Address by President of the Russian Federation, March 18, 2014

Vladimir Putin addressed State Duma deputies, Federation Council members, heads of Russian regions and civil society representatives in the Kremlin.

"Like a mirror, the situation in Ukraine reflects what is going on and what has been happening in the world over the past several decades. After the dissolution of bipolarity on the planet, we no longer have stability. Key international institutions are not getting any stronger; on the contrary, in many cases, they are sadly degrading. Our western partners, led by the United States of America, prefer not to be guided by international law in their practical policies, but by the rule of the gun. They have come to believe in their exclusivity and exceptionalism, that they can decide the destinies of the world, that only they can ever be right. They act as they please: here and there, they use force against sovereign states, building coalitions based on the principle “If you are not with us, you are against us.” To make this aggression look legitimate, they force the necessary resolutions from international organisations, and if for some reason this does not work, they simply ignore the UN Security Council and the UN overall."

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De Schumpeter a los postschumpeterianos: viejas y nuevas dimensiones analíticas

Gabriel Yoguel - Florencia Barletta - Mariano Pereira
IADE

Este artículo discute las principales ideas de Schumpeter e identifica cambios y rupturas en su pensamiento a lo largo de sus obras. Su principal contribución es explicarla dinámica de desenvolvimiento económico a partir de la emergencia de procesos de destrucción creativa que tienen lugar bajo distintas formas de competencia.



Muchos años después esta herencia fue relevante para el desarrollo de la teoría evolucionista y neoschumpeteriana. Se presentan además los elementos ausentes en su pensamiento, desarrollados con posterioridad por la literatura evolucionista y neoschumpeteriana. Entre ellos destacan la importancia de los procesos de aprendizajes y desarrollo de competencias en las firmas, los mecanismos difusión de las innovaciones y el papel de las instituciones.

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US succumbing to tyranny of endless war

Global Times

Editor's Note:

A rash of security issues inside and outside the US, from the Snowden case to the relations with Iran, has put the spotlight on Washington. Will Snowden trigger a domino effect that ensures more whistle-blowers? Will US diplomacy continue to be dominated by the Pentagon, rather than the Department of State? Lawrence B. Wilkerson (Wilkerson), a retired US Army colonel and the former chief of staff for Colin Powell who served as US secretary of state from 2001 to 2005, shared his ideas with the Global Times (GT) on these issues.

Lawrence B. Wilkerson

GT: You said in a recent media interview that Edward Snowden was not a symptom, but a disease, caused by the "never-ending culture of war," and that the US government is a "draconian government" and a "tyranny." Why do you call the US a tyranny?

Wilkerson: First, the US is not a pure democracy and has never been one. It is a democratic federal republic. Second, with the so-called War on Terror, that republic has made war its raison d'être.

My fellow Virginian, James Madison, wrote eloquently of how a constant state of war breeds tyranny. The Patriot Act, the FISA Amendments Act, the NSA surveillance programs, the national security letter, the legal inclusion of the armed forces in domestic law enforcement, all of these are acts of tyranny.

Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have said that we had created a republic - if we could keep it. Since 1972, Americans unfortunately have not been keeping it very well. 

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Paul Krugman: One Reform, Indivisible

NY Times

Recent political reporting suggests that Republican leaders are in a state of high anxiety, trapped between an angry base that still views Obamacare as the moral equivalent of slavery and the reality that health reform is the law of the land and is going to happen. 

But those leaders don’t deserve any sympathy. For one thing, that irrational base is a Frankenstein monster of their own creation. Beyond that, everything I’ve seen indicates that members of the Republican elite still don’t get the basics of health reform — and that this lack of understanding is in the process of turning into a major political liability.

On the unstoppability of Obamacare: We have this system in which Congress passes laws, the president signs them, and then they go into effect. The Affordable Care Act went through this process, and there is no legitimate way for Republicans to stop it. 

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Michael Klare: How to fry a planet

Al-Jazeera

When it comes to energy and economics in the climate-change era, nothing is what it seems. Most of us believe (or want to believe) that the second carbon era, the Age of Oil, will soon be superseded by the Age of Renewables, just as oil had long since superseded the Age of Coal. President Obama offered exactly this vision in a much-praised June address on climate change. True, fossil fuels will be needed a little bit longer, he indicated, but soon enough they will be overtaken by renewable forms of energy.

Many other experts share this view, assuring us that increased reliance on "clean" natural gas combined with expanded investments in wind and solar power will permit a smooth transition to a green energy future in which humanity will no longer be pouring carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. All this sounds promising indeed. There is only one fly in the ointment: it is not, in fact, the path we are presently headed down. The energy industry is not investing in any significant way in renewables. Instead, it is pouring its historic profits into new fossil-fuel projects, mainly involving the exploitation of what are called "unconventional" oil and gas reserves.

The result is indisputable: humanity is not entering a period that will be dominated by renewables. Instead, it is pioneering the third great carbon era, the Age of Unconventional Oil and Gas.

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Canadá pode fazer acordo de cooperação com Mercosul, diz Patriota

Agencia Brasil

Rio de Janeiro - O Canadá poderá fazer um acordo de cooperação com o Mercosul. Segundo o ministro de Relações Exteriores, Antonio Patriota, o assunto foi discutido hoje (8) com o ministro canadense de Negócios Estrangeiros, John Baird, durante a 2ª Reunião do Diálogo de Parceria Estratégia Brasil-Canadá, no Hotel Fasano, em Ipanema, no Rio de Janeiro.

De acordo com Patriota, Mercosul e Canadá estão em fase negociação para definir como seria a cooperação. "Há interesse no setor privado brasileiro no acordo e o lado canadense tem demonstrado flexibilidade para desenvolvermos um quadro de aproximação específico e sob medida das características do Mercosul e do Canadá. O governo vê interesse na aproximação. Vamos trabalhar para levá-la adiante", disse Patriota.

Os dois países estão acertando também o funcionamento do Fórum de Altos Executivos, a exemplo do que existe entre Brasil e Estados Unidos. O ministro disse que entre os benefícios que foram atingidos com o Fórum de Altos Executivos com os Estados Unidos estão a facilitação na concessão de vistos, a abertura de novos consulados norte-americanos no Brasil e a simplificação de procedimentos.

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El capitalismo necesita creer que es inmortal para poder existir

Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Julien Vercueil, Agnès Labrousse
IADE

Profesor de ciencias políticas en la universidad de Standford (California), Jean-Pierre Dupuy es también profesor emérito de filosofía social y política en la Escuela Politécnica, miembro de la Academia de las tecnologías, presidente del Comité de ética y de deontología del Instituto francés de Radioprotección y de Seguridad nuclear, y director de investigaciones de la Fundación Imitatio.

Sus obras más recientes son: The Mechanization of the Mind (Princeton University Press, 2000); Pour un catastrophisme éclairé (Seuil, 2002); Avions-nous oublié le mal? Penser la politique après le 11 septembre (Bayard, 2002); La Panique (Les empêcheurs de penser en rond, 2003); Petite métaphysique des tsunamis (Seuil, 2005); Retour de Tchernobyl:Journal d’un homme en colère (Seuil, 2006); On the Origins of Cognitive Science (The MIT Press, 2009); Dans l’oeil du cyclone (Carnets Nord, 2009); La Marque du sacré (Carnets Nord, 2009; Flammarion, colección Champs, 2010; (premio Roger Caillois de ensayo); L’Avenir de l’économie. Sortir de l’économystification (Flammarion, 2012); Penser l’arme nucléaire (PUF, de próxima publicación).

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Joseph Nye: Surveillance and American Liberty

Project Syndicate

CAMBRIDGE – Ever since Edward J. Snowden disclosed the National Security Agency’s ongoing collection of massive amounts of electronic-communications data generated by United States citizens and non-citizens alike, attention has been lavished on his personal status. But the more important issue, even before Russia granted him temporary asylum, is the status of American civil liberties. Is the US guilty of hypocrisy, as Russia, China, and others have charged?

Illustration by Tim Brinton

To answer that question, it is important to distinguish between two issues that have become conflated in public debate: electronic espionage against foreign entities and domestic surveillance of a government’s own citizens.

Before Snowden’s disclosures, cyber espionage had become a major point of contention in US-China relations. It was discussed at the June “shirt-sleeves summit” between Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping, and the two governments agreed to create a special working group on the issue.

The US accuses China of using cyber espionage to steal intellectual property on an unprecedented scale. Among other public sources, it could point to a study by the cyber-security firm Mandiant, which traced many such attacks to a People’s Liberation Army facility in Shanghai. China counters that it is also the victim of innumerable cyber intrusions, many originating in the US.

Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/snowden-s-disclosures-and-american-civil-liberties-by-joseph-s--nye#ULZMXSDiWMk1Rjsy.99

Brasil tiene la llave para abrir puertas entre Alianza del Pacífico y Mercosur

IPS

Brasil sigue de espaldas al Pacífico. Ducto de granos en el complejo portuario de Suape, sobre el océano Atlántico. Crédito: Mario Osava/IPS

RÍO DE JANEIRO, 29 jun 2013 (IPS) - El proceso de integración latinoamericana tiende a bifurcarse entre el Mercosur y la Alianza del Pacífico, pero no es un destino inevitable e impuesto por la geografía, analizan expertos.

La Alianza del Pacífico, en la que se agrupan Chile, Colombia, México y Perú, “abre nuevas perspectivas para América Latina”, incluso de una integración más equilibrada, sostuvo el sociólogo peruano Enrique Amayo, profesor de la Universidad Estadual Paulista, en Araracuara, a 270 kilómetros de São Paulo.

El Mercosur (Mercado Común del Sur), conformado por Argentina, Brasil, Uruguay, Venezuela y Paraguay aún suspendido, es un “bloque cerrado, en que el tamaño del país decide todo”.

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Paul Krugman: Profits Without Production

NY Times

One lesson from recent economic troubles has been the usefulness of history. Just as the crisis was unfolding, the Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff — who unfortunately became famous for their worst work — published a brilliant book with the sarcastic title “This Time Is Different.” Their point, of course, was that there is a strong family resemblance among crises. Indeed, historical parallels — not just to the 1930s, but to Japan in the 1990s, Britain in the 1920s, and more — have been vital guides to the present. 

Yet economies do change over time, and sometimes in fundamental ways. So what’s really different about America in the 21st century?

The most significant answer, I’d suggest, is the growing importance of monopoly rents: profits that don’t represent returns on investment, but instead reflect the value of market dominance. Sometimes that dominance seems deserved, sometimes not; but, either way, the growing importance of rents is producing a new disconnect between profits and production and may be a factor prolonging the slump. 

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Mark Weisbrot: Obama retreats on Snowden

Al Jazeera

"The Obama team has every reason to want this whole story to go away. But he may not find it so easy to get rid of it," writes Mark Weisbrot [Reuters]

In his videotaped interview with journalist Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden said that “the world’s most powerful intelligence agencies” (like the CIA) were so formidable that “[n]o one can meaningfully oppose them. If they want to get you, they'll get you in time.”

That remains to be seen. On Wednesday President Obama beat a hasty retreat from his global public relations and diplomatic, and political campaign against Snowden. It was quite an amazing, if implicit, admission of defeat. Here was the president of the world’s most powerful nation, with the world’s most influential media outlets having rallied to his cause, now quietly trying to lower the profile of an issue that his own government had elevated to one of the biggest stories in the world. 

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Biden pide a Correa que niegue asilo político a Snowden

BBC Mundo

 

 

El vicepresidente de Estados Unidos, Joe Biden, se comunicó vía telefónica con el presidente ecuatoriano Rafael Correa este sábado para discutir el asilo solicitado por el exanalista de la CIA, Edward Snowden.

Correa informó que Biden solicitó que Ecuador rechazara la petición de Snowden, quien se encuentra en busca de refugio.

Se cree que Snowden se encuentra en un área de tránsito del aeropuerto internacional de Moscú, a la espera de una decisión de Ecuador.

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Presidente Maduro: Petrocaribe es la garantía de la libertad económica

Telesur

El presidente de Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, afirmó este sábado que Petrocaribe es la garantía de la libertad económica en la región, al arribar al aeropuerto de Managua (capital) para asistir a la VIII Cumbre del organismo que se llevará a cabo esta tarde.

A su llegada al aeropuerto, el jefe de Estado venezolano recordó que este sábado se cumplen ocho años de la creación de este organismo, inaugurado por el líder de la Revolución Bolivariana Hugo Chávez y el líder cubano Fidel Castro.

El mandatario aseguró que “Petrocaribe es la garantía de la calidad económica (de los pueblos) y ahora es la base de la integración económica y social” de los 18 países que la conforman.

Del mismo modo, informó que “además de (discutir) la gran zona económica,  vinimos a proponer un gran plan de alfabetización de Petrocaribe, un plan de educación pública para nuestros países”.

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Brzezinski: La actual crisis en Siria ha sido orquestada por Arabia Saudita, Qatar y sus aliados

RT

China, US could be partners in promoting Africa's development

Global Times

US President Barack Obama, the first black president of the world's sole superpower, is finally in Africa. The on-going three-nation tour to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania, his first substantial visit to the continent since taking office in 2009, offers the US leader an opportunity to get first-hand experiences of both Africa's aspirations for development and the daunting challenges facing the continent.

It is worth noting that two of Obama's destinations, namely South Africa and Tanzania, also hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping in March during the Chinese leader's maiden overseas tour since assuming presidency. Some Western observers might see the coincidence as symbolic, which testifies to the perceived rivalry between the world's two largest economies competing for business opportunities and political influence on the African continent.

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Revealed: secret European deals to hand over private data to America

Guardian

At least six European Union countries in addition to Britain have been colluding with the US over the mass harvesting of personal communications data, according to a former contractor to America's National Security Agency, who said the public should not be "kept in the dark".

Wayne Madsen, a former US navy lieutenant who first worked for the NSA in 1985 and over the next 12 years held several sensitive positions within the agency, names Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain and Italy as having secret deals with the US.

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La indignación brasileña viaja en autobuses repletos

Mario Osava
IPS Noticias

“Nosotras salimos de Facebook”, escribieron, como una forma de presentación, dos jóvenes brasileñas participantes de las multitudinarias protestas que recorren el país de lado a lado. Crédito: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

RÍO DE JANEIRO, 21 jun 2013 (IPS) - Un grupo de jóvenes destapó las corrientes subterráneas de la indignación urbana en Brasil, al tocar un nervio incómodo de todas las grandes e incluso medianas ciudades del país como es el deterioro de la circulación y la calidad de vida.

Es una probable explicación para el torrente de protestas que movilizó el jueves 20 cerca de un millón de personas en un centenar de ciudades, incluyendo Brasilia y casi todas las 26 capitales estaduales. El aumento de los pasajes de autobús a comienzos de este mes operó como detonante de la rebelión juvenil, mayoritariamente estudiantil, que se extendió a amplios sectores de la sociedad.

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Xi, Park share nuke position

Global Times

China and South Korea reached an agreement Thursday that the nuclear weapons development of North Korea poses a serious threat and vowed to make joint efforts to realize denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula, as South Korean President Park Geun-hye kicked off an official visit to China for her first summit with President Xi Jinping.

"China resolutely safeguards the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the region, opposes any party disrupting such peace and stability and adheres to resolving problems through dialogues and negotiations," Xi said while meeting with Park, who is on a four-day visit to China, Xinhua reported.

"We shared an understanding that North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons cannot be tolerated under any circumstances," Park was quoted as saying by the Yonhap news agency.

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British Banks’ Comedy of Terrors

Simon Johnson
Project-Syndicate

WASHINGTON, DC – The devil is always in the details. And the greatest devils of our economic age lurk in the details of how officials regard the capital – the equity funding – of our largest banks. Government officials have identified far too closely with the distorted, self-interested worldview of global banking executives. The result is great peril for the rest of us.

Illustration by Chris Van Es

In this surreal world, the United Kingdom takes on disproportionate influence, because London is still a top financial center – and because the biggest banks in the United States and Europe have proved very effective at playing off American and British regulators against one another. Opinion leaders around the world look to the British for a clever and nuanced approach to financial-sector policy. Unfortunately, they currently look in vain.

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Em conferência na Rússia, países discutem papel da energia nuclear

Alana Gandra
Agencia Brasil

Rio de Janeiro - Representantes de mais de 80 países, entre os quais o Brasil, participam a partir de hoje (27) da Conferência Ministerial Internacional sobre Energia Nuclear, promovida pela Agência Internacional de Energia Atômica (Aiea) em São Petersburgo, na Rússia. O evento foi organizado pela estatal russa de energia nuclear, a Rosatom, líder no mercado mundial de tecnologias nucleares. A conferência termina no sábado (29).

O evento pretende discutir o papel da energia nuclear na mitigação das mudanças climáticas, bem como no cenário de crescente demanda global por energia. A questão da segurança das usinas no projeto de ampliação da participação da energia nuclear na matriz energética dos países terá destaque no encontro. De acordo com dados da Aiea, essa fonte de energia deverá ampliar a participação na matriz energética mundial em pelo menos 23% até 2030. Atualmente, 194 usinas nucleares estão em funcionamento no mundo, com capacidade total de 372 gigawatts (GW), informou a assessoria da conferência.

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Nuevo Secretario del SICA propone embajadores de socios extrarregionales

TelesurTV

El nuevo secretario general del Sistema de Integración Centroamericano (SICA), el canciller salvadoreño, Hugo Martínez, propuso a los líderes del organismo abrir espacio para que los socios extrarregionales designen embajadores concurrentes y así fortalecer lazos económicos con cada uno de estas naciones.

“Queremos buscar un rol más protagónico de los socios extrarregionales, que son cerca de 20 y queremos proponer que acrediten un embajador ante el SICA para que le den seguimiento más cercano a la relación”, señaló Martínez, durante la Cumbre de líderes que tuvo lugar este jueves en San José de Costa Rica.

Destacó que entre los países que figuran como observadores ante el SICA se encuentran México, Brasil, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Perú y Uruguay, por América Latina; además de España y Alemania, por Europa; y algunos asiáticos como China, Taiwán, Japón y Corea del Sur.

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Kerry resumes Israel-Palestine peace mission

Kerry's bid to revive peace talks hit familiar warning signals as Israel stresses security needs and Palestinians denounce Israeli settlement building [Reuters]


Al Jazeera

US Secretary of State John Kerry met for nearly four hours into Friday morning with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his latest bid to revive Middle East peace talks.

On his fifth visit in as many months, Kerry met for dinner on Thursday with Netanyahu at a Jerusalem hotel before his motorcade drove back to Amman where he will meet for lunch on Friday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

All sides were careful in their public statements, but a US official said that Netanyahu and Kerry had "productive, in-depth and wide-ranging" talks.

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Atilio Boron: Implicaciones geopolíticas del ingreso de Colombia a la OTAN

ALAI

El anuncio del presidente de Colombia Juan Manuel Santos de que “durante este mes de Junio suscribirá un acuerdo de cooperación con la Organización del Tratado Atlántico Norte (OTAN) para mostrar su disposición de ingresar a ella” ha causado una previsible conmoción en Nuestra América. Lo pronunció en un acto de ascensos a miembros de la Armada realizado en Bogotá, ocasión en la cual Santos señaló que Colombia tiene derecho a "pensar en grande", y que él va a buscar ser de los mejores "ya no de la región, sino del mundo entero". Continuó luego diciendo que "si logramos esa paz” –refiriéndose a las conversaciones de paz que están en curso en Cuba, con el aval de los anfitriones, Noruega y Venezuela- “nuestro Ejército está en la mejor posición para poder distinguirse también a nivel internacional. Ya lo estamos haciendo en muchos frentes", aseguró Santos. Y piensa hacerlo nada menos que asociándose a la OTAN, una organización sobre la cual pesan innumerables crímenes de todo tipo perpetrados en la propia Europa (recordar el bombardeo a la ex Yugoslavia), a Irak, a Libia y ahora su colaboración con los terroristas que han tomado a Siria por asalto.

 

Jacobo David Blinder, ensayista y periodista brasileño, fue uno de los primeros en dar la voz de alarma ante esta decisión del colombiano. Hasta ahora el único país de América Latina “aliado extra OTAN” había sido la Argentina, que obtuvo ese deshonroso status durante los nefastos años de Menem, y más específicamente en 1998, luego de participar en la Primera Guerra del Golfo (1991-1992) y aceptar todas las imposiciones impuestas por Washington en muchas áreas de la política pública, como por ejemplo desmantelar el proyecto del misil Cóndor y congelar el programa nuclear que durante décadas venía desarrollándose en la Argentina. Dos gravísimos atentados que suman poco más de un centenar de muertos –a la Embajada de Israel y a la AMIA- fue el saldo que dejó en la Argentina la represalia por haberse sumado a la organización terrorista noratlántica.

 

El status de “aliado extra OTAN” fue creado en 1989 por el Congreso de los Estados Unidos –no por la organización- como un mecanismo para reforzar los lazos militares con países situados fuera del área del Atlántico Norte pero que podrían ser de alguna ayuda en las numerosas guerras y procesos de desestabilización política que Estados Unidos despliega en los más apartados rincones del planeta. Australia, Egipto, Israel, Japón y Corea del Sur fueron los primeros en ingresar, y poco después lo hizo la Argentina, y ahora aspira a lograrlo Colombia. El sentido de esta iniciativa del Congreso norteamericano salta a la vista: robustecer y legitimar sus incesantes aventuras militares -inevitables durante los próximos treinta años, si leemos los documentos del Pentágono sobre futuros escenarios internacionales- con un aura de “consenso multilateral” que en realidad no tienen. Esta incorporación de los aliados extra-regionales de la OTAN, que está siendo promovida en los demás continentes, refleja la exigencia impuesta por la transformación de las fuerzas armadas de los Estados Unidos en su tránsito desde un ejército preparado para librar guerras en territorios acotados a una legión imperial que con sus bases militares de distinto tipo (más de mil en todo el planeta), sus fuerzas regulares, sus unidades de “despliegue rápido” y el creciente ejército de “contratistas” (vulgo: mercenarios) quiere estar preparada para intervenir en pocas horas para defender los intereses estadounidenses en cualquier punto caliente del planeta. Con su decisión Santos se pone al servicio de tan funesto proyecto.

 

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Disparan contra Venezuela, pero quieren matar la integración

Aran Aharonian
IADE

A finales de junio, Venezuela asumirá por primera vez la presidencia pro témpore del Mercosur (PPTVEN), en la Cumbre en Montevideo, pero con una activa agenda presidencial. Ya Nicolás Maduro comenzó, en gira por Uruguay, Argentina Y Brasil, a consensuar con los Presidentes la agenda política del bloque. Esta presidencia se desarrollará en el marco del despliegue de las fuerzas derechistas en el continente y de un ambiente político de alta tensión, en el cual la derecha continental intentará romper la unidad política de la región.

La ofensiva ya comenzó desde el primer día de la presidencia de Nicolás Maduro, con una violenta ofensiva contra las instituciones, tratando de desestabilizar el país, quizá en busca de una intervención militar extranjera, a falta de un triunfo electoral inmediato. Con gran cobertura mediático, dirigentes de la oposición venezolana han viajado a Estados Unidos y a los países sudamericanos (Perú, Uruguay, Argentina, en especial) en busca de apoyos para desestabilizar el gobierno de Maduro. “Me da la impresión de que hay una terrible inflación mediática”, dijo al respecto el presidente uruguayo José Mujica. “Quiero es llamar la atención, los problemas de superficie, por duros que sean y por buenas o malas soluciones que se les encuentren, no son los principales, sino que los problemas de fondo son los que hacen la suerte de la gente”, advirtió.

 

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U.S.-China Meeting’s Aim: Personal Diplomacy

NY Times

WASHINGTON — When Tom Donilon, President Obama’s national security adviser, met with President Xi Jinping in Beijing last week to discuss his coming visit to the United States, China’s newly minted leader told him he wanted a conversation with Mr. Obama that did not involve diplomatic talking points. As if to underscore the message, he ignored the notes sitting in front of him.  

When Mr. Xi arrives on Friday for his first visit as president, Mr. Obama will make his own symbolic gesture, welcoming him amid the olive trees and artificial lakes of a 200-acre California estate. 

In more than six hours of meetings over two days, with ample time for dinner and a sunset stroll beneath the San Jacinto Mountains, administration officials hope Mr. Obama and Mr. Xi, who met for the first time last year in Washington, will really get to know each other, while exchanging ideas about how best to manage a complex, sometimes combustible relationship between the world’s two biggest economies.

 It is an enormous bet on the power of personal diplomacy, in a setting carefully chosen to nurture a high-level friendship. 

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