Europeans first victims of sanctions against Iran
The head of Italy’s refiners’ lobby, Mr. Piero de
Simone, has revealed that Italy is preparing to close five refineries
because of the European Union’s unilateral sanctions against Iran and
the boycott of its oil resources.
US turns the page towards new wars
Behind the Pentagon’s budget cuts
The
recent announcement that US military spending is set to grow at a slower
pace and that ground troops will not fight in more than one major war
at once was welcomed by many. However, according to Manlio Dinucci, it
is all smoke and mirrors: the incremental outsourcing of conflicts to
vassal states, the black budgets for intelligence agencies and the
expanded use of technological warfare hardly foreshadow a scaling down
in the number of Pentagon-run theaters of wars.
"We’re turning the page on a decade of war: this is what President Obama said during a press conference on 5 January at the Pentagon,
while presenting his new strategy, with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
The armed forces will be "leaner," allowing for budget cuts of 450
billion dollars over ten years. The propaganda message is clear: in
times of crisis, even the armed forces have to tighten their belt. Does
it mean that the Pentagon disarming? Not at all: it will rationalize
the use of resources to render its war machine even more efficient.
THE RON PAUL'S DOLLAR
by Ron Paul
The Federal Reserve’s interest rate price-setting board, the FOMC, met last week. They will continue to set the federal funds rate at well below 1%, and plan to keep it low until the end of 2014. That’s a year and half longer than they planned when they met just last month. Chairman Bernanke says they are keeping interest rates so low for so long because the economic outlook warrants it.
An Introduction to Anarchism
An Introduction to Anarchism
Anarchism
has, needless to say, a very bad name. Representatives of the
establishment and reporters in the mass media habitually use it as an
insult, or as a description of any condition of disorder or widespread
violence. This is true even when turmoil or terrorism is the result of
individuals or groups who have absolutely no relation to the anarchist
movement or by states which are, in essence, precisely what anarchism
seeks to abolish.
Obama’s dishonest energy promise
Despite pledge, government hasn’t allowed drilling on 97 percent of coast
Illustration by Linas Garsys for The Washington TimesPresident Obama’s ambiguous call to “open” 75 percent of the country’s potential offshore oil and natural gas resources to exploration may sound generous, but the truth is, the areas containing those resources are technically already included in the upcoming 2012 to 2017 offshore leasing plan, and they are virtually the same areas where exploration and production have been allowed for decades.
Obama’s divided America
National rift can’t be healed without leadership
Illustration: Polarized capitol by Greg Groesch for The Washington TimesTrump endorses Romney
Donald Trump. (Associated Press)LAS VEGAS — After repeatedly flirting with his own presidential bid last year, business tycoon Donald Trump on Thursday picked someone else as his stand-in, endorsing fellow businessman Mitt Romney.
“Mitt is tough, he’s smart, he’s sharp. He’s not going to allow bad things to continue to happen to this country we all love,” Mr. Trump said at his resort, the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas. “Governor Romney, go out and get ‘em. You can do it.”
Gary Becker & Immigration: The price of entry – The Economist
Gary Becker & Immigration: The price of entry – The Economist
North
Africans risk their lives to try to cross the Mediterranean to southern
Europe. Mexicans pay “mules” to get them across the border with the
United States. Afghans camp outside Calais in filthy surroundings,
waiting to cross into Britain. Everywhere, it seems, there are people
trying to get into another country. Even those who seek to move legally
in order to work face huge barriers to entry in certain countries.
People on work visas account for 70% of legal migrants to Germany, for
instance, but only 5.6% of those entering America, the original land of
opportunity. Most of the rest get in because a member of their family is
already in the country. America’s annual quota of visas for the highly
skilled can run out in a matter of weeks. More people want to move to
rich countries than are able to.Vaclav Havel: Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World – by Matt Welch & Nick Gillespie
Vaclav Havel: Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World – by Matt Welch & Nick Gillespie
How the Velvet Underground and Václav Havel built a blueprint for toppling totalitarians and other censors.The arrival of amplified rock music performed by free-spirited longhairs was not, to put it mildly, greeted with enthusiasm by the Cold Warriors of the West. Nearly a decade after Elvis’s pelvis dislocated social mores and Frank Sinatra denounced rock as “the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the Earth,” rock ’n’ roll refuseniks were still crying bloody murder.
World: Iran in Latin America is no laughing matter – by José Cárdenas
World: Iran in Latin America is no laughing matter – by José Cárdenas
On
his current tour of Latin American outliers, Iranian leader Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad stopped in Venezuela this week to share a belly-laugh with
his compañero Hugo Chávez over the supposed nuclear threat either of their countries poses to the civilized world.Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson’s family is bankrolling Gingrich super PAC
Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson’s family is bankrolling Gingrich super PAC
Of the $2 million in donations reported through the end of 2011 by the Winning Our Future political action committee, which backs Gingrich’s campaign, half came from the daughters and son-in-law of Miriam Adelson, according to filings made to the Federal Election Commission this week.
Watch the latest campaign ads and track ad spending
Mitt Romney favored for Nevada caucus win; Newt Gingrich looks ahead to Super Tuesday
Mitt Romney favored for Nevada caucus win; Newt Gingrich looks ahead to Super Tuesday
A new poll by the Las Vegas Review-Journal shows Romney has the support of 45 percent of Republicans planning to participate in Saturday’s caucuses. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich comes in second, with
Russia and China in the Balance of the Middle East: Syria and other countries
Since
the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world has been searching for a new
geopolitical balance. All the various models have failed, starting with
the unipolar world order of the New American Century. What emerges is
not the result of an ideology, but a tectonic shift in the global
balance of power, observes geopolitician Imad Fawzi Shueib. The double
Russian and Chinese veto related to the Syrian crisis marks the dawn of
this new world configuration, which is still groping to find its own
operating rules in a complete break with past models.
With the Russian-Chinese joint/double veto as
regards Syria, the French –Anglo-Saxon shock was not taken as a
transient contingency in international strategies. Such a veto was
intended to be a message sent by the emerging economies; china, Russia
and its satellite Eurasian states, in addition to states of the Shanghai
Treaty, to the European and American flagging economies that it is high
time for the crystallization of a new world order after the dominance
of two phases over the international system in the aftermath of the
collapse of the USSR; unipolarity (1991-2006) and non-polarity
(2006-2011). These are not actual world systems due to absence of
international game rules and discord between the phase of unipolarity
and a multinational global economy in the first phase, and to the
inability of the phase of non-polarity to substantially be a
international system.
What Is Really Going On In Syria: Insider Update
In this
article Boris Dolgov, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and
the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow, reports on his recent trip
to Syria. His field investigation is particularly valuable since most of
the information about Syria in recent months has emanated from Beirut,
Paris or London. Professor Dolgov confirms that, far from a contrived
"Arab Spring" scenario, Syria is undeniably grappling with the threat of
foreign occupation. He observes that while the offensive is
inordinately violent, the population will not be intimidated. Aware of
the disaster wrought by NATO "humanitarian" operations in Yugoslavia and
Libya, the Syrians refuse to be drawn into a sectarian ambush. A
process of reform and development is on track, but it will not be
dictated from abroad. In Syria, one may object to the president, but not
to national sovereignty.
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