Posted by seumasach on September 4, 2016
At first clash with reality the Brexit agenda will simply disintegrate- this is just the beginning. Britain is not a “great trading nation” but a great debtor nation. Any path which leads us into conflict with our major creditors, investors and suppliers is simply madness.
Guardian
4th September, 2016
The Japanese government letter setting out its Brexit demands is deeply troubling to the UK since it is clear Japanese companies want Theresa May to negotiate a deal that leaves Britain not just in the EU customs union, and single market, but also retains a free flow of workers between the EU and the UK.
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Posted by seumasach on September 4, 2016
Independent
4th September, 2016
European economies will be thrown into “great turmoil” if the UK and EU cannot agree on a deal for Brexit that includes an element of free movement of labour, the Japanese government has warned.
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Posted by seumasach on September 1, 2016
Asia Times
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.
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Posted in Containing China, Oceania | Tagged: Australia-China relations, China Australian coopeeration | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 31, 2016
Independent
31st August, 2016
Germany’s EU Commissioner has expressed doubts over whether the UK will actually leave the European Union, saying he would not “place any major bets on Brexit“.
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Posted by seumasach on August 29, 2016
Posted in brexit crisis | Tagged: brexit fiasco, Tory party split | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 29, 2016
A senior Conservative told the paper: “There’s a tussle going on here. The chief culprit is the chancellor.
“He has taken the position that there are no red lines, that you’ve got to stay part of the market and it doesn’t matter what you give way on. Hammond is operating as a blocking mechanism.”
Soon the divisions in the Labour Party will pale in comparison with those in the Tory Party. Hammond’s position is de facto “remain”. Remaining in the single market means remaining in the EU or possibly the EEA. The latter option is really quite pointless since it is merely a kind of downgraded membership. Hammond’s goal will be to split the Brexit camp and neutralise it: this is all too easy since they lack any coherent programme. As soon as a negotiation plan becomes an imperative the enormity of the Brexit fiasco will be there for all to see. As so often throughout history the worst thing that can happen to an oppositional movement is that they are put into power. Soon they will long for the old days of endless complaining and finger-pointing and, it has to be said, lying about the EU without any need for an alternative geopolitical vision.
Britain will retain access to single market and curb migration under plans considered by Theresa May
Telegraph
28th Auigust, 2016
Britain will retain access to the single market for financial sector and the car industry while curbing migration under plans being considered by Theresa May.
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Posted by seumasach on August 28, 2016
“The UK was seen as one of the strongest supporters of TTIP in the EU, so its departure following the Brexit vote would remove one of the US’s closest allies in the talks.”
Brexit is accelerating the uncoupling of Europe and the USA and the emergence of an independent Europe. In this sense, Brexit has been entirely salutary. Contrary to the myths pedalled by the Brexit camp, Britain has exerted great influence inside Europe- but it has been largely negative. If Britain now seeks a trade deal with the USA they will be in weak bargaining position and if it any ways resembles TTIP that will render a trade deal with Europe even more difficult than it would be anyway. In trying to negotiate trade deals with conflicting blocks our dilemma is worryingly reminiscent of that of Ukraine. Ukraine’s interests lay with the Eurasian free trade area but her “identity” pushed her towards the chimera of a deal with the EU.
Independent
28th August, 2016
The free trade negotiations between the European Union and the United States have failed, but “nobody is really admitting it”, Germany’s Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has said.
Posted in Battle for Europe, brexit crisis | Tagged: Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 27, 2016
The loss of the Turkey “vassal” secures the failure of the state Department’s Syria policy. At the same time, China has made a bold move in supporting Damascus militarily showing that they cannot be “contained” in the Asia-Pacific. The writing is on the wall for US hegemony as it has been for some time: the question really is can the USA abandon exceptionalism and enter into power sharing agreements with it’s rivals. Such leadership is badly needed but as the USA fragments into a chaos of interest groups, lobbies and identities where can it come from? Both Clinton’s neoconservative revival and Trump’s anti-China isolationism look like the pure fantasy of a nation unable to realistically assess it’s own status.
Mike Whitney
UNZ
25th August, 2016
The main architect of Washington’s plan to rule the world has abandoned the scheme and called for the forging of ties with Russia and China. While Zbigniew Brzezinski’s article in The American Interest titled “Towards a Global Realignment” has largely been ignored by the media, it shows that powerful members of the policymaking establishment no longer believe that Washington will prevail in its quest to extent US hegemony across the Middle East and Asia. Brzezinski, who was the main proponent of this idea and who drew up the blueprint for imperial expansion in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, has done an about-face and called for a dramatic revising of the strategy. Here’s an excerpt from the article in the AI:
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Posted by seumasach on August 26, 2016
M.K.Bhadrakumar
Asia Times
26th August, 2016
If US Vice President Joe Biden hoped for a trade-off with Turkish President Recep Erdogan – US assurances over Euphrates River ‘red line’ for Kurdish militia in lieu of Turkey’s acquiescence with Islamist preacher Fetullah Gulen remaining in Pennsylvania – that was not to be. ‘Euphrates Shield’ pre-empted Biden’s bidding. Erdogan thereby made Gulen’s extradition a ‘stand-alone’ issue. US’s Syria policies are in free fall and Turkey is increasingly eyeing Russia and Iran as its key interlocutors to resolve the Syrian problem.
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Posted in Multipolar world, Syria | Tagged: Russian diplomacy, Turkey-Syria-Russia-Iran alliance | Leave a Comment »
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.
Asia Times
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.
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Posted in Containing China, Oceania | Tagged: Chinese soft power, US-China: clash of world systems | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 25, 2016
This is the logical culmination of the emergence of Russia as the dominant military and diplomatic force in the Middle East.
Independent
25th August, 2016
Vladimir Putin is ready and willing to host peace talks aimed at resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to Egypt’s president.
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Posted in Palestine | Tagged: Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 