Headlines

Camp David: World leaders back Greece, vow to combat financial turmoil

Domingo 20 de Mayo de 2012 22:05 US PBS

Maryland, May 19 (Reuters).─ World leaders backed keeping Greece in the euro zone on Saturday and vowed to take all steps necessary to combat financial turmoil while revitalizing a global economy increasingly threatened by Europe's debt crisis.

A summit of the G8 leading industrialized nations came down solidly in favor of a push to balance European austerity - an approach long driven by German Chancellor Angela Merkel - with a new dose of U.S.-style stimulus seen as vital to healing ailing euro-zone economies. But it was clear that divisions remained.

"We commit to take all necessary steps to strengthen and reinvigorate our economies and combat financial stresses, recognizing that the right measures are not the same for each of us," the leaders said in a joint statement issued at their meeting at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland (find link below).

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Rajoy warns Spain faces debt market exile

Miércoles 16 de Mayo de 2012 23:09 Financial Times

Spain's prime minister warned his country risked being shut out of the financial markets unless Madrid pressed ahead with budget cuts, as yields on the country's debt touched six-month highs

Madrid/London, May 16.─ Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, Mariano Rajoy said: "We must reduce the public deficit because there is a serious risk that we will not be able to borrow, or borrow at astronomical prices ... All these measures are to get out of the hole we find ourselves in."

Yields on Spanish 10-year bonds briefly passed 6.50 per cent for the first time since November – moving towards levels that previously prompted bailouts for Greece, Portugal and Ireland – before later easing back to 6.30 per cent.

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The ominous threat of Mafia States

Lunes 14 de Mayo de 2012 23:29 Democracia Participativa

Organized crime takes office

May 14 (DP.net).─ Foreign Affairs Magazine (May/June 2012) refers to the threat and development of Mafia States in different corners of the World. FA underlines that "across the globe, criminals have penetrated governments to an unprecedented degree ... top positions in some of the world's most profitable illicit enterprises are no longer filled only by professional criminals; they now include senior government officials, legislators, spy chiefs, head of police departments, military officers, and, in some extreme cases, even heads of state and/or their family members".

FA analyzes in a well documented 12-pages report the cases of Bolivia, Bulgaria, China, Guinea-Bissau, Kosovo, Montenegro, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Ukraine and Venezuela, among others.

It is quite sobering the fact that criminal gangs have become involved in for-profit nuclear proliferation in Pakistan, with A. Q. Khan spreading bomb-making know-how to other nations arguing in his defense that he did it "in order to advance Pakistan's interests".

Regarding Bolivia, FA informs that "police departments, secret services, courts, local and provincial governments, passport-issuing agencies, and custom offices have all become coveted targets for criminal takeovers". Add a comment 63 hits

The Climate Threat - What It Is and How to Deal With It

Lunes 14 de Mayo de 2012 22:50 Foreign Affairs

As climate science has progressed, researchers have become aware of more warming agents
In February, the United States announced that it would lead a group of countries including Bangladesh, Canada, and Sweden in a new strategy to reduce short-lived pollutants

May 14.─ For more than two decades, diplomats have struggled to slow global warming. They have negotiated two major treaties to achieve that goal, the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. And last year, at the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, they agreed to start talking about yet another treaty. A small group of countries, including Japan and the members of the European Union, now regulate their emissions in accord with the existing agreements. But most states, including the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, China and the United States, have failed to make much progress. As a result, total emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading long-term cause of global warming, have risen by more than 50 percent since the 1980s and are poised to rise by more than 30 percent in the next two to three decades.

The ever-increasing quantity of emissions could render moot the aim that has guided international climate diplomacy for nearly a decade: preventing the global temperature from rising by more than two degrees Celsius above its preindustrial level. In fact, in the absence of significant international action, the planet is now on track to warm by at least 2.5 degrees during the current century -- and maybe even more. The known effects of this continued warming are deeply troubling: rising sea levels, a thinning Arctic icecap, extreme weather events, ocean acidification, loss of natural habitats, and many others. Add a comment 103 hits

Expropriations in Bolivia

Miércoles 09 de Mayo de 2012 19:56 The Economist

Evo Morales nationalises a Spanish electric company
Liberal Spain is the concerted target of Socialist South American regimes

La Paz, May 5.─ When Labour Day came and went in Bolivia on May 1st 2011, investors breathed a sigh of relief. Evo Morales, the president, had announced a nationalisation on the holiday every year since he took office in 2006. But last year he chose instead to repeal and symbolically bury a copy of the 1985 decree that began a series of pro-market reforms. Most observers assumed he was done with expropriations.

That calm now looks complacent. On May 1st Mr Morales nationalised Transportadora de Electricidad (TDE), Bolivia's national power-grid company, which was owned by Spain's Red Eléctrica Española (REE) and supplies 72% of the country's power. He said the firm had underinvested and that he would "recover what is ours"—the same rhetoric Cristina Fernández, Argentina's president, used two weeks earlier after expropriating 51% of YPF, an oil company, that belonged to Spain's Repsol.

Mr Morales first rattled investors when he tore up hydrocarbons contracts on Labour Day in 2006.

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Venezuela remains uncertain of Chávez’ future

Martes 08 de Mayo de 2012 21:42 Democracia Participativa

May 8 (DP.net).─ Jane's Intelligence Review (JIR) has just published in its May 2012 issue an in depth report about Hugo Chavez and Venezuela's political forecast. They found that "Chávez's PSUV party is riven with factional divisions, while there remains no clear succession plan in place should the president become incapacitated, raising concerns about stability should his health worsen."

Chavez's state of health is no real obstacle if he survives up to October's elections. JIR report considers that Chavez "remains a formidable opponent for any challenger". The President's health has become a matter of contention and the most critical issue in Venezuelan politics, because "the lack of clarity over what should be a matter of public interest has had an effect on both Chávez' political allies, some of whom have glimpsed the possibility of a world without privilege in the shadow of their supreme leader, and on the opposition, which has been gearing up for the October presidential election."

However, the JIR report realizes than any other option is better that an eventual reelection of Hugo Chavez in October, whether it is through electoral fraud or true votes. Their forecast is: "While the incapacitation of Chávez prior to the election, or his defeat in the poll, would raise the risk of shortterm unrest or insecurity, his entry into a third term in office, even if this was cut short through illness, would mean that certain more fundamental problems facing Venezuela could remain unaddressed."

The fact is that the President's illness has changed the political landscape in Venezuela and many fear a period of chaos after his premature death, as it is predicted by anti-Chávez groups insisting that his health prognosis is far worse than official versions and that he has only months to live, if not just a few weeks.

Social instability is complicating Venezuela's drama. Add a comment 178 hits

China's imperialist seaward expansion is mildly challenged

Viernes 04 de Mayo de 2012 21:05 The Economist

China claims 90% of the South China Sea trumping claims from Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam, while America's navy riles China in its backyard

Manila, Apr.30.─ Philippine and American troops charged ashore from the South China Sea on April 25th in an exercise to show they could jointly recapture a small Philippine island from hostile forces. It was all make-believe, of course: just another round of a game in which China pretends it owns almost all the South China Sea, and the Philippines and four other East Asian countries pretend otherwise.

America says it does not take sides in the squabble embroiling China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines over ownership of all or parts of the South China Sea. The sea has (or had) a rich marine life, and oil and gas. But America does play chicken. It has a mutual-defence treaty with the Philippines, which an American general this month described as "self-explanatory". However, the treaty fails to spell out whether America would help defend Philippine-claimed territory if it was also claimed by China.

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