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Russia and China announce decoupling trade from Dollar - The End for the USA is nigh‏

Peter Koenig
Global Research
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 16:13 UTC
Image
Russia has just dropped another bombshell, announcing not only the de-coupling of its trade from the dollar, but also that its hydrocarbon trade will in the future be carried out in rubles and local currencies of its trading partners - no longer in dollars - see Voice of Russia

Russia's trade in hydrocarbons amounts to about a trillion dollars per year. Other countries, especially the BRICS and BRCIS-associates (BRICSA) may soon follow suit and join forces with Russia, abandoning the 'petro-dollar' as trading unit for oil and gas. This could amount to tens of trillions in loss for demand of petro-dollars per year (US GDP about 17 trillion dollars - December 2013) - leaving an important dent in the US economy would be an understatement.

Added to this is the declaration today by Russia's Press TV - China will re-open the old Silk Road as a new trading route linking Germany, Russia and China, allowing to connect and develop new markets along the road, especially in Central Asia, where this new project will bring economic and political stability, and in Western China provinces,where "New Areas" of development will be created. The first one will be the Lanzhou New Area in China's Northwestern Gansu Province, one of China's poorest regions.
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Chess

De-invest from the West: Russia urges companies to return assets to the motherland to protect against future sanctions


RT
Wed, 09 Apr 2014 13:35 UTC
US stock exchange
© Spencer Platt / Getty Images / AFP
As the US and Europe escalate talks of sanctions, Russia is recommending companies unregister abroad and bring their shares to the Moscow Exchange to protect from possible future sanctions and provide economic security.

"Companies that have listed shares on the New York Stock Exchange, London need to seriously reconsider," Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov told reporters in Moscow on Tuesday.

Sanctions by the West have ramped up over the geopolitical action in Ukraine, and Russian business and politicians have been the target of asset freezes and visa bans.

The government will not force companies to delist and return to Russia, but Shuvalov said the Russian state and the Moscow Exchange will work together to create "attractive conditions" for companies to make the switch.

"This is a question of economic security," the minister said. The US continues to ramp up economic sanctions against Russia, which has spooked investors and resulted in a massive $70 billion outflow of capital since the beginning of 2014, according to Economics Minister Andrei Klepach.

Russian stocks have plummeted over the crisis in Crimea and Ukraine, and are the worst performing stocks worldwide. Since the beginning of the year, stocks have dropped more than 10 percent. Poor performance is also linked to a general trend in emerging markets, which are losing as the US Federal Reserve cuts back its multi-billion dollar bond-buying program.
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Eagle

Putin says Russia can't support Ukrainian economy forever and the time has come for the West to support Ukraine with hard cash!


RT
Wed, 09 Apr 2014 13:18 UTC
Putin with Russian government
© RIA Novosti / Alexei Druzhinin
President Vladimir Putin (L) chairs a meeting with government members at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence.
Russia can't continue to prop up Ukraine's faltering economy, and this responsibility should fall on the US and EU, which have recognized the authorities in Kiev but not yet given one dollar to support the economy, President Putin has said.

"The situation is - to put it kindly, strange. It's known our partners in Europe have recognized the legitimacy of the government in Kiev, yet have done nothing to support Ukraine - not even one dollar or one euro," Putin said at a meeting with government officials at his residence outside of Moscow.

"The Russian Federation doesn't recognize the legitimacy of the authorities in Kiev, but it keeps providing economic support and subsidizing the economy of Ukraine with hundreds of millions and billions of dollars. This situation can't last indefinitely," Putin said.

In December, Russia provided Ukraine with a $3 billion loan, which was a part of a bigger $15 billion aid package agreed the same month. Russia also offered a 33 percent gas price discount that would have saved more than $7.5 billion.

The head of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde said that Russia's loan tranche last year was vital for the collapsing Ukraine economy.
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Chess

Warnings from Chinese general ahead of Obama's Asia trip

Phil Stewart and Ben Blanchard
Reuters
Wed, 09 Apr 2014 10:34 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Hagel and Changlong
In one of the many frank exchanges U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had in China this week, General Fan Changlong told him how one of his uncles died as a slave in a Japanese mine during World War Two.

Fan, deputy head of China's powerful Central Military Commission, spoke about the lessons of history, signaling Beijing's concerns that the United States was siding with Japan against China.

Hagel replied by saying his own father had helped fight Japanese forces in World War Two.
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Quenelle

The "art" of George W. Bush: A distraction from being called to task on torture

Greg Allen
greg.org
Sun, 06 Apr 2014 14:58 UTC
George Bush paintings

George Bush paintings
You go to war with the paintings you have, not the paintings you might want or wish to have at a later time.

Right now the paintings we have are by George W. Bush.

Why do they exist? Why are they being exhibited? How are they being used and discussed? Why do they matter?

I think the simplest answer for why George W. Bush started painting is because he has nothing else to do. Bush is toxic and unemployable as a political figure. He can't campaign for Republicans, can't talk on television about anything important, can't give speeches for money, can't write memoirs, can't travel to certain countries where he runs the hypothetical risk of getting arrested for war crimes. Painting is a harmless and respectable pursuit that offers an aura of cultured acceptability.

As he explained to Jay Leno, the idea of taking up painting comes from Bush's fantasy of being, or being compared to, Winston Churchill. Churchill painted. Of course, Hitler also painted. If painting makes Bush like Churchill, does it make him like Hitler, too? Is either association, when based on painting, more or less outrageous than the other? Painting becomes a rhetorical device, an uncritical excuse for likening Bush to Churchill. This has political ramifications that should not be ignored, yet they almost always are. That's the transformative power of painting.
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Mr. Potato

Netanyahu's spokesman John Kerry is suddenly confident Iran able to make nuclear bomb in 2 months


Voice of Russia
Wed, 09 Apr 2014 07:35 UTC
US missiles
© Wikipedia

The US has shown its upmost confidence in Iran's ability to whip up the materials needed to make a nuclear bomb in a mere two months. US Secretary of State John Kerry explained during a Senate hearing yesterday that Iran is very much able to make fissile material essential for a nuclear bomb in just two short months if Iran made the choice to do so. Though, a burning question that is left unanswered is why America has become very confident in the two-month time period.

"I think it's public knowledge today that we're operating with a time period for a so-called 'break-out' of about two months. That's been in the public domain," Kerry said in comments reported by Reuters. The "break-out" duration is the amount of time that would be needed to create fissile material for just a single nuclear weapon in the Islamic Republic of Iran. If the nation decided to produce weapons of mass destruction, Kerry seems confident that it would not take the country too long to execute.


Comment: Public knowledge??? This sounds more like Kerry is trying to please Israel and ramp up the war rhetoric. Either that or he got connected with the teleprompter from Netanyahu instead of his own.

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Magnify

The West's next proxy war is being stopped before it starts in Egypt

Tony Cartalucci
Land Destroyer Report
Tue, 25 Mar 2014 07:07 UTC
Trial in Cairo
© Tarek Wajeh/Almasry Alyoum/EPA
The unprecedented sentencing of over 500 Muslim Brotherhood members to death in Egypt for their role in the attack, torture, and murder of an Egyptian policeman, is the culmination of a lighting fast, all encompassing security crackdown across the pivotal North African Arab nation. The move has created a chilling effect that has left the otherwise violent mobs of the Muslim Brotherhood silent and the streets they generally sow their chaos in, peaceful and empty.

The New York Times reported in its article, "Hundreds of Egyptians Sentenced to Death in Killing of a Police Officer," that:
A crowd gathered outside a courthouse in the town of Matay erupted in wailing and rage on Monday when a judge sentenced 529 defendants to death in just the second session of their trial, convicting them of murdering a police officer in anger at the ouster of the Islamist president. Here in the provincial capital just a few miles away, schools shut down early, and many stayed indoors fearing a riot, residents said.

But the crowds went home, and soon the streets were quiet.
The move by the Egyptian courts has attracted the predictable condemnation of the US State Department. The Washington Post's article, "Egyptian court sentences 529 people to death," stated:
The United States was "deeply concerned, and I would say actually pretty shocked," about the mass death sentences, said Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman. "It defies logic" and "certainly does not seem possible that a fair review of evidence and testimony, consistent with international standards," could have been conducted over a two-day period, she said.
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Cult

Chossudovsky: NATO trains terrorists who destabilize situation in Ukraine


Voice of Russia
Wed, 09 Apr 2014 06:17 UTC
NATO soldiers
© RIA Novosti
Contractors from private security companies are supposed to do what NATO cannot do openly, they train terrorists who destabilize situation in Ukraine, Michel Chossudovsky, Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization told RIA Novosti Tuesday.

"Those organizations (private security companies) will do what NATO cannot do openly. They can train people to be terrorists," Chossudovsky said, adding that in Syria private contractors were training al-Qaeda.

"We are talking about the continuation of US policy of military intervention in Ukraine and a preparatory stage for a massacre in southeastern Ukraine," Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of the National Defense monthly Russian-language magazine said, adding that the deployment of mercenaries from a private company Greystone Ltd. may be financed by Ukrainian oligarchs and organized in coordination with the US State Department.

Michel Chossudovsky told RIA Novosti that mercenaries are normally hired by governments, but options are numerous as they operate covertly and do not identify themselves.
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Light Sabers

China warns: no one, not even the United States, can contain its military ambitions

Ariel Zirulnick
The Christian Science Monitor
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 16:42 UTC
Image
© Unknown
The timing was part of the message: The day after China brought US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on board its first aircraft carrier as the first foreign visitor, its defense minister warned that no one, not even the United States, could contain its military ambitions.

"With the latest developments in China, it can never be contained," Gen. Chang Wanquan said, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. The US is "a country of worldwide influence, and the Pacific Ocean is huge enough to hold both China and the US for common development and also huge enough to hold the other Asia-Pacific countries."

Mr. Hagel hopes to create a framework to "manage competition" between the US and China, and to reassure other countries in the region who fear being trampled by China - and might take action to send a message to Beijing.
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Network

Snowden to Council of Europe: NSA deliberately snooped on Human Rights groups‏

Luke Harding
The Guardian
Tue, 08 Apr 2014 10:49 UTC
Image
© Vincent Kessler/Reuters
Edward Snowden speaks via video link with members of the Council of Europe, in Strasbourg.
The US has spied on the staff of prominent human rights organisations, Edward Snowden has told the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, Europe's top human rights body.

Giving evidence via a videolink from Moscow, Snowden said the National Security Agency - for which he worked as a contractor - had deliberately snooped on bodies like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

He told council members: "The NSA has specifically targeted either leaders or staff members in a number of civil and non-governmental organisations ... including domestically within the borders of the United States." Snowden did not reveal which groups the NSA had bugged.
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