Posted by seumasach on September 13, 2016
13th September, 2016
“I will be charting a [new] course [for the Philippines] on its own and will not be dependent on the United States,” declared Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines’ firebrand president after winning a landslide victory earlier this year. Under the leadership of newly-minted president, the Philippines is rapidly transforming its foreign policy predisposition.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: End of empire, post-American world, Rodrigo Duterte | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 13, 2016
So Boris Johnson, who is the Foreign Secretary, rather than speaking for the government is speaking for those elements who were sidelined by Theresa May subsequent to her taking office. What makes it more incredible is that May had every reason to sideline the likes of Michael Gove who openly calls for the dismantling of the EU:
“For Europe, Britain voting to leave will be the beginning of something potentially even more exciting — the democratic liberation of a whole continent”.
The same goes for Gisella Stuart, who leads Change Britain, whose perspectives for the EU were outlined recently:
And the UK would have been forced to change its relationship with the EU eventually – because the Eurozone will one day collapse, she predicted.
“We either do that in a planned way now or if we’d stayed in the EU and waited for the inevitable, I think, collapse of part of the Eurozone or that structure, [we] would have had to do it under conditions of panic.
Both Gove and Stuart, leaders of the “Leave” campaign, are signatories to the Henry Jackson Society, a neoconservative group.
According to the blog Greater Surbiton:
“The HJS’s Associate Director, Douglas Murray, appointed in April 2011, is on record as having stated that ‘the EU is a monstrosity – no good can come of it… The best thing could just simply be for it to be razed to the ground and don’t start again [sic]‘).”
Johnson’s endorsement of Change Britain is a simply unbelievable development even although he is not meant to play a role as a negotiator in the event of article 50 being triggered. He is after all the Foreign Secretary.
The HJS held a discussion in July after the referendum on the theme: ‘The Aftermath of Brexit: “Could the EU and UK both die?”. Very reassuring.
11th September, 2016
Boris Johnson has endorsed a new cross-party campaign created by prominent pro-Brexit politicians aimed at pressuring Theresa May into fully delivering on the promise that Britain will leave the EU.
Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit fiasco | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 12, 2016
12th September, 2016
Fianna Fáil is preparing to capitalise on the post-Brexit sentiment by securing its first elected representatives north of the Border in 2019.
Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit and Irish border | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 12, 2016
9th September, 2016
THE British government should listen to the views of Irish-America and respect the vote of the majority of people in the North to remain in the European Union, Sinn Féin’s John O’Dowd MLA has said.
Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit and Irish border | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 12, 2016
What this reveals is that the new US doctrine of detente with Russia alongside containment of China is already dead in the water. The assumption behind this strategy would have been that Russia and China could be set at odds rather as they were by Kissinger in 1972. China’s deployment in Syria and Russia’s support for China over the South Seas have essentially laid to rest such delusions. As a result, I would predict that the Brexit project will be very short-lived, that Temer will be hoisted on his own petard of Facebook protest, that Macri will reverse his anti-China shift, that the oppositional movements Venezuela, South Africa and Zimbabwe will fail and that Australia will not end up preferring a security alliance with the USA to it’s vital economic interests in a trade deal with China. At the same time, all the logic of this situation points to a Trump victory in the US. There will be no comeback for the neo-con elements purged by Obama now gathering around Clinton. We are at a remarkable conjuncture with the moment of truth to come with the raising of interest rates in the US. Then we will know exactly the potential for East-West cooperation and a reset of the global financial system: whether what is to come will be merely painful or totally catastrophic.
M.K.Bhadrakumar
11th September, 2016
The wrap on the long-awaited China-Russia naval exercise in the South China Sea has been lifted, finally. From what Beijing disclosed today regarding the eight-day exercise (codenamed Joint Sea-2016), beginning on September 12, it is anything but a routine exercise. Make no mistake, it marks a leap forward in Sino-Russian military ties and signals a significant show of strategic congruence.
Posted in Containing China, Multipolar world | Tagged: Russia China co-operation | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 7, 2016
Pepe Escobar
6th September, 2016
The G20 in China was immensely impressive—in a way that very few in the West are able to understand. I’ve been living in Asia on and off for 22 years now—and other experienced, trusted Asia hands have had the same impression.
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: China's IMF role, China-led globalisation, SDRs | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 6, 2016
Who said good things wouldn’t come out of Brexit! The end of NATO is one of them. Without the UK European integration has received a shot in the arm and Europe begins to cast off US tutelage and emerge on the global stage as an independent force. As I have argued for some time this is a necessary step towards a multipolar world.
6th September, 2016
Europe is planning to forge ahead with plans for an EU Armythat some fear could eventually displace Nato, with senior officials in Brussels urging EU member states to capitalise on the “political space” left by Britain’s decision to vote to leave.
Posted in Disband NATO!, Multipolar world | Tagged: Britain into Europe-Europe out of NATO | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 5, 2016
5th September, 2016
Insurance market Lloyd’s may be forced to move some of its business to continental Europe as a result of the vote to leave the EU, chairman John Nelson has warned.
Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: the brexit disaster | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 5, 2016
5th September, 2016
For some time now people have been portraying the EU referendum as a model of democracy. In his resignation speech, for example, David Cameron said that “the country has taken part in a giant democratic exercise, perhaps the biggest in our history”, a view that was echoed by Andrew Marr, who described the referendum as “this country’s single biggest democratic act in modern times”.
Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit fiasco | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 5, 2016
“Without doubt, China has taken note that there is a significant change in Japan’s thinking toward Russia. An editorial in the Global Times newspaper viewed this shift as an attempt by Tokyo in concert with the US with a view to “impose geopolitical pressure on China.”
The great thing about the USA’s containment of China strategy is that it gives full scope to Russian diplomacy on multiple fronts without really doing anything to undermine the Russia-China relationship which is solidly based on shared interests. Thus, Russia is fully engaging with both Japan and the UK in resolving outstanding differences. At the same time, the containment of China strategy looks like being short-lived: the brexit agenda is already unravelling, the Brazilian oligarchy under Temer may be hoisted on its own petard of Facebook revolution and Australia has been confronted by a stark choice between China and the USA which it must ultimately resolve in favour of the former. Is China really as concerned as it makes out?
M.K.Bhadrakumar
4th September, 2016
Posted in Containing China | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on September 5, 2016
Paul De Grauwe
5th September, 2016
What should the EU’s priorities be in negotiations with the UK over Brexit? Paul De Grauwe writes that the EU should offer the UK two options: either following a Norwegian style model, or leaving entirely and negotiating a free trade agreement in the same way as other nations such as the United States and Canada. He argues that offering any concessions outside of these two options would risk fatally weakening the EU and should be avoided at all costs.
Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit negotiations | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 