer was standing as his view was blocked by several parked vehicles, began to turn right into the parking spot. Not fully in the spot, Tilsen applied his vehicle’s brakes.

Glass, who had his back turned toward the street facing the pawn shop and the Native man, said he did not know Tilsen was behind him until he heard his engine rev, Glass testified Tuesday.

The Native man can be heard in Glass’s body camera video saying “Look out, you’re gonna get hit by a truck.”

Glass turned to face Tilsen for a second before turning back toward the man.

“I’m not moving,” Glass said in the recording played for the courtroom several times throughout the trial.

Tilsen said he took Glass’s lack of reaction as an indication that it was okay for him to continue to pull into the parking spot.

The video showed that after Glass turned away from Tilsen, Tilsen’s vehicle can be seen abruptly jolting forward slightly to the right of Glass, stopping within one to two feet of his body. While surveillance and body-cam footage showed Tilsen’s vehicle tires pointed right, away from the officer, the state argued that as the charge wasn’t attempted assault but rather the intention of instilling fear, and that it didn’t matter which direction he was moving.

Tilsen testified on Wednesday that he was “surprised” by how his truck, a 2016 Dodge Ram Rebel, abruptly jolted forward.

“It had a little more juice than I expected,” he said.

The lurching/accelerating aspect of the incident was indicated by the state as being the grounds for Tilsen’s assault charge.

Afterwards, Glass radioed for backup and said that he had Tilsen at the scene. Within seconds, several officers arrived on scene, all of whom testified throughout the trial as to what they had seen.

“I thought I was going to die,” Glass testified Tuesday.

The officers testified that Tilsen was let go from the scene that night so as not to cause a scene as a small crowd had begun to gather. Tilsen had refused to exit his truck when law enforcement requested him to, saying he was afraid for his life.

“I felt alarmed,” Tilsen said. “I was surrounded by three officers who were all armed. I was definitely in fear of what could happen. We hear a lot of things in our community [about police violence].”

The state said that the jury could find his refusal to exit his vehicle as grounds for the obstruction charge.

Under South Dakota law, attempting to put an officer in fear of bodily injury can be charged as assault. The aggravated assault charge hinged on whether or not the jury felt Tilsen’s vehicle constituted a deadly weapon. If the jury found that his vehicle did not constitute a deadly weapon, but found that Tilsen had intentionally put the officer in fear of bodily injury regardless, he could be found guilty of simple assault.

Both Tilsen and Glass’s character, truthfulness and overall recollection of the incident were called into question during cross-examination.

During Glass’s testimony, defense attorneys questioned why he stopped the Native man in the first place. Glass had previously testified under oath during a June 2025 evidentiary hearing that the man was jaywalking and “darting in and out of traffic” on Seventh Street, during which he was nearly hit by a vehicle.

The defense, however, pointed out that a surveillance video from the Rushmore Pawn shop showed the man crossing the street within the crosswalk when it was safe to do so. Defense pointed to the incident as giving credit to Tilsen’s claim that he feared the man  was being harassed by law enforcement.

Defense also questioned why Glass was seen telling the responding officers that he had to “jump out of the way” of Tilsen’s vehicle, when surveillance footage does not indicate he moved at all prior to walking in front of Tilsen’s vehicle to document the license plate.

Lakota grandmothers and aunties gather outside of the courtroom prior to the first day of Nick Tilsen’s criminal assault trial in Rapid City on Jan. 26. Tilsen was charged with aggravated assault against a law enforcement officer stemming from an incident in 2022. Credit: Courtesy of NDN Collective

During Tilsen’s cross-examination, the state questioned his feelings regarding law enforcement and why he told responding officers at the scene that he witnessed Glass harassing the Native man when he had not.

Olivia Siglin, prosecutor and senior deputy states attorney for the Pennington County State’s Attorney’s Office, questioned Tilsen on his fundraising efforts relating to his legal battle with the state and recent appearance on NDN Collective’s “LANDBACK For the People” podcast in which he told a different account of the incident than the one he had provided in his testimony.

The podcast, which was played for the jury, depicts Tilsen stating in the podcast that he had a conversation with Glass and had directly witnessed him harassing the man. Siglin then questioned Tilsen on why he told a different story in his testimony, to which Tilsen responded that he and Glass had exchanged words and perhaps he misspoke when he said he directly witnessed harassment.

Tilsen also said the podcast was recorded two weeks ago before he was able to review surveillance footage.

During closing arguments Wednesday afternoon, Siglin accused Tilsen of painting a false narrative about the incident in order to garner sympathy and donations from the community and “save face.” Siglin showed the jury NDN Collective’s legal fund website, referencing the first two sentences of Tilsen’s legal fund call to action.

The website claims that Tilsen had witnessed the Native man being harassed and assaulted by Rapid City Police Department, prompting Tilsen to pull over and watch. Tilsen said that he himself did not write the statement.

“He knew the truth wouldn’t earn him sympathies or donations, so he rewrote it,” Siglin said during closing arguments. “What were his motivations in making that statement?”

John Murphy, one of Tilsen’s attorneys, said during closing statements that a majority of the state’s argument hinged on Glass’s feelings during the incident rather than the actual facts. Murphy said this lack of facts prompted the addition of the state’s simple assault charge on Jan. 7.

“This case is about facts, not feelings,” he said. “That’s the cold hard truth, that’s the reality.”

Murphy argued that the state had not provided sufficient evidence of Tilsen’s actual intent or that he had purposely threatened or instilled fear in Glass.

“As you saw repeatedly from the videos… Officer Glass did not move an inch to avoid being hit,” he said. “Why not? Because my client had turned the steering wheel steeply to the right.”

As the incident occurred nearly four years ago, both said their memories of the night’s events were not perfect. Both also commented that the footage presented in court was not a full depiction of the events, particularly the pawn shop footage.

The pawn shop video, taken at a downward angle, was difficult for numerous witnesses to decipher when asked to do so by attorneys.

One witness, Michael Dvoryak, a bystander who witnessed the incident, couldn’t point himself out in the footage until he saw someone moving toward Tilsen’s truck and yelling, at which point Dvoryak said, “Well, that must be me.”

Dvoryak testified he had just exited a bar downtown and was walking home when he witnessed the incident, prompting him to run over to Tilsen’s truck and “intervene.”

The Native man at the center of the dispute was not present for the trial. The Pennington County State’s Attorney’s Office did subpoena him but were unable to locate him, a spokesperson told ICT.

After the interaction, Glass testified that the man was taken to a detox facility. A video of the man being taken into the facility by Glass was entered as evidence but ultimately barred from being presented to the jury.


The post NDN Collective founder’s trial ends with hung jury, judge declares mistrial appeared first on ICT.


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A new study suggests the world's oxygen-depleted seas may have a chance of returning to higher oxygen concentrations in the centuries to come, despite our increasingly warming climate.


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1671
 
 

Darren Thompson
Special to ICT

MESA, Arizona — More than a hundred people gathered at an intersection on Sunday evening to acknowledge 14-year-old Emily Pike’s disappearance one year ago. It was the last place she was seen.

“What we have here means something, not just to us, but to her family, her siblings,” said Jared Marquez, a missing and murdered Indigenous people advocate, at the Jan. 25 vigil. “Not only do we honor the love we have as a community for this girl to the family and her siblings, but we seek justice.

“May we pray here today and hope that fear leaves the body of the person who knows something and let them come forward,” Marquez said.

Pike went missing on January 27, 2025. Her body was found by hikers on February 14, 2025, off Highway 60, near her home community of the San Carlos Apache in Globe, Arizona, more than a 100 miles away from Mesa.

Her death has been investigated as a homicide, but her death remains unsolved. Federal investigators are offering a $200,000 reward for an arrest related to Pike’s death.

Pike’s siblings and family attended the candlelight vigil at the intersection of Mesa Drive and McKellips Road, where she was last seen and not far from the group home she ran away from.

Her disappearance sheds light on the already strained state-funded and managed behavioral health system that has defrauded the state more than $2.8 billion while targeting members of federally recognized tribes from beyond the state of Arizona.

Earlier this month, Pike’s memorial items were removed from the northwest intersection and placed in the trash, but her supporters quickly replaced the site with flowers, signs, balloons, and candles honoring her memory. Several reports indicate that the city of Mesa did not remove her memorial and that a private owner of the vacant lot removed them without not knowing.

A group of Indigenous women sang at a candlelight vigil in honor of Emily Pike on January 25, 2026, where she was last seen at the intersection of Mesa Drive and McKellips Road on January 27, 2025. Credit: Darren Thompson/Special to ICT

There are formal efforts to memorialize Pike though.

A memorial will be added to Fitch Park in Mesa this year and will include a bench and a tree planted in Emily Pike’s honor. An Arizona Department of Transportation highway memorial sign will be erected at milepost 277, north of Gila County Highway 60, near where her body was found.

Several groups of people, including men, women, and youth sang traditional songs to honor Pike. Her story has inspired many and people from various walks of life joined to honor her life.

“She was in the midst of her childhood and you know, still trying to understand what it means to be here, what her purpose is,” said Gabriel Garcia, Tohono O’odham Nation, who sang a traditional O’odham song. “She didn’t get the same family treatment that other kids get. And this is something that all children should be able to experience. The goodness of understanding who they are, where they come from, embracing who they are and where they want.”

He sang about his O’odham ancestors planting crops, and having to nurture each seed so that one day that seed matures and can feed the next generation.

“I wanted to share that song because that’s what I want all of our young ones to experience,” Garcia said. “I want them to be able to have the opportunity to learn what it is, to live life, and understand our role in this life.”

After Emily’s death, the state legislature passed a statewide alert system, called the “Turquoise Alert” and is also known as Emily’s Law. The alert system is similar to other alert systems and is used for at-risk individuals from Indigenous communities whose circumstances do not fit Amber or Silver alert criteria.

An investigative law enforcement agency may request a Turquoise Alert when specific criteria  are met, and as established in the statute.

They include when all five of the following criteria:

  1. a person who is reported missing must be under the age of 65;

  2. the law enforcement agency leading the investigation must have used all available local resources;

  3. the person reported missing must have gone under unexplained or suspicious circumstances;

  4. belief that the missing person is in danger, in the company of a dangerous person, or that there are other factors indicating that a person is in danger and;

  5. there is belief that if a person’s missing is shared with the public that the public can assist in the safe recovery of a missing person.

However, its effectiveness was questioned when last weekend an 8-year-old girl on the Navajo Nation named Maleeka “Mollie” Boone was found dead within 24 hours of being reported missing on Jan. 15.

Many in northern Arizona said they never received the alert that authorities say was issued on the morning of Jan. 16. Her body was later found that afternoon, and there have been no arrests made in connection with her death.

Justine Robertson, White Mountain Apache Tribe, is raising Pike’s other siblings and told ICT, “Everyone has to keep an eye on their kids — that’s the main thing. Awareness that our children can go missing is one thing, and unity and coming together as a community is another thing.”

Kris Dosela, Gila River Indian Community and San Carlos Apache, is the brother of Pike’s mother, Stephanie Dosela, and said at the conclusion of the vigil that typically communities do not gather to sing songs for someone who has passed on.

“This is a different time, so you need that strength, strength that comes with these songs to help, and her justice has not been delivered yet,” he said.


This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundations Fun for Indigenous Journalists: Reporting on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two-Spirit and Transgender People (MMIWG2T).

The post Family, supporters mourn Emily Pike one year after her disappearance appeared first on ICT.


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Environmental groups Thursday raised the alarm after finding toxic "pesticide cocktails" in apples sold across Europe, in a new study highlighting widespread contamination.


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The continued use of "forever chemicals" could cost Europe up to 1.7 trillion euros ($2 trillion) by 2050 because of their impact on people's health and the environment, an EU-commissioned report said Thursday.


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A new study tracking the movements of 1 billion mobile phone devices has exposed how wealth and age create a hidden divide in people's ability to withstand heat waves. Scientists analyzing data from record-breaking temperatures in 2023 found that common measures to protect people living in cities—such as issuing alerts or planting trees to increase shade—often fail to help the most vulnerable. It follows a World Meteorological Organization warning that the last three years are now officially the warmest on record.


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The world in focus | Analysis column

Renowned US historian Alfred McCoy believes that President Trump’s threats against Iran, Venezuela, Mexico, Greenland, and other countries are expressions of “an empire in decline” that, as it loses power and influence on the world stage, follows a predictable pattern of militarism abroad and political instability at home. “US policy is becoming increasingly twisted and irrational,” says McCoy, adding that this decline “will continue for another decade or two, until US power finally fades away.”

This diagnosis explains the imperial, warmongering, and anti-democratic policy of the US ruling power. President Donald Trump expressed it in his histrionic and undiplomatic manner in his speech at the Davos Economic Forum on January. 21

Riddled with inaccuracies, his megalomaniacal speech masks an internal economic reality that threatens the country’s stability and its role as a global hegemon. It is not true that his administration’s economic growth figures are fantastic and the best in decades. Nor is it true that he has curbed inflation–inflation stood at 2.7% annualized in December, far exceeding the 2% target and driven by the tariffs imposed by Trump, which ultimately fall on the US consumer. Even less true is that the labor market has improved. The 584,000 jobs created in 2025 represent the worst figure since 2020 and contrast with the creation of over 2 million jobs created during 2024.

This is not even what worries the US government the most. The biggest challenge facing the United States is to halt the decline of the dollar’s role as a reserve asset and legal tender in international trade. However, that’s unlikely given the spiraling growth of its debt and the process of de-dollarization taking place around the world. After the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971, oil replaced gold as the functional anchor of the monetary system and allowed the dollar to maintain its hegemony, but sanctions imposed on oil-producing countries (Venezuela, Iran, Russia) have led them to use other currencies in their oil sales, which has had a negative impact on the strength of the dollar.

In regional associations such as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the African Union, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), countries are also using local currency to avoid the use of the dollar in their intra-regional trade, following the same logic as the BRICS countries.

The power of the dollar

The US government considers the supremacy of its currency to be an existential issue because it allows it to borrow massively to sustain its economy and finance its vast military apparatus. During the election campaign, Donald Trump said that losing that status would be equivalent to losing a war. Since his return to power, he has declared that any attempt by the BRICS group and other countries to forge an alternative to the dollar will face retaliation from the United States.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

During the first half of 2025, the dollar depreciated against a basket of currencies from the world’s six major economies to an extent not seen in the year-on-year comparison for the same period since 1973.

_________________________________________________________________________________________According to an IMF report, the share of dollar-denominated assets in total central bank reserves worldwide fell from 72% in 2002 to 58.2% in 2025. Globally, China, India, and the United States, in particular, have increased their purchases of gold, which has had an unprecedented upward impact on its price. The days when US Treasury bonds were considered the safest asset in the world are a thing of the past. BlackRock, the world’s largest US asset manager, has warned that the US government’s growing debt could reduce investor interest in long-term Treasury bonds and the dollar and drive investors to seek investment opportunities outside the US.

This mistrust is rooted in the high level of US public debt (124% of GDP) in a context of declining economic momentum since the economic and financial crisis that erupted in 2008. The growing interest payments required to service that debt and a systemic fiscal deficit of around 6% of GDP deepen concern. Added to this is the uncertainty created by Donald Trump’s struggle with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell over monetary policy, the degrading treatment of migrants, the trampling of local and international institutions, and the chaos caused by Trump’s tariff policy imposed on almost all countries, including his allies.

As a result, foreign economic agents and governments are divesting from US Treasury securities or are reluctant to purchase them, forcing the government to offer higher interest rates to make them attractive, which increases the cost of financing its debt service. The three agencies that assess the credit risk of debt issuers such as governments, companies, and banks (Moody’s, Fitch, and Standard & Poor’s) have downgraded the rating of US debt.

Source:SPR Informa

Sanctions and distancing from the dollar

Countries subject to economic sanctions by the United States, such as Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, among others, do not use the dollar in their international trade. Part of the sanctions against these oil-producing countries consists of prohibiting them from trading oil, thereby suffocating them financially. This forces them to use ghost ships with flag changes on the high seas and sell them at a steep discount to countries that defy the economic embargo, mainly China and India, and charge in local currencies and other forms of payment. As the dollar ceases to be indispensable for trade, demand for it declines, and with it its value. During the first half of 2025, the dollar depreciated against a basket of currencies from the world’s six major economies to an extent not seen in the year-on-year comparison for the same period since 1973.

The embargo on financial assets of these three countries deposited abroad (31 tons of gold from Venezuela in the Bank of England, $300 billion from Russia in banks in the United States and Europe, and an undetermined amount belonging to Iran) generates mistrust in other countries. This leads them to divest of their holdings in dollars and US debt securities. China, Japan, the United Kingdom, India, and, recently, Swedish and Danish pension funds have recently divested in response to Donald Trump’s threats to take over Greenland and impose tariffs on European countries that do not support him. These sales and the threats by Macron and other European leaders to do the same caused the market value of US Securities to plummet, prompting President Trump to leave Davos quietly backtracking on his annexation of Greenland and suspending the application of tariffs on European countries that did not support his project.

For Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis, the US dollar’s privilege of being the sole currency governing the global monetary system will vanish within a maximum of ten years due to the decline of the United States’ weight in the global economy and trade. Major factors include the US’s failure of fiscal discipline; the appropriation of the foreign exchange reserves of Russia, Venezuela, Iran, and Afghanistan; and the fact that the US maintains a “primitive” interbank messaging service such as SWIFT.

Petrodollars: the reasons for military aggression against Venezuela and Iran

The United States’ military aggression and threats against Venezuela and Iran seek to regain the dominance of the petrodollar at a time when its hegemony is eroding. The collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971—caused by the United States continuing to issue dollars and failing to guarantee their conversion into gold, as agreed upon at its founding in 1944—should have meant the end of the US currency’s hegemony. The dollar became nothing more than paper without physical backing, but it was able to remain a global reserve asset thanks to the role played by petrodollars. The petrodollar system was a geopolitical decision that turned oil into the material support for US monetary hegemony.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

In 2000, Saddam Hussein announced that Iraq would sell its oil in euros. Three years later, the country was invaded. In 2009, Muammar Gaddafi proposed a pan-African currency, the dinar, for energy trade. In 2011, NATO led by the United States, intervened in the country and killed the Libyan leader.

_________________________________________________________________________________________During the 1973 energy crisis, the US government agreed with Saudi Arabia that all Saudi oil would be sold exclusively in dollars and that a large part of this revenue would be invested in US Treasury bonds. In exchange, the United States would offer military protection and political support to the Saudi monarchy. This agreement was later extended to the other countries of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), created in 1962, whose founding members included Venezuela and Iran. Any country in the world that wanted to buy oil had to have dollars in its reserves.

Thus, the petrodollars that flowed into oil-producing countries to purchase oil were largely directed to the United States to acquire US Treasury bonds that provided them with returns and security. In this way, the money from oil sales financed US spending under a mechanism known as “petrodollar recycling.” In 2000, Saddam Hussein announced that Iraq would sell its oil in euros. Three years later, the country was invaded and Iraqi crude oil was once again traded in dollars. In 2009, Muammar Gaddafi proposed a pan-African currency, the dinar, backed by gold, for energy trade. In 2011, NATO, led by the United States, intervened in the country and killed the Libyan leader.

Iran, Venezuela, and Russia (a member of OPEC+ created in 2016) are prohibited from trading their oil as part of economic sanctions, but they do so sidestepping the dollar, which leads to lower demand for that currency and devaluation and consequent loss of hegemony. A sanction that ends up being a boomerang for the US economy.

To get Venezuela and Iran to use the dollar again in their oil trade, the same playbook is used: a media campaign about the tyranny of the regime, the dispatch of warships and threats of invasion. In Venezuela, four cities were bombed, Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were kidnapped, and the US government took control of the sale of oil. Venezuelan oil is now sold in dollars and not in yuan or other currencies. Something similar is being sought in Iran. This is a struggle in global finance at a time of historic transition.

Drugs, democracy, lack of freedoms, or respect for institutions have nothing to do with it. The United States is not interested in that. The crisis between the United States and Venezuela reached the United Nations Security Council days before the invasion. There, the US ambassador to the UN, Mike Waltz, said that his country would impose “maximum” sanctions on Venezuela to deprive Maduro of the resources he uses to finance the so-called Cartel of the Suns, designated by the United States as a terrorist organization. After the invasion, the Department of Justice stated that no such organization exists.

On Thursday, President Trump announced that a “huge fleet” was advancing toward Iran, which, if true, would confirm repeated announcements about a possible intervention against Iran allegedly for the killing of protesters that the US promoted with the support of Israeli intelligence services. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called Trump a “criminal” for “the victims, the damage and the slander” against his country. That same day, Trump described Khamenei as “a sick man who should govern his country properly and stop killing people,” adding that “it is time to look for new leadership in Iran.” On Tuesday, General Abolfazl Shekarchi, spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, warned Trump not to take any action against the country’s supreme leader, adding, “If any hand of aggression is extended toward our leader, we will not only cut off that hand, but we will also set his world on fire.”

In short, even if Trump were to succeed in defeating Iran’s theocratic regime and controlling oil management and trade, as he intends to do with Venezuela, the loss of the dollar’s hegemony is an irreversible process. Everything points to the institutionalization of a multipolar monetary system in which the dollar will share a predominant role with other currencies. The mechanism of “petrodollar recycling” that sustained the dollar’s hegemonic position in the early 1970s is no longer viable. The United States is approaching a “point of no return” with an unsustainable debt dynamic, which will cause financial markets to lose interest in purchasing bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury, accelerating the loss of the dollar’s hegemony.

“El mundo en foco” es la columna quincenal de Ariela Ruiz Caro para Mira: Feminismos y Democracias. Ariela Ruiz Caro es economista con maestría en procesos de integración económica y consultora internacional en temas de comercio, integración y recursos naturales en la CEPAL, Sistema Económico Latinoamericano (SELA), Instituto para la Integración de América Latina y el Caribe (INTAL), entre otros. Ha sido funcionaria de la Comunidad Andina, asesora de la Comisión de Representantes Permanentes del MERCOSUR y Agregada Económica de la Embajada de Perú en Argentina.


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