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jueves, 31 de agosto de 2023

NATOstan Robots Versus the Heavenly Horses of Multipolarity

PEPE ESCOBAR • AUGUST 29, 2023

https://www.unz.com/pescobar/natostan-robots-versus-the-heavenly-horses-of-multipolarity/

We will all need plenty of time and introspection to analyze the full range of game-changing vectors unleashed by the unveiling of BRICS 11 last week in South Africa.

Yet time waits for no one. The Empire will (italics mine) strike back in full force; in fact its multi-hydra Hybrid War tentacles are already on display.

Here and here I have attempted two rough drafts of History on the birth of BRICS 11. Essentially, what the Russia-China strategic partnership is accomplishing, one (giant) step at a time, is also multi-vectorial:

  • expanding BRICS into an alliance to fight against U.S. non-diplomacy.
  • counter-acting the sanctions dementia.
  • promoting alternatives to SWIFT.
  • promoting autonomy, self-reliance and instances of sovereignty.
  • and in the near future, integrating BRICS 11 (and counting) with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to counter imperial military threats, something already alluded to by President Lukashenko, the inventor of the precious neologism “Global Globe”.

In contrast, the indispensable Michael Hudson has constantly shown how the U.S. and EU’s “strategic error of self-isolation from the rest of the world is so massive, so total, that its effects are the equivalent of a world war.”

Thus Prof. Hudson’s contention that the proxy war in Ukraine – not only against Russia but also against Europe – “may be thought of as World War III.”

In several ways, Prof. Hudson details, we are living “an outgrowth of World War II, whose aftermath saw the United States establish international economic and political organization under its own control to operate in its own national self-interest: the International Monetary Fund to impose U.S. financial control and dollarize the world economy; the World Bank to lend governments money to bear the infrastructure costs of creating trade dependency on U.S. food and manufactures; promoting plantation agriculture, U.S./NATO control of oil, mining and natural resources; and United Nations agencies under U.S. control, with veto power in all international organizations that it created or joined.”

Now it’s another ball game entirely when it comes to Global South, or Global Majority, of “Global Globe” real emancipation. Just take Moscow hosting the Russia-Africa summit in late July, then Beijing, with Xi in person, spending a day last week in Johannesburg with dozens of African leaders, all of them part of the new Non-Aligned Movement (NAM): the G77 (actually 134 nations), presided by a Cuban, President Diaz-Canel.

That’s the Russia-China Double Helix in effect – offering large swathes of the “Global Globe” security and high-tech infrastructure (Russia) and finance, manufactured exports and road and rail infrastructure (China).

In this context, a BRICS currency is not necessary. Prof. Hudson crucially quotes President Putin: what’s needed is a “means of settlement” for Central Banks for their balance of payments, to keep in check imbalances in trade and investment. That has nothing to do with a BRICS gold-backed supra-national currency.

Moreover, there will be no need for a new reserve currency as increasingly more nations will be ditching the U.S. dollar in their settlements.

Putin has referred to a “temporary” accounting unit – as intra-BRICS 11 trade will be inevitably expanding in their national currencies. All that will develop in the context of an increasingly overwhelming alliance of major oil, gas, minerals, agriculture and commodities producers: a real (italics mine) economy capable of supporting a new global order progressively pushing Western dominance into oblivion.

Call it the soft way to euthanize Hegemony.

All aboard the “malign China” narrative

Now compare all of the above with that piece of Norwegian wood posing as NATO secretary-general telling the CIA mouthpiece paper in Washington, in a unique moment of frankness, that the Ukraine War “didn’t start in 2022. The war started in 2014”.

So here we have a designated imperial vassal plainly admitting that the whole thing started with Maidan, the U.S.-engineered coup supervised by cookie distributor Vicky “F**k the E” Nuland. This means that NATO’s claim of a Russia “invasion”, referring to the Special Military Operation (SMO) is absolutely bogus from a legal standpoint.

It’s firmly established that the spin doctors/ paid propagandist “experts” of Atlanticist idiocracy, practicing an unrivalled mix of arrogance/ignorance, believe they can get away with anything when it comes to demonizing Russia. The same applies to their new narrative on “malign China”.

Chinese scholars which I have the honor to interact with are always delighted to point out that imperial pop narratives and predictive programming are absolutely useless when it comes to confronting Zhong Hua (“The Splendid Central Civilization”).

That’s because China, as one of them describes it, is endowed with a “clear-minded, purposeful and relentless aristocratic oligarchy at the helm of the Chinese State”, using tools of power that guarantee, among other issues, public safety and hygiene for all; education focused on learning useful information and skills, not indoctrination; a monetary system under control; physical assets and the industrial capacity to make real stuff; first-class diplomatic, supply chain, techno-scientific, economic, cultural, commercial, geostrategic and financial networks; and first-class physical infrastructure.

And yet, since at least 1990, Western mainstream media is obsessed to dictate that China’s economic collapse, or “hard landing”, is imminent.

Nonsense. As another Chinese scholar frames it, “China’s strategy has been to let sleeping dogs lie and let lying machines lie. Meanwhile, let China surpass them in their sleep and cause the Empire’s demise.”

Poisons, viruses, microchips

And that bring us full circle back to the New Great Game: NATOstan versus the Multipolar World. No matter the evidence provided by graphic reality, NATOstan in advanced seppuku mode – especially the European sector – actually believes it will win the war against Russia-China.

As for the Global South/Global Majority/”Global Globe”, they are regarded as enemies. So their mostly poor populations should be poisoned with famine, experimental injections, new modified viruses, implanted microchips as in BCI (Brain Computer Interface) and soon NATO As Global Robocop “security” outfits.

The coming of BRICS 11 is already unleashing a new imperial wave of deadly poisoning, brand new viruses and cyborgs.

The imperial master issued the order to “save” the Japanese seafood industry – a few scraps as quid pro quod for Tokyo acting as a rabid dog in the imperial Chip War against China, and dutifully pledging alliance at the recent Camp David summit side by side with the South Korean vassals.

The EU vassals, in synch, lifted Japan food import rules just as Fukushima nuclear wastewater was to be pumped into the ocean. That’s yet another instance of the EU continuing to dig its own grave – as Japan is set to suffer a Typhoon Number Ten type of blowback.

Radiation spread across the world through the Pacific will breed endless cancer patients around the world and simultaneously destroy the economy of several small island nations relying heavily on tourism.

In parallel, Sergey Glazyev, Minister of Macroeconomics at the Eurasian Economic Commission, part of the EAEU, has been among the very few warning about the new trans-humanist frontier: the Nanotechnology Injection craze ahead – something quite well documented in scientific journals.

Quoting Dr. Steve Hotze, Glazyev in one of his Telegram posts explained what DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has been doing, “injecting nanobots in the form of graphene oxide and hydrogel” into the human body, thus creating an interface between nanobots and brain cells. We become “a receptor, receiver and transmitter of signals. The brain will receive signals from the outside, and you can be manipulated remotely.”

Glazyev also refers to the by now frantic promotion of “Eris”, a new Covid variety, named by the WHO after the Greek goddess of discord and enmity, daughter of the goddess of night, Nykta.

Those familiar with Greek mythology will know that Eris was quite angry because she was not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. Her vengeance was to plant at the feast a golden apple from the gardens of Hesperides with the inscription “Most Beautiful”: that was the legendary “apple of discord”, which generated the Mother of All Catfights between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. And that eventually led to no less than the Trojan War.

In the White Room, with black curtains

It’s oh so predictable, coming from those “elites” running the show, to name a new virus as a harbinger of war. After all, The Next War is badly needed because Project Ukraine turned out to be a massive strategic failure, with the cosmic humiliation of NATO just around the corner.

During the Vietnam War – which the empire lost to a peasant guerrilla army – the daily briefing at the command HQ in Saigon was derided by every journalist with an IQ above room temperature as the “Saigon follies”.

Saigon would never compare with the tsunami of daily follies offered on the proxy war in Ukraine by a tawdry moveable feast at the White House, State Dept., Pentagon, NATO HQ, the Brussels Kafkaesque machine and other Western environs. The difference is that those posing as “journalists” today are cognitively incapable of understanding these are “follies” – and even if they did, they would be prevented from reporting them.

So that’s where the collective West is at the moment: in a White Room, a simulacrum of Plato’s cave depicted in Cream’s 1968 masterpiece, partly inspired by William Blake, invoking pale “silver horses” and exhausted “yellow tigers”.

The entire West is waiting at the room at the station with black curtains – and no trains. They will “sleep in this place with the lonely crowd” and “lie in the dark where the shadows run from themselves”.

Outside in the cold, long distance, under the sunlight, away from the moving shadows, across roads made of silk and iron, the Heavenly Horses (Tianma) of the multipolar world gallop gallantly from network to network, from Belt and Road to Eurasia and Afro-Eurasia Bridge, from intuition to integration, from emancipation to sovereignty.

miércoles, 30 de agosto de 2023

Demandan en EU a México por deuda de TV Azteca

Grupo REFORMA.

Cd. de México (30 agosto 2023)

https://www.reforma.com/demandan-en-eu-a-mexico-por-deuda-de-tv-azteca/ar2666140?

Dos fondos de inversión estadounidenses iniciaron un arbitraje comercial contra el Estado mexicano, luego de que por órdenes del Tribunal Superior de Justicia (TSJ) de la CDMX se evitó que TV Azteca pague a tenedores de deuda emitida en Nueva York, que suma 8 mil 800 millones de pesos, unos 488 millones de dólares.

El Centro Internacional para Arreglo de Disputas de Inversión (CIADI) del Banco Mundial, registró el 11 de agosto el reclamo de los fondos Cyrus Capital Partners, L.P. y Contrarian Capital Management, LLC alegando violaciones al Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte (TLCAN).

Se desconoce públicamente el monto de la indemnización que ambos fondos reclaman a México, cuyo Gobierno tendrá que defender el arbitraje por medio de despachos de abogados de Estados Unidos y Canadá contratados por la Secretaría de Economía y pagados por el erario.

Cyrus es dueño de 27.4 millones de dólares de la deuda emitida por TV Azteca, que dejó de pagar los intereses respectivos desde febrero de 2021, lo que activó la cláusula de aceleración para demandar el pago de todo el capital.

Es el décimo arbitraje comercial iniciado por inversionistas extranjeros contra México este año, más que cualquier otro país, y el vigésimo que está en curso.

El CIADI no ha informado detalles sobre el arbitraje, registrado con número ARB/23/33, pero su relación con TV Azteca fue confirmada en un documento presentado la semana pasada en la Corte de Bancarrotas del Distrito Sur de Nueva York, que tramita desde marzo una demanda de concurso mercantil involuntario contra la televisora.

"El 30 de junio de 2023, abogados de los acreedores demandantes presentaron una solicitud de arbitraje contra México ante el CIADI, misma que fue promovida a nombre de dos de los consejeros de inversión de los acreedores. La solicitud de arbitraje fue hecha con base en el TLCAN, del que México es parte, y deriva de órdenes judiciales dictadas en México", explica el documento.

En septiembre de 2022, el juez 63 de lo Civil adscrito al TSJ en la CDMX, Miguel Angel Robles, dictó una "medida cautelar" que prohibió a acreedores de TV Azteca cobrar la deuda, por la emergencia de Covid-19.

martes, 29 de agosto de 2023

IN MEXICO, ONE PERSON DISAPPEARS EVERY HOUR.


During the government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which began in December 2018, and until this month of August 2023, 43,000 Mexicans have disappeared; that is, one per hour during the 4 years, 8 months of the current administration, which ends its mandate on September 30, 2024.

From 1962 to 2023, the number of missing persons, according to the Register of Missing and Unlocated Persons, reaches 111,000.
It is an enormous tragedy, as thousands of families, day after day, experience the loss of a loved one who does not make it to their work, school, shop, or home.

They are men, women, teenagers, children, etc. And the response of the López Obrador government has been disdain, because during its entire administration it has not once received the fathers and mothers who are looking for their children or their siblings, or their husbands or wives.

López Obrador is so annoyed with this issue that he has ordered the Ministry of Welfare, which is in charge of distributing the economic aid that his government gives to the population (cash), to conduct a new “census” of missing persons, when it is not this body that is in charge of doing so, but the Ministry of Interior.

And the goal of the new “census” is to reduce the number of missing persons, so that the president can say that his government has addressed the problem.

This maneuver is so crude that Karla Quintana, the head of the National Search Commission under the Ministry of the Interior, decided to resign in protest at this new “census” that seeks to wash the face of an irresponsible government that has failed to address such a serious problem that hurts Mexican society greatly.

But this has been the López Obrador administration, which prefers to pretend to solve problems, such as corruption, which is now worse than in previous governments; by masking up statistics or continually criticizing the media, political parties, academics or intellectuals who constantly expose the country's deplorable reality, and who therefore expose a government that promised to bring the country out of the abyss it was in; and instead, what it has done is to deepen the domination of organized crime and corrupt political and economic groups.

lunes, 28 de agosto de 2023

Anunciado alud de demandas supranacionales contra la 4T

Manuel Pérez Rocha L.*

https://www.jornada.com.mx/2023/08/28/opinion/018a1pol

Cuando funcionarios del gobierno de Peña Nieto negociaron el T-MEC con Canadá y Estados Unidos, dejaron a la 4T una bomba de tiempo que ya ha estallado. El equipo de transición de AMLO, a pesar de advertencias, cedió el quedar atado a un periodo de tres años a partir de la entrada en vigor del T-MEC, durante el cual iba a poder ser demandado por empresas trasnacionales bajo las reglas del capítulo 11 del TLCAN, que hacen a México uno de los cinco países más demandados del mundo (El TLCAN está vigente en el T-MEC, La Jornada, 1/8/22).

Bajo advertencia no hay engaño. Empresas alentadas por abogados que actúan como aves de carroña han aprovechado la cláusula de legado del TLCAN, antes de que ésta caducara el 1º de julio pasado. Un alud de 10 demandas inversionista-Estado se han registrado en el Ciadi, del Banco Mundial, contra México en tan sólo de enero a julio de este año. Un récord mundial.

Dentro de estas demandas se incluyen cuatro de industrias extractivas (las mineras canadienses Goldgroup Resources y First Majestic Silver –ésta por segunda vez–, la minera estadunidense Silver Bull Resources y las petroleras también estadounidenses Enerfelx Holdings y Exterran Energy Solutions). Se incluyen dos demandas de las financieras estadunidenses Amerra Capital y JP Morgan y la más reciente por Cyrus and Contrarian Capital. Otras demandas interpuestas por empresas estadunidenses este año incluyen la de parquímetros Sepadeve International, del empresario ferrocarrilero Mario Noriega Willars, de la dulcera Arbor Confection y de Access Business Group (ABG). Ésta, como hemos reportado en La Jornada (21/11/22), reclama más de 3 mil millones de dólares por la decisión del gobierno mexicano de hacer cumplir el decreto de 1939 de Lázaro Cárdenas de devolver las tierras del ejido San Isidro, en Jalisco, ocupadas por la explotadora y contaminante empresa Amway-Nutrilite (cuyo dueño es ABG), a campesinos y trabajadores rurales.

Estos casos se suman a 15 demandas pendientes más contra México (interpuestas entre 2015 y 2022). Suman reclamos por hasta 11 mil 361 millones de dólares (cálculos propios con base en información de Ciadi e IA Reporter). Esta cifra puede ser mucho mayor, ya que no se cuenta con información de los montos de seis estas demandas. Se tienen que sumar además, los enormes gastos del erario que se deben desembolsar para el pago de costosos despachos de abogados e incluso de las cuotas que cobran el Ciadi y los miembros de los tribunales.

Once mil 361 millones de dólares son unos 193 mil millones de pesos, mucho más que los 108 mil millones de pesos destinados a Apoyo al Campo y cercana a los 231 mil millones de pesos dedicados al Fomento Económico y Medio Ambiente (https://tinyurl.com/2p8nzka7).

Dada la falta de transparencia y la coraza con que funciona el sistema de arbitraje en favor de inversionistas, es más que loable cuando organizaciones sociales y comunitarias generan acciones de incidencia al exponer agravios a derechos humanos a escala local, sirviendo como referencia para campañas globales para desmontar sistemas que apuntalan al capitalismo trasnacional, como el régimen de arreglos de disputas inversionista-Estado.

En muchos casos se dan fallos en favor de los estados gracias a la acción local y la solidaridad internacional; desde la guerra del agua, cuando el pueblo de Cochabamba, Bolivia, venció a la multinacional Bechtel en 2000, hasta la más reciente prohibición de la minería metálica cuando el pueblo salvadoreño logró que su país venciera en el Ciadi a la australiana-canadiense Oceana Gold-Pacific Rim, en 2015.

Ahora luchan comunidades de Playa del Carmen. En Washington, en junio, Quetzal Tzab Gonzáles, representante de residentes de comunidades indígenas y marginalizadas de Playa del Carmen, y el abogado ambientalista Raúl Benet presentaron al tribunal del caso Vulcan LLC contra México en el Ciadi un amicus curiae, el cual fue aceptado el 13 de julio e incluye la acción colectiva contra Calizas Industriales del Carmen (Calica) SA de CV y Rancho Piedra Caliza SA de CV. Este hecho casi inédito contrasta con la tendencia de los tribunales del Ciadi de negar la re­cepción de amicus curiae por comunidades afectadas, como sucedió en el caso Odyssey vs México y en otros casos en el mundo. El tribunal ha decidido que las partes (incluyendo la empresa y el gobierno de México) podrán proveer cualquier escrito acerca de la carta (de las comunidades del Playa del Carmen) que les fue entregada el 30 de junio de 2023, el próximo 24 de septiembre, de acuerdo con el calendario procesal(https://tinyurl.com/4tx6m6uj).

El gobierno actual, en particular López Obrador, enfrentan al caso de Calica con firmeza, pero el grueso de las demandas contra México las tendrá que resolver el próximo gobierno. Sería deseable que en lo que resta de la esta administración se elaborara una hoja de ruta para plantear el comienzo de la derogación de tratados bilaterales de inversión, asegurar que no haya un capítulo de inversiones en el modernizado TLCUEM, y derogar el anexo 14-E en el T-MEC que permite que sigamos siendo demandados cuando se toman medidas para la protección de la salud de comunidades y del ambiente. Es un tema urgente de tratar en el seno de la Celac.

*Investigador del Institute for Policy Studies www.ips-dc.org y asociado del Transnational Institute (www.tni.org)

domingo, 27 de agosto de 2023

Israel: Ben Gvir says his rights outweigh those of Palestinians

Far-right security minister says he and his family have a greater right to move around the West Bank

By MEE staff

Published date: 24 August 2023

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-ben-gvir-says-rights-outweigh-palestinians

Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, said on Wednesday that his rights trumped those of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. 

Speaking in an interview with Israel's Channel 12, Ben Gvir was asked about the increasing tensions in the West Bank, which in recent weeks has seen Palestinians and Israeli settlers being killed. 

Ben Gvir said that his rights were “more important” than those of Palestinians and more needed to be done to ensure the security of Jewish settlers. 

The national security minister went on to add that the country’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, was not doing enough to clamp down on Palestinians. 

“My right, and my wife’s and my children’s right to get around on the roads in Judea and Samaria, is more important than the right to movement for Arabs,” said Ben Gvir, using Jewish nationalist terms for areas of the West Bank.

“Sorry Mohammad,” Ben Gvir went on to tell Channel 12 journalist Mohammad Magadli, “but that’s the reality. That’s the truth. My right to life comes before their right to movement.”

Ben Gvir is himself a settler in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, near the Palestinian city of Hebron.

Mairav Zonszein, a senior Israeli analyst with the Crisis Group, said that that Ben Gvir spoke the “quiet part out loud” - in reference to disdain many on the Israeli right have for Palestinian life.

Ahmad Tibi, an MP and Palestinian citizen of Israel, called Ben Gvir's comments proof that Israel doesn’t value Palestinian life. 

“For the first time, an Israeli minister admits on air that Israel enforces an apartheid regime, based on Jewish supremacy,” Tibi said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. 

'A medal for killing Palestinians'

Ben Gvir has a long track record of expressing racist, anti-Palestinian views. 

He was educated in Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Kach party, with its official platform advocating the nullification of Israeli citizenship for the state’s Palestinian citizens.

After Kach - the only Jewish political entity in Israel ever defined as a terrorist organisation - was outlawed, Ben-Gvir continued his violent activism against Palestinians and was charged eight times for it, including for incitement to racism and support for a terrorist organisation.

For many years, he hung at his home a portrait of Baruch Goldstein, the settler from Kiryat Arba who in 1994 murdered 29 Muslim worshippers in Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque.

Earlier this month Ben Gvir praised settlers suspected of killing a 19-year-old Palestinian in the occupied West Bank as "heroes".

The head of the Jewish Power party said that anyone defending themselves against "stone-throwing" should "receive a commendation".

"A Jew who defends himself and others from murder by Palestinians is not a murder suspect, but a hero who will get full backing from me," he said.

Since the start of the year, at least eight Palestinians have been killed during settler attacks, compared with five Palestinians killed by suspected settlers in 2022.

sábado, 26 de agosto de 2023

BRICS 11 - Strategic Tour de Force

PEPE ESCOBAR • AUGUST 25, 2023

https://www.unz.com/pescobar/brics-11-strategic-tour-de-force/

Chinese President Xi Jinping defined all the major decisions embedded in the 15th BRICS summit in South Africa as “historic”. That may be seen as an understatement.

It will take time for the Global South, or Global Majority, or “Global Globe” (copyright President Lukashenko), not to mention the stunned collective West, to fully grasp the enormity of the new strategic stakes.

President Putin, for his part, described the negotiations on BRICS expansion as quite difficult. By now a relatively accurate picture is emerging of what really went down on that table in Johannesburg.

India wanted 3 new members. China wanted as many as 10. A compromise was finally reached, with 6 members: Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Argentina and Ethiopia.

So from now on it’s BRICS 11. And that’s just the beginning. Starting with the rotating Russian presidency of BRICS on January 1, 2024, more partners will be progressively included, and most certainly a new round of full members will be announced at the BRICS 11 summit in Kazan in October next year.

So we may soon progress to BRICS 20 – on the way to BRICS 40. The G7, for all practical purposes, is sliding towards oblivion.

Bur first things first. At that fateful table in Johannesburg, Russia supported Egypt. China went all out for Persian Gulf magic: Iran, UAE and the Saudis. Of course: Iran-China are already deep into a strategic partnership, and Riyadh is already accepting payment for energy in yuan.

Brazil and China supported Argentina, Brazil’s troubled neighbor, running the risk of having its economy fully dollarized, and also a key commodity provider to Beijing. South Africa supported Ethiopia. India, for a series of very complex reasons, was not exactly comfortable with 3 Arab/Muslim members (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt). Russia assuaged New Delhi’s fears.

All of the above respects geographic principles and imprints the notion of BRICS representing the Global South. But it goes way beyond that, blending cunning strategy and no-nonsense realpolitik.

India was mollified because Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, at the table in Johannesburg negotiating on behalf of President Putin, and highly respected by New Delhi, fully understood that a new, single BRICS currency is a long way away. What really matters, short and medium term, is expanding intra-BRICS trade in their national currencies.

That was stressed by New Development Bank (NDB) president Dilma Rousseff in her report to the South African summit hosts – even as Brazilian President Lula once again emphasized the importance of setting up a work group to discuss a BRICS currency.

Lavrov understood how New Delhi is absolutely terrified of secondary sanctions by the US, in case its BRICS role gets too ambitious. Prime Minister Modi is essentially hedging between BRICS and the completely artificial imperial obsession embedded in the terminology “Indo-Pacific” – which masks renewed containment of China. The Straussian neo-con psychos in charge of US foreign policy are already furious with India buying loads of discounted Russian oil.

New Delhi’s support for a new BRICS currency would be interpreted in Washington as all-out trade war – and sanctions dementia would follow. In contrast, Saudi Arabia’s MbS doesn’t care: he’s a top energy producer, not consumer like India, and one of his priorities is to fully court his top energy client, Beijing, and pave the way for the petroyuan.

It Takes Just a Single Strategic Move

Now let’s get into the strategic stakes. For all practical purposes, in Eurasian terms, BRICS 11 is now on the way to lord over the Arctic Sea Route; the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC); BRI’s East West Corridors; the Persian Gulf; the Red Sea; and the Suez Canal.

That blends several overland corridors with several nodes of the Maritime Silk Roads. Nearly total integration in the Heartland and the Rimland. All with just a single strategic move in the geopolitical/geoeconomic chessboard.

Much more than an increase of BRICS 11 collective GDP to 36% of the world’s total (already larger than the G7), with the group now encompassing 47% of the world’s population, the top geopolitical and geoeconomic breakthrough is how BRICS 11 is about to literally break the bank on the energy and commodities market fronts.

By incorporating Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, BRICS 11 instantly shines on as an oil and gas powerhouse. BRICS 11 now controls 39% of global oil exports; 45.9% of proven reserves; and at least 47.6% of all oil produced globally, according to InfoTEK.

With BRICS 11 possibly including Venezuela, Algeria and Kazakhstan as new members as early as in 2024, it may control as much as 90% of all oil and gas traded globally.

Inevitable corollary: operations settled in local currencies bypassing the US dollar. And inevitable conclusion: petrodollar in a coma. The Empire of Chaos and Plunder will lose its free lunch menu: control of global oil prices and means to enforce “diplomacy” via a tsunami of unilateral sanctions.

Already in the horizon, direct BRICS 11-OPEC+ symbiosis is inevitable. OPEC+ is effectively run by Russia and Saudi Arabia.

A ground-shaking geoeconomic reorientation is at hand, involving everything from routes plied by global supply chains and new BRICS roads to the progressive interconnection of BRI, the Saudi Vision 2030 and massive port expansion in the UAE.

By choosing Ethiopia, BRICS expands its African reach on mining, minerals and metals. Ethiopia is rich in gold, platinum, tantalum, copper, niobium and offers vast potential in oil and natural gas exploration. Saudi Arabia and the UAE, incidentally, are also involved in mining.

This all spells out fast, progressive integration of North Africa and West Asia.

How Diplomacy Goes a Long Way

The BRICS 11 Shock of the New, in the energy sphere, is a sharp historical counterpoint to the 1973 oil shock, after which Riyadh started wallowing in petrodollars. Now Saudi Arabia under MbS is operating a tectonic shift, in the process of becoming strategically aligned with Russia-China-India-Iran.

Diplomatic coup does not even begin to describe it. This is the second stage of the Russian-initiated and Chinese-finalized rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, recently sealed in Beijing. The Russia-China strategic leadership, working patiently in synch, never lost sight of the ball.

Now compare it with collective West’s “strategies”, such as the G7-imposed oil price cap. Essentially the G7 “coalition of the willing” self-imposed a price cap on Russian crude imported by sea. The result is that they had to start buying way more oil products from Global South nations which ignored the price cap and duly increased their purchase of Russian crude.

Guess who are the top two: BRICS members China and India.

After wallowing in several stages of denial, the collective West may – or may not – realize it’s a fool’s dream to attempt to “de-couple” the West-ruled part of the global economy from China, whatever is spewed out by Washington.

BRICS 11 now shows, graphically, how the “Global South/Global Majority/”Global Globe” is more non-aligned with the West than anytime in recent history.

By the way, the president of the G77, Cuban leader Diaz-Canel, was at the BRICS summit representing the de-facto new Non-Aligned Movement (NAM): the G77 actually incorporates no less than 134 nations. Most are African. Xi Jinping in Johannesburg met in person with the leaders of most of them.

The collective West, in panic, regards all of the above as “dangerous”. So the last refuge is, predictably, rhetorical: “de-coupling”, “de-risking”, and similar idiocies.

Yet that may also get practically dangerous. As in the first ever trilateral summit in Camp David on August 18 between the Empire and two Asian vassals, Japan and South Korea. That may be interpreted as the first move towards a military-political Asian NATO even more toxic than Quad or AUKUS, obsessed to simultaneously contain China, Russia and the DPRK.

The Collective Outstripping of the Global North

The UN lists 152 nations in the world as “developing countries”. BRICS 11 is aiming at them – as they outstrip the Global North on everything from population growth to overall contribution to global GDP growth measured by PPP.

In the past 10 years since the announcement of BRI first in Astana and then in Jakarta, Chinese financial institutions have lent nearly $1 trillion for infrastructure connectivity projects across the Global South. The upcoming BRI forum in Beijing will signal a renewed drive. That’s the BRI-BRICS symbiosis.

In the G20 last year, China was the first nation to lobby for the inclusion of the 55-member African Union (AU). That may happen at the G20 summit next month in New Delhi; in that case, Global South representation will be close to parity with the Global North.

Claims that Beijing was organizing a malign conspiracy to turn BRICS into a weapon against the G7 are infantile. Realpolitik – and geoeconomic indicators – are dictating the terms, configuring the Shock of the New: the G7’s irreversible irrelevance with the rise of BRICS 11.

DeSantis Pledges to Send Military Into Mexico to Fight Cartels on ‘Day One’

The idea of bombing or invading Mexico is becoming increasingly popular among Republicans

https://news.antiwar.com/2023/08/24/desantis-pledges-to-send-military-into-mexico-to-fight-cartels-on-day-one/

by Dave DeCamp Posted on August 24, 2023

Florida Governor Ron Desantis said on Wednesday night that he would send the military into Mexico to fight drug cartels on “day one” of his presidency if he wins the 2024 presidential election.

At the Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee, DeSantis was asked if he would support sending in US special forces to take out fentanyl labs and other drug cartel operations. “Yes, and I will do it on day one,” he replied.

“We have to reestablish the rule of law and we have to defend our people. The president of the United States has got to use all available powers as commander in chief to protect our country,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis claimed cartels are “killing tens of thousands of our fellow citizens” and said he would treat them as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

Taking military action across the border would dramatically expand the decades-old failed war on drugs, but the idea of invading or bombing Mexico in response to the large number of overdoses in the US is becoming increasingly popular among Republicans. Other 2024 hopefuls have called for military action against cartels, including the frontrunner, former President Trump.

Earlier this year, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John Kennedy (R-LA) introduced a bill to designate Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, which has a total of six cosponsors. Graham said the purpose of the legislation was to “set the stage” for military intervention in Mexico.

Another bill introduced by Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) would authorize the president to use military force against “those responsible for trafficking fentanyl or a fentanyl-related substance into the United States or carrying out other related activities that cause regional destabilization in the Western Hemisphere.” The Crenshaw legislation has received 21 cosponsors.

viernes, 25 de agosto de 2023

BRICS to welcome six new members, a ‘historical milestone’

Bigger BRICS family serves as powerful response to West-led hegemony, advocates for fair, multi-polar world

By Xie Wenting in Johannesburg and 

Chen Qingqing

in Beijing Published: Aug 24, 2023 

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202308/1296926.shtml

The BRICS countries welcomed six new members from three different continents on Thursday, marking a historic milestone that underscored the solidarity of BRICS and developing countries and determination to work together for a better future, officials and experts said. The expansion of the BRICS, as a new starting point for multilateral cooperation, will play a positive role for more equitable and just global governance, experts said. 

The BRICS countries have decided to invite six countries - Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - to become new members of the grouping, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday. It will be the first expansion since 2010 and the new candidates will be admitted as members on January 1, 2024, according to media reports. 

With the expansion of the BRICS topping the agenda of the three-day 15th BRICS summit in Johannesburg, BRICS countries have reached a consensus on guiding principles, standards, criteria and procedures of the grouping's expansion process, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa told a briefing on Thursday. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping said at the briefing that the BRICS expansion is historic and a new starting point for BRICS cooperation. It demonstrates the determination of the BRICS countries to unite and cooperate with other developing countries, meets the expectations of the international community, and serves the common interests of emerging markets and developing countries. 

The expansion will also inject fresh vitality into the BRICS cooperation mechanism, and further strengthen the forces for world peace and development, Xi said, noting that as long as the BRICS countries pull together, a lot can be achieved in BRICS cooperation, and a promising future awaits the BRICS countries.

The summit also adopted the Johannesburg II Declaration, reaffirming the countries' commitment to the BRICS spirit of mutual respect and understanding, sovereign equality, solidarity, democracy, openness, inclusiveness, strengthened collaboration and consensus. A consensus was reached on partnership for inclusive multilateralism, fostering an environment of peace and development, partnership for mutually accelerated growth, partnership for sustainable development, deepening people-to-people exchanges and institutional development. 

The expansion of the BRICS not only demonstrated the vigorous trend of the BRICS mechanism, far exceeding the expectations of some Western countries like the US, but also served as a powerful response to West-led hegemony, experts said, noting that more developing countries hoping to join the grouping showed the expectations of strengthening their voices and autonomy in global issues, advocating for a more equitable, just, diverse and multi-polar international order.

New members, new momentum 

"We are really very happy that this process is accelerating, so I want to thank China and all the BRICS countries for their support," Argentine Ambassador to China Sabino Vaca Narvaja told the Global Times on Thursday. 

"Together, we are going to represent the voice of emerging countries, which have historically been neglected in international organizations," Narvaja said. 

"The strengthening of the BRICS is essential for the development of the countries of the Global South. I believe that this space represents countries that have the same problems and the same needs, which is why it will be easier to work together to strengthen our development," the Argentine envoy said. 

"Expanding this scope is key to building a more harmonious global order where cooperation replaces confrontation; productive development, to financial speculation; the principle of mutual respect, to unilateral interventionism; economic integration, instead of anachronistic sanctions; and the transfer of technology, replacing technological blockades," he said. 

Some experts believed that the new members all play important geopolitical roles in different regions, representing emerging economies among developing countries, considering their GDP scales and potential future growth. 

"This is a major step forward for the BRICS family, as we will expect a stronger BRICS voice to be heard in global governance, playing an important role for international relations to become more democratic, just and reasonable," Wang Youming, director of the Institute of Developing Countries at the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

An expansion of the group of emerging market powers could help boost its global heft and counter the dominance of the G7, Bloomberg said. The enlargement will see BRICS' gross domestic product rise to 36 percent of global GDP at purchasing power parity and 46 percent of the world's population, US media reported, citing Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Egypt is eager to join the BRICS group of nations with the aim of reforming the global economy for greater fairness in the face of ongoing world fluctuations and economic crises, Hassan Rajab, professor at the Suez Canal University in Egypt, told the Global Times. 

He also believes that over time, countries within the BRICS group, including Egypt, will be able to boost their own currency, the Egyptian Pound, thereby easing the pressure of the US dollar.

"Egypt is a member of African trade associations such as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), which facilitates the entry of Egyptian products and goods produced in Egypt into the markets of these nations. This provides a convenient gateway for Egyptian investments, offering a significant advantage," Rajab said. 

"Through collaboration with Egypt, BRICS countries can further deepen their partnerships with Arab and African nations. This collaboration seeks to foster increased economic cooperation and development," he said. 

De-dollarization 

Besides BRICS expansion, reducing the dependence on the US dollar has also been the focus of the summit, especially after Russian President Vladimir Putin criticized Western sanctions in an address on Tuesday, saying "de-dollarization" is an "irreversible" process and "is gaining pace." 

Leaders of the BRICS countries have tasked their countries' finance ministries and central banks with considering the possibility of launching national currencies-based payment instruments and platforms, Ramaphosa said on Thursday.

Also, the leaders stressed the importance of encouraging the use of local currencies in international trade and financial transactions between BRICS as well as their trading partners, and encouraging the strengthening of correspondent banking networks between BRICS countries and enabling settlements in local currencies, according to the declaration. 

Experts believed that when major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia and Iran join the BRICS, the oil trade will easily "undergo de-dollarization," something the West is worried about. 

"The US should not be allowed to use the dollar to put pressure on other countries," Professor Mohammad Marandi, Vice President of the University of Tehran, told the Global Times in a previous interview. 

Iran already sells a substantial amount of petroleum using currencies other than the US dollar. "I think for Saudi Arabia, ultimately it will be in its best interests to move away from the dollar as well, in order to make sure that it is not vulnerable or less vulnerable to the US," he said. 

jueves, 24 de agosto de 2023

EU, potencia desestabilizadora

John Saxe-Fernández

https://www.jornada.com.mx/2023/08/24/opinion/020a1eco

El contexto geopolítico en el que Estados Unidos busca profundizar su guerra proxy en Ucrania se caracteriza por una fallida contraofensiva de Kiev, que en semana y media ha dejado poco mas de 45 mil soldados muertos; la búsqueda de una confrontación con China, a donde quiere arrastrar a la UE y la crisis del colonialismo europeo en África que mediante golpes de Estado sui géneris, nacionalistas y con gran apoyo popular , le abren otro frente de guerra incierto. Tratase de una crisis hegemónica que genera movimientos contrahegemónicos muy poderosos no solo anticolonialistas, sino también soberanistas como los BRICS que inician un creativo proceso para el reposicionamiento de manera ventajosa de la periferia capitalista impulsando la desdolarización y un banco de financiamiento.

La estrategia desestabilizadora de Washington, que siguiendo las pautas del unilateralismo bélico sugeridas por la Rand corp (tanque pensante de la Fuerza Aérea de EU), para ahogar, desangrar y asfixiar a Rusia provocó –mediante un sistemático y creciente acoso estratégico, como el despliegue de tropas y armamento nuclear en las proximidades de las fronteras rusas– la llamada operación militar especial.

La entonces canciller Angela Merkel y el ex presidente francés François Hollande negociaron con Putin las condiciones para evitar una guerra con Ucrania –los acuerdos de Minsk (Bielorusia, 2015)–, que según reveló Merkel, en lo que se calificó como sincericidio, era una estratagema para ganar tiempo y fortalecer el flanco militar de Ucrania.

Siguiendo la pauta de romper compromisos (recuérdese la promesa de EU a Gorbachov de que la OTAN no avanzaría ni una pulgada al este), se vulneran los fundamentos de la confianza necesarios para el diálogo, especialmente en tiempos de profunda y riesgosa crisis como la actual, además de demostrar una subordinación excesiva a defender los intereses de EU sobre los propios.

El involucramiento de las dos economías mas importantes de la UE (Alemania y Francia) en estas políticas desestabilizadoras y guerreristas ha provocado una profunda crisis económica, y si Alemania sufre, la UE cae.

Alemania, otrora gigante industrial y país que mas lealmente ha seguido a los neoconservadores estadunidenses en la expansión agresiva de la OTAN está ahora sufriendo su mas grave crisis económica desde la II Guerra Mundial. (Atkinson, globalresearch.ca (17/8/23). El bombardeo de los gasoductos Nord Stream 1 y 2 y las ilegales sanciones contra Rusia han afectado negativamente las exportaciones por un magno aumento en los precios de energéticos para la industria alemana, que por décadas ha descansado en un consistente y razonable precio de esta energía para sus industrias criticas –químicos, automóviles e ingeniería– por lo que no sorprende lo dicho por el Instituto Alemán de Economía: estamos atestiguando el principio de la desindustrialización de Alemania y por tanto de Europa.

La inversion extranjera directa se desplomó; industrias históricas de 100 años o más están en bancarrota o dispuestas a salir del país. La industria de automóviles alemana, la más importante de Europa, calificada por Trump como un problema para la seguridad nacional de Estados Unidos, ahora está en crisis. La producción cayó dramáticamente entre 2019 y 2023 registrando los mayores desplomes; Volkswagen, con 23 por ciento, y Mercedes Benz, con 31 por ciento, a lo que hay que añadir la creciente competencia con los autos eléctricos chinos, tanto en Asia, que era un mercado importante para los autos alemanes, como en Europa.

La falta de gas ruso barato ha afectado también a la gran multinacional alemana dedicada a productos químicos BASF. Los sectores de clase media y baja –18 millones de personas– no podrán pagar el consumo de luz, entre otros problemas estructurales.

Si esta crisis se deriva de la destrucción de los gasoductos Nord Stream 1 y 2 por parte de EU como lo documenta dato en mano Seymour Hersh, uno de los más destacados e informados periodistas de investigación estadunidenses, Hersh se pregunta, ante el silencio del canciller alemán Scholz frente a un acto de violencia contra su Estado: ¿qué tanto sabía el canciller luego de que Biden amenazó con que “si Rusia invadía Ucrania, no habría Nord Stream 2… le pondremos fin”, (Hersh, globalresearch.ca, 11/8/23)

Por lo pronto, otras voces que contrastan con esos silencios y subordinaciones se han pronunciado por buscar salidas diplomáticas para terminar la guerra. El ex presidente francés Nicolas Sarkozy criticó la política de prolongar la guerra con asistencia militar ilimitada a Kiev (postura del actual presidente Macron) y habló de la necesidad de mantener buenas relaciones con Rusia porque es vecino de Europa y así lo seguirá siendo. En este sentido los intereses europeos no están alineados con los intereses estadunidenses. La confrontación con Rusia responde al interés de Washington, no al europeo (Leiroz, globalresearch.ca, 18/8/23).