Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

US Sanctions Against Syria, Iran is ‘Economic Terrorism’ – Moscow

Sputnik – 07.02.2019

According to Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Moscow and Tehran will be advancing ways in which to defend their economies from US sanctions.

“We must — and many have already spoken about this, including our ambassador in Tehran — complete the transition process of economic interaction in the national currency as the best way to protect ourselves from the US abusing the role of the dollar”, Ryabkov told reporters on Thursday.

He also slammed Washington for the sanctions imposed on Damascus.

“There are ways to minimise the consequences of US sanctions, and these ways will be improved. There are alternative partners and formats, they need to be strengthened. I am sure that in the case of Syria, Russian-Syrian relations will only continue to ascend; neither the United States nor anyone else will interfere with this. And I agree that the US sanctions are economic terrorism”, the deputy minister stressed.

The statement by the Russian diplomat comes just a day after the US Senate voted to expand economic sanctions on Syria and to condemn President Donald Trump for announcing a full US troop withdrawal from that country.

Last November, a second package of US sanction against Tehran came into effect following the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — the Iran nuclear deal — in May, 2018. The sanctions are aimed at exercising maximum pressure on Iran and forcing it to negotiate a new deal.

February 7, 2019 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Export–Import Bank: The Government Subsidy “Free Traders” Love

By Dean Baker | Beat The Press | February 5, 2019

I have long had fun with the folks who call themselves “free traders.” Essentially, these are people who argue it is a high moral principle to eliminate any barrier to trade that might support the income of working class people, but suddenly get really stupid and defensive when we talk about barriers that support the income of professionals and the wealthy.

This means that a 10 percent tariff on imported steel is an outrage against all that is good and decent in the world. But when it comes to protectionist restrictions that prevent highly qualified foreign doctors from practicing in the United States and bringing the pay of our doctors more in line with other rich countries, they suddenly have no idea what you’re talking about. (FWIW, we spend far more money on doctors than steel.)

The same story applies to patent and copyright protection. (Yes, that is “protection” as in protectionism.) These government-granted monopolies are treated as part of the world’s natural order. Instead of recognizing them as forms of protectionism, countries that don’t have patent and copyright rules as strong as in the U.S. are treated as being violators of free-trade.

In other words, “free trade” is a make it up as you go along rationale for ways to redistribute income upward. This is why I got a big kick out of seeing Charles Lane’s column today on the Export–Import Bank.

The Export–Import Bank is a mechanism for the United States to subsidize its exports by providing below-market interest rate loans and loan guarantees for exporters. There actually can be some argument for this sort of support in cases where small- and medium-sized firms are just getting into the export market. (It’s still a government subsidy.)

However, that was not the story with the Ex–Im Bank. The overwhelming majority of its loan money (in the neighborhood of 90 percent) went to a tiny number of multi-nationals like Boeing, Caterpillar, and GE. This is not a help-the-upstart story, this was a subsidy-to-politically-connected-corporate-giants story.

Incredibly, the vast majority of the self-proclaimed free traders were big advocates of the Ex–Im Bank. They would go along with the absurd games pushed by the hacks.

For example, they would tell people that some very high percentage of the loans went to small businesses. (Yes, this is in Econ Stupid Tricks 101 — a high percentage of the loans go to small businesses, a tiny percentage of the dollars go to small businesses.)

And, we got the story that some huge number of US jobs depend on the Ex–Im Bank. In this story, we assume that the US would lose all the exports supported by Ex–Im loans or guarantees, as opposed to some realistic number like 2–3 percent.

Anyhow, with pushing from the free traders, the Export–Import Bank was reauthorized by Congress. I had thought the free traders had won and got their government subsidies.

But as Lane points out, Republicans in Congress refused to approve new members for the bank’s board. This meant that the board lacked a quorum. And, without a quorum, the board could not approve loans of more than $10 million. This meant the bank was actually in the business of making loans to small- and medium-sized businesses, rather than subsidizing Boeing and Caterpillar.

It turns out the big companies were still able to export without the subsidy, although I’m sure they made somewhat less money. Anyhow, it’s a nice story. It shows how free trade can be better than “free trade.”

February 7, 2019 Posted by | Economics | | Leave a comment

Does Washington Rule the World?

By Philip M. GIRALDI | Strategic Culture Foundation | 07.02.2019

One of the most disturbing aspects of the past two years of Donald Trump foreign policy has been the assumption that decisions made by the United States are binding on the rest of the world. Apart from time of war, no other nation has ever sought to prevent other nations from trading with each other. And the United States has also uniquely sought to penalize other countries for alleged crimes that did not occur in the US and that did not involve American citizens, while also insisting that all nations must comply with whatever penalties are meted out by Washington.

The United States now sees itself as judge, jury and executioner in policing the international community, a conceit that began post World War 2 when American presidents began referring to themselves as “leader of the free world.” This pretense received legislative backing with passage of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987 (ATA) as amended in 1992 plus subsequent related legislation, to include the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act of 2016 (JASTA). The body of legislation can be used by US citizens or residents to obtain civil judgments against alleged terrorists anywhere in the world and can be employed to punish governments, international organizations and even corporations that are perceived to be supportive of terrorists, even indirectly or unknowingly. Plaintiffs are able to sue for injuries to their “person, property, or business” and have ten years to bring a claim.

Sometimes the connections and level of proof required by a US court to take action are tenuous, and that is being polite. Suits currently can claim secondary liability for third parties, including banks and large corporations, under “material support” of terrorism statutes. This includes “aiding and abetting” liability as well as providing “services” to any group that the United States considers to be terrorist, even if the terrorist label is dubious and/or if that support is inadvertent.

There have been two recent lawsuits seeking civil damages under ATA and JASTA involving Iran and Syria. Regarding Iran, in June 2017 a jury deliberated for one day before delivering a guilty verdict against two Iranian foundations for violation of US sanctions, allowing a federal court to authorize the US government seizure of a skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. It was the largest terrorism-related civil forfeiture in United States history. The presiding judge decided to distribute proceeds from the building’s sale, which could amount to as much as $1 billion, to the families of victims of terrorism, including the September 11th attacks. The court ruled that Iran had some culpability for the 9/11 attacks as a state sponsor of terrorism, though it could not determine that Iran was directly involved in the attacks.

The ruling against Iran has to be considered somewhat bizarre as it is clear that Iran had nothing to do with 9/11 but was considered guilty anyway because the State Department in Washington has declared it to be a state sponsor of terror. Being able to determine guilt based on an interpretation of a foreign government’s behavior puts incredible power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats who are making political decisions regarding who is “good” and who is “bad.”

A second, more recent, court case has involved Syria. Last week a federal court in the District of Columbia ruled that Syria was liable for the targeting and killing of an American journalist who was covering the shelling of a rebel held area of Homs in 2012.

The court awarded $302.5 million to the family of the journalist, Marie Colvin. In her ruling, Judge Amy Berman Jackson cited “Syria’s longstanding policy of violence” seeking “to intimidate journalists” and “suppress dissent.” As it is normally not possible even in American courts to sue a foreign government, a so-called human rights group funded by the US and other governments called the Center for Justice and Accountability made its case relying on the designation of Damascus as a state sponsor of terrorism. The judge believed that the evidence presented was “credible and convincing.”

The complexities of what is going on in Syria are such that it is difficult to imagine that a Washington based judge could possibly render judgment in any credible fashion. Colvin was in a war zone and the plaintiffs, whose agenda was to compile a dossier of war crimes against Syria, made their case using documents that they provided, which certainly presented a partisan viewpoint and might themselves have been fabricated. Based on her own comments, Judge Amy Berman Jackson certainly came into the game with her own particular view on Syria and what the conflict there was all about.

Another American gift to international jurisprudence has been the Magnitsky Act of 2012, a product of the feel-good enthusiasm of the Barack Obama Administration. It was based on a narrative regarding what went on in Russia under the clueless Boris Yeltsin and his nationalist successor Vladimir Putin that was peddled by one Bill Browder, who many believe to have been a major player in the looting of the former Soviet Union. It was claimed by Browder and his accomplices in the media that the Russian government had been complicit in the arrest, torture and killing of one Sergei Magnitsky, an accountant turned whistleblower working for Browder. Almost every aspect of the story has been challenged, but it was completely bought into by the Congress and White House and led to sanctions on the Russians who were allegedly involved despite Moscow’s complaints that the US had no legal right to interfere in its internal affairs relating to a Russian citizen.

Worse still, the Magnitsky Act has been broadened and is now the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act of 2017. It is being used to sanction and otherwise punish alleged “human rights abusers” in other countries. It was most recently used in the Jamal Khashoggi case, in which the US sanctioned the alleged killers of the Saudi dissident journalist even though no one had actually been convicted of any crime.

Independent of Magnitsky and the various ATA acts is the ability of the US Treasury Department and its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to sanction a country’s ability to move money through the US controlled dollar financial system. That is what is taking place currently regarding payments for Venezuela’s oil exports, which have been sanctioned and will not be able to use the dollar denominated system after April 28th. A similar US imposed sanctioning is currently in effect against Iran, with all potential purchasers of Iranian oil themselves being subject to secondary sanctions if they continue to make purchases after May 5th.

Most of the world oil business is transacted in dollars, so the Treasury Department has an effective weapon in hand to interfere in foreign countries without having to send in the Marines, but there is, of course, a danger that the rest of the world will eventually read the tea leaves and abandon the use of petrodollars altogether. If that occurs it will make it more difficult for the American government to continue to print dollars without regard for deficits as there will be little demand for the extra US currency in circulation [In fact there are numerous reasons for the international demand of US currency, oil transaction payments being just one and not even among the most imperative – Aletho News ].

The principle that Washington should respect the sovereignty of other states even when it disagrees with their internal policies has effectively been abandoned. And, as if things were not bad enough, some new legislation virtually guarantees that in the near future the United States will be doing still more to interfere in and destabilize much of the world. Congress has passed and President Trump has signed the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act, which seeks to improve Washington’s response to mass killings. The prevention of genocide and mass murder is now a part of American national security agenda. There will be a Mass Atrocity Task Force and State Department officers will receive training to sensitize them to impending genocide, though presumably the new program will not apply to the Palestinians as the law’s namesake never was troubled by their suppression and killing by the state of Israel.

February 7, 2019 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli exploration move threatens Lebanon’s oil wealth – parliament speaker

RT | February 7, 2019

Lebanon’s parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said on Thursday that an Israeli move to license energy exploration near a disputed maritime boundary threatened to drain Lebanese oil wealth before its own drilling had started.

The previous day, Berri accused Israel of breaching Lebanese waters by licensing a company to exploit the area, Reuters reported.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has not commented on the accusation.

Lebanon last year licensed a consortium of Italy’s Eni, France’s Total and Russia’s Novatek to carry out the country’s first offshore energy exploration in two blocks. One of the blocks, Block 9, contains waters disputed with Israel.

Berri said the Israeli move threatened “to drain a whole basin and a large part of the oil wealth.”

February 7, 2019 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

France Plans to Torpedo Nord Stream 2 During Crucial EU Vote – German Media

Sputnik – 07.02.2019

The EU is to hold a vote on a revision of the Gas Directive that would let the European Commission gain leverage over the Russian-European gas pipeline project. Germany has resisted Brussels’s attempt to revise the regulations and counted on France’s support amid their growing cooperation.

One of the EU’s pillars and Germany’s closest allies, France, has voiced opposition to Berlin-supported Nord Stream 2 ahead of the EU vote, which would impact the future the Russian-European pipeline project under which natural gas would be brought to Europe via the Baltic Sea and a hub in Germany. The German outlet Sueddeutsche Zeitung reports, citing French government circles, that Paris fears more dependency on Russia and “strategic problems” in the strained relationship between Brussels and Moscow.

“We do not want to increase our dependency on Russia and thereby harm the interests of EU countries like Poland and Slovakia”, said Paris, according to the outlet.

The vote, concerning the draft amendments to the EU Gas Directive, is slated to be held on 8 February. According to SZ, Germany, which is against the new regulation, has resisted attempts to change the EU rules to let the European Commission gain leverage over Nord Stream 2. In November 2017, the EC proposed extending EU energy rules to gas pipelines from third countries to Europe. In particular, the Commission seeks the right to demand a separation of gas sales and pipeline operating activities, as well as third-party access to a pipeline. It is believed that the amendments in question mainly target Nord Stream 2, funded by the Russian gas supplier Gazprom.

Sueddeutsche Zeitung points out that in order to prevent the pipeline from being blocked and to build a minority against the revision, Berlin counted on Paris along with the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Greece and Cyprus, whose support it has already secured. But that’s not enough. However, it would be hard for Germany to ensure a favourable result without the French, according to the outlet.

The newspaper emphasised that Paris is aware that this would lead to a dispute between the two key EU partners, whose cooperation is essential for Europe. The sources from French government circles told the newspaper that they are standing by their decision, and only the personal intervention of Emmanuel Macron, who has repeatedly brought up the importance of Berlin-Paris cooperation, could change this position. France’s European Affairs Ministry has not commented on the issue.

Nord Stream 2 is a joint venture of Russian gas giant Gazprom and five European companies. It aims to deliver 55 billion cubic metres (1.9 trillion cubic feet) of Russian natural gas annually to the European Union. The pipeline project has been welcomed by some countries in Europe, including Austria, but opposed by others. Besides France, opposition has been expressed by Poland and the Baltic countries, who’ve raised concerns over the alleged danger of Europe becoming dependent on Russia and the subsequent diminished transit role of Ukraine.

Washington has also been strongly opposing the project. Recently, US Ambassador to Berlin Richard Grenell warned German companies against participating in the project threatening them with “significant sanctions risks”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, has voiced the belief that US President Donald Trump is seeking to force Russia out of the European energy market so that the United States can sell more liquefied natural gas to Europe. Moscow has also reiterated that the pipeline is a purely commercial project.

February 7, 2019 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

‘America First’ means nuclear superiority

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | February 6, 2019

The US president’s annual State of the Union address traditionally focuses on domestic issues but it also throws some light on the foreign policy priorities. President Trump’s speech on Tuesday adhered to the pattern and if anything, the portions on foreign policy received scant attention, restricted to his “agenda to protect America’s National Security.” Trump’s re-election bid for a second term in 2020 provided the backdrop.

Trump boasted about the US’ military build-up and flagged the mammoth budget allocation of $716 billion to “fully rebuild” the US military. As part of it, he said, the US is “developing a state-of-the-art Missile Defence System.” He saw no reason to be apologetic about “advancing America’s interests” and cast his decision to withdraw the US from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in that light.

Trump made a pro forma offer to consider negotiating a “different (INF) agreement, adding China and others (read India and Iran)” but himself sounded sceptical, and went on to assert that the US “will outspend and out-innovate all others by far” in an arms race. He all but sought the US’ nuclear superiority.    

Clearly, the global strategic balance is going to come under enormous stress in the period ahead. It is inconceivable that Russia will allow the global strategic balance to be shifted. In conventional forces, Russia is at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the West and that gives added impetus to maintain the overall strategic parity with the US.

Notably, Russia test-fired an RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missile today following Trump’s speech and within hours of an earlier similar American test-firing of a Minuteman ICBM  in California. The RS-24 Yars is a vastly improved version of the famous SS-29 ICBM that the Soviet Union deployed. It is presently the mainstay of the ground-based component of Russian nuclear triad.

This thermonuclear intercontinental ballistic missile has a range of 12 000 km, which brings the entire territory of the United States within its reach. Yars is equipped with multiple independent re-entry vehicle (MIRV) and is designed to evade missile defense systems (which Trump boasted about.) It maneuvers during the flight and carries both active and passive decoys and has at least 60-65% chance to penetrate defenses.

Significantly, during Tuesday’s address before the Congress, Trump made no references to arms control negotiations with Russia, leave alone to comment on the fate of the New START nuclear arms reduction agreement (2010), which is due to expire in 2021.

Indeed, the ‘breaking news’ in Trump’s speech was the announcement of his second summit meeting with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on February 27-28 in Vietnam. Trump sounded upbeat about his “bold new diplomacy” with North Korea and claimed credit (justifiably so) for avoiding a catastrophic war on the Korean Peninsula. He acknowledged that there is much unfinished business, but placed trust in his “relationship” with Kim.

The only other foreign-policy topics that Trump touched in the speech were the US’ standoff Venezuela, the Middle Eastern conflicts (Syria and Afghanistan) and of course Iran. While he was rhetorical about the “brutality” and the “socialist policies” of the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro, Trump steered clear of any threats to intervene in that country. Trump merely said that the US stands with the Venezuelan people “in their noble quest for freedom.” On the other hand, Trump gently moved away from Venezuela to attack the “new calls to adopt socialism” in the US too and stated his resolve that “America will never be a socialist country.”

As regards the Middle East, Trump said his approach is based on “principled realism”. He recalled that his approach has been consistent: “Great nations do not fight endless wars.” Trump said it is time the troops came home from Syria, having defeated the Islamic State.

Curiously, in comparison with Syria, Trump made a somewhat nuanced reference to the Afghan war. Without elaborating, Trump hinted that the Taliban is not the US’ sole interlocutor for holding negotiations to reach a political settlement in Afghanistan. But the surprising part was when he said,

“As we make progress in the negotiations, we will be able to reduce our troop presence and focus on counter-terrorism. We do not know whether we will achieve an agreement.”

The carefully-worded formulation steered clear of making a commitment of a total US withdrawal from Afghanistan. In fact, Trump pointedly spoke of a reduced troop presence in Afghanistan while also underscoring the need to continue with counter-terrorist operations.

From Trump’s remarks, it appears that the US has somewhat pulled back from the reported progress at the recent 6-day talks in Qatar with the Taliban representatives. Whether this ambivalence is due to pressure from the US military and the Ashraf Ghani government against a withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan or is merely a tactical posturing to pressure the Taliban to make concessions remains to be seen.

Ghani’s preferred strategy (which US military commanders also advocate) is to reconcile the Taliban on the terms in which he had earlier reconciled Gulbuddin Hekmatyar two years ago — which is to say, by offering the insurgents an opportunity to join his government. The Pentagon has been doggedly opposed also to giving up the American bases in Afghanistan, which it considers to be of vital importance for the US’ long term global strategies.

Ghani had telephoned the US Vice-President Mike Pence in the weekend before Trump’s speech on Tuesday. Yet, Trump plainly ignored the Ghani government.

Trump made harsh references to Iran as “sponsor of terror” and the government in Tehran as a “radical regime” and “corrupt dictatorship”, but, strangely, he stopped well short of adopting any confrontational overtone, leave alone threaten Iran. Trump merely said, “We will not avert our eyes from a regime that chants death to American and threatens genocide against the Jewish people.”

In overall terms, the impression will be that Trump projected a foreign-policy outlook where the US will eschew military interventions in foreign countries that are in the nature of protracted entanglements through the remaining period of his term in office and concentrate instead on his domestic agenda, which he intends to make the centre piece of his campaign for re-election. A mood of retrenchment is evident all through and left to himself, Trump would like to avoid foreign-policy entanglements that do not directly impact American interests or his own campaign to win a second term as president.

Having said that, make no mistake, fundamentally and in a longer term perspective, Trump is actually pitching for “America First”. He believes in a strong America, whose military superiority will be unchallenged and whose capacity to force its will on the world community is never in doubt. Implicit in the strategy is a resumption of the US’ elusive chase for nuclear superiority — through an extremely expensive arms race in which Trump thinks Russia lacks the financial resources to compete with the US and China can be overwhelmed in military technology. 

February 6, 2019 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Venezuelan Oil Exports Plunge On ‘Harsher’ Sanctions

By Nick Cunningham | Oilprice.com | February 4, 2019

Venezuela’s oil production could be disrupted to a greater degree than most analysts first thought, as the U.S. government seeks essentially shut in the country’s oil sector.

When the Trump administration first announced sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector a little over a week ago, it sounded as if they would simply bar U.S. companies from buying oil. That would still mean that Venezuela could ship the oil elsewhere, albeit at a painful discount.

However, the U.S. Treasury issued some more details on February 1, sketching out a harsher sanctions regime. The sanctions on Venezuela will actually resemble the measures targeting Iran in that it will bar companies from using the U.S. financial system to do business with PDVSA. As such, the reach of the sanctions will extend well beyond the shores of the United States.

Reuters reported that even prior to last Friday’s clarification from the U.S. Treasury, European buyers were already slashing purchases because of concerns over payments. Reuters reported that two of the world’s largest oil traders, Vitol and Trafigura, said that they would comply with all U.S. sanctions.

As a result, PDVSA and Maduro’s government could have a much harder time finding destinations for Venezuelan oil than first thought. The Wall Street Journal reported oil storage is “filling up” in Venezuela because of a lack of buyers.

Moreover, not only are the effects of the sanctions more far-reaching, but also more immediate than first thought. At first, the U.S. seemed to exempt shipments that were underway, outlining a sort of phased approach that would allow a handful of American refiners to gradually unwind their oil purchase from Venezuela. The phased approach, which was supposed to be extended into April, would help “to minimize any immediate disruptions,” U.S. Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin said in late January.

But that now does not appear to be what is unfolding. PDVSA has demanded upfront payment, likely because it fears not being paid at all or having the revenues steered to the opposition. Indeed, the U.S. effort to steer PDVSA and its revenues into the hands of the U.S.-backed opposition leader Juan Gauidó appears to be a decisive turning point.

Oil tankers linked to Chevron, Lukoil and Respsol are delayed, redirected or sitting offshore because of lack of payment. The WSJ says that several of those tankers had recently sent oil to Corpus Christi, Texas, but are now anchored off the coast of Maracaibo sitting idle. “This is an absolute disaster,” Luis Hernández, a Venezuelan oil union leader, told the WSJ. “There’s almost no way to move the oil.”

Unable to sell any oil, Maduro’s regime could quickly run out of cash. The result could be a humanitarian catastrophe, a merciless and destructive objective that the Trump administration seems to have in mind. The U.S. government is essentially betting that by driving the country into the ground, the military and the people will turn on Maduro. It could yet turn out that way, but it could also deepen the misery and exact an unspeakable toll on the Venezuelan population, the very people the Trump administration says it is trying to help.

In the meantime, oil exports are likely heading into a freefall. The WSJ says that labor problems, including “mass defections of workers” are accelerating declines. PDVSA could soon run out of refined fuel.

Officials with knowledge of the situation told the WSJ that Venezuela’s oil production has likely already fallen well below 1 million barrels per day (mb/d), down more than 10 percent – at least – from December levels.

Wood Mackenzie estimates that production probably stands a little bit higher at about 1.1 mb/d, but that it could soon fall to 900,000 bpd.

It’s hard to imagine how Maduro can hang on if oil exports fall precipitously from here. But even if he does manage to stay in power, the U.S. may escalate the situation. Last month, U.S. national security adviser John Bolton had “5,000 troops to Colombia” written on his legal pad. President Trump himself said that a military intervention is an option.

For the oil market, the crisis presents a series of problems. If Maduro hangs on and the U.S. continues to heap more pressure on his government, Venezuelan oil production and exports will continue to fall. Alternatively, the U.S. is hoping for a quick regime change, after which it would lift sanctions, which it believes will lead to a reversal in output losses.

The next round of Iran sanctions is nearing, with U.S. sanctions waivers expiring in May. As such, the window of opportunity for the Trump administration “is open only a crack, necessitating a quick political change,” Barclays wrote in a note. By the third quarter, the loss of Venezuelan output, Iran sanctions, and the looming regulations from the International Maritime Organization will put an increasing premium on medium and heavy oils.

That would push up oil prices significantly. But the U.S. government has blown past the point of no return, leaving it with no other options except to escalate. That means that Venezuela is set to lose a lot more oil than analysts thought only two weeks ago.

February 5, 2019 Posted by | Economics, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Britain lurches Deeper into Brexit Crisis as its Population Remains Deeply Alienated from the Political Establishment

By Leon Tressell | Dissident Voice | February 4, 2019

The British political establishment is experiencing an unprecedented crisis over the issue of exiting the European Union. The Conservative government staggers from crisis to crisis over its Brexit deal while politicians of all colours bicker and argue as the UK lurches towards a potentially devastating No Deal scenario. This had lead to a huge distrust in the political class amongst the long suffering public.

As the clock ticks down towards the 29 March exit date it is worth while recalling how this crisis came about in the first place. Regardless of which Brexit option the UK takes over the next period it will not detract from the fact that there is a huge chasm between large sections of a bitterly discontented population and the political establishment that does not bode well for the future stability of a key American ally.

A recent poll of 33,000 people revealed that an overwhelming majority felt that whatever Brexit option is adopted it will not address the rampant inequalities, political alienation and disenchantment that lay behind the vote to leave the EU in 2016.

In June 2016 the UK vote to exit the EU shocked the financial and political elites and led to turmoil on global stock markets. The corporate media was full of shocked pundits lamenting the democratic decision of British people for Brexit. Brexit voters were being blamed for everything from the rise in racism against immigrant families to the increased dangers of terrorist attacks.

The corporate media both in Britain and internationally was and still are furious with the British electorate for voting for Brexit. They never saw it coming and still don’t fully understand why ordinary people voted for Brexit. More than this, they still don’t understand how the Brexit vote reveals how completely out of touch the corporate media and the political/financial elites are with the millions of working class people who voted for Brexit.

Let’s be very clear about this: the vote for Brexit was a working class rebellion against the financial and political elites of Britain who have presided over a massive redistribution of wealth in favour of the super rich leaving a fifth of the population in poverty. Analysis of the referendum vote shows how the poorer an area was the higher the vote was for Brexit.

The working class stood up to massive pressure from the Bremain camp that included: all of the mainstream political parties, the Bank of England, CBI, IMF, ECB, Obama, the World Bank and the trade union bureaucrats.

The vote for Brexit revealed how out of touch the establishment advocates of the EU are with working class people. Millions of working class people are struggling to get by with low wages, incessant benefit cuts, zero hour contracts, food banks and poor housing that are putting their families and communities under intense strain. On top of this, working class people suffer the most from the cuts to the welfare state and the incessant cuts to local council services.

Working class people are not stupid they can see how the EU is a fundamentally undemocratic organisation that is completely unaccountable to them. The secret negotiations that took place between the EU and the Obama administration over TTIP, which members of the European Parliament had no say over, proved conclusively how this is an organisation run for the benefit of the too big to fail banks and the multi-national corporations.

They can see how the undemocratic EU has bludgeoned the people of Greece into living in permanent austerity and mass poverty despite a referendum last year that decisively rejected austerity measures. Obama’s favourite economist Paul Krugman called the EU’s intervention into Greece in 2015 a ‘coup d’etat’.

The advocates of Bremain in 2016 such as Mark Carney (ex-Goldman Sachs), then Prime Minister Cameron (from a tax avoiding banker family) then Chancellor George Osborne (son of a Baronet) warned working class people that Brexit would lower their living standards more than any other group in UK society.

However, millions of working class people were not taken in by the crocodile tears coming from those responsible for creating a massively unequal society. Quantitative easing and ZIRP have made the super rich fabulously richer as they have benefited from the massive bubbles on the stock market and in property. The top 10% of society own 45% of all wealth totalling over £5 trillion while the bottom 50% of society own a pathetic 9% of the wealth.

Prime Minister Cameron’s government presided over a savage attack upon welfare benefits which have led to one and half million benefit sanctions leaving people totally destitute and leading to hundreds of people committing suicide. The attack on welfare benefits for disabled people has been so severe it prompted the UN to launch an investigation into the human rights violations of disabled people. In 2018 the UN accused the UK government of ‘’systematic violations’’ of disabled people’s rights.

The political and financial elites who advocated that Britain should stay in the EU were puzzled as to why so many working class people stubbornly supported Brexit in 2016. They were and still are incapable of comprehending the anger, pain and suffering of millions of working class people who feel increasing contempt towards a political and financial elite that has no understanding of their daily lives. Over 13 million live in poverty (1 in 5 of the population) while 15 million live in inadequate housing conditions.

This inchoate anger at the daily reality that confronts them has few outlets in life. The EU referendum provided working class people with a means of sticking two fingers up at the political and financial establishment which now presides over a very divided country along lines of class and geography. This sense of alienation and disenchantment with the political establishment has only increased in the two and half years since the Brexit referendum.

The Brexit vote has led to unprecedented turmoil in both of the main political parties in Britain, particularly the Conservative Party.

The financial and political elites suffered a major defeat in 2016 Brexit vote. The Conservative Party is one of the oldest and most successful political parties in history and has served the British ruling class well for over two hundred years. Now it faces an unprecedented crisis and is unable to effectively govern.

Regardless of which Brexit option the Conservative government takes over the next period the UK will face huge challenges as the world economy continues to slow down and heads towards another devastating recession.

This will pose major challenges for the stability of the UK, whose manufacturing base continues to weaken while its financial services sector loses its dominant position in European capital markets due to Brexit. A discontented population may take inspiration from its yellow vested neighbours across the English Channel.

Leon Tressell is a UK based historian with a research focus upon geo-politics and economics.

February 5, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

Europe shuns Iranian oil despite US sanctions waivers

RT | February 5, 2019

Despite being granted exemptions from US sanctions against Iran to enable them to buy Tehran’s oil, some European countries fully cut off crude imports from the Islamic Republic, according to Iran’s oil minister.

Washington agreed to give temporary waivers to several Iranian oil buyers when it imposed an embargo on oil shipments from the country in November after it pulled out from the landmark nuclear agreement. Those granted waivers included China, India, South Korea, Japan, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, allowing them to continue purchases without penalties.

However, not all countries opted to use the waivers, as the US attempts to push Tehran’s oil export revenues “to zero” and tries to “block any money transfer,” the Iranian Minister of Petroleum Bijan Namdar Zangeneh stated.

“Among the Europeans, except for Turkey, no other nation has purchased oil from Iran. Greece and Italy refuse to buy Iran’s oil despite winning waivers. Nor do they respond to our correspondence,” the minister said on Tuesday.

Iran’s crude exports, which contribute to a significant part of the country’s revenues, have been dropping since the US embargo took effect. In April, the crude and oil condensates exports were estimated to be about 2.8 million barrels per day. Zangeneh declined to announce the current export figures, but earlier reports suggest that the shipments fell by more than half.

Iranian officials have previously said that countries have to be extremely cautious in dealing with Tehran, as they face “financial pressure” from Washington. In January, Iran’s Deputy Minister of Petroleum Amir Hossein Zamaninia said that even those who dare to buy its crude, “would not even buy an additional one barrel.”

The 180-day US waivers expire in May and it is believed that their number will be reduced. However, Iran stressed that it had already found new potential buyers for its oil without revealing who exactly they were.

The last country who decided finally to resume purchases of Iranian oil was Japan. On January 21, a large tanker with two million barrels of crude, destined for Japanese companies, left Iran and is expected to reach buyers on February 9.

February 5, 2019 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , | Leave a comment

12 minutes to understand the Yellow Vests Movement in France

Romain Majou | January 26, 2019

A video to make you understand what’s presently going on in France. 12 minutes to understand who are the Yellow Vests, what they are fighting for and if they really are violent.

Send me a message on my profile: https://www.facebook.com/romain.majou

February 4, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Solidarity and Activism, Video | , , | Leave a comment

Iran not accepting EU’s humiliating conditions on INSTEX: Judiciary chief

Press TV – February 4, 2019

Iran’s Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani says the Islamic Republic will never give in to humiliating conditions set by Europe for the enforcement of its new non-dollar mechanism aimed at facilitating trade with the Islamic Republic.

Addressing a meeting of high-ranking judicial officials on Monday, Iran’s top judge said, “After nine months of dawdling and negotiations, European countries have come up with a limited-capacity mechanism not for exchange of money with Iran, but to supply food and medicine.”

The European signatories to the 2015 nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), issued a joint statement on Thursday, announcing the launch of a long-awaited direct non-dollar payment mechanism meant to safeguard their trade ties with Tehran following Washington’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal and in the face of the “toughest ever” sanctions imposed by the United States against the Islamic Republic.

Following months-long preparations, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Britain finally unveiled the mechanism, officially called the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), after a summit in Bucharest, Romania.

Iran’s Judiciary chief further said, “European countries, which had promised to remain committed to Iran’s nuclear deal after the US withdrawal from it, have now restricted their efforts to INSTEX and have reportedly set two strange conditions for it to become effective.”

They have asked “Iran to join the FATF (the Financial Action Task Force) and start negotiations over its missile program,” before INSTEX enters into force, he added.

“These [European] countries must know that the Islamic Republic of Iran will by no means accept these humiliating conditions and will not give in to any demand in return for a small opening [in sanctions] like INSTEX,” Amoli Larijani emphasized.

He noted that today, European countries are moving in the same direction that the US had moved before “and we [the Iranian nation] must continue to stand fast as [we have] always [done].”

President Donald Trump withdrew the US in May from the landmark Iran nuclear agreement, reached between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 group of countries in 2015, and decided to re-impose unilateral sanctions against Tehran.

Under the deal, Iran undertook to put limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of nuclear-related sanctions.

Trump’s administration announced the re-imposition of the “toughest” sanctions ever against Iran’s banking and energy sectors with the aim of cutting off the country’s oil sales and crucial exports.

Iran’s nuclear chief said on Saturday that the establishment of the new mechanism to ease trade with Iran is a promising step, but noted the Europeans must act more swiftly and adopt final measures in this regard.

“The Europeans took a promising step in terms of economy and we hope that they will keep racing ahead on the same path,” the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Ali Akbar Salehi, told reporters.

Despite Washington’s withdrawal, Iran has not left the deal yet, but stressed that the remaining signatories to the agreement have to work to offset the negative impacts of the US pullout for Iran if they want Tehran to remain in it.

On Friday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, appreciated the efforts made by European countries to uphold the JCPOA after the US withdrawal from the agreement.

“It (INSTEX) fully demonstrated the EU’s determination to uphold multilateralism. China firmly supports the continued cooperation between the EU and Iran to put the mechanism into operation as soon as possible and open it to third parties so as to promote normal economic and trade cooperation between the international community and Iran,” he said.

February 4, 2019 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »