11th March, 2010
Financial markets are gripped by the role derivatives have played in Greece’s debt crisis, but Italy also has a derivatives time bomb, and hundreds of cities are in the €24-billion blast zone.
Archive for March, 2010
Why Italy faces a derivatives time bomb
Posted by seumasach on March 12, 2010
Posted in Battle for Europe | Leave a Comment »
Geithner warns of rift over regulation
Posted by seumasach on March 12, 2010
If this is indeed “a thinly veiled attempt by France and Germany to undermine the UK’s dominance of financial services” then Europe really is finally awakening and standing up to the City of London. Anyway, it has certainly caused a stir and even evoked that bulldog spirit from UK so-called financial services minister who pledged he would “fight “line by line and minute by minute” to defend the free movement of capital.” Will the European countermeasures be enough though: some are calling for a Glass-Steagall type of legislation which would separate off commercial banks from jnvestment banking, making sure that ordinary depositors wouldn’t have their funds and deposit guarantees put at the disposal of high risk speculators. This would appear to be crucial.
Click here to read article
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: Glass-Steagal | Leave a Comment »
The Rogue Nation
Posted by seumasach on March 12, 2010
Philip Giraldi
11th March, 2010
In spite of the fact that the United States faces no enemy anywhere in the world capable of opposing it on a battlefield, the Defense budget for 2011 will go up 7.1 percent from current levels. A lot of the new spending will be on drones, America’s latest contribution to western civilization, capable of surveilling large areas on the ground and delivering death from the skies. It is a peculiarly American vision of warfare, with a “pilot” sitting at a desk half a world away and pressing a button that can kill a target far below. Hygienic and mechanical, it is a bit like a video game with no messy cleanup afterward. The recently released United States Quadrennial Defense Review reports how the Pentagon will be developing a new generation of super drones that can stay airborne for long periods of time and can strike anywhere in the world and at any time to kill America’s enemies. The super drones will include some that can fly at supersonic speeds and others that will be large enough to carry nuclear weapons. Some of the new drones will be designed for the navy, able to take off from aircraft carriers and project US power to even more distant hot spots. Drones are particularly esteemed by policymakers because as they are unmanned and can fly low to the ground they can violate someone’s airspace “accidentally” without necessarily resulting in a diplomatic incident.
Posted in Drive to Global War | Tagged: Obama agenda | Leave a Comment »
China backlash at US rights report
Posted by smeddum on March 12, 2010
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China backlash at US rights report |
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China has hit back at the US over human rights, telling Washington to get its own house in order before criticising others and blaming US policy for the global financial crisis. Read the rest of this entry » |
Posted in New Cold War | Tagged: humanitarian imperialism | Leave a Comment »
Breaking Yugoslavia
Posted by seumasach on March 11, 2010
Interview with Diana Johnstone
10th March, 2010
Diana Johnstone is the author of ‘Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions’. She spoke to NLP on the wars in the former Yugoslavia, western involvement and the trial of Slobodan Milosevic.
Posted in Battle for Europe | Leave a Comment »
Globalisation: Multipolar World or New World Order?
Posted by seumasach on March 11, 2010
Globalisation: Multipolar World or New World Order?
Cailean Bochanan
11th March, 2010
A proliferation of articles, mainly, I think, from the left have over the recent period exposed elite plans for a New World Order, meaning a world government enforcing the dictates of London, Washington and their allies. They make grim reading, and one comes away with a feeling of hopelessness in the face of such awesome power: there seems an air of inevitability about the triumph of this new order in its military and economic wars against all comers. The end goal of US/UK is, through NATO, the establishment of global hegemony, but a little more doubt about the realization of these grandiose goals might be in order. Whilst these writers point to the growing power of empire, albeit from an oppositional perspective, we at ITNT have been pointing to the emergence of a multipolar world with multiple foci of opposition to the globalisation of Anglo-American power. This markedly different perspective has struck me as an oddity, since we are both on the same side, that of opposition to US/UK imperialism. What could lie behind it?
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Multipolar world | 1 Comment »
Why California Is Doomed
Posted by smeddum on March 11, 2010
Why California Is Doomed
(March 9, 2010)
California is doomed for two simple but profound reasons: the cost structure is too high for most businesses to survive, and a boom-dependent economy.
The dysfunctions crippling California would easily fill a volume: a dysfunctional Legislature that has been gerrymandered to protect virtually every seat; a dysfunctional proposition system which enables special interests to craft Protected Fiefdoms via the ballot box; recalcitrant public unions who don’t see anything wrong with public servants getting 90% of top-pay in pensions while still earning big bucks as “contract employees,” an enormous population of undocumented workers who pay only sales taxes, and whose employers pay no payroll taxes, either– and that just scratches the surface. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Financial crisis | Leave a Comment »
China assesses its gold strategy
Posted by seumasach on March 11, 2010
Russell Hsiao
11th March, 2010
Chinese leaders convening in Beijing for the annual plenary session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) – China’s ceremonial legislature – this week will, among other things, hammer out a blueprint for the ascendancy of the country’s currency, the yuan (or renminbi).
Posted in Multipolar world, Uncategorized | Tagged: Chinese soft power, reserve currency | Leave a Comment »
Al Roads Lead To Kabul- India seeks a new direction
Posted by seumasach on March 11, 2010
“In retrospect, Delhi’s hare-brained idea of a US-led “quadripartite alliance” against China, the “Tibet card”, the dilution of a 2003 strategic understanding with Iran, neglect of the traditional friendship with Russia, the lukewarm attitude toward the SCO, exaggerated notions within the establishment regarding the US-India strategic partnership as an alternative to an independent foreign policy and diversified external relationships – all these appear now like dreadful pantomimes out of India’s foreign policy chronicle of recent years that Delhi would rather not think about.”
M.K.Bhadrakumar
12th March, 2010
The two-day visit by India’s National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon to Kabul last week took place in the immediate context of the lethal terrorist strike on Indians in Kabul on February 26, but it underscored the need for a comprehensive rethink on Delhi’s Afghanistan policy.
Posted in Multipolar world | Leave a Comment »
The Battle for Europe
Posted by seumasach on March 10, 2010
Cailean Bochanan
10th March, 2010
One of the key arguments against the Eurozone of its detractors is that it has at its heart a flaw, namely, that it lacks the political unity necessary to make a single currency possible. Now that the sensational news of a European Monetary Fund has broken the cry goes up of “economic governance”. This is rich coming from those who want “economic governance” for the whole world and illustrates the fact that no matter what Europe does it can’t win. Or can it?
Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: Britain into Europe-Europe out of NATO, End of empire | Leave a Comment »
US – China: Provoking the Creditor, Hugging the Holy man
Posted by seumasach on March 10, 2010
James Petras
9th March
The Obama administration’s escalating provocations against China may come at a very high price. It would be unrealistic to assume that China will continue to remain impassive before the territorial threats, economic pressures and diplomatic insults without retaliating. China may decide to dump a large share of its US securities holdings, prompting other foreign investors to follow suit. Those who claim Chinese economic interests would suffer from such a sell off overlook the fact that China is in a comparatively better position to absorb the ‘shock’ of a deterioration in US economic relations and still land on her feet.
Posted in Multipolar world | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 