Acquiring… intl real estate

Your Eyewitness is gonna continue his discussion on the US seeking to acquire new pieces of real estate across the world. Greenland seems to be next on their agenda, and it just goes to prove that the old rule governing the value of real estate remains the same – location, location, location!! Now since Greenland is anything but “green”, maybe it’s time we learn how it got that name?? Was it an ironic joke since the island’s actually completely covered by snow and ice and might’ve been better dubbed “Whiteland”??
Well, actually, it was a marketing move way back around 985 AD when this Viking fella Eric the Red from Iceland – now that’s an appropriate name, innit? – was given marching orders to leave the island after he killed two men in a (friendly) drunken brawl. He sailed off westwards and stumbled over the island he dubbed “Greenland” – because he wanted to attract settlers from Iceland to join him on this early colonisation move!! His ploy clearly worked since he raised some 300 settlers to found two settlements that survived for some 400 years!!! Like all colonists, they violently subdued the native Inuits – who stubbornly refused to die out or abandon their culture!! And it was from those settlements, though, that the Vikings landed in North America waaay before Columbus – which they called “Vinland”!!
But since now – some 1500 years later – we know the island ain’t covered in greenery and the Yanks ain’t gonna be opening up no plantations soon; why their interest?? Well, like your Eyewitness said, it’s all about the location. We all learnt – if we were paying attention back in primary school – that Greenland, being an island, had to be located in “a body of water”, which in this case is the Arctic Ocean! However, this said ocean is frozen for much of the year and hasn’t exactly been a naval thoroughfare as the world globalised into a village.
But global warming is fast changing all of that – and as such, in the struggle by China to catch up and surpass America as the global hegemon – control of this slowly melting and evolving waterway is quite strategic. And denial of this advantage by the US is just as strategic – and explains the US interest!! Now, one may point out that Greenland is an overseas territory of Denmark – a NATO ally of the US – which presumably would get first dibs on military bases and such like. In fact, they already have such a base!!
But Greenland’s been fighting – well, negotiating! – for independence from Denmark, and we’ve seen how the Chinese can inveigle their way into the hearts of poor, underpopulated countries with their B&R Initiative!!
The US ain’t taking no chances!!

…immunity?
There are all sorts of reasons folks enter politics: name and fame – but mostly to get power, which guarantees those and even more!! Well, we just learnt about a modern example of the “more” – fighting extradition to face international criminal activity!! Extradition’s governed by international treaties, and one would’ve supposed the law is quite settled on the matter. But then, even when one is guilty of crimes, lawyers are paid to find loopholes in the law – innit?!!
And we arrive at the saga of Sanction Man and his Daady who’re facing ELEVEN US criminal indictments for various and not-so-sundry crimes – which earned them their sanctions and for which their extradition has been requested. But in their opposition to the extradition order, the AG pointed out, the case by Sanction Man and his Daady is that the government cannot extradite them because they are political foes – and as such biased against them!!
So politics becomes a “safe haven for fugitive offenders” by simply entering politics!!

…oil
The US followed up on its declaration to sell and keep US$50 billion worth of Venezuelan oil by just completing an initial $500 million sale. Additional sales of oil are expected in the coming days. Welcome to a new world!!