Posted by seumasach on May 25, 2015
Zero Hedge
23rd May, 2015
Beginning with the marvelous tales of Marco Polo’s travels across Eurasia to China, the Silk Road has never ceased to entrance the world. Now, the ancient cities of Samarkand, Baku, Tashkent, and Bukhara are once again firing the world’s imagination.
China is building the world’s greatest economic development and construction project ever undertaken: The New Silk Road. The project aims at no less than a revolutionary change in the economic map of the world. It is also seen by many as the first shot in a battle between east and west for dominance in Eurasia.
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Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Chinese soft power, New Silk Road | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 25, 2015
Pepe Escobar
RT
22nd May, 2015
It started in April with a rash of deals between Argentina and Russia during President Cristina Kirchner’s visit to Moscow.
And it continues with a $53 billion investment bang as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visits Brazil during the first stop of yet another South American commercial offensive – complete with a sweet metaphor: Li riding on a made in China subway train that will ply a new metro line in Rio de Janeiro ahead of the 2016 Olympics.
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Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: BRICS(Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa), Chinese soft power | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 25, 2015
Zero Hedge
24th May, 2015
While many eagerly await the day when China will finally reveal its latest official gold holdings, a number which when made public will be orders of magnitude higher than its last 2009 disclosure of just over 1,000 tons, or less even than Russia, China continues to plough ahead with agreements and arrangements to obtain even more gold in the coming years.
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Posted in Currency Wars | Tagged: gold standard, new financial architecture | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 20, 2015
M.K.bhadrakumar
Indian Punchline
The summing up of the meeting at Camp David on Thursday between President Barack Obama and “Heads of Delegations” of the Gulf Cooperation Council [GCC] member states couldn’t have been an easy job. To begin with, the planned summit didn’t quite happen in the absence of several key leaders from the GCC side. Except for the leaders of Kuwait and Qatar, the other 4 declined the US invitation. Funnily, the king of Bahrain, an important regional ally that houses the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, preferred to instead visit a horse show in Britain.
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Posted in Global peace process, Iran | Tagged: Iranian diplomacy, Obama agenda, Obama's realist turn, retreat from empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 17, 2015
GEAB
15th May, 2015
For the fourth consecutive month, accompanied by all the usual precautions, our team continues to believe that the crisis’ peak is now behind us. It’s clear that two photos taken five minutes before and five minutes after this peak can be identical. On the other hand the film isn’t comparable; it’s that the perspective is radically different. The mountain walker knows, after crossing the pass that the descent seems easier than the climb: clear direction, gravity on one’s side, shelter in sight… But be careful all the same, before reaching the tarmac road obstacles and risks of a fall are still very present, perhaps even aggravated by the comfortable feeling associated with the fatigue of the climb. This impression of the end of the walk is exactly what our team feels after four months now. Some of our readers are surprised to see us put on rose tinted spectacles; are the spectacles rose tinted or is it really this crisis’ setting sun shining through?
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Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: retreat from empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 15, 2015
Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
15th May, 2015
The real Masters of the Universe in the U.S. are no weathermen, but arguably they’re starting to feel which way the wind is blowing.
History may signal it all started with this week’s trip to Sochi, led by their paperboy, Secretary of State John Kerry, who met with Foreign Minister Lavrov and then with President Putin.
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Posted in Disband NATO!, Global peace process, Iran, Multipolar world, New Cold War, Ukraine War | Tagged: Chinese soft power, retreat from empire, Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 15, 2015
Just when the left intelligencia thought they had found a Manichean struggle they could really get their teeth into Kerry goes swanning into Moscow to exchange high fives with Lavrov, metaphorically speaking, and in the blink of an eye the much-vaunted New Cold War is dead. The conflict with Russia was invaluable in covering the retreat in Syria and Iran: now a bit more rough wooing of China with some gratuitous and utterly vacuous threats thrown in is covering the retreat from Moscow. Obama really wants a close engagement with both Russia and China and the capital inflows and the easing of the military budget which will flow from it, buts wants to make it clear that there will be “consequences” if his overtures are rejected. He also has one eye for the various dead-enders and nostalgics at home, in Wall Street, in the military-industrial complex, the lobbies and, above all ,the media who still haven’t grasped that the unipolar moment has passed. All in all, Obama is playing a masterful game in steering the good ship America and, consequently, the whole of humanity to safer waters, a journey which could culminate in new beginnings and much needed national and global reconstruction.
M.K.Bhadrakumar
Asia Times
14th May, 2015
There is no need to second guess the identity of the third party present in the room in Sochi on Tuesday when the U.S. secretary of state John Kerry met the Russian leaders. Most certainly, if a strong stimulus is to be accounted for as working on the U.S. president Barack Obama’s cerebral mind prompting him to break the ice in the relations with Russia, it is the Sino-Russian entente that has emerged in global politics. See my blog Obama’s overture to Putin has paid off.)
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Posted in Global peace process, New Cold War | Tagged: retreat from empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 14, 2015
The Tory program to end “big government” nows goes ahead although, of course, it was scarcely discussed in the election campaign. Central government will no longer be able to play its traditional role in terms of spending and, at least potentially. standing as a barrier to oligarchy.
Guardian
14th May, 2015
George Osborne will on Thursday invite England’s big cities to join Manchester in bidding for devolved powers, as long as they agree to be governed by a directly elected mayor.
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Posted in Constitutional change in Britain | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 13, 2015
“I think Kerry’s visit was intended not just to signal a shift in the US stance but, above all, to try to partially restore the dialogue that had been practically severed. Naturally, if the United States wants to resume dialogue, it must take into account Russia’s stand, at least on some issues,” Pushkov said.
TASS
13th May, 2015
MOSCOW, May 13. /TASS/. The United States has acknowledged for the first time that Kiev doesn’t comply with the Minsk agreements, Chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee Alexey Pushkov told reporters on Wednesday. He commented on the remarks by US Secretary of State John Kerry, which he made following talks in Sochi with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
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Posted in Ukraine War | Tagged: Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 12, 2015
M.K.Bhadrakumar
Indian Punchline
6th May, 2015
The seventieth anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany falls this weekend. The World War II erupted when India’s freedom struggle was nearing the high noon and the demand was rising to a crescendo that Britain should “quit” India. There were two opinions in India at that time as to who was India’s bigger enemy – Britain or Japan. Unsurprisingly, in zero sum terms, it appeared to many that Britain’s defeat meant India’s victory.
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Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: Non Aligned Movement | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 10, 2015
Powerful interests are behind the role out of Wi-fi in schools but the interests of children’s education and health are not one of them. Despite overwhelming evidence spanning over 50 years the likes of Dr Simon Mann can still come out with this:“We do not think the balance of available scientific evidence on radiofrequency has shifted and, as such, our position remains that PHE [Public Health England] sees no reason why Wi-Fi should not continue to be used in schools and in other places,”
Dr Erica Mallery-Blyhte is a brave woman who deserves the support of all right-minded people
Telegraph
9th May, 2015
Six years ago, Dr Erica Mallery-Blythe moved to the country, stopped carrying a mobile phone and sacrificed a successful career in emergency medicine to focus on a new medical interest – radiation emitted by Wi-Fi, mobiles and other wireless devices.
She is now one of the country’s few professional advisers on medical conditions related to radiofrequency (RF) radiation and other electromagnetic fields (EMFs).
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Posted in Ecological and Public Health Crisis | Tagged: EM radiation health hazard | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 