Geopolitical thread

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 06 May 2009 19:29

Russia expels western diplomats in tit-for-tat expulsions,as NATO troops exercise in Georgia.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ma ... es-georgia

Russia expels two diplomats as Nato begins military exercises in Georgia
Manoeuvres follow apparent failed uprising at army

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 30 May 2009 16:45

NYT:

Chavez Tightens Control Over Military

Heh, if this had happened in India, the Atlanticist NYT wouldn't even yawn. But when it happens in their Latin American backyard, then it's worthy of their concern. So much for their 'liberalism', selective as it is.

putnanja · Post by **putnanja** » 31 May 2009 08:25

Delhi stunned: UK & China stall move to blacklist Masood Azhar

...
What has stunned India is the UK’s position because the Jaish as an outfit is already banned by the UN and so it is only logical for Azhar to be put on that list. It’s learnt that London has asked for “fresh evidence” and “more details” while placing the request on a procedural hold. China has taken a similar position.
...

China, I can understand. But UK?? And people wonder why many say that the poodedum and the islamists deserve each other!!

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 31 May 2009 09:48

When reading all those books by Mackinder, Brezinski et al one should always start with why was the book writtena dn what are the assumptions of the writer.

Always start with WWI to understand the last century.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 31 May 2009 18:00

Why is it so surprising, that UK sings in tune with China? We have been discussing the subtle inner play by UK within the USA-UK-PRC game, for a long long time!

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 02 Jun 2009 05:29

After America: Multipolar World

soutikghosh · Post by **soutikghosh** » 03 Jun 2009 01:58

GLOBAL PEACE RANKING

INDIA'S ranking for 2009 : 122
Previous year it was 2008 : 107

link
INDIA http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi/results/india/2009/

All countries http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi/res ... nkings.php

Porkistan/ TSP ranking: 137

Sanjay M · Post by **Sanjay M** » 10 Jun 2009 16:45

Read about the rise of

The Muslim-Catholic Coalition

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 13 Jun 2009 12:36

Excellent paper here.

Eurasian Heartland And Plans For Global Domination

EXcerpt:
"Azerbaijan lies at the very center of what 20th Century British geographer Halford Mackinder named the Heartland - Eurasia from Eastern Europe to China - control over which would guarantee domination of what he termed the World Island (Eurasia, Africa and the Middle East), which in turn would allow for control of the entire world.

It is also in the middle of what the contemporary adaptation of Mackinder’s model by the Russophobe and self-styled geostrategist Zbigniew Brzezinski refers to as the Eurasian Balkans.

Perhaps never before in modern history has such a small country as Azerbaijan been poised to play such a large role in the grand schemes of major powers."

http://waronyou.com/topics/the-conquest ... heartland/

The Conquest of Eurasia: NATO’s War For The World’s Heartland

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 14 Jun 2009 16:20

GOAT has been reduced to this farce.

AP Interview: Detainee move to Palau is tentative

putnanja · Post by **putnanja** » 20 Jun 2009 04:46

Posting it here as I couldn't find the US & the World thread...

The growing controversy over military chaplains using the armed forces to spread the Word.

...
The Bible initiative was handled by former Army chaplain Jim Ammerman, the 83-year-old founder of the Chaplaincy of Full Gospel Churches (CFGC), an organization in charge of endorsing 270 chaplains and chaplain candidates for the armed services. Ammerman worked with an evangelical group based in Arkansas, the International Missions Network Center, to distribute the Bibles through the efforts of his 40 active-duty chaplains in Iraq. A 2003 newsletter for the group said of the effort, "The goal is to establish a wedge for the kingdom of God in the Middle East, directly affecting the Islamic world."
...
The effort is an example of what critics call a growing culture of militarized Christianity in the armed forces. It is influenced in part by changes in outlook among the various branches' 2,900 chaplains, who are sworn to serve all soldiers, regardless of religion, with a respectful, religiously pluralistic approach. However, with an estimated two thirds of all current chaplains affiliated with evangelical and Pentecostal denominations, which often prioritize conversion and evangelizing, and a marked decline in chaplains from Catholic and mainstream Protestant churches, this ideal is suffering. Historian Anne C. Loveland attributes the shift to the Vietnam War, when many liberal churches opposed to the war supplied fewer chaplains, creating a vacuum filled by conservative churches. This imbalance was exacerbated by regulation revisions in the 1980s that helped create hundreds of new "endorsing agencies" that brought a flood of evangelical chaplains into the military and by the simple fact that evangelical and Pentecostal churches are the fastest-growing in the U.S.
...
...

Gerard · Post by **Gerard** » 04 Jul 2009 21:19

Think Again: Asia's Rise

Don't believe the hype about the decline of America and the dawn of a new Asian age. It will be many decades before China, India, and the rest of the region take over the world, if they ever do.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 06 Jul 2009 13:21

Destroying the evidence of US torture.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ju ... ote]Binyam Mohamed launches legal fight to stop US destroying torture imagesBritish resident says photographs are evidence of abuse at Guantánamo

Richard Norton-Taylor
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 5 July 2009

Former Guantánamo detainee Binyam Mohamed has launched an urgent legal attempt to prevent the US courts from destroying crucial evidence that he says proves he was abused while being held at the detention camp, the Guardian has learned. The evidence is said to consist of a photograph of Mohamed, a British resident, taken after he was severely beaten by guards at the US navy base in Cuba.

The image, now held by the Pentagon, had been put on his cell door, he says.

Mohamed claims he was told later that this was done because he had been beaten so badly that it was difficult for the guards to identify him.

In a sworn statement seen by the Guardian, Mohamed has appealed to the federal district court in Washington not to destroy the photograph, which neither he nor his lawyers have a copy of, and which is classified under US law.

The US government considered the case closed once Mohamed was released and returned to Britain in February. The photograph will be destroyed within 30 days of his case being dismissed by the American courts – a decision on which is due to be taken by a judge imminently, Clive Stafford Smith, Mohamed's British lawyer and director of Reprieve, the legal charity, said today .

Under US law, evidence relating to dismissed cases must be automatically destroyed. The only way to preserve the photograph is to have it accepted as a court document.

This is the aim of Mohamed's appeal and he says he needs the image as a crucial piece of evidence to fight his case against US authorities for unlawful incarceration and abuse. "That is one piece of physical evidence that I know exists of my abuse," he says in the statement, adding that it was taken in Guantánamo in 2006. After being kicked and punched, he says his guards "applied force to a pressure point on my arm, twisting the handcuffs up ... They tried to open my closed fists up by bending my fingers back one at a time." They took a picture of him when, he says, he was on the floor pinioned by the guards. He continues: "They then slammed me and my Qur'an into the fence." After he objected, he says, they "slammed me into the fence again".

He adds: "They then strapped me into a restraint chair and cut off half my beard. They then performed the humiliating 'anal cavity search', although it was painfully obvious that there was nothing to find."

Mohamed also describes how at one point he screamed and that this "made them redouble their efforts and my situation got worse".

He adds: "One [military guard] took the heel of my hand and pushed my nose up violently. One soldier pulled on my jaw. They slammed my forehead down on the concrete floor. One grabbed my testicles and punched me."

Mohamed said: "The authorities have consistently denied that I have been abused, and this is physical evidence that I am telling the truth, and they are not."

The Guardian is also writing to the court asking for the photographs to be disclosed in the interests of open justice and freedom of expression. Mohamed's lawyers and media organisations are already embroiled in a dispute in the UK high court over a refusal by David Miliband, the foreign secretary, and the US to disclose what their intelligence agencies knew about Mohamed's torture.

Mohamed was seized and held in Pakistan in 2002 before being secretly renditioned to Morocco. He was subsequently flown to Afghanistan before being sent to Guantánamo. Mohamed says he knows of other photographs taken of him in Morocco and Afghanistan, but he has not seen them. "These pictures including photos of my genitals," he said. "Although the US authorities still apparently deny it and refuse even to admit that I was rendered to Morocco, I was horribly tortured there and had a razor blade taken to my genitals". He also says he suspects that witness B – an MI5 officer who interrogated him in Pakistan in 2002 and currently the subject of a British police investigation – is being used as a scapegoat. "The main responsibility lies with those who established the policy of abuse, not with the functionaries who carried out their orders," he says in his statement.

Stafford Smith said: "It is difficult to understand the continuing policy of the Obama administration. Surely the public has the right to know the crimes committed by US personnel against a British resident like Binyam Mohamed."
[/quote]

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 07 Jul 2009 08:03

US Warmongering Rises In Volume
Excerpt from a blog

Nothing disgusts me more than how the US media will harp on protecting civilians and allowing riots, mass demonstrations and dissension…but ONLY in countries we want to tear apart. So, if people riot in China, our media focuses on it and cheers it on. While we butcher wedding parties and funerals, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and making millions into refugees. So it is in this week’s news. There are many examples of the double standard news reporting by US media owners who have an agenda: protect Israel from bad news and howling like banshees about our rivals, fighting civilians, while we are bloody doing the same, ourselves.

The forgotten war in Sri Lanka is first: Oh, Darfur! Everyone was talking Darfur this and Darfur that. Now that the butchery if the Tamils and Palestinian civilians is over, Darfur isn’t of any major interest with our media. True, some of Hollywood’s starlets are still on message, worrying about Darfur. But they are a out of the loop. Darfur doesn’t matter anymore. It was an excuse for us to howl at Muslims so we could justify killing babies and small children across Central Asia and the Middle East.

These pictures look like…GAZA! Wow. And the civilians don’t hear from Hollywood. After all, we are outsourcing our office work to India and we hear nothing about that in our media, too. We hear only what the media wants us to hear. So the screams of the suffering children is silenced. Who are they, anyway? No, they are nobodies. Fortunately for the victims of this ethnic cleansing, some of the world media has noticed so we get to read about it if we look real, real hard. The recent demonstrations in Iran got immense coverage. More than Darfur! It was great. Everyone was rooting for the people who were resisting the election results. But this focus was due entirely to the Jewish community and especially, Jewish editors and media owners wishing ill on Iran.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 07 Jul 2009 13:41

End of the Cold War 2? It sounds to good to be true as there are still several outstanding issues between the two to be resolved.Nevertheless,any reduction in strategic arms is very welcome and the Russian-US initiative for the same is most welcome and not to soon either with NoKo's sabre rattling and paranoia about Iran acquiring the same in the west and Israel.The two leaders should now put pressure upon China to stop its insidious covert acceleration of Pak's nuclear expansion,where that entitie's existing stockpile is a cause of great concern if it falls into the hands of the ungodly.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 34407.html

End of the Cold War

Obama and Medvedev heal divisions and sign nuclear weapons pact

The rancour and mistrust of Bush-era relations between Russia and the US were cast aside yesterday when presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed an agreement on nuclear weapons that could prove historic.

The two leaders agreed to work towards a treaty to replace the 1991 Start-1 pact which expires in December and to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear warheads to between 1,500 and 1,675 each. In a further sign of its willingness to repair fractured relations, Russia offered its airspace to US planes flying weapons and troops to Afghanistan. This will shorten flying time and save the US more than $100m (£62m) a year.

Mr Obama announced that he intended to host a global nuclear summit next year to combat nuclear proliferation, the biggest threat to global security, and said he and Mr Medvedev had discussed a plan for Russia to reciprocate by hosting a follow-up meeting.

Related articles
Rupert Cornwell: A step forward, but there's a long way to go yet
After the barbs, Obama and Putin meet at last
Mary Dejevsky: It worked in Moscow, but the Obama effect can be negative
There were smiles all round as Mr Obama arrived for the summit which continues today. "We resolve to reset US-Russian relations so that we can co-operate more effectively in areas of common interest," Mr Obama said at the Kremlin.

How much effect the bonhomie and toned-down rhetoric will have on still thorny issues such as the proposed US missile defence system and the situation in Georgia remains to be seen. Even the nuclear agreement is only a framework for negotiators to use when drawing up a comprehensive treaty. Differences in opinion remain.

But Mr Obama and Mr Medvedev were full of positive words about each other and said they looked forward to continuing their working relationship.

Russia insisted before the talks took place that any negotiations on arms reduction had to proceed together with negotiations on the US plans for an anti-missile shield in central and eastern Europe, a Bush-era plan to which the Kremlin is strongly opposed.

There were no breakthroughs on this issue, though Mr Obama appeared to cede some ground. He said he thought it was inappropriate to link missile defence with arms reduction but Mr Medvedev announced they had "agreed that defensive and offensive weapons should be viewed as a whole".

Mr Obama said: "We have agreed that we're going to continue to discuss it. It's going to take some hard work because it requires breaking down some long-standing suspicions". He promised to present a review of the US plans by the end of the summer. Russia will be pleased at the change of tone – the Bush administration had simply stated that the missile defence plans were none of Russia's business.

Air Force One touched down in Moscow at lunchtime. Mr Obama, his wife, Michelle, and their daughters were ferried to the city centre, where Mr Obama laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. He then proceeded to the Kremlin to meet Mr Medvedev. As Mr Obama talked with his Russian counterpart for nearly four hours, his wife and daughters were given a tour of the Kremlin by Svetlana Medvedeva, the Russian President's wife.

Mr Obama's visit has not been given much airtime by the government-controlled media and his arrival in Moscow did not provoke the sort of public enthusiasm that has greeted him on other foreign visits.

The real test for renewed relations could come today, when Mr Obama has breakfast with Vladimir Putin, Russia's former president, who as Prime Minister is still seen as the country's most powerful man.

Mr Putin may have some of his acerbic wit at the ready for the President after Mr Obama made the curious step of publicly criticising Mr Putin before his trip to Moscow.

While praising Mr Medvedev as someone with whom it was possible to do business, Mr Obama said late last week that Mr Putin needed to understand that "the old Cold War approach to US-Russian relations is outdated" and that unlike Mr Medvedev, the former KGB agent who was now Prime Minister "has one foot in the old ways of doing business". Mr Putin's response was surprisingly measured but he is not known to take criticism well so Mr Obama's attack may yet backfire.

Yesterday, Mr Obama looked awkward when answering a question at a press conference on who he felt held real power in Russia. He said his main interest was in "dealing directly with my counterpart" who was "straightforward and professional" but he also wanted to "reach out to Prime Minister Putin and other influential sectors of society". Mr Medvedev gave a faint smile. Later, Mr Obama inadvertently began to refer to "President Putin", but quickly corrected himself.

Mr Obama has gone out of his way to praise Mr Medvedev. In an interview published yesterday with the opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta, he dodged a question about whether he would press Russian authorities over bringing to justice the murderers of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

He also said it seemed "odd" that the former Yukos boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky was being subjected to a second trial in Russia but added that there was no place for outsiders to interfere in the Russian legal system and praised Mr Medvedev's "courageous initiative to strengthen the rule of law in Russia".

Most analysts feel that Mr Medvedev's words about legal reform have not been followed up with substantive action.

In addition to his breakfast with Mr Putin today, Mr Obama is also due to give a substantial speech on US-Russia relations at the graduation ceremony of the New Economic School in Moscow.

He will also meet opposition leaders, including controversial radical opposition figures such as the former chess great Garry Kasparov. He departs Russia for the G8 summit in L'Aquila tomorrow morning.

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 07 Jul 2009 15:15

G-8 summit in Italy in chaos.While Silvio the new Duce,whiles away his time in Roman orgies,Italy's lack of vision has apppalled its fellow G-8 ,members some who want it expelled.This is symptomatic of the shifting economic power from west eastward and old powers like Italy languish thanks to the frivolities of its leader.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ju ... ling-italy

Calls grow within G8 to expel Italy as summit plans descend into chaosWhile US tries to inject purpose into meeting, Italy is lambasted for poor planning and reneging on overseas aid commitments

Julian Borger, Diplomatic editor
guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 July 2009 19.30 BST

Preparations for Wednesday's G8 summit in the Italian mountain town of L'Aquila have been so chaotic there is growing pressure from other member states to have Italy expelled from the group, according to senior western officials.

In the last few weeks before the summit, and in the absence of any substantive initiatives on the agenda, the US has taken control. Washington has organised "sherpa calls" (conference calls among senior officials) in a last-ditch bid to inject purpose into the meeting.

"For another country to organise the sherpa calls is just unprecedented. It's a nuclear option," said one senior G8 member state official. "The Italians have been just awful. There have been no processes and no planning."

"The G8 is a club, and clubs have membership dues. Italy has not been paying them," said a European official involved in the summit preparations.

The behind-the-scenes grumbling has gone as far as suggestions that Italy could be pushed out of the G8 or any successor group. One possibility being floated in European capitals is that Spain, which has higher per capita national income and gives a greater percentage of GDP in aid, would take Italy's place.

The Italian foreign ministry did not reply yesterday to a request to comment on the criticisms.

"The Italian preparations for the summit have been chaotic from start to finish," said Richard Gowan, an analyst at the Centre for International Co-operation at New York University.

"The Italians were saying as long ago as January this year that they did not have a vision of the summit, and if the Obama administration had any ideas they would take instruction from the Americans."

The US-led talks led to agreement on a food security initiative a few days before the L'Aquila meeting, the overall size of which is still being negotiated. Gordon Brown has said Britain would contribute £1.1bn to the scheme, designed to support farmers in developing countries.

However, officials who have seen the rest of the draft joint statement say there is very little new in it. Critics say Italy's Berlusconi government has made up for the lack of substance by increasing the size of the guest list. Estimates of the numbers of heads of state coming to L'Aquila range from 39 to 44.

"This is a gigantic fudge," Gowan said. "The Italians have no ideas and have decided that best thing to do is to spread the agenda extremely thinly to obscure the fact that didn't really have an agenda."

Silvio Berlusconi has come in for harsh criticism for delivering only 3% of development aid promises made four years ago, and for planning cuts of more than 50% in Italy's overseas aid budget.

Meanwhile, media coverage in the run-up to the meeting has been dominated by Berlusconi's parties with young women, and then the wisdom of holding a summit in a region experiencing seismic aftershocks three months after a devastating earthquake as a gesture of solidarity with the local population.

The heavy criticism of Italy comes at a time when the future of the G8 as a forum for addressing the world's problems is very much in question. At the beginning of the year the G20 group, which included emerging economies, was seen as a possible replacement, but the G20 London summit in April convinced US officials it was too unwieldy a vehicle.

The most likely replacement for the G8 is likely to be between 13- and 16-strong, including rising powers such as China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, which currently attend meetings as the "outreach five" But any transition would be painful as countries jostle for a seat. Italy's removal is seen in a possibility but Spanish membership in its place is unlikely. The US and the emerging economies believe the existing group is too Euro-centric already, and would prefer consolidated EU representation. That is seen as unlikely. No European state wants to give up their place at the table..

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 07 Jul 2009 20:46

From above psot:

"The G8 is a club, and clubs have membership dues. Italy has not been paying them," said a European official involved in the summit preparations

Left unstated is the club dues are spent based on the Chairman's discretion. Is this a setup we want India to be part of?

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 07 Jul 2009 21:19

The G8 leaders, like many in the West, are quick to point accusing fingers. It reminds me of a trick shown in our old movies - usually a comedy scene. One character points at some thing far away (distraction) then lifts the pocket (deceit) of another character or something of that nature.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 07 Jul 2009 21:58

A dated article in Hindu on Modern Nations regressing to Tribalism due to State failure.

In other words we are seeing a reversal of "march of history" to use Francis Fukuyama's words.

Degeneration of modern nations into tribalism

First came the tribe — savage in instinct, ritualistic in religion, and run on the basis of a grunting solidarity; humanity's first exercise in collectivism. The nation, which takes its place, is far more refined, literate peoples, and can call upon scholars and scribes, chroniclers and preachers, who propose common goals for the nation.

Organised states, with their bureaucracies, sanitation services and taxation policies, like to think that they exist on a higher plane than either the tribe or the nation. Ethics loom large and morality's plans acquire a finer focus. Modern governments are meant to promote the fulfilment of individuals, their happiness and ease of life. Savages have become citizens and can look beyond the narrow ambitions of the tribe.

Nations continue to exist within the modern democratic state. But elections in such societies are won on the basis of economic plans which persuade individuals that their futures will be healthier and more interesting under one dispensation than another. In that calculus, being a better patriot hardly makes an appearance and often the politician draped in the flag is an object of suspicion.

and

reminder of how precarious this genealogy is and how the ancient loyalties still subsist. Hizbollah and Hamas are tribes that have flourished because of the breakdown of state authority in Lebanon and the failure of the Palestinian Authority to exercise any kind of state order. Hands outstretched in collective salute, the members of these tribes are reminiscent of western Europe's last tribal moment, the fascism of the 1930s. In both cases there is the use of religion to promote a tribal solidarity.

and

Within Europe the tribe has become one of the key features of the 21st century. The continent's last great east-to-west movement of the displaced was in the wreckage of the post-1945 world. That Volkerwanderung has returned in the wreckage of the Warsaw Pact. Russia's revival as a great power has been a renaissance, first, in Slavic consciousness. The Russia built by Peter the Great looked to the Western tradition of state-building, but the country now run by Vladimir Putin looks both to its Slavic roots and to its own embodiment as the home of the tribe and people of Rus.

Even the world's last superstate shows features of tribal activity at work in the age of George W. Bush. America's politicised form of evangelicalism is uninterested in the ideals of common democratic purpose. Its religion is that of the tribe at work and at worship — promoting its own solidarity. Having retreated within its own cultic view of the world, it then imposes its views on others — as in the case of the presidential ban on stem-cell research.

Middle Eastern tribalism, just like the African variety, is the direct result of colonial interference which frustrated the indigenous development of state-building. Ruled from above — often through regimes lacking popular legitimacy — peoples retreat naturally to the tribe, which offers solidarity and hope.

Tribalism in Europe has more to do with the failure of the governmental project in the late 20th century. France has failed to absorb its Muslim minority, who are drawn to ever more tribal loyalties. British tribalism has taken its cue from the degeneration of welfarist aspiration into a bureaucratic exercise....

Flirtation with English tribalism represents an attempt at breathing new life into ancient conflicts in a world of devolved government — as with the Tory proposal to ban Welsh and Scottish MPs from voting on legislation with an exclusively English application. This is an old game of division and separation. Genetic research has shown how, within 15 generations of their fifth- to seventh-century arrival, the genes of the Anglo-Saxons had multiplied so successfully that they accounted for more than half the male DNA in the population of England. Most probably through enforced segregation and a ban on intermarriage, the invading tribes had isolated the native British tribes in order to create a new, Germanicised country. Early medieval history has become the best guide to our age of the decay of states and the degeneration of nations into tribal attitudinising.

An American scholar Joel Kotkin, had written a book in the early 90s about the rise of tribes in the post modern world.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 07 Jul 2009 22:04

SwamyG, Can you do a diagram which describes the attributes of: tribe, nation and state and another that shows the progression and the last that shows in post-modern world all three co-exist and depending on cirumustances each one dominates and in rare cases all three types are exhibited. I.e. its more than Janus faced idea of the Greeks?

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 08 Jul 2009 07:36

Pope Urges Forming New World Economic Order to Work for the ‘Common Good’

Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday called for a radical rethinking of the global economy, criticizing a growing divide between rich and poor and urging the establishment of a “true world political authority” to oversee the economy and work for the “common good.”

He criticized the current economic system, “where the pernicious effects of sin are evident,” and urged financiers in particular to “rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity.”

He also called for “greater social responsibility” on the part of business. “Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty,” Benedict wrote in his new encyclical, which the Vatican released on Tuesday.

While we look at the above papal call, we need to look at what is happening to the Vatican State. Vatican City State reports $22M deficit, cites global crisis

The Vatican City State reported a deficit of $22 million for 2008 as a consequence of the "global economic-financial crisis," the Vatican announced on Saturday.

The Vatican's annual profit and loss statements showed that the 108-acre sovereign territory, which includes St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museums, fared much worse last year than in 2007, when it reported a profit of $10 million.

The recession has hit the Vatican State. The top contributors were: USA, Italy and Germany. But the Catholic communities of South Korea and Japan were not far behind. Half of the G8 countries figure out in that list.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 08 Jul 2009 08:07

ramana gaaru: You might be interested in what Michael Shermer says in "The Mind of the Market". These are my notes from his book. Except a few sentences most of them are straight from the book.

Evolution of Human Groups
Code: Select all
Time before present	        Group	                  Number of Individuals
100,000 -  10,000 years	Bands	                 10s-100s
10,000 – 5,000 years	        Tribes	         100s-1000s
5,000 – 3,000 years	        Chiefdoms	         1000s-10,000s
3,000 – 1,000 years	        States	         10,000s – 100,000s
1000 – present	                Empires	         100,000s – 1,000,000s
In the Paleolithic social environment in which our moral commitments evolved, one’s fellow in-group members consisted of family, extended family, friends and community members – all well known to each other. To help others was to help oneself. We carry the seeds of such in-group inclusiveness even today, as groups that practiced in-group harmony had advantages over groups that had internal social divide and were incoherent.

In the last 10,000 years there is an economic transition from the equal distribution of economic wealth among bands to the emergence of hierarchical wealth as a token of status and power among tribes. Egalitarianism falls apart as bands and tribes coalesced into Chiefdoms and States.

People began to live in semi-permanent and then permanent settlements. This led to ownership and private property. There was a leap in food production and population that allowed division of labor in the social and economic spheres. Surplus food, tools and other products led to nascent trading economies. It further helped the division of labor. Full-time artisans, craftsmen, and scribes worked within a social structure organized and run by full-time politicians, bureaucrats. The modern state economy was born. Organized religion came to fill in many roles – one of which was the justification of power of the ruling elite. States developed into civilizations, sects developed into World religions and barter markets developed into full-fledged economies.

It was no longer possible to separate politics from economics. The hunter-gatherer bands and tribes had egalitarianism, but in larger societies equal redistribution of wealth was never realized. Between-group wars erupted when resources ran scarce.

In the modern world, a tension arises between our selfish desire to gain greater wealth and our social desire for equality. In monstrously large modern states we have both abject poverty and unimaginable wealth causing considerable consternation. In most nations this translates into political policy to raise the poor and lower the rich, because during our evolutionary tenure we lived in a zero-sum world, in which one person’s gain meant another person’s loss. This is why reciprocity and food sharing are so important to hunter-gatherer peoples, and why they evolved customs and mores to enforce the sharing of the products of communal efforts at hunting and gathering.

Today we live in a nonzero World where improved science and technology has increased productivity to the point where we can generate ever-increasing amounts of food from the same or even fewer resources. But our brains operated as if we are still living in that zero-sum Middle Land and we are naturally inclined towards tribalism and xenophobia.

shravan · Post by **shravan** » 09 Jul 2009 11:27

170 Kilometers Southwest of Okinawa

On June 29th, the PLA Daily reported a North Sea Fleet task force conducting a comprehensive military drill under “a complex electromagnetic environment”.
========

Japan may deploy troops near disputed islands

Philip · Post by **Philip** » 09 Jul 2009 17:23

British diplomutt caught with Russian prostitutes!

A British diplomat in Russia, James Hudson, has quit after being filmed having sex with two blonde prostitutes.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... tutes.html

By Ben Leach
Published: 9:12AM BST 09 Jul 2009

Images Deputy British Consul James Hudson with a prostitute Photo: BARCROFT MEDIA
The film, which could have left him open to blackmail, is believed to have been shot in a brothel in the city of Ekaterinberg Photo: BARCROFT MEDIA
The Foreign Office confirmed Hudson had resigned Photo: BARCROFT MEDIA
Hudson, 37, resigned from his posting to the Urals over the video, which is thought to have been secretly shot by Russian spies.

The footage apparently shows Mr Hudson, wearing a dressing gown, kissing the two semi-naked girls while drinking champagne in a brothel.

In one scene one of the prostitutes asks in heavily-accented English: "Would you like it?" In another, one of the girls is seen naked and straddling him on a bed.

The film, which could have left him open to blackmail, is believed to have been shot in a brothel in the city of Ekaterinberg, where Mr Hudson was Deputy Consul General.

The four-minute, 18-second video was posted on a local news website under the heading: "Adventures of Mr Hudson in Russia."

A security source told The Sun that Russia's FSB intelligence service, the modern KGB, may have carried out the sting to embarrass Britain.

The Foreign Office confirmed Hudson had resigned, saying staff were expected to "demonstrate high levels of personal and professional integrity".

Mr Hudson, a father-of-one, joined the FO in 1994 and has been posted to Sarajevo, Havana and Budapest. He married wife Sally in London in 1996, but they divorced the following year.

The Ural Mountains area, 1,000 miles east of Moscow, covers Russia's industrial heartland and is a key outpost for British trade.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 09 Jul 2009 20:42

Philip, Please exercise some restraint. How is the above germane to this thread?

putnanja · Post by **putnanja** » 11 Jul 2009 03:51

THE COLD WAR CONTINUES - Obama’s barely coded offer to Medvedev and Putin

The recent summit meeting in Moscow did not dispel the suspicion that Russia, too, has lost an empire without finding a role, as Dean Acheson said of Britain. But Barack Obama’s barely coded offer to Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin of a nuclear-shield-for-Iran deal did confirm the non-aligned movement’s rationale, which the West persistently denied, that the Cold War was more about power, influence and territory than about ideology.

The contest has lost its edge but has not been put to rest. Among other results of that continuing tussle was the drift in India-Russia relations during the last few years when India sought to “reset” (using Obama’s term for his plans for Moscow) relations with the United States of America. Now, America’s example shows that it is just as important for India not to neglect Russia. Whether it is possible to do so without jeopardizing the close Indo-American ties that Manmohan Singh and George W. Bush built up will depend largely on the Obama administration, which has not so far treated India as a foreign policy priority.
...
...
Be that as it may, the overflight agreement without any of the hysteria that foiled Chandra Shekhar’s similar permission in 1991 indicates an appreciation in Moscow of common political aims. An ISAF victory in Afghanistan is important to the Russians because of Muslim separatism in the southern parts of their own country. They do not want a revival of the Chechen war or a repetition of the current revolt in Xinjiang against Han Chinese rule. Fear of Islamic fundamentalism makes for strange bedfellows.

...
The stalemate places Manmohan Singh in a quandary. India cannot ignore the traditional strategic partnership with Russia, for though Russia is no longer the sole supplier of India’s defence needs, Russia’s aircraft carrier and nuclear submarines are still valuable assets. India must also forge a firm and coherent response to Chinese aggrandizement. Nor is there any reason why India should gratuitously alienate an Iran whose oil and gas, common border with Afghanistan, strategic potential in respect of Pakistan, and independent foreign policy make it a desirable ally. If Iran must be ostracized for its notional bomb, Pakistan should be punished far more severely for its actual arsenal.

Hillary Clinton’s belated travel plans encourage the hope that it is not impossible to reconcile these compulsions and salvage something of the trust between Manmohan Singh and Bush despite divergent positions on climate change and the World Trade Organization. India needs the US as much as ever, both for nuclear cooperation and regional security. The US, too, must know that it is absurd to imagine that a stable, democratic South Asia can rest on the pivots of two feudal theocracies without the active participation of the region’s only democracy, which also happens to be the largest in the world.

Meanwhile, notwithstanding some positive results, Obama’s fencing with Medvedev and Putin confirmed that the Cold War continues in the Balkans.

vsudhir · Post by **vsudhir** » 12 Jul 2009 21:45

Book PR for Full Spectrum Dominance.

video link

Some rather fascinating excerpts:

For the faction controlling the Pentagon, the military industry, and the oil industry, the Cold War never ended. They engineered an incredible plan to grab total control of the planet, of land, sea, air, space, outer space and cyberspace. Continuing ‘below the radar,’ they created a global network of military bases and conflicts to advance the long-term goal of Full Spectrum Dominance. Methods included control of propaganda, use of NGOs for regime change, Color Revolutions to advance NATO eastwards, and a vast array of psychological and economic warfare techniques.

{uh-oh. sound familiar? sounds more serious than mere CT, IMHO}

They even used ’save the gorilla’ organizations in Africa to secretly run arms in to create wars for raw materials. It was all part of a Revolution in Military Affairs, as they termed it.

{Yawn. And more of the same under the guise of save the children/daleets/tribals/cashmere shawls and so on. Sadly, their actions undermine the credibility and trust of the authentic seva orgs out there.}

The events of September 11, 2001 would allow an American President to declare a worldwide War on Terror, on an enemy who was everywhere, and nowhere. 9/11 justified the Patriot Act, the very act that destroyed Americans’ Constitutional freedoms in the name of security. This book gives a disturbing look at the strategy of Full Spectrum Dominance, at what is behind a strategy that could lead us into a horrific nuclear war in the very near future, and at the very least, to a world at continuous war.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 12 Jul 2009 21:51

vsudhir wrote:
They even used ’save the Tiger’ organizations in India to secretly run arms in to fund naxalites.

vsudhir · Post by **vsudhir** » 13 Jul 2009 02:10

Acharya san,

Wth all due respect, you are ascribing words to me that I did not use.

No doubt there is a phoren hand helping the naxal blood-gore-fest in India's heartland, but who it is I do not claim to know.

Thx!

VinodTK · Post by **VinodTK** » 13 Jul 2009 07:14

India's quest for autonomy Challenge and Strategy. Rethinking India's Foreign Policy

vsudhir · Post by **vsudhir** » 13 Jul 2009 08:00

Kim Jong-il Said to Have Pancreatic Cancer

SEOUL — The North Korean leader’s illness was reported by the South Korean broadcaster YTN, which attributed the information to intelligence sources.

Lez hope this incarnate evil meets his 72+28 double quick.

Virupaksha · Post by **Virupaksha** » 13 Jul 2009 08:13

vsudhir wrote:Kim Jong-il Said to Have Pancreatic Cancer

SEOUL — The North Korean leader’s illness was reported by the South Korean broadcaster YTN, which attributed the information to intelligence sources.
Lez hope this incarnate evil meets his 72+28 double quick.

Can you help me understand why would it be in India's interest if he dies? I am not able to connect the dots.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 13 Jul 2009 09:32

vsudhir wrote:Acharya san,

Wth all due respect, you are ascribing words to me that I did not use.

No doubt there is a phoren hand helping the naxal blood-gore-fest in India's heartland, but who it is I do not claim to know.

Thx!

It was just an illustration to explain how global organization are used as a cover to penetrate other countries.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » 14 Jul 2009 02:31

Ramana...From times immemorial great empires like the Roman empire, Ottoman, the Abbasid caliphate etc. were wiped out by hard riding horsemen coming out of the steppes of the asian hinterland.

I think Mackinder may have studied the campaigns of Attila, Genghis Khan and Timur among other Central asian conquerors to arrive at his conclusions.

Take these three conquerors whose conquests have paved the way for Anglo Saxon supremarcy high seas. Attila, Genghis Khan, and Timur. All of them come from Central Asia. While Attila’s origins are obscure, Genghis Khan came from Mongolia, Timur was a minor ruler in the Ferghana valley.

Both these conquerors (timur in particular) burst in as an irresistible force from the Central asia slew and ground to dust major empires in present day China, India, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Syria and even Egypt or Japan to some extent.

This suits British ambitions perfectly. forces from this region will be too far to do damage to western Europe and can be of valuable nuisance value in keeping Asia from overtaking Europe.

Their navies will have dominance over the high through control of vital choke points.

A strategy that fits their ambitions perfectly….we can see it in play as seen from their support of wahabi islam in Central asia and Chechen extremism in the Caucasus for the past 200+ years.

This could be why they think those who control the heart of asia runs the world.

Hope this makes sense..JMT

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 14 Jul 2009 04:12

Paul wrote:
A strategy that fits their ambitions perfectly….we can see it in play as seen from their support of wahabi islam in Central asia and Chechen extremism in the Caucasus for the past 200+ years.

This could be why they think those who control the heart of asia runs the world.

Hope this makes sense..JMT

Logic is correct. Oil politics is also centered around that same region and it makes perfect policy to combine policies.
This is long term 500-1000 years view. But looks like demographics will overrun their long term strategic plan.

Even Indian authors have similar view about the central asia as a threat to stability of the sub continent.

http://kalchiron.blogspot.com/search?q=central+asia
Primary threat to Indian Civilization - Central Asian tribal mentality

vsudhir · Post by **vsudhir** » 14 Jul 2009 04:14

But looks like demographics will overrun their long term strategic plan.

Precisely. In fact, within our own lkifetimes, we will likely witness the spectre of eurostan (including precious western europe as well) in civil war thx to rising demographics of the islamists asserting themselves against a failing native establishment.

Raju · Post by **Raju** » 16 Jul 2009 23:23

>> he considers US as an extension of Europe especially Western Europe.

Western Europe is still the base for the old rich whom some consider the 'real rich'. Do you know what I am talking about ?

>> Both China and India are going to be pricked and cajoled and "loved" until they fall in line - at least that appears to be the plan. Once these two are on-board, the task is to use these two to tackle Russia and the Islamics.

China already has received two pricks in form of tibet and Uighur and significant other unnoted ones.
India has received terror strikes.

some Pakistani analyst was saying immidiately after Mumbai that these attacks were planned from Western Europe. Now if they were talking of their half-conceived plan of planting spanish calling cards as evidence or was it something more deeper to it, we may never know.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 16 Jul 2009 23:56

Raju wrote:>> he considers US as an extension of Europe especially Western Europe.

Western Europe is still the base for the old rich whom some consider the 'real rich'. Do you know what I am talking about ?

Old money and Old Europe is controlling the global system now. George Soros is their man who is the supporter of President Obama. They have reset the global financial system in the last 2 years and rebuilding it. They are now forging a EU-China partnership and EU-Asia partnership.

Raju · Post by **Raju** » 17 Jul 2009 00:03

I think they see their control, conquest & subjugation of Japan as an example. Only that in India's case the pricks come not by atom bombs but by terrorist strikes and in China's case the pricks come by social unrest.

they have rewarded Japan and China economically whereas in India's case the rewards have come as more patchy and unaccounted but are still substantial.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 17 Jul 2009 00:05

Moved above three posts from Non-Western World View.

Thanks, ramana