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China eyes post-Chavez oil axis
Fears that China plans to "lock down" oil reserves before the advent of peak oil appear overstated, but there's little doubt that demand for oil to feed China's quest for global economic dominance will create geopolitical clashes. Keen interest Beijing has shown in Venezuela since Hugo Chavez's passing suggests the struggle could start in the US's backyard. - Brendan P O'Reilly
(Mar 12, '13)
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More fuel to South China Sea disputes
The oil and gas deposits lying under the South China Sea in areas may indeed be "vast", maybe not. Either way, their size in terms of global availability of such resources is small - and hardly merits the conflict that might arise from China's claims to the area. Why then has it abandoned its "peaceful rise" policy towards its neighbors in pursuing those claims?
- David Brown
(Mar 12, '13)
SPENGLER
US exceptionalism
a matter of faith
Claims that the era of American Exceptionalism is over are exaggerated at best. What has made the United States radically different from all other big industrial nations during the past generation is a fertility rate above replacement, and religious folk are the last who seem determined to keep it that way. The question is not what we forecast, but whether we will keep faith.
(Mar 12, '13)
Abe touches a raw nerve in South Korea
 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's turning on the charm to lighten the mood in relations has done little to help and probably more to enrage Park Geun-hye, his counterpart in South Korea, amid a string of off-color remarks from officials in Tokyo. Nerves in Seoul over the countries' troubled history are raw and exposed.
- Daniel Leussink
(Mar 12, '13)
Quagmire politics in Sabah
As tensions run high in Malaysia's eastern state of Sabah following a stand-off between insurgents from the southern Philippines and Malaysian security forces, militant action is lending credence to claims that the conflict has been manufactured to stir trouble at a politically sensitive time. The risks are rising of a wider crisis that could delay Malaysia's general election. - Nile Bowie
(Mar 12, '13)
Mission unaccomplished
United States' troops first entered Baghdad a decade ago next month. From that inglorious point to the moment in December 2011 when the last American combat unit slipped out of Iraq in the dead of the night, the mission was madness. And still there is a refusal to look defeat in the face and to recognize the invasion for what it was: the single worst foreign policy decision in American history.
- Peter Van Buren
(Mar 12, '13)
SPEAKING FREELY
US stuck in deaf dialogue in Korea
Provocations and diplomatic miscommunication of the kind now engaging North Korea and the United States echo throughout America's presence in the Korean peninsula. The Korean conflict is one of war fought with a "dialogue of the deaf" that has no ending. It's time for Washington to change its approach.
- Dallas Darling
(Mar 11, '13)
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Karzai gives Hagel a tour d'horizon
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel got an early taste of the Afghan political soup at the weekend - with bitterness a predominant flavor and ladled out in strong measure by President Hamid Karzai. Hagel's denial of dealings with the Taliban was thin gruel. If he and the US are really concerned with Afghanistan's post-withdrawal future, they should let Karzai get on with his job. - M K Bhadrakumar
(Mar 11, '13)
King Kim clutches a nuclear chalice
North Korea's third nuclear test and its provocations since then confirm the bad news of its emerging capability to employ nuclear weapons for defense and diplomatic blackmail. Yet the news is not as frightening as it seems. Kim Jong-eun and the aging lords in his court have no wish to risk nuclear annihilation merely for the pleasure of killing a few ten thousand Americans, Japanese or South Koreans.
- Andrei Lankov
(Mar 11, '13)
For Park, the honeymoon is over
Park Geun-hye is off to a bad start. Now, after electing her as the nation's first-ever female president, South Koreans are scratching their heads about whether they have placed too much hopes on her as warm motherliness displayed in the campaign gives way to an divisive attitude that beats her predecessor, "bulldozer" Lee Myung-bak, for stubbornness. - Sunny Lee
(Mar 11, '13)
THE ROVING EYE
The Fall of the
House of Europe
The great Dante set out for his 14th century Italian (and European) contemporaries the descent that awaited them after they shuffled off life's coil. His modern day descendants, alas, must cope without the wisdom of his Virgil to guide a way through the terrors as the European project belches anger and avarice on its way to (possibly yet more violent) self-destruction.
- Pepe Escobar (Mar 11, '13)
Hong Kong's miser-minister
 For a growing number of his critics, the budgets of Hong Kong Financial Secretary John Tsang are a perennial exercise in miscalculation, predicting deficits but ending up with an embarrassment of riches then stashed away in the city's swollen reserves. As Tsang and miserly officials remain bereft of fresh ideas for the future, surely it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.
- Kent Ewing
(Mar 11, '13)
Afghanistan a minefield for the innocent
At least 45 people on average lose their limbs every month to deadly anti-personnel mines in Afghanistan. Under the UN's Ottawa Convention, the land is supposed to be free of unexploded ordinance by the end of 2013. But as victims being fitted with prosthetics are all too aware, the process of clearing the devices is painfully slow in one of the most mined countries in the world.
- Esmatullah Mayar
(Mar 11, '13)
Central Asia's ECO
wants
energy ties,
just not on oil, gas
The latest gathering in Tehran of the Economic Co-operation Organization of Central Asian states plus neighbors to the south and west had, unusually, a full-house in attendance. They failed to sign up to Iran's "ECO Energy Charter", but agreement elsewhere bodes well for pursuing a more sustainable energy future.
- Chris Cook
(Mar 11, '13)
Did China execute the wrong pirate?
Western coverage of the execution of Naw Kham focused on whether it would be broadcast - and if not, why not. All good hackwork over a macabre event in far-off China, and totally missing the point. There seems little doubt the Burmese pirate was a baddie on a considerable scale, but whether he had a hand in the massacre of 13 crew members of two ships on the Mekong River is quite another matter. - Peter Lee
(Mar 8, '13)
CHAN AKYA
Of mutton and lamb
Britain has been rocked by the scandal of liberal portions of horsemeat being found in what consumers thought was beef. It has been less shocked by a health scandal involving hundreds of negligent hospital deaths. The different levels of apparent concern could be down to a media conspiracy - or just a preference for juvenile jokes over grim facts of healthcare.
(Mar 8, '13)
THE POST-CRASH AUTOPSY
Bank critics miss relative value
The financial crash is widely attributed to failures of international investment banks (with various other "culprits" also held up for castigation). Yet the problem might lie deeper, in the roots of outdated but still over-popular economic theory espoused by Adam Smith (and even Karl Marx). The way out of the mess is even deeper - and it is all relative. - Friedrich Hansen
(Mar 8, '13)
Who saw the economic
crisis coming and why?
You have heard the widespread thesis that no one saw the current financial crisis coming. That thesis is simply wrong. However, it makes sure that those are not seen and heard, who a) did see it coming, who b) could have prevented it, and who c) have the knowledge of how we can get out of the schemozzle we're in. - Lars Schall
(Mar 8, '13)
THE ROVING EYE
El Comandante has left the building
Unfortunately for turbo-capitalists in Washington and Brussels, the death of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez from cancer does not signal an end to the spirit of Chavism. With his "socialism of the 21st century" and defiance of centuries-old patterns of subjugation in Latin America, El Comandante struck a chord with the Global South that's now resonating in crumbling European structures.
- Pepe Escobar
(Mar 6, '13) |
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Xi may hold key to Moscow gas goals
Pricing disagreements have long stymied Russia's plans to boost energy supplies to China. Chinese leader Xi Jinping's visit to Moscow this month may bring some new momentum to negotiations, but years of postponements of pipeline projects will likely sober the expectations of both sides. - Sergie Blagov
THE BEAR'S LAIR
Keynes' fall of Singapore
The fall of Singapore was the first major blow in the dismantling of the British Empire. The Bretton Woods Agreement, arrived at with the aid of the vain and foolish John Maynard Keynes, did just about as much damage to the British economy, damage that lasted until the early days of Margaret Thatcher.
- Martin Hutchinson
CREDIT BUBBLE BULLETIN
Q4 2012 Flow Of Funds
The US Federal Reserve's latest ''flow of funds'' report confirms that policymakers have painted themselves into a corner. The Fed may wish to change its quantitive easing policy, yet the liquidity backdrop has so unsettled global markets that central bankers will seek any excuse to avoid watering down the punch.
Doug Noland looks at the previous week's events each Monday.
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Let Male keep its
tryst with destiny
The arrest of the former president of Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed is an event that could easily have been foretold. Like in the Gabriel Garcia Marquez novella, where everyone except Santiago Nasar could foretell what the two Vicario brothers were up to, only Nasheed seemed unaware that the president and a former president would go to any extent to disqualify him from the forthcoming September election.
- M K Bhadrakumar
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