Posted by seumasach on February 18, 2014
Clearly we now have movement in Europe with the perspectives of the sidelining of the Lisbon Treaty and a some form of sovereign democracy within the core Euroland. At the same time Michel Barnier’s banking union promises to curb financier power in the eurozone and end the bailouts.
Le Monde
16th February, 2014
Un collectif d’économistes et de politologues, dont Thomas Piketty ou Pierre Rosanvallon, appelle à de profondes réformes démocratiques et notamment à la création d’une chambre parlementaire de la zone euro.
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Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: euroland construction, eurozone integration | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 18, 2014
The terrible truth about educational levels is another aspect of contemporary Britain which we refuse to confront along with the real state of our banks, our infrastructure, our industrial base, our public health and so on.
Telegraph
17th february, 2014
British schoolchildren are lagging so far behind their peers in the Far East that even pupils from wealthy backgrounds are now performing worse in exams than the poorest students in China, an international study shows.
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Posted in UK economy | Tagged: bankrupt Britain, End of empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 18, 2014
The great about quantitative easing is that at the same time as providing an ongoing bailout of Wall Street it releases speculative funds to drive up food prices globally. This enables further US-backed destabilization campaigns, led by “activists” and cheer-led by the Guardian newspaper, directed against the worlds “regimes”. But these dollars are now coming home to roost with the promise of hyper-inflation in the homeland. How will our “regimes” respond?
Guardian
18th February, 2014
A crowd of anti-government activists wrested free an opposition politician as he was being hauled away in handcuffs by security forces following a raid on the party headquarters of Leopoldo López, President Nicolas Maduro’s biggest foe.
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Posted in Currency Wars | Tagged: dollar collapse, End of empire, quantitative easing | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 18, 2014
Although the need for Eurozone, as opposed to EU, integration has been evident for some time, this is perhaps the first high-level statement to that effect. The Eurozone is now the core of the Europe and the rest are distinctly the periphery. Britain clearly will remain on the periphery for the immediate future, a fact which will facilitate a “Yes” vote in any referendum although the problem of a viable UK currency will remain unresolved as will be true even of countries outside the EU such as Iceland. This statement should serve as a dampener for the more fanciful notions of the Ukrainian “opposition” regarding European integration: Europe must now focus on building its core rather than serving as a cover for NATO expansion aimed against Russia.
Guardian
17th February, 2014
A celebrated call by Winston Churchill for the creation of a “United States of Europe” was revived on Monday by a leading member of theEuropean commission who said the 18 eurozone countries should form a full fiscal and political union.
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Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: eurozone integration | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 18, 2014
This neo-con view of Obama’s Middle East policy is in marked contrast to that of the left. The left see nothing but growing US belligerence, a new cold war, retreat by Iran, renewed possibility of an attack on Syria and an intractable Israel. Bolton’s view is actually more realistic pointing to the ebbing of US global power and the consequent concessions to one-time enemies. Bolton, of course, hopes that US diplomacy will fail, as do so many vested, lobby interests in the vague hope of returning to the Anglo-American global hegemony agenda. He darkly evokes “another 9/11, another disaster” which “will produce the necessary awakening.”
John Bolton
LATimes
18th February, 2014
President Obama has three significant Middle East diplomatic initiatives underway, treating, respectively, Iran’s nuclear weapons program; Syria’s deadly, exhausting conflict; and the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Into these negotiations, Obama and his administration have poured enormous amounts of American prestige, time and effort.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: neocons v.Obama, obama revolution, Obama's realist turn | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 17, 2014
Another CIA destabilization campaign bites the dust and so the Ukraine won’t be getting the IMF programme after all. Meanwhile a forlorn “Yats and Klitsch” plead with EU for assistance and ending of visa controls. The Europeans need to reflect on the idiocy of their intervention in this crisis and how someone like Ashton could become their foreign policy spokeswoman.
Euractiv
17th February, 2014
Ukrainian opposition protesters ended a two-month occupation of the City Hall in Kyiv yesterday (16 February), reaching an amnesty offer aimed at easing a stand-off over President Viktor Yanukovich’s rule. The Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, welcomed the move.
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Posted in Battle for Europe | Tagged: EU-Ukraine free trade agreement, Eurasian Economic Community, Ukraine | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 17, 2014
People’s Daily
17th February, 2014
RAMALLAH, Feb. 17 — A Palestinian official warned on Monday that the failure of thecurrent Palestinian-Israeli peace talks will lead to the collapse of the Palestinian NationalAuthority (PNA).
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Posted in Global peace process | Tagged: Israel-Palestine accord | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 17, 2014
Iran’s Bank Mellat sues UK for $4bn in losses
Trend
16th February, 2014
Iran’s largest private bank, Bank Mellat, is suing the UK Treasury for some USD 4 billion in compensation for loss of business caused by the illegal sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear energy program, lawyers for the bank say, Press TV reported.
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Posted in Iran | Tagged: eu sanctions iran, No sanctions against Iran! | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 17, 2014
Lavrov: Syrian Opposition Sponsors Working on New Structure
FNA
17th February, 2014
TEHRAN (FNA)- Russia possesses information that a foreign sponsor of the Syrian opposition is trying to create a new Syrian opposition structure with the purpose of obstructing the peace talks, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
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Posted in Syria | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 17, 2014
The Diplomat
8th February, 2014
The United States has been quite vocal about its “pivot to Asia,” but as Washington seeks to further its influence in the Asia-Pacific, China has been quietly upping its own importance to Central and Latin America. Now China is making a push to further its engagement with countries in the Western Hemisphere, as evidenced by the announcement of a new dialogue mechanism. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which met in Cuba from January 28 to 29, adopted a statement announcing the establishment of a China-CELAC Forum.
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Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: BRICS(Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa), China-CELAC Forum, Chinese soft power, End of empire, The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on February 17, 2014
LEAP 2020
16th February, 2014
The avalanche of liquidity from the Fed’s quantitative easing in 2013, allowed the world before’s tenets to wake up: indebtedness, bubbles, globalization, financialization… But all it took was a slight slowing down in the astronomical amounts injected by the US central bank every month for the rampant crisis, buried under these piles of liquidity, to reassert itself. As anticipated, the method of “resolving” the crisis by accentuating the excesses that caused it is ineffective, causing a crisis squared instead. All the same one can find an actual benefit: time is gained which everyone uses to their best advantage.
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Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: BRICS(Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa), dollar collapse, End of empire, QE3, tapering | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 