Facing total economic meltdown at home US/UK, spear-heading NATO, have chosen the path of confrontation with the rest of the world, a path which will lead us to the brink of war with Russia and China
Posted by seumasach on May 14, 2010
13th May, 2010
High-ranking sources in the Israeli Foreign Ministry expressed displeasure with Turkey over deploying anti-aircraft batteries along the Syrian border in the Iskenderun district.
The Turkish daily Hurriyet meanwhile, quoted a military source as saying that “this move aims at repelling a US or Israeli attack against Iran or Syria.”
Posted in Iran | Tagged: Turkish diplomacy | 1 Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 13, 2010
Clegg offers change, but change a la Obama.(Plus ca change…..) He represents an update of atlanticist thinking which has fallen behind on this side of the Atlantic since the election in the US of the greener, hipper, pseudo-charismatic conman, Barak Obama of Goldman
Laura Rozen
12th May, 2010
After naming William Hague as the UK’s new foreign secretary, Britain’s new prime minister David Cameron set up the UK’s first American-style National Security Council, whose first priority would be coordinating UK policy to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The new NSC was to hold its first meeting Wednesday, including Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Hague, and other ministers.
“The council will discuss the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and review the terrorist threat to the UK,” the prime minister’s office said, according to the AFP.
“It is our most urgent priority here in my work to make sure we have a grip on what is going on in Afghanistan,” Hague told Sky News.
“And I know that will consume a lot of our time and energy and effort,” he continued. “We have been fighting some political battles here but they are in a real battle out there.”
Hague served as Tory leader from 1997 to 2001, and as Secretary of State for Wales in the UK’s last conservative government of John Major.
“The advent of the kind of international co-operation at least discussed at recent summits of the G20, and of a new United States administration with a multilateral approach to foreign policy that provides other nations with a fresh opportunity to respond positively, both give some cause for optimism in international relations,” Hague said in a speech last year to the International Institute for Strategic Studies about what a Conservative UK foreign policy would look like.
“It is not unreasonable at least to hope for advances in the Middle East Peace Process, for success in a new approach in Afghanistan, for a better era in U.S.-Russia relations and for a more constructive response to the international community from the leadership of Iran, or a more determined effort by the international community to overcome Iranian intransigence,” he continued. “While the prospect of any of these hopes coming to fruition survives it is vital for America’s allies to work hard to bring that about for the good of all.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Hague last October when he visited Washington in his capacity as the Shadow Foreign Secretary, the State Department said Wednesday.
“The @Foreign Office have uploaded a selection of photos from my first day in the office,” hetweeted today
Posted in Afghanistan | Tagged: End of empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 13, 2010
Posted in Drive to Global War | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 11, 2010
Gareth Porter
12th May, 2010
Although General Stanley McChrystal’s plan for wresting the Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar from the Taliban is still in its early stages of implementation, there are already signs that the setbacks and obstacles it has experienced have raised serious doubts among top military officials in Washington about whether the plan of the commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan is going to work.
Posted in Afghanistan | Tagged: End of empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 6, 2010
Kaveh L Afrasiabi
7th May, 2010
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad seems to only gain in strength with the growing intensity of North American and European attacks against him. Such is the global community’s slide into competing camps, his championing of the nuclear “have-nots” – the bulk of the world’s population – gives him the demeanor of a peace activist who speaks the language of disarmament.
Posted in Iran, Multipolar world | Tagged: Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 5, 2010
Shirin Ebadi
3rd May, 2010
The 2010 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference will convene from 3-28 May 2010 in New York. This year’s conference – as with previous years’ – promises to be yet another battle between the developing and the nuclear-armed nations. The US insists that the NPT needs to be rewritten so as to place greater limits on what it calls “nuclear weapons proliferation” whilst the developing nations say that the concern over proliferation is being used as a pretext by the US to avoid its own obligations under the same treaty to disarm its own nukes and to share nuclear technology with everyone else. This year, the same conflict will likely continue, and the US (and the US media) will of course try to blame it on Iran when in fact the emphasis on disarmament is shared by a number of countries called the New Agenda Coalition that includes Brazil, New Zealand and Egypt, and is not limited to Iran.
Posted in Iran | Tagged: Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 2, 2010
Pepe Escobar
30th April, 2010
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim put it very politely at a joint press conference with his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki in Tehran this Tuesday. Amorim said, “Brazil is interested to have a share in settling the Iranian nuclear issue in an appropriate way.”
“Appropriate” is code for dialogue – not a fourth round of sanctions slammed by the United Nations Security Council, much less the military option, which the Barack Obama administration has stridently kept on the table. Thus by positioning itself as a mediator in search for a peaceful solution, the Brazilian government is in fact on a “soft” collision course with the Obama administration.
Posted in Iran, Multipolar world | Tagged: BRIC alliance, IAEA iran, Multipolar world | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on April 28, 2010
15th April, 2010
A large fleet of warships, submarines, frigates and aircraft from 10 NATO countries and one non-NATO member has congregated here to take part in the ‘Brilliant Mariner’ maritime exercise in the Baltic Sea.
Posted in Battle for Europe, Disband NATO! | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on April 26, 2010
20th April, 2010
Suite à l’éruption du volcan Eyjafjöll, la fermeture de l’espace aérien dans la zone orientale de l’OTAN a été décidée sur la base de recommandations infondées de l’organisme britannique de surveillance. Celles-ci ont été immédiatement rejetées par la Russie, mais appliquées par les États de l’OTAN à leur seule aviation civile, tandis que l’Alliance faisait voler ses chasseurs bombardiers, pourtant théoriquement plus vulnérables. Les vérifications ont été retardées par les autorités, malgré l’impatience des compagnies aériennes. En définitive, la gestion de cette catastrophe naturelle a été délibérément catastrophiste.
Posted in Battle for Europe, Disband NATO! | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on April 23, 2010
23rd April, 2010
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has criticized bullying powers for making attempts to deprive world nations of their inalienable rights.
“A number of bullying powers in the world have violated the rights of nations and have, for centuries, deprived them of their inalienable rights,” said Ahmadinejad on Friday at the opening ceremony of an international trade fair in Zimbabwe’s second largest city, Bulawayo.
Posted in Multipolar world, Zimbabwe | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on April 20, 2010
20th April, 2010
A senior Iranian lawmaker says the Parliament’s Committee on National Security and Foreign Policy has sent letters to four related ministries on downgrading relations with the UK.
Posted in Iran | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 