Geopolitics

[ramana]

I think the GOI under MMS is getting marginalised and committing political sucide for the nation as a whole. And the DDM is encouraging it by suppressing all discussion of national interests or with diversionary serious sounding articles. A no count puppy like Australia is becoming a pit bull.

[Capt M Kumar]

Pakistan's nuclear capabilities present at least four challenges to American policy:

There is a small but real possibility of the next India-Pakistan crisis escalating to nuclear levels.

Pakistan may decide, as a matter of state policy, to extend a nuclear umbrella (or engage in nuclear sharing) with one or more Middle East (West Asian) states, especially if Iran acquires a nuclear device.

There is a hard-to-quantify risk of nuclear theft. Pakistan has a home-grown personnel reliability programme, but even this could be circumvented in a determined conspiracy.

There is some small chance that should Pakistan unravel, that its nuclear assets will be seized by remnant elements of the Army for political, strategic, or personal purposes.
http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?m...t&counter_img=2

[Capt M Kumar]

he U.N. nuclear watchdog chief warned in comments aired Saturday that any military strike on Iran could turn the Mideast into a ''ball of fire'' and make Iran adopt a more aggressive stance on its nuclear program.

The comments by Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, came in an interview with an Arab television station aired Saturday, a day after U.S. officials said they believed recent large Israeli military exercises may have been meant to show Israel's ability to hit Iran's nuclear sites.
http://news.in.msn.com/international/artic...umentid=1505658

[acharya]

Send this Article to a Friend

“Malaysia not right place to go for work”

Staff Reporter

MADURAI: A seminar was jointly organised by Journalism for Development, People’s Watch and Citizen for Human Rights Movement here on Thursday, the International Day against Torture. It focused on the condition of workers from Tamil Nadu, who went to Malaysia for making a better livelihood and instead suffered there like slaves.

Aarvalan of Viduthalai Chiruthaigal, who went to Malaysia on a one-man fact finding mission, said that Tamils had been vilified as anti-socials and were mostly victims in encounter deaths. The manpower agencies were giving deceptive promises of wage and other facilities. Legal assistance was much needed for migrant workers.

Arumugam of Pudukottai, who had returned from Malaysia, narrated his story. After spending around Rs. one lakh to get a job in the country, he landed up in a restaurant where the employers seized his passport and never paid his salary in time and the promised pay. He was made to stay in a room where 45 persons, who worked in shifts, stayed with him. He was beaten up frequently and tortured before he could finally escape to India.

Siva Somasundaram, social worker, who had returned from Malaysia, presented a slideshow of pictures of torture victims and asked forums to come forward to create awareness among the public and prevent them from migrating to Malaysia. Other speakers suggested that Malaysia was not the right place to go for work.

[Capt M Kumar]

<!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> Officials and diplomats at the UN said that the US had at one stage opposed her nomination because of her views on abortion and some other issues as also South Africa's opposition to impose sanction on Zimbabwe. But it finally gave the go ahead which led UN Secretary General Ban-Ki-moon to announce the appointment on Thursday.

A Harvard alumna, Pillai is serving as a judge on the International Criminal Court in the Hague since 2003. She had earlier served both as judge and president on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda which she had joined in 1995.

http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?m...t&counter_img=3

[acharya]

<b>
Military's priority is to defeat extremists: Gates</b>

Washington (AP): The US military's top priority is to defeat al-Qaida and other extremists, but winning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone will not achieve that, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says in a new defense policy document.

Nor will the use of force alone accomplish the mission, says the 2008 National Defense Strategy approved by Gates and released today by the Pentagon. The most important thing the military can do, it said, is prepare friends and allied nations to defend and govern themselves.

"For the foreseeable future, winning the 'Long War' against violent extremist movements will be the central objective of the U.S.," the strategy paper said, adding that Iraq and Afghanistan "remain the central fronts in the struggle."

But, it added that the U.S. "cannot lose sight of the implications of fighting a long-term, episodic, multi-front, and multidimensional conflict more complex and diverse than the Cold War confrontation with communism."

The 23-page document asserted: "Success in Iraq and Afghanistan is crucial to winning this conflict, but it alone will not bring victory."

It also said the use of force plays a role but may be less important than "measures to promote local participation in government and economic programs to spur development, as well as efforts to understand and address the grievances that often lie at the heart of insurgencies," the document said.

Gates later told a Pentagon news conference that the military must maintain a balance to make sure it has the ability to win long-running irregular conflicts as well as keep up its conventional superiority.

[Capt M Kumar]

<!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> हजूज को आठ साल से भी ज़्यादा समय तक बुल्गारिया की पांच नर्सेस के साथ लीबिया की एक जेल में रखा गया था। इनमें से ज़्यादातर को मौत की सज़ा सुना दी गई थी। इन लोगों पर आरोप था कि इन्होंने 438 बच्चों को एड्स-संक्रमित खून चढ़ाकर उनमें यह बीमारी फैलाई। हजूज ने खुद को बेकसूर बताते हुए जज से कहा कि मैंने अपने ऊपर किए जा रहे टॉर्चर के चलते मान लिया कि मैंने बच्चों में एड्स फैलाए और सीआईए (अमेरिकी खुफिया एजंसी) और मोसाद (इसराइली खुफिया एजंसी) के साथ सहयोग किया। डर इतना था कि मैं कुछ भी मानने को तैयार था। यह तब हुआ, जब मेरे साथ कुत्ते वाला प्रकरण हो चुका था।
http://navbharattimes.indiatimes.com/art...426021.cms
min translation:
1 dr who was alleged to have spread AIDS in Libya was raped by German dogs in prison.

[acharya]

Russia anounces ‘spheres of interest’

By Charles Clover in Moscow

Published: August 31 2008 18:59 | Last updated: August 31 2008 18:59

Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday announced Moscow’s intention to preserve geographical spheres “of privileged interest” on or near its borders as part of a five point foreign policy statement in a television interview.

The announcement, in the wake of the recent conflict in Georgia, is likely to raise the political temperature in neighbouring states, especially those with significant Russian minorities, as they try to gauge Russia’s appetite for future conflicts in the region.

He said that Russia would defend “the life and dignity” of Russian citizens “no matter where they are located”. He was referring to Russia’s intervention in Georgia with the declared aim of defending Russian citizens in South Ossetia against Georgian forces.

Mr Medvedev announced that Russia would provide aid – including military help – to the enclaves of South Ossetian and Abkhazia.

In the announcing his five-point foreign policy, he emphasised Russia’s wish to avoid confrontation or international isolation as the result of the recent conflict, which has been widely criticised in the west. “Russia does not intend to isolate itself. We will develop, as much as possible, our friendly relations with Europe and the United States, and other nations of the world”

He also focused on a commitment to international law, and again expressed Moscow’s now familiar antipathy to a “unipolar” world dominated by Washington, saying “this type of world is unstable and threatens conflict”.

Mr Medvedev’s announcement that Russia has “regions of priviledged interest” is likely to be greeted with concern in the west, where it might be interpreted as the announcement that Moscow has imperial ambitions in the former Soviet Union. It is also likely to resonate in Crimea, the province of Ukraine that is dominated by ethnic Russians, ethnically Russian northern Kazakhstan, and Baltic states with large Russian minorities.

"Russia, like other countries in the world, has regions in which it has privileged interests” said Mr Medvedev. “In these regions are located countries which have friendly relations…Russia will work attentively in these regions" he said, adding these "privileged" regions included states bordering Russia, but not only those.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

[acharya]

<b>view: What the West can do —Richard Holbrooke
</b>
The rules of the post-Cold War world are changing — but not to the ultimate benefit of Russia, which has underestimated the unifying effect its actions will have on the West

Given the tremendous damage that Russia has inflicted on Georgia, it is easy to conclude that the Kremlin has achieved its objectives. But, so far, Russia has failed in its real goal — getting rid of Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s pro-democracy, pro-American president.

To be sure, Russia has tightened its control of the separatist enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and has recognised their independence. It shattered the Georgian military, grievously damaged Georgia’s economy, and stirred up discord within the Western alliance. For three years, it has tried every conceivable tactic to bring Saakashvili down — fomenting a domestic uprising, imposing an economic blockade, beefing up its forces in the enclaves, and finally a war. Yet Georgia’s president remains in power.

Here in Tbilisi, tension is understandably high. Russian tanks are less than 25 miles away, and the wheat fields along the main road to Gori were ablaze, set on fire by Russian troops, as I drove through Russian checkpoints to get to that deserted, occupied city. (Most memorable sight: drunken Russian soldiers in stolen Georgian uniforms — “because they are better than ours.”)

Russia’s invasion of Georgia has reshaped the strategic landscape. But, as the West debates how to “punish Russia”, it is vital to remember that the main front is still in Georgia. Talk about taking away the 2014 Winter Olympics or ejecting Russia from the G-8 may (or may not) have some effect on the Kremlin, but the most important thing the West can do now is strengthen the government in Tbilisi. The equation is simple: if Saakashvili survives, Vladimir Putin loses.

The intense personal hatred between these men overlays two centuries of tortured history between Russia and Georgia. Many people report that Putin simply “loses it” when discussing the upstart Saakashvili, who led his country from near bankruptcy into a golden age of economic growth and the world’s highest rate of foreign direct investment relative to GDP. All this has been halted by Russian tanks.

The Kremlin has probably lost its chance to remove Saakashvili by overt force, although sinister, more stealthy means cannot be ruled out. Having just dined with him in a public restaurant, I wish his security was a little tighter. (His predecessor, Eduard Shevardnadze, was a near-miss target for several assassination attempts that are widely believed to have been Russian-directed.) The Kremlin’s best hope now is that Georgia’s economy will crumble, its currency will collapse, and an unhappy populace, encouraged by some opposition leader (perhaps bankrolled by Russia), will force Saakashvili from power.

The Western response to this challenge must go beyond rhetoric. What matters most right now is massive economic and military assistance. Public commitments to help rebuild Georgia are the best way to prevent Russia from achieving its goal. Prime Minister Vladimir Gurgenidze estimates that rebuilding railroads, bridges, ports and other infrastructure will cost at least $1 billion; this does not include humanitarian relief, refugee resettlement costs, or rebuilding Georgia’s military. Gurgenidze also foresees negative economic growth, a huge budget deficit, and a collapse of tourism, which was just taking off in this beautiful country.

United States Senator Joseph Biden has called for an immediate $1 billion supplemental appropriation, a proposal quickly endorsed by Barack Obama. But the Bush administration has not yet been specific on economic support. Congress will be in session only briefly before the election, and a supplemental appropriation will pass only if President Bush pursues it vigorously as a bipartisan measure. Even if delayed until next year, its immediate proposal by Bush and endorsement by both presidential candidates would help morale in Georgia. The European Union, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development must match American support.

In the long run, Georgia and Russia must coexist peacefully. Here, Georgia must do its part. Saakashvili, an immensely talented 41-year-old, saved his country from utter collapse in 2003. But he must think strategically about the future.

On occasion, he has berated the Europeans for insufficient support — not a good tactic for someone trying to join the EU — and has used rhetoric about Russia that, while understandable, only increases the danger to himself. Saakashvili cannot pick up his tiny country and move it to Mexico. He has to manage the situation with greater care.

There will be consequences, of course, for Russia’s relations with the West. (Bush’s inattentiveness to this Russian threat — dramatically illustrated by his literal embrace of Putin in Beijing as Russian tanks rolled into Georgia — may have led the Kremlin to think it could get away with its invasion.) While the West will not going to war over Georgia, Russia must understand that it will pay for using force, or the threat of force, against neighbours that were once part of the Soviet space.

This is especially true for Ukraine and Azerbaijan, which are likely to be Moscow’s next targets for intimidation. The rules of the post-Cold War world are changing — but not to the ultimate benefit of Russia, which has underestimated the unifying effect its actions will have on the West. Exactly how these relationships evolve depends on what each side does in the coming weeks — especially in Georgia. —DTPS

Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador to the United Nations during the Clinton administration, writes a monthly column for The Washington Post

[acharya]

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/06/342...ml?c=on#c149517

---

i read churchill's voluminous history of world war two.

the reason the united states ended up with so much of the world's gold was because the allies did not want germany, italy, or japan to take it away from them if they were run over .
so instead of taking the chance of losing it, they shipped it to the only part of the world where it would remain safe, these united states. these are and were the facts.

this revisionist history must end.
america bashers must be stopped.
they are communists in the extreme stalinist form.
no matter what they call themselves, they are just the same as nazis.
hungry for blood and power.

keep yourselves aware of their writings and of their political affiliations.

or we will all be facing an 'american gulag' in the near future.


----

“i read churchill's voluminous history of world war two.

the reason the united states ended up with so much of the world's gold was because the allies did not want germany, italy, or japan to take it away from them if they were run over .”
<b>
>>>You need to revise something less voluminous and more REAL….The essential fact about Winston Churchill (Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill ..and he was a Druid) is that his mother's father was Leonard Jerome (formerly Jacobson, 1818-1891) a speculator and business partner of August Belmont (nee Schoenberg 1813-1890), who was Rothschild's main American representative. … His rise was assisted by his mother's connections with the Rothschild circle including the powerful banker Ernest Cassell. > Source > The Last Lion, p. 108

In the 1930's Churchill's banker friends made him the leading light in their lobby, "The Focus Group," led by the Zionist chairman of British Shell, Sir Robert Waley-Cohen. Churchill became the main opponent of "appeasement" and eventually the main barrier to making peace with Hitler.
</b>
"Germany's unforgivable crime before the second world war," Churchill said," was her attempt to extricate her economic power from the world's trading system and to create her own exchange mechanism which would deny world finance its opportunity to profit." (Churchill to Lord Robert Boothby, quoted in the Foreword, 2nd Ed. Sydney Rogerson, 'Propaganda in the Next War' 2001, orig. 1938.) >>

The existence of a state of war between the United States and Germany
in 1917 had prompted the passage of the Trading with the Enemy Act, one
purpose of which was to make unlawful all dealings between Americans
and the enemies of the United States. However, an obscure subsection
of the Act authorized the President to regulate, investigate, and
PROHIBIT "under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe...any
transactions in foreign exchange, export or earmarkings of gold or
silver coin or bullion or currency...by any person within the United
States..." These sweeping new presidential powers had teeth in them:
elsewhere the Act provided for severe criminal sanctions of up to ten
years in prison and/or up to a $10,000 fine for violation of any
decrees which the President might make under the Act.

The net result of the Act, vis-a-vis transactions in gold, was the
arrogation by the Sixty-Fifth Congress of a "money power" not granted
by the Constitution -- and further: the delegation of that power to
the Executive branch of the Government.

The war emergency and the President's duty to fight the war provided
Congress with a convenient rationale for the Act. The fact is,
however, that the Constitution nowhere empowers Congress to prohibit
dealing in gold -- much less authorizes Congress to delegate that power
to a coordinate branch of the government.

Worst of all, the power which Congress delegated to the President
enabled him to make criminals out of honest American citizens whose
"crime" would consist only of trying to protect themselves from
official debasement of their money. In more fundamental terms,
Americans henceforth would be "under the gun" for exercising a
fundamental, inalienable right: the right to deal with theis own
property as they saw fit. Gold, no matter what its special
characteristics, is, after all, just another form of property.
(HOW AMERICANS LOST THEIR RIGHT TO OWN GOLD AND BECAME CRIMINALS IN THE PROCESS by Henry Mark Holzer) >> humm… a little bit paranoid Mr. thefarnz.?

--

Perhaps it might be helpful if I clarified a few misconceptions re the "Iran Oil Bourse" by updating and reiterating the following Asia Times article I wrote

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HA21Ak01.html

Firstly, the reason for the project in the first place was nothing to do with Euro's and everything to do with the domination and manipulation of the global market in energy by intermediaries. A problem which has got worse not better.

Secondly, neither NYMEX nor ICE Futures (formerly known as IPE) have much to do with buying and selling physical oil or products. Their purpose is to allow buying and selling of oil price RISK by allowing producers and consumers to "hedge" the risks of falling or rising oil prices respectively. Unfortunately the derivatives tail has in recent years been wagging the oil market dog to the serious detriment of producers and consumers.

As for progress of the IOB, there really has not been any for well over a year. Yes, a building in Kish island has been bought and legal entities created, but no other elements of market infrastructure have yet even been specified, never mind begun..

Assuming our consortium is put in funds (which we are told is imminent) then probably simple electronic exchange infrastructure could be completed within 6 months and something like bitumen or heavy fuel oil made available to be traded on it domestically.

I doubt whether crude oil will be traded (in ANY currency) on the IOB within 2 years: there are immense practical difficulties not least political.

As for trading oil in euro's most commentators tend to forget how limited the supply of Euro's is, and I don't think that will change much soon either bearing in mind how conservative the European Central Bank is.

Having said all that I do tend to agree that the dollar's collapse is both inevitable and overdue, and that it MIGHT be precipitated in the next year or so by a "melt-down" in the energy markets caused by rampant speculation by hedge funds.

A bit like the Long Term Capital Management fiasco, the difference being that the Federal Reserve Bank cannot print oil to bail market particpants out...

[acharya]

Empires can be sustained for any amount of time provided the powers that be at the top of the food chain have the stamina (in various forms) to sustain the empire by outlasting any external challenges. The variables could be these:

1) Manpower.
Nations and empires that have large dominant ethnic population can sustain an empire as long as the dominant ethnic group reproduces itself. This is where the problem begins. As empires prosper, the seeking of pleasure becomes prominent. Most important of all the seeking of sex for pleasure. Nature has evolved in such a way that babies are "accidental" happenstance of sexual relations. When both men and women decide to have less children and spend more on pleasure seeking, then the eventual consequence will be decline in manpower. Once Rome became a superpower, the Romans thought all the power and grandeur would last. The orgies, the drinking, the lavishing of perties and sports was all well as long as Romans produced Roman babies but liberated Roman women either refused to have babies or had fewer babies. Number of Roman recruits for the legions slowly declined. This disease soon also gripped the Romanised "others" of the empire. Soon, the make numbers, non Romans were recruited. The slow decline began. To arrest this decline Rome had to form alliance with other powers and tribes. These alliance come with a price in its various forms. The alleigience of the alliance partner is not certain. Once a superpower resorts to forming alliance, its grandeur declines. From the perspectives of external elements, when grandeue declines, the power declines too. With that goes the economic power. Growth of rival centers of power takes place. (That is why Cincinatus was continuosly harping on the need to finish off the power of Carthege) Conquering and control of Rome becomes a tempting desire. The end soon appears on the horizon.

More than a hundred years ago, American troops went and conquered the then Spanish controlled Philipines. Though the Americans will fight the locals for some duration but it was an entirely American effort. In WW2, almost 20 million Americans were in uniform with 12 million carrying arms even if only 3 million actually saw combat. Today to sustain the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, America has to ask for soldiers El Salvador, Taiwan and Georgia among other nations. Why? Even though America's population is increasing but the dominant ethnic group which provided the bulk of the soldiers is declining in numbers. If anyone bothered to look this decline is the result of increasing wealth and prosperity.

2) Wealth.
With manpower, there also need to be enough money to pay for the men who sustain the empire. This money comes from the treasury. The treasury’s money comes from taxes. Most of the tax comes from economic trade. In ancient times superpowers collected tributes, tax on trades in their territories and the shipping ports in the control of a power would ensure a huge loot in fees. In today’s world it is the banking sector. A superpower exudes confidence especially if the superpower is a law and order kind. Its banks offer sanctuary for money and people from other parts of the world park their money in such safe sanctuary. Go ask the Ambanis, the Birlas and the Tatas where they keep most of their wealth? I will not be surprised if it is all in banks in the USA, England and some in Switzerland. A decline in a grandeur of power would slowly erode the confidence level of the many people whose money is sitting in the banks of the superpower. Soon there will be flight of capital. This will effect the available credit. Then, there would borrowing. If the lender is not too confident, he would lend at a higher interest rate than normal. Once this initiative shifts from the superpower to the lender, the decline is already cert ain.
Once taxes dried out, Rome had to borrow. A Rome that borrows money to sustain an empire cannot maintain many legions. It had to restrict first the size of legions and then the number of legions. Then it had to pay less for the legionaires. Then the quality men would want to serve other powers that pay higher wages than Rome. Territories undefended fall to the enemies. When you were at the top of the food chain, you cause envy and many aspiring rivals.

In my opinion multi polar world is a natural phenomena. Not all powers are going to be equal but there will be many centers of powers. The decline of Europe and America is certain unless there is an effort to increase their white population.

Someday in the future, the white population of America will become minority unless the trend is reversed. From then on majority of the technocrats, managers, financiers and other important personnels in the banking, corporate and political fields will be non-whites. While I would not doubt their capabilities, there are bound to be Jason Blairs. Would these exude the same levels of confidence from the perspective of the Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese and the Arabs who have parked trillions in the USA? I seriously doubt it. Most probably Chinese, Japanese and Taiwanese money would be going home while the Arab money would be going to some other location where they have more confidence. When this happens, there would be serious credit crunch that would put a road block on sustaining the present level of living standard. When that declines, so too the development and growth. Will there still be immigrants looking to go to America? This is long away in the future and has a potential to happen.

A superpower can maintain an empire even with brute force as long as the superpower can sustain all the elements and resources that can continuously nourish the brute force. It is all in sustainability. There is no other magic wand.

Soft power alone cannot sustain an empire. A mixture of soft and brute power can maintain an empire. Once must remember that empire is the result of power. Power is usually due to brutishness or hardness. A softy will not be an empire. May be an element of some influence.
Avram.

[acharya]

Zaobao , Singapore
<b>
Why is Chinese Anti-
Americanism Increasing?</b>


By Lu Yanqing

The picture of 'a free and democratic America' from 20 years ago has faded in the Chinese people’s hearts. Instead, America is a country of hegemony.

Translated By Xuewen Ji

August 22, 2008



Singapore - Zaobao - Original Article (Chinese)

All kinds of clues have made clear that pro-American and pro-Western inclinations have been reversed. One example is the Chinese catcall on the U.S. basketball team when the Chinese basketball team competed with its American rival in the Summer Olympic Games at Beijing.

Moreover, in the global torch relay earlier this year, several confrontations happened between overseas Chinese populations and Western powers, such as France. These confrontations factually marked the end of the honeymoon between China and the West, which started at the beginning of the 1980s. These conflicts are not limited to ideological fields; they have reached national interests such as integrity of territory. And the United States has played a fatal role in the recent price hiking of crude oil, which triggered domestic inflation in China.

Although American values such as “democracy” and “freedom” are still tempting to Chinese youth, real wealth weighs more in Chinese people’s consideration. Their vital interests are being damaged by American and international consortium. As Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has said, China faces unprecedented challenges in the year 2008. The United States protected its own national industry at the expense of other countries' interests, and depreciated dollars substantially, thereby shifting its own economic crisis. China reevaluated RMB externally, but internally depreciated it due to the soaring material price; a large number of Chinese export-oriented enterprises endured losses and even closed due to the reevaluation of RMB. Small or medium-sized foreign trade companies laid off large numbers of employees, and the job market is bleaker for new graduates.

China’s internet has enjoyed incredible speed of development and this country now has the largest population of internet users. Many Chinese people are informed about how the U.S. government works jointly with the international consortium in speculating oil and food and shorting dollars.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Paulson said on August 19 that “China's steady economic growth is of great significance to global economic growth, as well as to the United States.” He appealed to China to enlarge the scale of investment towards the United States, in order to save the U.S. economy which is caught in the mortgage crisis.

To deal with the recent deterioration of financial stocks, this week regulatory officials disclosed that the administration plans to introduce new restrictions on short-selling rules in the coming weeks, which means extending the partial limitation on short-selling that has expired last week to the whole stock market.

These selfish deeds of the U.S. financial administration caused antipathy and even hatred among Chinese people, since the U.S. is conducting business in the exact opposite way in the Chinese market. While the United States is protecting its own financial system, it opposed China’s efforts to stabilize the Chinese stock market. While the U.S. government rescues the market from time to time, it does not allow the Chinese government do the same thing, which it claims goes against principles of free market. A more insidious action of the U.S. is to influence the Chinese government’s decision making through a number of domestic “new buyers,” “returnees” affect the tendency of the real estate and stock market. The U.S. “agents” have already seized part of the media power.

And as the U.S. forced China to open its stock market to foreign investors, it also attempts to open China’s real estate market. Earlier this year China’s housing prices started to shrink under the decisive control by the central government. However, this August we see two important news items on the real estate market: “Recently Blackstone Group, a U.S.-owned private investment fund, brought a large commercial project of Zhongsheng Shijie Shangcheng, located in Shanghai Zizhuang South square, at the price of more than 4.5 billion Yuan.” When China’s domestic real estate developers’ tights budget and domestic banks continued tightening of credit policy, foreign banks now rush in to the Chinese real estate mortgage market.

Currently, China's stock market and real estate market have been surrounded in self-contradicting information. Rumors rise continuously, such as “the stock market will to fall to 1,300 points,” or “Shenzhen buyers stopped paying for loans,” and “the housing price will be turbulent.” However, under scrutiny we found the very obvious trace that the monopoly of international capital is undermining China’s economy jointly.

The picture of “a Free and Democratic America” from 20 years ago has faded in the Chinese people’s hearts. Instead, America is a country of hegemony: During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the United States manipulated Georgia and flagrantly ignited the flames of war in South Ossetia on August 8th, the day of the opening ceremony, disregarding the tradition of ceasing fire during Summer Olympic Games.

American’s involvement in international conflicts and its interference in other countries’ internal affairs are not, as it claims, to maintain peace and stability of the world, to promote the values of freedom and democracy, or to protect human rights. Instead, it is for achieving its own interests, and for achieving and maintaining the U.S. world hegemony.

Recently, a Russian newspaper, “Kommersant,” reported that, according to the Pew Research Center’s annual survey results (a world-renowned public opinion research institutions in the United States), a number of nations hold negative opinions towards the United States.

We hope that the United States has learned enough lessons from the Iraq war and mortgage crisis to change their foreign policy, and will no longer provide support to Taiwan and Tibet independents, or to the “East Turkistan” terrorists. And we appeal to the United States' next elected president to lift the trade barriers against China and to build an equal and friendly political and economic Sino-America relationship.

[acharya]

To Vima, Greece
<b>America’s Favorites Cause It Trouble</b>
By Giorgos Romaios
...The most serious politicians ... are usually disinclined to become “pawns” on the American “geopolitical chessboard”
Translated By Marina Sapountzoglou
August 24th, 2008
Greece - To Vima - Original Article (Greek)

Each time the U.S. is looking for a protégé-leader of countries over which they have influence, it is clear that on most occasions, the chosen people aren’t the best choice – the most likely explanation is that the most serious politicians in those countries are usually disinclined to become “pawns” on the American “geopolitical chessboard”. Three of these politicians, for reasons of bad behavior, have monopolized the news on international and regional developments, causing serious headaches to their protectors.

Americans found Shaakasvili in some law office in New York. They realized that his out-of-the ordinary ambition and his talents were all he needed to lead the “Revolution of the Roses” in 2003 and take reluctant Edward Shevardnadze’s place. He will also win this January's election, even though not in the “cleanest” manner. All those years he cooperated with the tens of American consultants lodged in Georgia, and applied for his country’s NATO membership.

The electoral victory and the shameless support he received from the USA fired his uncontrollable ambition. He decided to invade South Ossetia, which had seceded from Georgia and was under the protective wing of Russia. The Americans totally abandoned him – they would never send troops to fight the Russians. And of course, Russians secured total control over South Ossetia and the adjacent Abkhazia…

The USA is now paying too for the Shaakasvili fiasco. After their problems in Iraq, the dead-end situation in Afghanistan, the loss of their “friend” Musharraf in Pakistan, and the issue of Iran’s nuclear weapons, the last thing their strategy needs is a crisis in their relationship with Moscow. In many situations, Russia has stood as an “ally”… But this, ever so small, breach in NATO could potentially result in problems for American presence in Europe.

It wouldn’t come as a surprise if Shaakasvili ends up like Musharraf, who was forced to quit his presidency to avoid an impeachment that was demanded by Benazir Bhutto’s opposition party. Benazir Bhutto was murdered right before the elections.

Musharraf took up the presidency after a coup d’état in 1999 against Naouaz Sharif. His name came up in a pre-election television interview of George Bush Jr., causing the president to create a great scandal, since when asked the name of the General who took office in Pakistan was, he had no answer for the journalists. Everybody laughed at him, friends and foes. Subsequently, they became friends and allies in the war against terrorism, even though not so effectively!

Another gem of the Americans is our neighbor Gruevski [Editor's Note: prime minister of the Republic of Macedonia since 27th August , 2006]. He is not so different from Shaakasvili in psyche, ambition and his “soldier of fortune” attitude. Washington is in a state of emergency and pushes to have the name issue resolved so that they can go ahead with the inclusion of Skopje [Editor's Note: Capital of Macedonia] into NATO. It is, after all, a strategic move for the politics in the Balkans, after Kosovo’s independence.

The undivided support of the Americans has led Gruevski to rampant nationalism, rendering him totally indifferent to the fact that his obsession with unhistorical claims to recognize a “Macedonian minority” in Greece, not only harms his relations with our country but also peace and stability in the broader region.

The future is still unknown….

[acharya]

Tehran: 21:29 , 2008/09/07
http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.as...sID=745755

By Ramzy Baroud
Global realignment: How Bush inspired a new world order
TEHRAN, Sept. 7 (MNA) -- The series of unfortunate and costly decisions made during the two terms of the Bush administration, combined with economic decline at home, might devastate the United States’ world standing much sooner than most analysts predict.

What was difficult to foresee was that the weakening of U.S. global dominance, spurred by erratic and unwise foreign policy under Bush, would re-ignite the Cold War, to a degree, over a largely distant and seemingly ethnically-based conflict -- that of Georgia and Russia. Who could have predicted a possible association between Baghdad, Kabul, and Tbilisi?

But to date the decline of U.S. global power to the advent of the Bush administration, or even the horrific events of September 11, 2001, is not exactly accurate. The rapid collapse of the Soviet Union and the unraveling of the Warsaw Pact -- especially as former members of that pact hurried to join NATO in later years -- empowered a new breed of U.S. elite who boasted of the economic viability and moral supremacy of U.S.-styled “Capitalism and Democracy”. But a unipolar world presented the U.S. leadership with an immense, if not insurmountable, task.

While 9/11 and a gung-ho president presented a convenient opportunity to reassert U.S. global dominance, action was taken the moment the Soviet Union collapsed. Such efforts, however, were not accentuated until 1997, with the establishment of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a think tank from which many neoconservative policy advisors operated. Their aim was “to promote American global leadership… (which) is both good for America and good for the world.” William Kristol and Robert Kagan, PNAC founders, were inspired by the Reaganite policy of “strength and moral clarity”. But that supposedly inspiring model was justified on the basis of the Cold War, which no longer existed. Fashioning an enemy was a time-sensitive and essential task to justify the repositioning of U.S. power to reclaim domains that were left vacant with the disappearance of the bipolar international system, which existed since World War II.

Even the PNAC’s more recent report, Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources for a New Century, published in 2000, appeared of little relevance and urgency. It expressed the “belief that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the pre-eminence of U.S. military forces”. The report would have been another neglected document were it not for the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which turned it into a doctrine defining U.S. foreign policies for nearly a decade.

The wars and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq were aimed at strengthening the U.S. hand in protecting its interests and managing its international affairs. Afghanistan’s position was strategic in warding off the growth of the rising powers of Asia -- aside from its military and strategic value, it was hoped to become a major energy supply route -- while Iraq was to provide a permanent U.S. military presence to guard its oil interests in the whole region and to ensure Israeli supremacy over its weaker but rebellious Arab foes.

The plan worked well for a few weeks following the declaration of “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq. Since then, the U.S. has learned that managing world affairs with a decidedly military approach is a recipe for disaster. Faced with foreign occupation, Iraqis fought back, creating a nightmare scenario and promising U.S. defeat in their country. The United States’ original plan to exploit the country’s fractious ethnic and religious groupings also backfired, as shifting alliances made it impossible for the U.S. to single out a permanent enemy or a long-term ally. In Afghanistan, the picture is even more bleak as the country’s unforgivable geography, the corruption of U.S. local allies, the resurgence of the Taleban, and the U.S.-led coalition’s brutal response to the Taleban’s emboldened ascension have rendered Afghanistan a lost cause by any reasonable military standard.

But the trigger-happy mentality that has governed U.S. foreign policy during the Bush years is no longer dominant and has been since challenged by a more sensible, dialogue-based foreign policy approach, as championed, reluctantly, by Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. The change of heart is not entirely moralistic, however, but largely pragmatic. According to a survey conducted jointly by Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for a New American Security, published February 19, 2008, 88 percent of current and former U.S. military officers believe that the demands of the Iraq war alone have “stretched the U.S. military dangerously thin”. Although not “broken”, 80 percent believe it is “unreasonable to expect the U.S. military to wage another major war successfully at present”, as reported by CNN. Such an estimation is not too different from similar assessments provided by top U.S. military commanders, most of whom found their way to early retirement for similar reasons.

The new military limitations faced by the U.S. in the Middle East have also resulted in the weakening of U.S. political sway and standing. Moreover, its regional allies have also suffered one blow after another: Israel in Lebanon, Georgia in South Ossetia, U.S. allies in Venezuela and other South American countries, etc. Indeed, it is only a matter of time before a challenger to U.S. global hegemony arises and tests U.S. resolve under new circumstances. While growing U.S. involvement in Eurasia and its missile defense shield was considered part and parcel of the neocon plan for “rebuilding America’s defenses”, it was considered by Russia a threat to its national security.

The Georgian invasion of South Ossetia represented a golden opportunity for Moscow to send an unmistakable message to Washington. By crushing the U.S.-Israeli trained Georgian army, Russia declared itself a contender to unchallenged U.S. global dominance, which had lasted for nearly two decades. Countries such as Iran and Syria are quickly warming up to the new Russia, as the latter seeks to rebuild its own alliances and defenses.

The nature and the direction of the U.S.-Russian confrontation are yet to be determined with any reasonable preciseness. Internal and external factors for Russia itself (corruption, the oligarchs, and its ability to court a stable alliance) will all prove consequential in the current confrontation. What is clear, however, is that the upcoming U.S. president will find himself face-to-face with a drastically altered world order, one that is defined by military pandemonium, national and global economic decline, and the rise of new powers, all vying to fill a widening, chaotic power vacuum, provided courtesy of the Bush administration.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, London).
(Sept. 8 Tehran Times Opinion Column, by Ramzy Baroud)

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Empires can be sustained for any amount of time provided the powers that be at the top of the food chain have the stamina (in various forms) to sustain the empire by outlasting any external challenges. The variables could be these:<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Is humans civilising the bane of human race?

[acharya]

<b>
Russians hail Georgia deal as big win</b>
This week's deal to end the Russia-Georgia war may drive wedge between US and EU.
By Fred Weir | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the September 10, 2008 edition

Moscow - Russian experts are hailing this week's new deal to withdraw Russian troops from Georgia as a big diplomatic win for fledgling Kremlin leader Dmitry Medvedev.

Under the deal, hammered out between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and President Medvedev, and later affirmed by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, Russian forces will decamp from their "observation posts" inside Georgia within a month, to be replaced by up to 200 observers from the European Union, who are due to arrive by Oct. 1.

Mr. Sarkozy, who holds the EU's revolving presidency, brought Medvedev a Georgian pledge not to use force against its two breakaway republics – a key Russian demand – and Medvedev promised to begin dismantling Russian military checkpoints around the Georgian towns of Poti and Senaki within a week. Georgian officials confirmed Tuesday that Russia had already started withdrawing troops.

The deal may help to drive a wedge between and Washington, which struck a tough note by freezing a US-Russia nuclear cooperation deal on Monday, and a more dovish Europe.

"Moscow is playing on the contradictions between Europe and the US, aiming to show that Sarkozy's pragmatic and respectful approach, rather than Washington's hard-line rhetoric, is the way to achieve concrete results with Russia," says Sergei Strokan, a foreign-policy expert with the liberal Moscow daily Kommersant. "You can't help but notice that the harsher the Kremlin's tone toward the US becomes, the gentler and more subtle becomes its approach to Europe."

If Moscow fulfills the agreement, Sarkozy said, the EU may lift its main punitive measure taken against Russia during the war, which was to suspend ongoing talks on a new strategic partnership deal. "There is no reason why meetings between Russia and Europe ... cannot be resumed in October," he said. "We want partnership and peace, and hardly anyone wants a confrontation between Europe and Russia."

Russian analysts insist that the commitment of EU observers to hold the security zones between Georgia and the rebel statelets of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is exactly what the Kremlin wanted all along.

"It's no problem for Russia to withdraw its military forces from Georgia, because that decision was taken weeks ago," says Alexei Mukhin, director of the independent Center for Political Information in Moscow. "Now the responsibility for what happens there, and Saakashvili's behavior, will rest on the Europeans and not on us."

That tone of satisfaction appears to be matched in Europe, where much of the media Tuesday lauded Sarkozy's ability to finesse the Kremlin and avoid what could have been an awkward breach between the EU and its biggest energy supplier.

"[Sarkozy] can be proud: Not only did he reach a consensus among 27 EU members on Russia, the most divisive subject for members ... but made the Russian bear bow through diplomacy.... This is a demonstration that, united, Europe can obtain much," noted Jean Quatremer, a Brussels-based specialist on Europe writing in a weblog for the Parisian daily Liberation.

Some were more skeptical. Dominique Garraud in the west French daily La Charente Libre said the price of the accord is that "Europe must witness the dismemberment of Georgia."

Under the accord, talks will begin in Geneva on Oct. 15 to address long-term security issues in the wake of the conflict, and the return of refugees. Both sides have accused the other of "ethnic cleansing" during the brief August war, and their clashing arguments are set to play out in hearings that opened Monday at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

The status of the two rebel statelets remains the key source of disagreement, and one that appears unlikely to be resolved in the near future.

Russia's Foreign Ministry pointedly announced that it had exchanged official notes of diplomatic recognition with Abkhazia and South Ossetia on Tuesday. Medvedev told Sarkozy that decision is "final and irreversible."

The two broke away from Georgia amid bitter civil wars after the Soviet Union collapsed, and have had de facto independence under Russian protection ever since, even though the international community recognizes them as part of Georgia's legal territory.

Moscow claims that Georgia's attempt to seize South Ossetia by force, which triggered the war, disqualified Tbilisi's claim on the tiny republic. But, speaking to journalists after meeting Sarkozy, Mr. Saakashvili vowed to win the rebel regions back. "We have a long way ahead toward restoration of Georgia's territorial integrity," he said. "There is no way Georgia will ever give up a piece of its sovereignty, a piece of its territory."

This won't be easy, however. Russia announced Tuesday that it will station about 7,600 troops in Georgia's separatist regions, a sharp increase from the number deployed before Moscow sent in troops last month.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said troops would stay in South Ossetia and Abkhazia for a long time to prevent any "repeat of Georgian aggression."

Sarkozy indicated the status of the two territories would be raised in the coming talks with Russia. "If the international discussion begins in Geneva [on Oct. 15], then there is something to discuss," he said.

[Guest]

•<b> Officials: Kim Jong Il's absence at parade may signal illness</b>

[acharya]

<b>
Risk of U.S. War with Russia all too Real</b>
By MIDDLE EAST TIMES
Published: September 09, 2008


Veteran Russian admiral Eduard Bautin was outspoken last week. He noted that there were more U.S. and NATO warships operating in the Black Sea than ever before but he assured reporters in Moscow it was no problem – They could all be sunk by the Russian Black Sea fleet and its land-based support aircraft within 20 minutes.

On Monday, shrewd old American political columnist Pat Buchanan looked at the growing tensions between the United States and Russia over ballistic missile defense and the conflict in the Caucasus republic of Georgia and compared it to the obscure crisis in the Balkans which erupted after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. That crime lit the fuse that set off World War I.

Is it therefore possible that after all the worries over the escalating tensions between the United States and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program, an even more dangerous conflict could break out between the two giant thermonuclear nations of America and Russia over an issue as obscure to most people in Russia, the United States, the Middle East and Europe as Georgia?

The Georgian conflict is certainly generating a totally unexpected Middle East dimension. Russia is now furious at Israel for recklessly sending so much military aid to Mikheil Saakashvili, the pro-American, dictatorial and exceptionally erratic Georgian president. For all the criticisms that U.S. leaders have thrown over recent years at the current and past leaders of Iran, the Iranians have yet to upset the status quo by sending their army to crush quasi-independent neighbors, as Saakashvili did to the Russian-supported secessionist region of South Ossetia on Aug. 7.

The Russians are now so furious at Israel that they have signaled they would be prepared to sell Iskander solid-fuel, quasi-ballistic missiles to Syria, a move that could tilt the delicate balance of power between Israel and Syria significantly in Syria's favor.

The idea of a non-nuclear, but still very serious war between the United States and Russia being sparked over the crisis in Georgia is still totally inconceivable to policymakers in Washington.

The only figure on the American political scene who has in recent days anticipated the pressing need to defuse tensions between Washington and Moscow as an absolutely crucial national priority is Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. But unfortunately Sen. Obama has been suffering a remarkable reversal of fortune in many, though not all, U.S. national polls over the past week.

Meanwhile, U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have exported the recklessness that Middle Eastern nations have learned only too well of them to the Caucasus too. They have pledged a huge aid package of $1 billion to prop up the dangerously unpredictable and uncontrollable Saakashvili in Russia's own backyard.

Yet Georgia was a constituent part of Russia for 190 years from 1801 to 1991. It entered the Russian Empire before any of the states of the Mississippi Valley had even joined the United States. The Russians do not appear to be in the mood to back down over it.

The risk of catastrophe could be much more serious than anyone thinks.

[Guest]

Couple of new development
OPEC decided to reduce production, so that price remain high.
Indoneasia said good bye to OPEC.
Venezula influence is growing in OPEC, lets see how US will manipluate them.

[Guest]

<b>2 Russian Blackjack Bombers Land in Venezuela</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Two Russian strategic bombers landed in Venezuela on Wednesday as part of military maneuvers, the government said, announcing an unprecendented deployment to a new ally at a time when both nations are involved in tense relations with the U.S.

Russia's Defense Ministry said the two Tupelov-160 Blackjack Bombers flew to Venezuela on a training mission. It said in a statement carried by the Russian news wires that the planes will conduct training flights over neutral waters over the next few days before heading back to Russia.

<b>It was not immediately known whether the bombers were armed.</b>

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez — an unbridled critic of American foreign policy — said Wednesday the bombers were welcome in Venezuela, and that he hopes to "fly one of those things" himself. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
....
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Should we start cold war-II thread.