13th September, 2016
Brazil’s political bloodletting claimed another high-profile victim on Monday when the lower house voted to expel its former speaker Eduardo Cunha for perjury, corruption and obstruction of justice.
Archive for the ‘Oceania’ Category
Brazilian politician who led Rousseff impeachment is expelled from office
Posted by seumasach on September 13, 2016
Posted in Oceania | Tagged: eduardo cunha, impeachment crisis in Brazil, Stop the coup in Brazil! | Leave a Comment »
Australia must choose between US and China
Posted by seumasach on September 1, 2016
SYDNEY (Reuters) – A senior U.S. soldier said on Thursday Australia must choose between a stronger U.S. alliance or closer ties with China, and urged Canberra to take a tougher stance against Chinese claims in the South China Sea.
Posted in Containing China, Oceania | Tagged: Australia-China relations, China Australian coopeeration | Leave a Comment »
Chinese political donations highlight Australian anxieties
Posted by seumasach on August 25, 2016
Since the anglo-saxon economic model is simply incapable of generating investment in the real economy Australia, like the UK and the USA, has become dependent on inward investment from China. It is now rebelling against this dependence, biting the hand that feeds it, along with it’s kith and kin in the USA and Britain in an alliance of losers. In this Oceanic dystopia “security concerns” trump economic interests. At the same time the notorious role of big money in running the political system suddenly becomes a problem when it’s a question of China rather than the homegrown oligarchy, or the Americans, buying politicians.
24th August, 2016
MELBOURNE–An influx of political donations from Chinese concerns has focused anxieties about the rising superpower’s growing influence here, while sparking calls for reform of the country’s lax political finance laws.
Posted in Containing China, Oceania | Tagged: Chinese soft power, US-China: clash of world systems | Leave a Comment »
Could Trump pull off a post-party coalition?
Posted by seumasach on August 19, 2016
I think this is a credible outline of the Trump agenda: it ties in with the Brexit agenda and the emergence of an anti-China front which curiously replicates the Oceania of Orwell’s 1984. Essentially, it envisages a reconstruction policy without engagement with China. It is extremely questionable that such an Listian economic nationalist program can work in today’s conditions. It presupposes that capital goods and commodities can be imported for an ever devalued dollar. It presupposes that the USA still possesses the skills base and the national ethos for such a program, that it can accept sacrifice and a massive shift from consumer to capital spending. It presupposes that the US financial system can be adapted to productive capital investment and that the managerial, bureaucratic basis for a centrally directed economy can be put in place. And, above all, it presupposes that oligarchical interests can reconcile themselves to the dirigiste model which has hitherto been a taboo, that the political conditions for a latter-day New Deal exist. Is this, in the end, the last illusion of a USA which is rejecting a globalisation which it no longer controls?
Pepe Escobar
17th August, 2016
Hillary Clinton, Queen of Chaos, Queen of War, Golden Goldman Girl, for all practical purposes is by now the official bipartisan candidate of US neocons and neoliberalcons alike.
Posted in Containing China, Oceania | Tagged: trump agenda, US-China: clash of world systems | Leave a Comment »
China warns ‘protectionist’ Australia on investment
Posted by seumasach on August 17, 2016
SYDNEY/BEIJING (Reuters) – Australia’s decision to block the A$10 billion ($7.7 billion) sale of the country’s biggest energy grid to Chinese bidders was a protectionist move that would negatively affect investment in the country, China’s Ministry of Commerce said on Wednesday.
Posted in Containing China, Oceania | Tagged: Australia-China relations, Chinese soft power | Leave a Comment »
Three-quarters of Australians back naval challenge to China in South China Seas
Posted by seumasach on August 2, 2016
It was once faith versus reason but now it’s identity versus reason and identity is winning hands down. Never mind that their relationship with China is a core economic interest for Australians, thev are prepared to jeopardise it on the basis of a pro-western, anglo-saxon identity.
21st June, 2016
Three-quarters of Australians believe the country’s Navy should follow the United States in challenging Beijing’s expanding military activity in the disputed waters of the South China Sea by carrying out so called “freedom-of-navigation” operations, a poll has found.
Posted in Containing China, Oceania | Tagged: Australia-China relations | Leave a Comment »
Brazil’s Temer says Mercosur needs revision
Posted by seumasach on August 1, 2016
It’s not just Brexit putting regional integration projects in question. Already after the coup in Brazil Mercosur’s future is being put in doubt by coup leader Temer:
“We need to rediscuss Mercosur at this moment, not to eliminate it, but to give us a safer position to seek to broaden our relations with other countries,” Temer said.
Which other countries might these be? Mercosur is negotiating a trade deal with the EU but that seemingly isn’t broad enough. Unsurprisingly, he is also blocking Venezuela’s upcoming presidency of Mercosur.
Then we have Trump’s wall effectively ending NAFTA, Australia bringing into question it’s partnership with China and it’s Asian future and the question of Hong Kong secession suddenly raised. We seem to be witnessing an emerging anglosphere which would look very much like Oceania in Orwell’s 1984.
24th June, 2016
Brazil’s interim President Michel Temer said the Mercosur trade bloc poses an obstacle to other trade agreements and needs to be revised, but not ditched altogether.
Posted in Oceania, Uncategorized | Tagged: oceania | Leave a Comment »
UK seeks Anglo-Saxon block against Europe
Posted by seumasach on September 24, 2012
“For all the grandiose talk of European unity, we have so much more in common with many Commonwealth countries than the EU”
UK hopes NZ will join sharing initiative
24th September, 2012
The British Foreign Secretary hopes New Zealand and Australia will join an initiative to share diplomatic missions with Britain and Canada in remote countries.
Posted in Oceania | Tagged: anglo-saxon block | Leave a Comment »
Welcome to Oceania! Britain and Canada to share embassies
Posted by seumasach on September 24, 2012
Britain and Canada will establish joint diplomatic missions and share embassy offices abroad, William Hague will announce later today.
24th September, 2012
Mr Hague is due to disclose more details of the plans when he meets hisCanadian counterpart, John Baird, in Ottawa later today, a Foreign Office spokesman said.
Posted in Oceania | Leave a Comment »
British poodle bites the hand that feeds it
Posted by seumasach on August 11, 2012
Posted in Oceania | Leave a Comment »
Team GB, Arise!
Posted by seumasach on August 9, 2012
Cailean Bochanan
9th August, 2012
For a long time British radicals of various hues have voiced fears of Britain becoming merely a US aircraft carrier off the coast of Europe, a proxy for our transatlantic cousins, the “airstrip 1” of Orwellian fame. At the same time some US radicals saw Britain as the dark, hidden hand manipulating the US government. Both may be right in as far as the real power centres lurking behind the scenes of both governments are translantic and transnational: they constitute an imperial elite rather than a national one. Thus the time may be approaching when the above-mentioned fears of radicals of both nations are to be realised.
Posted in Oceania | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 