Archive for the ‘Multipolar world’ Category
The New World Order is not turning out as planned. Instead of all power emanating from London and Washington, new power centres are emerging to the South and East: a new global equilibrium raises the possibility of a new post-imperial age of peace and equality between nations.
Putin and Chavez talking weapons, money and medals
Posted by seumasach on April 4, 2010
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Bolivarian Revolution, Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
India snubs US, to attend nuclear meet in Iran
Posted by seumasach on April 4, 2010
4th April, 2010
The Indian government will stand by its decision to take part in a nuclear meeting slated for mid-April in the Iranian capital, Tehran, in a move that is set to irk the US administration.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project | Leave a Comment »
Tarpley-US strategic position crumbling worldwide
Posted by seumasach on April 3, 2010
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Chinese diplomacy, End of empire | Leave a Comment »
Putin, Chavez, Morales to Meet on Energy, Military Cooperation
Posted by seumasach on April 3, 2010
2nd April, 2010
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is set to meet the presidents of Venezuela and Bolivia in Caracas Friday to sign military and energy deals.
Russian officials, including deputy prime minister Igor Sechin, arrived in Caracas Wednesday to prepare for Putin’s visit.
Putin and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will sign “accords taking us to the next phase of cooperation with Russia, which no longer will be limited to energy and military matters, but now also includes social, cultural and health issues,” Vice President Elias Jaua said Thursday on state-run VTV television.
Topping the list is an agreement to set up a Russian-Venezuelan development bank to finance a joint venture for oil and gas exploration in eastern Venezuela’s oil-rich Orinoco river basin.
The enterprise — 60 percent owned by Venezuela, 40 percent by a consortium of Russian companies — hopes to extract up to 450,000 barrels of oil per day from the Amazon region.
Putin and Chavez will also sign cooperation deals in agriculture, transportation, and the prevention of natural catastrophes, according to the meeting agenda.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Venezuela in November 2008 during joint naval exercises. Chavez visited Moscow in September.
Russia and Venezuela in 2005 and 2007 signed 12 military agreements worth some 4.4 billion dollars that have raised some concern in Washington.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro on Thursday said Russian-Venezuelan cooperation was based on “mutual trust in matters of security and defense… that has allowed us to upgrade all technology and equipment in our armed forces.”
Chavez last week thanked Russia for helping Venezuela “bolster its defensive potential” in the face of “threats” from the United States as he announced Putin’s visit.
Bolivian President Evo Morales is expected to seek a 100-million dollar loan from Russia to purchase military hardware, including an Antonov aircraft for the president’s use, officials in La Paz said.
The head of Russia’s military cooperation service, Mikhail Dmitriyev, said that Moscow was ready to grant Bolivia a loan for buying Russian military hardware. That loan, is expected to be confirmed during Friday’s summit.
Morales and Putin, meanwhile, are expected to discuss their own joint venture for gas and oil exploration in Bolivia, which has the second largest natural gas reserves in Latin America.
While his visit to Moscow in February, Morales and Medvedev signed a memorandum on energy cooperation to develop a gas pipeline network in the land-locked South American nation.
Medvedev at the time also told Morales he hoped Russia would soon deliver a batch of military helicopters, its first defense hardware for the Andean republic.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
China Must Reduce Reliance on Treasury Bills, China Daily Says
Posted by seumasach on April 1, 2010
1st April, 2010
China should be cautious about investing in or selling U.S. Treasury Bills because of the risks they present, the China Daily quoted Cheng Siwei, former vice- chairman of the standing committee in the National People’s Congress, as saying.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: China, dollar collapse | Leave a Comment »
Will China re-define great power politics?
Posted by seumasach on April 1, 2010
21st February, 2010
China is presenting its ascent not as a power shift, but as a paradigm shift. It claims that its rise will be different from other powers in the past and sets an example for a fundamental revision of the nature of great power politics. Instead of tragic rivalry for hegemony, it expects to develop strategic relationships that allow all countries to gain and build a stable and prosperous world order. This could herald the end of a history that has been characterized by hegemonic wars and hostile balancing strategies. It could pave the way for stronger institutionalized international cooperation on economic, environmental, and security affairs. In the next three months, New Europe and the Brussels Institute of Contemporary China Studies (BICCS) will analyze how China is affecting global politics, starting with an introductory essay this week.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Chinese diplomacy | 1 Comment »
U.S. exchange rate hegemony should come to halt
Posted by seumasach on March 31, 2010
23rd March, 2010
The hubbub of calls for Renminbi (RMB) appreciation has been increasingly clamorous in the United States. Of late, some U.S. senators have jointly initiated a bill moved forward by Senator Charles Schumer aimed at stopping China from “manipulating” its currency. The bill urged the Obama government to go on pressurizing China and threaten to list it as a “currency manipulator”.
Posted in Multipolar world | Leave a Comment »
China’s stance boosts Iran
Posted by seumasach on March 30, 2010
“The Iranian establishment has also arrived at the conclusion that within the framework of a global power shift, West Asia is transforming rapidly. There is a growing perception in Tehran of an emerging power vacuum in the region. This situation, in Tehran’s view, has arisen mainly on account of the growing weakness of Israel, especially after the debacle it suffered at the hands of the Iran-backed Hizbollah in the 2006 summer war in Lebanon. Iran firmly believes that eventually it would be joined by Turkey, Syria and Lebanon, and possibly Saudi Arabia, which is already working with Syria to stabilise a polarised Lebanon, to engender a new security order in the region. Many in the Iranian establishment are of the view that China and Russia are poised to emerge as the new global players in West Asia.”
26th March, 2010
Yang Jiechi, Foreign Minister of China, a veto-wielding member, spelt out clearly his country’s opposition to fresh sanctions in early February. Later in March, at a press conference, he said pressure and sanctions are not the fundamental way forward to resolving the Iran nuclear issue.
Encouraged by China’s firm resistance to “crippling sanctions,” and the resonance this view has found among regional heavyweights, including Brazil, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Iran is reasserting its long-held view that the era of western dominance, led by the United States, is entering its terminal phase. After sending mixed signals for some time on Iran, India has also firmly spelt out its opposition to fresh sanctions. Speaking on March 15 in Washington at the Woodrow Wilson Centre, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao said: “It continues to be our view that sanctions that target Iranian people and cause difficulties to the ordinary man, woman and child would not be conducive to a resolution of this [Iran] question.”
Posted in Multipolar world | Leave a Comment »
Karzai’s China-Iran dalliance riles Obama
Posted by seumasach on March 30, 2010
M K Bhadrakumar
39th March,2010
Great moments in diplomatic timing are hard to distinguish when the practitioners are inscrutable entities. Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s visits to China and Iran within the week rang alarm bells in Washington which were heard in the Oval Office of the White House.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Afghanistan, Chinese soft power, Iran, Multipolar world | 1 Comment »
Russia and China against the West?
Posted by seumasach on March 28, 2010
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Chinese soft power, Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
Ukraine Geopolitics and the US-NATO Military Agenda: Tectonic Shift in Heartland Power
Posted by seumasach on March 25, 2010
F. William Engdahl
24th March, 2010
The Ukrainian “orange revolution” was long-lived. Like the rest of the coloured revolutions, it basically amounted to a coup d’état orchestrated by Washington through the manipulation of public opinion. And as usual, it was the economic results of the team in power that sparked widespread disenchantment. While promising western prosperity, the government’s only goal was Ukraine’s accession to NATO. It’s defeat – and Viktor Yanukovich’ victory – deprives Washington of an indispensable piece to achieve the encirclement of Russia.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 