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China, Russia helping Zimbabwe ride out West’s bullying

The BRICS Post | January 8, 2016

The year 2016 promises to see the deepening of Zimbabwe’s relations with Russia and China, old friends who supported our quest to overthrow colonialism as long ago as the 1950s.

Both Russia and China are stepping up economic investment in Zimbabwe. They are also continuing to oppose the illegal sanctions the West has imposed on us — a blatant attempt to change an elected government by crippling our economy in the hope that the masses would rise up against it.

Yet this hope has proved utterly false, as the people of Zimbabwe refuse to adopt the West’s notions about how to conduct our sovereign affairs.

Russia’s biggest economic commitment to Zimbabwe to date was its agreement in September 2014 to invest $3 billion in what will be Zimbabwe’s largest platinum mine.

What will set this investment apart from those that have been in Zimbabwe for decades is that the project will see the installation of a refinery to add value, thereby creating more employment and secondary industries. The Darwendale operation near our capital of Harare is expected to produce 600,000 ounces of platinum a year when it reaches capacity.

We are confident that this is just the start of a Russia-Zimbabwe economic partnership that will blossom in coming years. Our two countries are discussing other mining deals in addition to energy, agriculture, manufacturing and industrial projects. Russia also continues to assist Zimbabwe in training young Zimbabweans in special-skills areas such as medicine, general engineering, agricultural engineering and many other disciplines.

Groundwork was laid for expanding trade and investment when Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe met President Vladimir Putin in Moscow in May 2015.

A few months after their meeting in December 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Zimbabwe, where he announced 10 economic agreements worth billions of dollars.

China is already our largest trading partner outside the continent, and the new investments will have a major impact on our economy.

Of particular importance is a billion-dollar deal that will help Zimbabwe overcome the critical shortage of electricity that prevents us from realizing our full economic potential.

Under the agreement, China will expand the capacity of our largest electric-generating facility at Hwange in western Zimbabwe, while the Chinese-funded Kariba South power extension project — adding 300 MW to the grid — will be commissioned within the next 18 months.

Another deal will involve China financing the installation of fiber-optic cable to help us expand our high-speed Internet system. It is the government’s desire to ensure that every corner of the country has access to modern communication systems, including the Internet. This will facilitate trade and commerce, as the better a country‘s Internet, the greater its chances of boosting its industrial efficiency and developing its own high-tech sector.

China has also agreed to build a pharmaceutical distribution center in Zimbabwe. The facility will assist the government in improving the health delivery system, which has long been burdened by the debilitating illegal sanctions. This will allow us to provide medicine to all hospitals and clinics at affordable prices. But in addition to creating jobs, it will also give us a key piece of infrastructure that we can use to build out the domestic pharmaceutical industry.

China has not only become the biggest investor in Zimbabwe, but in all of Africa in recent years. Alarmed and envious of China’s expanding investment on the continent, the West has tried to portray China as trying to set up its own neocolonialist system in Africa.

Zimbabwe rejects that notion. China has proved a reliable development partner. It has not dictated terms of cooperation with us. Instead the parties have negotiated and agreed to the terms under which economic cooperation is to be consummated. Such agreements take into account the need to empower our own people by accepting that mineral resources are finite.

We highly appreciate both Russia’s and China’s opposition to the West’s efforts to harm our economy through illegal sanctions. They adamantly believe that such sanctions are illegal infringements on sovereignty because they are designed to intimidate a sanctioned country into adopting those policies that the West prefers, as opposed to those that it believes are in its best interest.

But Russia and China have not just talked the talk in opposing sanctions against Zimbabwe. They have walked the walk. In addition to investing in our country in defiance of the sanctions, they vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on July 11, 2008 that sought to impose further sanctions.

The African Union has joined Russia and China in resisting Western efforts to bully Zimbabwe. Its most important show of support was defying the West by naming President Mugabe the chairman of the AU in February 2015. Many Western governments had called publicly for the AU not to give Zimbabwe the chairmanship. These calls, however, fell on deaf ears.

As long as Zimbabwe refuses to dance to the West’s wishes it will remain sanctioned indefinitely. Yet we have already lived under these sanctions for 16 years and believe that the worst is over. Sanctions cannot defeat the human spirit, no matter how hurtful they might be.

We are thankful for the AU’s support and are confident that the illegal sanctions will fail to bring us to our knees as the West so desires.

With the support that Zimbabwe is receiving from China and Russia — two powerful nations — as well as an increasingly progressive mankind, we have entered 2016 with greater hope, optimism and confidence. We look forward to positive changes in the living standards of our people.

We thank everyone who has steadfastly stood with us in 2015 and look forward to their continued support in 2016.

January 9, 2016 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

US May Drop Program Helping Cuban Doctors Defect

teleSUR | January 9, 2016

The White House may end a program encouraging Cuban doctors sent abroad to defect and move to the United States.

The program, created under George W. Bush in 2006, is under review as a part of ongoing negotiations to normalize relations with Cuba, reported Reuters on Friday. Cuba considers it a “reprehensible practice” that is designed to “deprive Cuba and many other countries of vital human resources.”

The island sends medical personnel to countries suffering from health crises, including to South Africa in the post-apartheid brain drain and to West Africa to treat patients infected with Ebola.

The dispatches are a significant export and source of income for the country. In exchange for staff Cuba receives 100,000 barrels of oil a year from Venezuela.

Under the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, U.S. embassies in over 60 countries have discretionary authority to grant Cuban doctors abroad U.S. visas.

Despite being compared to slaves or prisoners on parole, out of over 40,000 medical workers in third world countries, the program accepted a total of 7,117 applicants. In 2015, 1,663 applicants were approved, a record in its nine-year history.

“It’s not only an issue of quantity, but of the quality of the specialists, the brains that the North American government has been selectively robbing… which is also a source of income for the problems that our people are confronting daily,” Marcos Agustín del Risco, director of Human Capital in the Ministry of Public Health, told Radio Rebelde.

The defectors “seriously affected” Cuba’s own free health care system, causing President Raul Castro to recently announce that the government will re-impose limits on the number of medics leaving the country. Last summer, controversy over Cuban doctors who had fled to Colombia to process U.S. visas became a major question in U.S.-Cuba relations.

“It’s an unusual policy, and I think as we look at the whole totality of the relationship, this is something that we felt was worth being in the list of things that we consider,” Ben Rhodes, a national security adviser that participated in Cuba talks last year, told Reuters.

January 9, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

No basis for new US bans on Iran: Russia

Press TV – January 8, 2016

Russia says the Iranian missile program constitutes no basis on which the US can impose potential new sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

“We have no confidence that there are any grounds for the imposition of sanctions against Iran in connection with its missile program,” Interfax quoted a Russian diplomatic source as saying.

Talk of new US sanctions against Iran emerged after the Islamic Republic successfully test-fired a precision-guided long-range missile on October 11, 2015.

Several US politicians have said the test violated a United Nations resolution against Iran, and called on the US administration to introduce new sanctions against Tehran.

“The Americans interpret the relevant provision of Resolution 1929 as prohibiting any ballistic missile launches, whereas the text speaks about a ban on launches of ballistic missiles that are capable of carrying nuclear warheads,” the Russian source also said, referring to the UN resolution adopted against Iran in June 2010.

The US administration, however, announced last month new sanctions against nearly a dozen companies and individuals for their alleged role in developing Iran’s missile program.

Fearing Iran’s reaction, the White House delayed implementing the sanctions for an unspecified time.

The sanctions would be the first ever since Iran and the P5+1 group reached a nuclear deal, dubbed as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in July 2015.

The agreement would see the removal of nuclear-related sanctions against Iran in return for enhanced transparency by Iran in its peaceful nuclear program.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei had warned that any new sanctions against Iran under any pretext would be interpreted as a violation of the JCPOA.

The unnamed Russian source further said the Kremlin is against “any exacerbation that can obstruct the beginning of the implementation” of the JCPOA that “should apparently happen in January, around its middle.”

Iranian officials say no limits can be imposed on the country’s conventional military capabilities.

They say none of the Iranian missiles have been “designed for a nuclear capability,” and thus their production and test are not in violation of the UN resolution.

January 8, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Saudi Game-Changing Head-Chopping

By Robert Parry | Consortium News | January 5, 2016

For generations, U.S. officials have averted their eyes from Saudi Arabia’s grotesque monarchy – which oppresses women, spreads jihadism and slaughters dissidents – in a crude trade-off of Saudi oil for American weapons and U.S. security guarantees. It is a deal with the devil that may finally be coming due.

The increasingly undeniable reality is that the Saudis along with other oil sheikhs are the biggest backers of Al Qaeda and various terrorist groups – helping these killers as long as they spread their mayhem in other countries and not bother the spoiled playboys of the Persian Gulf.

President George W. Bush – and then President Barack Obama – may have suppressed the 28 pages of the congressional 9/11 report describing Saudi support for Al Qaeda and its hijackers but the cat is thoroughly out of the bag. Mealy-mouthed comments from the State Department spokesmen can no longer hide the grim truth that U.S. “allies” are really civilization’s enemies.

The big question that remains, however, is: Will Official Washington’s dominant neocon/liberal-interventionist claque continue to protect the Saudis who have built a regional alliance of convenience with Israel over their shared hatred of Iran?

Inside Official Washington’s bubble – where the neocons and liberal hawks hold sway – there is a determination to make the “designated villains,” the Iranians, the Syrian government, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Russians. This list of “villains” matches up quite well with Israeli and Saudi interests and thus endless demonization of these “villains” remains the order of the day.

But the Saudis – and indeed the Israelis – are showing what they’re really made of. Israel has removed its humanistic mask as it ruthlessly suppresses Palestinians and mounts periodic “grass mowing” operations, using high-tech munitions to slaughter thousands of nearly defenseless people in Gaza and the West Bank while no longer even pretending to want a peaceful resolution of the long-simmering conflict. Israel’s choice now seems to be apartheid or genocide.

Meanwhile, the Saudis – though long-hailed in Official Washington as “moderates” – are showing what a farcical description that has always been as the royals now supply U.S.-made TOW missiles and other sophisticated weapons to Sunni jihadists in Syria, fighting alongside Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front.

Using advanced U.S.-supplied warplanes, the Saudis also have been pulverizing poverty-stricken Yemen after exaggerating the level of Iranian support to the Houthis, who have been fighting both a Saudi-backed regime and Al Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate. Amid the Saudi-inflicted humanitarian crisis, Al Qaeda’s forces have expanded their territory.

And, at the start of the New Year, the Saudi monarchy butchered 47 prisoners, including prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr for his offense of criticizing the royals, or as the Saudis like to say – without a touch of irony – supporting “terrorism.” By chopping off Nimr’s head – as well as shooting and decapitating the others – the Saudis demonstrated that there is very little qualitative difference between them and the head-choppers of the Islamic State.

The Usual Suspects

Yes, the usual suspects in Official Washington have sought to muddle the blood-soaked picture by condemning angry Iranian protesters for ransacking the Saudi embassy in Tehran before the government security forces intervened. And there will surely be an escalation of condemnations of anyone who suggests normalizing relations with Iran.

But the issue for the neocons and their liberal-interventionist sidekicks is whether they can continue to spin obviously false narratives about the nobility of these Middle East “allies,” including Israel. Is there a limit to what they can put over on the American people? At some point, will they risk losing whatever shreds of credibility that they still have? Or perhaps the calculation will be that public credibility is irrelevant, power and control are everything.

A similar choice must be made by politicians, including those running for the White House.

Some Republican candidates, most notably Sen. Marco Rubio, have gone all-in with the neocons, hoping to secure largesse from casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson and other staunch supporters of Israel’s right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On the other hand, real-estate magnate Donald Trump has distanced himself from neocon orthodoxy, even welcoming Russia’s entry into the Syrian conflict to fight the Islamic State, heresy in Official Washington.

On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the most closely associated with the neocons and the liberal hawks – and she has dug in on the issue of their beloved “regime change” strategy, which she insists must be applied to Syria.

She appears to have learned nothing from her misguided support for the Iraq War, nor from her participation in overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi’s secular regime in Libya, both of which created vacuums that the Islamic State and other extremists filled. (British special forces are being deployed to Libya as part of an offensive to reclaim Libyan oil fields from the Islamic State.)

A Sanders Opportunity

The Saudi decision to chop off Sheikh Nimr’s head and slaughter 46 other people in one mass execution also puts Sen. Bernie Sanders on the spot over his glib call for the Saudis “to get their hands dirty” and intervene militarily across the region.

That may have been a clever talking point, calling on the rich Saudis to put some skin in the game, but it missed the point that – even before the Nimr execution – the Saudis’ hands were very dirty, indeed covered in blood.

For Sanders to see the Saudis as part of the solution to the Mideast chaos ignores the reality that they are a big part of the problem. Not only has Saudi Arabia funded the extreme, fundamentalist Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam – building mosques and schools around the Muslim world – but Al Qaeda and many other jihadist groups are, in essence, Saudi paramilitary forces dispatched to undermine governments on Riyadh’s hit list.

That has been the case since the 1980s when the Saudis – along with the Reagan administration – invested billions of dollars in support of the brutal mujahedeen in Afghanistan with the goal of overthrowing a secular, Soviet-backed government in Kabul.

Though the “regime change” worked – the secular leader Najibullah was castrated and his body hung from a light pole in Kabul – the eventual outcome was the emergence of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, led by a Saudi scion, Osama bin Laden.

Though Sanders has resisted articulating a detailed foreign policy – instead seeking to turn questions back to his preferred topic of income inequality – the latest Saudi barbarism gives him a new chance to distinguish himself from front-runner Clinton. He could show courage and call for a realignment based on reality, not propaganda.

President Obama, too, has a final chance to refashion the outdated and counter-productive U.S. alliances in the Middle East. At least he could rebalance them to allow a pragmatic relationship with Iran and Russia to stabilize Syria and neutralize the Saudi-backed jihadists.

Standing Up, Not Bowing Down

Instead of being supplicants to Saudi riches and oil, the West could apply stern measures against the Saudi royals to compel their acquiescence to a real anti-terrorist coalition. If they don’t comply immediately, their assets could be frozen and seized; they could be barred from foreign travel; they could be isolated until they agreed to behave in a civilized manner, including setting aside ancient animosities between Sunni and Shiite Islam.

It seems the European public is beginning to move in this direction, in part, because the Saudi-led destabilization of Syria has dumped millions of desperate refugees on the European Union’s doorstep. If a new course isn’t taken, the E.U. itself might split apart.

But the power of the neocon/liberal-hawk establishment in Official Washington remains strong and has prevented the American people from achieving anything close to a full understanding of what is going on in the Middle East.

The ultimate barrier to an informed U.S. public may also be the enormous power of the Israel Lobby, which operates what amounts to a blacklist against anyone who dares criticize Israeli behavior and harbors hopes of ever holding a confirmable government position or – for that matter – a prominent job in the mainstream media.

It would be a test of true political courage and patriotism for some major politician or prominent pundit to finally take on these intimidating forces. That likely won’t happen, but Saudi Arabia’s latest head-choppings have created the possibility, finally, for a game-changing realignment.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

January 6, 2016 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Is NATO’s European honeymoon on the rocks?

By Robert Bridge | RT | January 1, 2016

Amid NATO’s non-stop campaign of overseas military misadventures, which are displacing millions of people and forcing them to EU shores, Europeans may be finally losing their patience with the military organization’s reckless ways.

The year 2015 came to a screeching, white-knuckle end for the 28-member states that make up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

As Europe struggles to accommodate a tidal wave of refugees escaping the blood and violence of its former colonial lands, right-wing parties are winning over the hearts and minds of Europeans who are increasingly wary of multiculturalism, neo-liberal reforms, austerity measures – and now, it seems, even NATO itself.

Just this month, Polish military police, accompanied by Antoni Macierewicz, the new defense minister of the newly elected Law and Justice Party, conducted a dramatic midnight raid on a NATO-linked counterintelligence center in Warsaw. Yes, you read that right: Polish authorities conducted a raid on a NATO-linked facility on their own territory.

According to the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, authorities entered the complex using a duplicate key and then unceremoniously dismissed the director in absentia, Col Krzysztof Dusza and replaced him with Col. Robert Bala. Dozens of other bureaucrats and assorted paper-shufflers were also relieved of their shadowy duties on the spot.

The former Polish defense minister Tomasz Siemoniak told reporters: “Nothing like this has happened in the history of NATO, where a member state attacks a NATO facility.”

One NATO official attempted to downplay the unprecedented event, calling the night raid “an issue for the Polish authorities.”

But clearly there is much more to the story than what the public is being told.

After all, what would cause a traditionally pro-Western country like Poland to ignore constitutional due process and risk relations with Brussels, NATO – not to mention the group’s top dog, Washington – by conducting a crack of dawn, neo-Nazi-style raid? For those who were surprised by Warsaw’s tough tactics fail to see which way the political winds are blowing not just in Poland, but across the EU.

Much of the winds of change howling through the streets of Europe can be connected to the failure of US foreign policy, and the repercussions that has had on the European status quo.

For much of Europe: No hope, no change

First, the promise of ‘hope and change’ that failed to materialize under US President Barack Obama has been a major letdown not just for millions of Americans, but for countless Europeans as well. On April 5, 2009, 20,000 people jammed in front of the Prague Castle to listen to America’s first black president seduce his audience with tele-prompted tales of peace, prosperity, non-proliferation and promises, promises and more promises.

In fact, Europe was so giddy about the arrival of Barack Obama that the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded him the Peace Prize just nine months into his first term as president. Today, the reality of the farce is painfully conspicuous: Guantanamo Bay detention facility is still open for business, Libya is in dire straits, while the US military is operating in Syria, albeit it with little or no effect on Islamic State, its proclaimed target.

Clearly, what Obama has delivered over the course of his two terms in office has been strikingly different from the advertisement. Instead of being relieved from the warmongering insanity of the Bush era, the world is still embroiled knee-deep in crisis – and in new places (Libya, Syria and Pakistan) that exploded on Obama’s watch, as well as in Russia, where the Kremlin wised up fast to the fairy tale known as ‘reset’ (The one bright spot in US foreign policy has been the Obama administration’s conclusion of a controversial nuclear deal with Iran, yet judging by recent events – which included the US Navy accusing Iran of firing missiles in proximity of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the Persian Gulf – charges Tehran has slammed as “psychological warfare”).

But the crisis now enveloping the world is not limited to those of a military nature: Ever since the 2008 Financial Crisis, the worst economic setback since the Great Depression, Europe has been mired in dismal economic growth and high unemployment, compounded by an insane influx of millions of refugees that are only serving to erode Europe’s financial prospects, to say nothing about demographics.

And in order to ‘cure’ the disease of insolvency, many once-proud, self-sufficient European countries (Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece, to name a few) are forced to rely on impossible-to-return loans from the very same global bankers that wrecked these national economies in the first place (the fact that only isolated Iceland was politically independent enough to punish its bankers and restructure its economy without suicidal austerity measures proves that Europe is under the influence of powers far beyond the control of democratic procedure).

The lesson that Europeans learned was an old one: ‘Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.’ Ever since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Washington (and by extension, NATO) has only delivered Europe a series of global military debacles that the Old World – already suffering under the brutal dictate of IMF debt and World Bank measures – can now ill afford. Now toss a few million desperate refugees into the mix and you have awakened the raw spirit of right-wing political parties – from Le Pen’s Front National in France to Golden Dawn in Greece.

The Financial Times, sympathizing with the neo-liberal globalists, summed up the scenario that is playing itself out in national elections across the EU: “All over the world, globalisation is under challenge from resurgent nationalist forces. One of the great political challenges of the coming year will be to defend the benefits of globalisation — while fending off the arguments of nationalists such as Mrs Le Pen, Donald Trump in the US and his new admirer, President Vladimir Putin of Russia.”

FT failed to mention, of course, that globalization thus far has been a boon for the transnational corporations and a total bust for the denizens of the global village.

Personally, I can’t imagine that, in a situation where nearly every US foreign policy initiative over the last 15 years has resulted in utter chaos and catastrophe, the European people (still highly educated despite biting austerity) will fail to correctly add two-plus-two and conclude that NATO as an institution designed to defend their interests is also failing them in dramatic fashion.

The Western military bloc continues to agitate Russia, pushing smack against the very border of NATO’s Cold War nemesis, while recklessly hampering one of Europe’s most reliable trading partners.

The Cold War, according to reliable history books, has been over for about a quarter-of-a-century, yet the Western military bloc continues to incite Russia with clearly threatening moves, most notably the US missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, which Russia has warned will upset the strategic balance and invoke a new arms race.

But judging by the frustration and even anger of many European people, which is manifesting itself in the rise of far-right movements that are serving up the heady cocktail of national patriotism and economic protectionism, NATO’s European honeymoon really may be hitting the rocks.

In addition to the Polish midnight raid on the NATO-linked center comes this news: German politicians slammed the Merkel government as well as NATO command after it emerged that German troops will be sent to help NATO-member Turkey defend its border – without notifying parliamentarians in the Bundestag.

“The government must immediately inform parliament of the details of this deployment, in particular what missions will be assigned to these planes and the destination of any data they collect,” Tobias Lindner, the Green party’s head of defense issues, stated in the German daily Bild.

Yet Berlin – sounding every bit as arrogant and self-important as Washington these days – declared it has no intention of consulting the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament for approval.

The unilateral, undemocratic transfer of German troops (units of the AWACS data-collecting aircraft) on the part of NATO and the Merkel government comes amid smoldering tensions ever since Ankara shot down a Russian fighter jet that Turkey claims entered its airspace for a whole 17 seconds.

Although these two events in two major European countries may be nothing more than mere blips on the radar screen concerning NATO’s relationship with Europe, they could also be warning signals of an approaching earthquake in which the steady encroachment of nationalistic political demands begin to seriously clash with NATO’s global objectives, which, at this stage, don’t seem remotely concerned with the true well-being and security of the European people.

Robert Bridge is the author of the book on corporate power, “Midnight in the American Empire”, which was released in 2013.

@Robert_Bridge

January 2, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

‘The only thing Washington has not blamed Iran for is global warming’

RT | January 1, 2016

As Washington sends mixed signals on whether or not it will introduce new sanctions against Iran, Tehran is considering other options should a new round of penalties come to pass, says Seyed Mohammad Marandi, professor at the University of Tehran.

The United States delayed the announcement of new penalties, which reportedly seeks to punish several companies and individuals from Iran, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates that the US believes have been involved in Iran’s ballistic missile tests.

However, such an announcement comes as no surprise to Tehran, according to Marandi, who said that even as the [nuclear] negotiations were taking place between Iran and the P5+1, the general consensus in Iran was that “the United States would move towards increasing sanctions through other excuses than that of the nuclear program.”

Marandi provided a list of methods the United States was using to target Iran, including the recent passage of a law restricting visas for people that have visited Iran, as well as for Iranian citizens that have dual nationality. Also, Iranian assets are being confiscated abroad, which the Iranians “believe… is theft by the United States through using different excuses.”

The professor at the University of Tehran says such actions could “severely damage the chances for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action bearing fruit.”

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is an agreement designed to oversee Iran’s nuclear program reached in Vienna on July 14, 2015 between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council — China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States—plus Germany), and the EU.

Marandi believes that Washington’s aggressive stance towards Iran must be explained by other reasons because, he says, “there’s never been any evidence to show that Iran’s nuclear program has been anything but peaceful. The United States has been making many accusations against Iran that have been unfounded.”

The real reason the US is fundamentally opposed to Iran is because the Islamic Republic successfully freed itself from Washington’s rule many years ago, he argues.

“The United States has not forgiven the Iranian people over three and a half decades for gaining their independence from the United States and becoming an independent actor in this part of the world.

“Therefore, the Iranians expect the United States will use all sorts of excuses – whether it’s the nuclear program, terrorism, human rights.”

Marandi exclaimed with a hint of irony that the only thing Iran has not been blamed for by Washington is “global warming.”

Yet the nuclear issue, he says, is not the main point of contention between the two countries. What really irks Washington about Iran “is not the nuclear program, but rather Iran’s political independence of the US,” he asserts.

But the international community will see through the actions of the United States that – despite the agreement between the two countries – is “trying to make ordinary Iranians suffer until Iran bows down to the will of the US.”

Marandi is adamant that such a thing “is not going to happen.”

In fact, according to the academic, Tehran has many options open to itself should the US impose a new round of sanctions, including seeking the cooperation and partnership of other countries – both non-Western and Western alike.

“If the US continues to go down this road, we will see greater tensions and probably it will be an important incentive for Iran to increase and develop its ties with Russia and China, as well as other non-Western countries.”

Marandi concludes that due to Washington’s support of countries in the region that are guilty of “supporting al-Qaeda and ISIL [Islamic State/ISIS],” Tehran is of the opinion that countries like Russia, China and increasingly India, and even many European Union countries will begin to “look more to Iran as a reliable partner and this is making it far more difficult for the US… to impose sanctions on Iran in a way in which the international community would abide by those demands of the US.”

January 2, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment

Losing Ground: 2015 Proved a ‘Lost Year’ for Turkey

Sputnik – 01.01.2016

In an interview with CNBC, Unicredit Bank AG’s Chief Economist for Central and Eastern Europe Lubomir Mitov said that Ankara could derive enormous benefit from the situation in Europe and capitalize on low oil prices, but instead it had lost all its economic advantages, quarreled with all its neighbors, and spoiled ties with Russia.

According to Mitov, 2015 was a “lost year” for Turkey, which missed many opportunities because of the deterioration of the geopolitical situation.

He said that in particular, Turkey could have “benefited tremendously” from the current situation in Europe, where the Central Bank has  increased asset purchases to try to keep the economy afloat. Still, those gains were never achieved due to internal political strife and geopolitics, Mitov recalled.

“Turkey is underperforming [and] has been underperforming for the full year…it’s even underperforming after the elections,” he said.

He also pointed out that “Turkey is probably 3 to 4 percent weaker than it should have been after the elections, but for these geopolitical problems.”

Even though the previous government tried to develop friendly relations with its neighboring states, Turkey now has “almost no neighbors left, according to Mitov, who recalled that Ankara earlier sparked rows with Iraq, Egypt and Syria.

The situation is further exacerbated by Turkey’s increased tensions in relations with Russia after Ankara’s downing of the Russian Su-24 bomber. In response, “Moscow clamped down on agricultural imports, set stringent visa limits, and restricted tourism to Turkey,” according to Mitov.

He was echoed by Peter Toogood, an investment director at City Financial Investment Company Limited, who was quoted by CNBS as saying that a lack of structural reforms has stopped Turkey from capitalizing on “the full benefits of economic boons like low oil prices.”

“The lira continues to decline, it has had no meaningful impact … the oil price has come down, [and] it should be the absolute example of a beneficiary, and it hasn’t been,” Toogood said.

January 1, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Putin signs bill allowing reciprocal impounding of foreign nations’ property

RT | December 30, 2015

President Vladimir Putin has signed amendments to a bill that restricts foreign states’ right not to observe certain Russian legal procedures if these states themselves introduce measures restricting Russia’s legal immunity.

The amendments would change Russian civil and arbitration codes by introducing the principle of limited legal immunity for a foreign state. They detail the procedure of initiating a lawsuit against a foreign nation and serving court warrants to its representatives. The document also prescribes the role of various Russian state agencies in court cases against foreign states.

The amendments are a part of a law that was signed in early November and will come into force on January 1. It allows Russia to impound the property of foreign states, so long as Russian courts rule that these nations have damaged the economic or other interests of the Russian Federation. Before this act was introduced, such steps were only allowed on condition the government of the country in question agreed to them.

The new bill was drafted by the government as a reciprocal measure after several countries this year executed the rulings of international courts and impounded the assets belonging to the Russian state.

For example, in early July, the media reported that Belgium and France had frozen Russian state companies’ assets and curtailed their agencies in these countries. The move was in connection with the June 2014 ruling by the International Criminal Court in The Hague that ordered Russia to pay compensation of $39.9 billion, $1.85 billion and $8.2 billion, respectively, to three companies connected to the once-powerful oil giant Yukos, which was dissolved in 2007.

The Russian Foreign Ministry described these steps as blatant violation of international law and promised to contest these decisions. Vladimir Putin said that Russia would challenge the decision to seize its assets. The president added that the country didn’t recognize the ruling of the Hague court, as it doesn’t participate in the European Energy Charter.

In comments to the newly introduced law on reciprocal impounding of foreign states’ assets, the Justice Ministry wrote that the main idea behind it was to ensure a “jurisdiction balance” between Russia and foreign states. “The number of lawsuits against the Russian Federation is constantly growing and this happens without asking for our agreement for participation in these cases,” a government source told Kommersant daily. Therefore, recognizing rulings by foreign courts is equivalent to conceding national sovereignty, the source added.

Also in July, the Russian Constitutional Court decided that no international treaty or convention has precedence over national sovereignty, and decisions by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) should be upheld only when they don’t contradict basic Russian law. In mid-December, President Putin signed into law a bill allowing the Constitutional Court to overrule the decisions of international courts if such decisions contradict the principle of supremacy of the Russian Constitution.

December 30, 2015 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Only one military service inductee in Reni district of Odessa in autumn 2015

Timer-Odessa – December 29, 2015

During the autumn of 2015, the army recruitment office for the Reni district of Odessa region found only one inductee, the department head for military enlistment, Sergey Lazarev, has announced.

“According to the conscription plan for the Ukrainian military, the Reni district should have contributed ten conscripts suitable for passage into military service. However, there was only one inductee. That is, the plan was met by ten per cent only,” he reported.

“When contacting candidates or their relatives, recruiters find that people are not home or they do not open their door,” said said Lazarev. “Due to the difficult financial situation, many citizens of military age have gone to work outside the region and even the country.”

He added that his military enlistment office has asked police to assist in the search for 414 citizens called up for military service. But none have been found and delivered to the military commissariat.

The problem is being discussed at the board of the district administration in Reni. “People on military service are unable to work or study”, notes the head of the district, Sergei Belyuk.

The spring 2016 military call-up is projecting 195 young residents from Reni district.

Translation by New Cold War.org

December 30, 2015 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

IMF Tricks Did Not Save Ukraine From Economic Collapse – German Newspaper

Sputnik – 30.12.2015

Ukraine may face complete economic failure as inflation progresses and foreign loans are unable to save the country’s economy. Kiev should admit that its plans to join the EU were unsuccessful, German newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (DWN) reported.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has done a lot to contribute to the rehabilitation of Ukraine, but the threat of hyperinflation is still urgent, while the country itself is close to bankruptcy, the newspaper wrote.

According to the National Bank of Ukraine, inflation in the country reached 44 percent this year compared to 24.9 percent last year. Chaotic economic policies, corruption and civil war in the eastern regions of the country have put Ukraine on the brink of national bankruptcy, the article said.

The IMF tried to stop the destruction of the Ukrainian economy using various legal tricks. In order to help Ukraine which still has not repaid its debt to Russia, the IMF hastily changed its rules and can now provide loans to insolvent countries.

Just this year alone, Ukraine has received about ten billion dollars in loans from the IMF and other international donors. The financial aid, however, failed to improve the state of the country’s economy.

If the devaluation continues at the current pace, Kiev will not only run out of money, but also lose the trust of its Western partners. At the moment, Ukraine is actually living on the money of European and American taxpayers. Sooner or later, European countries may stop “pumping” their finances into the economically desperate state, the article said.

With regard to the catastrophic economic situation, the prospect of membership in the European Union, which the Ukrainian government dreams of, is a complete fiasco. Neither Ukraine nor the EU can afford such a serious challenge under the current conditions, DWN concluded.

December 30, 2015 Posted by | Corruption, Economics | , | Leave a comment

Iran MPs introduce US compensation bill

Press TV – December 28, 2015

Iran’s lawmakers introduce an urgent bill, demanding compensation from the US for “the damages which it has inflicted” on the country since 1953.

The MPs, irked by recent moves in the US for appropriation of Iran’s frozen assets, presented the bill Monday with a single urgency status, meaning it will be discussed immediately in parliament.

“In order to redeem the rights of the Iranian nation, the Administration is obliged to take necessary legal measures on receiving compensations and damages from the American government in proportion to its role in the following cases,” the draft bill said, listing the cases in 11 entries.

On top of the list, the bill demands restitution from the US over loss of lives and property damage resulting from the CIA-led 1953 coup which toppled the government of Mohammad Mosaddeq and restored the shah as an absolute dictator.

The US should also pay compensation for more than 223,000 Iranians killed and about 600,000 others injured “due to American intelligence, political and military cooperation” with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his 1980-1988 war on Iran, it said.

The bill further seeks damages over US support for MKO and other terrorist groups in assassinating and kidnapping Iranians and hijacking the country’s flights as well as Washington’s sanctions on Tehran and blockade of its assets.

The MPs have also cited the US government complicit in Saudi killing of Iranian pilgrims in 1987 and deaths of several hundred others during the Hajj stampede in Mina in September and demanded compensation.

‘American theft’

The motion comes in the wake of recent measures taken in the US to appropriate Iranian assets frozen in bank accounts in the country.

The US Supreme Court is reportedly considering a case filed by over 1,300 Americans pressing to receive billions of dollars of the Iranian money in awarded damages over two bombings in Beirut and Saudi Arabia in 1983 and 1996.

The Obama administration has reportedly urged the court not to overturn the decisions of US circuit and appeals courts to award the plaintiffs.

In 2012, President Barack Obama issued an executive order blocking all of the Central Bank of Iran’s assets held in the US in order to prevent Tehran from repatriating them.

At the same time, Congress passed a law which included a provision making it easier for the Americans to use Iranian funds frozen in the US.

“The American government’s move to lay hands on Iran’s blockaded assets amounts to theft and we are working to answer it,” Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said on Monday.

On Thursday, US media said each of the 53 hostages held during the 1979 takeover of the American embassy in Tehran by Iranian students would receive compensation under a spending bill passed last Friday.

December 28, 2015 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Anti-Russian Sanctions Cost West Influence, Credibility, and $100 Billion

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Sputnik – 26.12.2015

For nearly two years, independent journalists and analysts in the US and Europe have been saying that sanctions against Russia should be repealed. Now, surprisingly, even the hawkishly anti-Russian foreign policy journal Foreign Affairs has joined the chorus, a recent article suggesting that sanctions have been nothing but a costly mistake.

The comprehensive analysis, written by CATO Institute Visiting Fellow Emma Ashford, offers few kind words for Russia or its leaders, using phrases like ‘Kremlin cronies’, and alluding to Russia’s ‘behavior’, as if the country was a child that needed to be taught a lesson. Nonetheless, as far as Western sanctions against Russia are concerned, Ashford laid down the truth. And the truth stings.

At first glance, the analyst suggested, “considering the dire state of Russia’s economy, [Western] sanctions might appear to be working. The value of the ruble has fallen by 76 percent against the dollar since the restrictions were imposed, and inflation for consumer goods hit 16 percent in 2015. That same year, the International Monetary Fund estimated, Russia’s GDP was to shrink by more than three percent.”

“In fact, however,” she notes, “Western policymakers got lucky: the sanctions coincided with the collapse of global oil prices, worsening, but not causing, Russia’s economic decline. The ruble’s exchange rate has tracked global oil prices more closely than any new sanctions, and many of the actions taken by the Russian government, including the slashing of the state budget, are similar to those it took when oil prices fell during the 2008 financial crisis.”

“The sanctions have inhibited access to Western financing, forcing Russian banks to turn to the government for help. This has run down the Kremlin’s foreign reserves and led the government to engage in various unorthodox financial maneuvers, such as allowing the state-owned oil company Rosneft to recapitalize itself from state coffers. Yet the Russian government has been able to weather the crisis by providing emergency capital to wobbling banks, allowing the ruble to float freely, and making targeted cuts to the state budget while providing financial stimulus through increased spending on pensions.”Therefore, Ashford points out, “even with continued low oil prices, the [IMF] expects that growth will return to the Russian economy in 2016, albeit at a sluggish 1.5 percent.”

“Nor are the sanctions inflicting much pain on Russia’s elites,” the analyst wistfully continues. “Although Prada and Tiffany are doing less business in Moscow, the luxury housing market is anemic, and travel bans rule out weekend jaunts to Manhattan, these restrictions are hardly unbearable. One target, the close Putin adviser Vladislav Surkov, has dismissed them as harmless. “The Only things that interest me in the US are Tupac Shakur, Allen Ginsberg, and Jackson Pollock,” he said. “I don’t need a visa to access their work.””

Most importantly, Ashford notes, “when the sanctions are judged by the most relevant metric –whether they are producing a policy change – they have been an outright failure.”

“Whatever punishment the sanctions have inflicted on Russia,” Ashford writes, “it has not translated into coercion,” despite the Obama administration’s expectations “that it would have by now.”

Furthermore, “the Kremlin has also managed to circumvent the sanctions, partly by turning to China. In May 2014, Putin visited the country to seal a 30-year, $400 billion gas deal with it, demonstrating that Russia has alternatives to European gas markets. That October, Moscow and Beijing also agreed to a 150 billion yuan currency swap, allowing companies such as Gazprom to trade commodities in rubles and yuan – and thus steer clear of US financial regulations.””Even in Europe,” the analyst points out, “Russia has been able to find loopholes to avoid sanctions: in order to obtain access to Artic drilling equipment and expertise, Rosneft acquired 30 percent of the North Atlantic drilling projects belonging to the Norwegian company Statoil.”

Paradoxically, Sanctions Boost Putin’s Popularity

As for the sanctions’ impact on Russia’s political leadership, Ashford suggests that this may be the area where they are “most counterproductive. The sanctions have had a ‘rally round the flag’ effect as the Russian people blame their ills on the West. According to the Levada Center, a Russian research organization, Putin’s approval rating increased from 63 percent” before Crimea’s accession to Russia “to 88 percent by October 2015. In another poll, more than two-thirds of respondents said they thought the primary goal of the sanctions was to weaken and humiliate Russia.”

… And Weaken Western Influence Worldwide

Moreover, Ashford argues, sanctions “have also encouraged Russia to create its own financial institutions, which, in the long run, will chip away at the United States’ economic influence. After US senators and some European governments suggested that the United States might cut off Russia’s access to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) payment system, the Russian Central Bank announced that it was going to start negotiations with the other BRICS states – Brazil, India, China, and South Africa – to create an alternative.”

“To lessen its dependence on Visa and MasterCard, Russia has made moves toward setting up its own credit-card clearing-house. And it has moved ahead with the proposed BRICs development bank, which is designed to replicate the functions of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.”

These measures add up, Ashford suggests, raising “the worrying possibility that the United States will someday have a harder time employing economic statecraft,” (i.e. applying economic pressure), not just against Russia, but against other, smaller nations as well. “In a world where more institutions fall outside the reach of the United States and its allies, [potential] targets can more easily circumvent US sanctions.”

A $100 Billion Mistake

“It is true,” the analyst notes, “that the sanctions have allowed the Obama administration to claim that it is doing something about Russian aggression. From the White House’s perspective, that might be an acceptable rationale for the policy, so long as there were no downsides. In fact, however, the sanctions carry major economic and political costs for the United States and its European allies.”

“The brunt is being borne by Europe, where the European Commission has estimated that the sanctions cut growth by 0.3 percent of GDP in 2015. According to the Austrian Institute of Economic Research, continuing the sanctions on Russia could cost over 90 billion euros [$98.75 billion US] in export revenue and more than two million jobs over the next few years.”

The sanctions, Ashford writes, “are proving especially painful for countries with strong trade ties to Russia. Germany, Russia’s largest European partner, stands to lose almost 400,000 jobs. Meanwhile, a number of European banks, including Societe Generale in France and Raiffesen Zentralbank in Austria, have made large loans to Russian companies, raising the worrying possibility that the banks may become unstable, or even require bailouts if the borrowers default.”US companies, further away and less heavily involved in trade with Russia, are nonetheless also taking a big hit, according to the analyst.

“US energy companies, for their part, have had to abandon various joint ventures with Russia, losing access to billions of dollars of investments. Thanks to prohibitions on the provision of technology and services to Russian companies, Western firms have been kept out of unconventional drilling projects in the Artic and elsewhere. ExxonMobil, for example, has been forced to withdraw from all ten of its joint ventures with Rosneft, including a $3.2 billion project in the Kara Sea.”

This, Ashford says, will cost the company “access to upstream development projects” in Russia, while “putting the company’s future profits and stock valuation at risk and raising the possibility that the money they’ve already invested will be permanently lost.”

“A similar dynamic may harm European energy security, too,” threatening shortfalls in the supply of Russian energy. “The energy consultancy IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates has predicted that if the sanctions persist, Russian oil production could decrease from 10.5 million barrels per day now to 7.6 million barrels per day by 2025 – bad news for European states, which receive one-third of their oil from Russia. They are even more dependent on Russian gas, which, since it relies more on fixed pipelines, is harder to replace.”

Ultimately, Ashford notes, “it is tempting to believe that the sanctions will eventually work – say, after a few more years –but that is wishful thinking.”

“If the United States continues to insist that the sanctions against Russia need more time to work, then the costs will continue to add up, while the likelihood of changing the Kremlin’s behavior will get even slimmer.”In the final analysis, the expert calls for the winnowing of sanctions, and for an increased effort by US diplomats “to work with their Russian counterparts on issues unrelated to the Ukraine crisis. The United States and Russia collaborated on the Iran nuclear deal,” Ashford recalls, and can cooperate on ending the civil war in Syria, too.

“Engaging Russia on this and other non-Ukrainian issues would avoid isolating it diplomatically and thus discourage it from creating or joining alternative international institutions,” the analyst slyly concludes.

See also: Anti-Russia Sanctions ‘Humiliating’ for Europe

December 28, 2015 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

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