Mercosur aprueba ingreso de Venezuela al organismo regional.

teleSUR.

Los países miembros del Mercado Común del Sur (Mercosur), aprobaron este viernes el ingreso formal de Venezuela al organismo regional luego de la Cumbre de jefes de Estado celebrada en Mendoza, Argentina.

La presidenta de Argentina, Cristina Fernández, anunció que Venezuela se integrará al bloque a partir del próximo mes de julio con un acto en Brasil, específicamente en Río de Janeiro.

“Queremos fijar fecha para la incorporacion de Venezuela al Mercosur, fecha el 31 de julio en Río de Janeiro" (...) Es para los presidentes, que hemos adoptado de común acuerdo esta decisión, un gran honor y gran responsabilidad”, señaló.

Durante la reunión que fue convocada para analizar como tema central la situación política en Paraguay, luego de la destitución por el Congreso del presidente Fernando Lugo, se logró el consenso para que el país suramericano sea aceptado dentro del bloque.

Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay y Uruguay son los miembros plenos del ente regional, mientras que Venezuela se encontraba en proceso de adhesión, en tanto que Chile, Bolivia, Perú, Colombia y Ecuador son naciones asociadas.

Venezuela tenía seis años sin poder acceder como miembro pleno de Mercosur, debido a la postura de la bancada del conservador Partido Colorado en el Senado paraguayo.

En la víspera, el canciller venezolano Nicolás Maduro declaró a los medios que "Venezuela tiene todas las cualidad legales para entrar al organismo", al tiempo que descartó que se esté haciendo la solicitud de ingreso "debido a la suspensión de Paraguay" tras la crisis política que afectó a ese país.

Maduro sostuvo que "nosotros (los países de la región) somos Mercosur", al recordar que el intercambio comercial entre las naciones de la región.

El comercio entre Venezuela y los países de la región se ha elevado de dos mil millones de dólares en 2006 a ocho mil 500 millones de dólares en 2012.

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Coups Ain't What They Used to Be.

Foreign Policy.

There are no tanks in the streets. Military marches aren't blaring from the radio. But talk of coups seems to be everywhere. The Egyptian military government's on June 14 -- just prior to the announcement of presidential election results -- has been widely described as a "slow-motion coup." The Pakistani Supreme Court's dismissal of two prime ministers in less than a week has been called a "judicial coup." Former Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo has called his rapid impeachment last week a "parliamentary coup." The Atlantic's James Fallows even responded to the U.S. Supreme Court's possible ruling against President Barack Obama's individual health-care mandate with a blog post titled, "5 Signs the United States is Undergoing a Coup."

In each of these cases, there has been a lively debate over whether the use of the word "coup" is warranted (except perhaps in the case of Fallows, who decided to tone down his own headline later in the day). The term coup d'état (literally "strike of state") has been in use since French King Louis XIII took power by exiling his own mother in 1617, though the basic concept is much older. The United States aside, the real question today should be not whether these are coups, but what kind they are. The modern coup d'état can be divided into three -- possibly four -- somewhat overlapping types. 

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Is Qatar's Foreign Policy Sustainable?

Foreign Policy in Focus.

Qatar, home to only 225,000 natives and 1.7 million foreign workers, has emerged as an influential regional actor in recent years. Emir Shaikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani has ruled Qatar since 1995, when he replaced his father in a bloodless palace coup, and has pursued an ambitious foreign policy for his statelet. Natural resource wealth, ownership of Al Jazeera, and a carefully constructed web of foreign alliances have allowed Doha to project itself throughout the Middle East.

The nature of Qatar’s foreign policy is the subject of some debate. Certain analysts contend that Qatar conducts a foreign policy uninfluenced by any ideology and that its only concerns relate to geopolitical gains. Doha, they say, lacks a regional vision and is not guided by any loyalties or principles. However, others posit that Qatar’s foreign policy is guided by a form of Sunni Islamist ideology and actively seeks to empower its followers throughout the Muslim world.

The truth may lie somewhere in between. But as Qatar continues its delicate balancing act, it is increasingly evident that Doha’s interests will not always align with those of Washington.

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Drone Strike Strategic Blowback

Zachary Fillingham
Geopolitical Monitor

Last week, a UN investigator called on the Obama administration to provide legal justification for its ever-expanding drone war in Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan. Of course, no such justification was forthcoming, and the UN shouldn’t hold its breath for one given the fact that unmanned drone strikes are widely supported across the American electorate and carry very little direct political risk. But beyond the high profile targets that have been successfully assassinated, there is a more abstract indirect risk involved; one that threatens to drag out the long war that birthed the drone program in the first place.

 
If we were to take a step back and observe the drone program from every possible angle with perfect objectivity and full knowledge, we could be absolutely positive of one thing: the results of our study wouldn’t matter. Unmanned drone attacks are simply too popular, too effective, and too easy for any American president to drastically scale them back. To do so would certainly imperil his position by opening him up to charges of being an overly-judicial softy who isn’t committed to keeping the country safe. Thus it should come as no surprise that the United States government is planning to expand its fleet of unmanned drones by around 30 percent over the next ten years. And given the fact that active soldiers will be scaled back from 570,000 to 490,000 over the same period, it seems that unmanned drones will be occupying an important position in US national defense strategy over the short to medium term.

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Televisa tenía unidad secreta para favorecer a Peña Nieto: The Guardian

La Jornada
México

México, DF. Una unidad secreta de Televisa denominada "el equipo Handcock" estableció y financió una campaña con miras a llevar a la presidencia al candidato priísta Enrique Peña Nieto, publicó hoy en su edición en línea el diario The Guardian, que asegura haber visto los documentos que lo comprueban.

'Handcock' era un nombre en código para el político y sus aliados bajo el cual en 2009 se realizaron y distribuyeron a través de correo electrónico, Facebook y Youtube videos promocionales para el PRI y su candidato, que a la vez desacreditaban a sus rivales, según sugieren los documentos.

“Televisa se rehusó a hacer comentarios sobre los particulares de los documentos, pero sí rechazó la idea de favorecer al PRI y dijo haber hecho trabajo político para todos los grandes partidos”, indicó The Guardian, tras mencionar las acusaciones a Televisa y a otros medios por su falta de imparcialidad y clara inclinación al candidato tricolor.

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Michael T. Klare: Four Ways the President Is Pursuing Cheney’s Geopolitics of Global Energy

Huffington Post/Tom Dispatch

As details of his administration’s global war against terrorists, insurgents, and hostile warlords have become more widely known -- a war that involves a mélange of drone attacks, covert operations, and presidentially selected assassinations -- President Obama has been compared to President George W. Bush in his appetite for military action.  “As shown through his stepped-up drone campaign,” Aaron David Miller, an advisor to six secretaries of state, wrote at Foreign Policy, “Barack Obama has become George W. Bush on steroids.”

When it comes to international energy politics, however, it is not Bush but his vice president, Dick Cheney, who has been providing the role model for the president.  As recent events have demonstrated, Obama’s energy policies globally bear an eerie likeness to Cheney’s, especially in the way he has engaged in the geopolitics of oil as part of an American global struggle for future dominance among the major powers.

More than any of the other top officials of the Bush administration -- many with oil-company backgrounds -- Cheney focused on the role of energy in global power politics.  From 1995 to 2000, he served as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Halliburton, a major supplier of services to the oil industry.  Soon after taking office as vice president he was asked by Bush to devise a new national energy strategy that has largely governed U.S. policy ever since.

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"El populismo en américa latina está creando nuevas formas de legitimidad política": Ernesto Laclau

Fernando Arellano
IADE

"No puedo menos que reírme cuando escucho hablar del peligro autoritario que los nuevos regímenes populistas representan para las sociedades latinoamericanas. Porque si hay un régimen político al cual es inherente el autoritarismo no son los regímenes populistas, sino el neoliberalismo", afirmó en Quito, el filósofo y científico social argentino Ernesto Laclau, durante su conferencia magistral en el Seminario Internacional Medios, poder y ciudadanía en Sudamérica, organizado por la Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), sede Ecuador.

"Para mí, populismo no es un término peyorativo sino una forma de construcción de lo político", aseguró Laclau, quien aprovechó su presencia en Quito para presentar su revista Debates y Combates.

 

En desarrollo de las charlas que dio en FLACSO entre el 17 y 18 de mayo, Laclau dejó en claro que toda política es populista habida cuenta que el populismo no es otra cosa que la forma en que un líder simboliza y articula demandas sociales insatisfechas.

"En América Latina, los nuevos regímenes nacional-populares empiezan a erigirse después de dos derrotas: la existencia de regímenes militares y el predominio del neoliberalismo al comienzo de los años 80 pero hegemónicamente en los 90. Este tipo de política condujo a un desastre generalizado", explicó.

 

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Democraduras

 

Emir Sader
Carta Maior

Países com longas ditaduras não passam simplesmente da ditadura à democracia, apagando seu passado e escrevendo a nova página da sua história como se fosse uma página em branco. Até mesmo porque costumam ser transições institucionais, pacíficas, não rupturas radicais. O passado pesa fortemente sobre as novas democracias, condicionando seu futuro fortemente.

Tem acontecido como regra nos países latino-americanos. O próprio Brasil foi vítima desses condicionamentos. Incapaz de obter os 2/3 do Congresso para convocar eleições diretas para presidente – que teriam em Ulysses Guimaraes seu mais forte candidato a ser o primeiro civil a presidir o Brasil desde 1964 -, o país se viu às voltas com mais um pacto de elite na sua história, configurado no Colégio Eleitoral, fundado num acordo entre o novo – as forças democráticas, constituídas na oposição à ditadura – e o velho – advindas da ditadura, para somar-se ao novo regime, quando o antigo se esboroava. 

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La receta para salvar a la eurozona

BBC Mundo

Europa "tiene una semana para salvar el euro". Las palabras del primer ministro italiano Mario Monti resuenan cada vez con más fuerza en los círculos del poder político y económico del viejo continente.

Especialmente cuando la Unión Europea se prepara para una nueva cumbre para tratar el tema de la crisis que tendrá lugar entre el miércoles y el jueves de esta semana.

Pero los preparativos de ese encuentro no detienen los acontecimientos: este martes se conoció el monto que Chipre necesitará para su rescate, el quinto de la eurozona, unos US$12.000 millones de dólares.

Un día antes, España formalizó la solicitud de ayuda financiera a Bruselas. Y la agencia de calificación Moody's rebajó la nota a 28 bancos españoles, que quedaron al nivel de bono basura.

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Tratado comercial UE-Ecuador: como muestra, una flor

De la muestra de Exploflores

DW

Sus vecinos firman esta semana acuerdos comerciales con la UE. Ecuador, (todavía) no. Representantes del sector exportador del país andino abogan en Bruselas por un tratado que evitaría que estuviesen en desventaja.

A pocas horas de que la Unión Europea firme con Colombia y Perú un acuerdo de libre comercio, representantes del ramo exportador de Ecuador –país que hace cinco años estaba incluido en el inicio de las negociaciones- se pronuncian a favor de que el país andino suscriba también un acuerdo similar.

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Opinions How policy has contributed to the great economic divide

Joseph Stiglitz
Washington Post

Joseph E. Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics, was chairman of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist of the World Bank. He is most recently the author of “The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers our Future”

The United States is in the midst of a vicious cycle of inequality and recession: Inequality prolongs the downturn, and the downturn exacerbates inequality. Unfortunately, the austerity agenda advocated by conservatives will make matters worse on both counts.

The seriousness of America’s growing problem of inequality was highlighted by Federal Reserve data released this month showing the recession’s devastating effect on the wealth and income of those at the bottom and in the middle. The decline in median wealth, down almost 40 percent in just three years, wiped out two decades of wealth accumulation for most Americans. If the average American had actually shared in the country’s seeming prosperity the past two decades, his wealth, instead of stagnating, would have increased by some three-fourths.

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Kissinger: Syrian intervention risks upsetting global order

Voltaire

The Arab Spring is generally discussed in terms of the prospects for democracy. Equally significant is the increasing appeal — most recently in Syria — of outside intervention to bring about regime change, overturning prevalent notions of international order.

The modern concept of world order arose in 1648 from the Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. In that conflict, competing dynasties sent armies across political borders to impose their conflicting religious norms. This 17th-century version of regime change killed perhaps a third of the population of Central Europe.

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Brasiguaios encaminham pedido a Dilma para reconhecer novo governo paraguaio

Agencia Brasil

Renata Giraldi e Monica Yanakiew*
Enviadas Especiais

Assunção – Representantes de 350 mil brasiguaios (agricultores brasileiros que moram no Paraguai) tentarão se reunir hoje (25) com o novo presidente Federico Franco para pedir apoio e segurança em suas propriedades rurais. Ontem (24), eles encaminharam à presidenta Dilma Rousseff um pedido para que o Brasil reconheça o governo Franco e trate o Paraguai como país amigo.

“[Solicitamos] que o governo do Brasil, no menor tempo possível, reconheça o novo governo paraguaio e restabeleça a fraterna relação que sempre existiu entre os dois países. Esta decisão é fundamental para dar tranquilidade ao povo paraguaio e à comunidade brasileira [que vive em território paragauio]”, diz o documento.

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Parag Khanna: Surge of the Second World.

The National Interest.

THE OLD Order no longer qualifies as an order. The term “world order” denotes a stable distribution of power across the world. But power concentration today is in a state of tremendous flux, characterized by rapid diffusion and entropy toward a broad set of emerging powers that now share the regional and global stage. Western-centered multilateralism represents at best a partial component of a world system that is increasingly fragmented.

Nostalgia for the post–World War II or post–Cold War periods will not affect this picture. At those junctures, America had an opportunity to fashion a new world order. After World War II, America capitalized on this moment; after the Cold War, it squandered it. The world has moved beyond even the assumptions embedded in President George H. W. Bush’s famous “new world order” speech to a joint session of Congress two decades ago in which he envisioned a unipolar order managed through a multilateral system. Instead, the world has quickly become multipolar, institutionally polycentric and even “multiactor,” meaning nonstate groups such as corporations and NGOs are commanding more and more influence on key issues. This trend seems irreversible, and it needs to be digested before any kind of new global-governance mechanism can be formulated, with or without American leadership.

One leading contributor to the demise of the Old Order has been the so-called rising powers such as China, India, Russia and Brazil. These states increasingly serve as anchors of regional order and also wield influence beyond their immediate neighborhoods. By most measures, China is already a superpower; its presence is factored into diplomatic, economic and strategic decisions by nearly all countries worldwide. India, Brazil and Russia lag behind China, but it’s a reality of geopolitics that states do not need to forge new systems of order to undermine the existing one.

The set of nations that can influence global system dynamics and great-power foreign policy is much broader than just those countries famously labeled the BRICS (short for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). What I have called “Second World” nations coalesce into regional entities of significance—Latin America, the Middle East, central Asia, Southeast Asia—whose composite nations and complex regional dynamics will help shape the future of geopolitics. Second World states are important for their geographic position, natural resources and regional influence. Some of these states I have highlighted are Colombia, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Kazakhstan and Indonesia. All are pivotal Second World players whose decisions and alignments could affect the balance of power and influence among the United States, China and the European Union.

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Ecuador: Visita del Presidente de Indonesia deja como resultado acuerdos de cooperación

Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores Ecuador.

El Presidente de la República de Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, se encuentra de visita en el país con la finalidad de profundizar el diálogo político bilateral y fortalecer las relaciones económicas, comerciales y de inversión, para lo cual mantuvo reuniones con varias autoridades de Estado, entre ellas, el Presidente Rafael Correa y el Ministro Ricardo Patiño.

 Durante la mañana, el Presidente de Indonesia, en compañía del Vicecanciller Marco Albuja, colocó una Ofrenda Floral ante el Monumento de los Héroes de la Independencia y, posteriormente, se reunió —de forma privada— con su homólogo ecuatoriano Rafael Correa y con el Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores, Comercio e Integración, Ricardo Patiño en la Presidencia de la República.

Finalmente, en el Salón Amarrillo de la Presidencia, se realizó la suscripción de acuerdos y el intercambio de Sobres Postales, con la presencia de los representantes de distintos medios de comunicación nacional e internacional, y además se informaron los resultados de la visita oficial.

El Presidente Correa manifestó que “Ecuador y América Latina han permanecido distantes del Sudeste asiático, es hora de aceleradamente profundizar las relaciones y recuperar el tiempo irremediablemente perdido”. 

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Paraguay rechaza exclusión de bloques regionales.

Terra.

Mientras el nuevo gobierno paraguayo de Federico Franco rechazó el lunes su exclusión de Unasur y de la cumbre de mandatarios del Mercosur que tendrá lugar esta semana, el ex gobernante Fernando Lugo anunció la vigencia de un pequeño gobierno paralelo con la intención de recuperar el poder.

"Rechazamos la decisión del Mercosur del domingo de suspendernos del derecho de intervenir en las reuniones del Mercosur pero aclaro que Paraguay no está fuera del bloque, este es un marginamiento para una sola reunión y Paraguay sigue teniendo la presidencia pro tempore de la Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (Unasur)", explicó el canciller José Félix Fernández.

Paraguay, en principio, debe entregar el mando de Unasur a Perú en noviembre.

Pero tras el malestar de países de la región por la destitución de Lugo, los presidentes de Ecuador y Venezuela, Rafael Correa y Hugo Chávez, recomendaron adelantar para esta semana el traspaso de funciones al gobierno peruano.

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In reversal, Turkey now says plane Syria shot down was over international waters.

McClatchy Newspapers.

ISTANBUL — Turkey on Sunday called for a meeting of its NATO allies after charging that Syria’s shoot-down of a Turkish F4 Phantom jet Friday had occurred over international waters without any warning. 

The report was a reversal of Turkey’s statement Saturday that its plane had strayed over Syrian airspace.

Both the United States and Great Britain denounced Syria in response to the new Turkish details, and the North Atlantic Council set a meeting for Tuesday under Article IV of the NATO treaty, under which any party can call for consultations if it feels its territory or security is threatened. The meeting, however, falls well short of calling for military support under Article V. 

A Turkish spokesman said Turkey would use the meeting to brief NATO allies and exchange information. He said Ankara reserves the right to respond to the Syrian action at a time and manner of its choosing. A NATO spokesman said the alliance would consult on the incident and decide if further steps are appropriate.

William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary, condemned “this outrageous act,” and said it underscored the need for replacing the regime of President Bashar Assad, whose government has been besieged by an uprising calling for his resignation since March of last year.

In a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the downing of the plane a “brazen and unacceptable act” and said it was “yet another reflection of the Syrian authorities’ callous disregard for international norms, human life, and peace and security.” She said the United States would work with Turkey “and other partners to hold the Assad regime accountable.”

Link.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/06/24/153609/in-reversal-turkey-now-says-plane.html#storylink=cpy

Nouriel Roubini: A Global Perfect Storm.

 Project Syndicate.

NEW YORK – Dark, lowering financial and economic clouds are, it seems, rolling in from every direction: the eurozone, the United States, China, and elsewhere. Indeed, the global economy in 2013 could be a very difficult environment in which to find shelter.

For starters, the eurozone crisis is worsening, as the euro remains too strong, front-loaded fiscal austerity deepens recession in many member countries, and a credit crunch in the periphery and high oil prices undermine prospects of recovery. The eurozone banking system is becoming balkanized, as cross-border and interbank credit lines are cut off, and capital flight could turn into a full run on periphery banks if, as is likely, Greece stages a disorderly euro exit in the next few months.

Moreover, fiscal and sovereign-debt strains are becoming worse as interest-rate spreads for Spain and Italy have returned to their unsustainable peak levels. Indeed, the eurozone may require not just an international bailout of banks (as recently in Spain), but also a full sovereign bailout at a time when eurozone and international firewalls are insufficient to the task of backstopping both Spain and Italy. As a result, disorderly breakup of the eurozone remains possible.

Farther to the west, US economic performance is weakening, with first-quarter growth a miserly 1.9% – well below potential. And job creation faltered in April and May, so the US may reach stall speed by year end. Worse, the risk of a double-dip recession next year is rising: even if what looks like a looming US fiscal cliff turns out to be only a smaller source of drag, the likely increase in some taxes and reduction of some transfer payments will reduce growth in disposable income and consumption.

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Silicon Valley Needs a Foreign Policy

Ernst Wilson III
Foreign Affairs


A screengrab of the Google Doodle on France's election day last May.

As California's high-tech firms grew to become economic powerhouses in the American economy, they punched below their weight politically. For the most part, they are not very savvy about the ways of Washington -- they came late to the lobbying game -- and their political strategies were naïve compared with those of old industrial sectors like oil and automobiles.

That seems to be changing. In January, a group of high-tech heavyweights, including Google and Wikipedia, along with less prominent combatants (155,000 Web sites in all) and nonprofits such as Fight for the Future, joined in a massive online blackout to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). Since the bill's introduction in May 2011, a wide mix of representatives from the film, television, music, and publishing industries had been championing SOPA and its sibling, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), two pieces of legislation designed to address international theft of copyrighted U.S. intellectual property.

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Ministro ruso de Exteriores examina con su homólogo de Turquía el incidente del avión de combate turco

Ria Novosti
Rusia

El ministro turco de Asuntos Exteriores Ahmet Davutoglu
© AFP/ ATTA KENARE

13:04 24/06/2012

Moscú, 24 de junio, RIA Novosti.

El ministro de Asuntos Exteriores de Rusia, Serguei Lavrov, sostuvo anoche una conversación telefónica con su homólogo de Turquía, Ahmet Davutoglu, con quien examinó el incidente del avión de combate turco derribado por Siria, comunicó hoy la cancillería rusa.

"Los ministros discutieron la situación en torno a Siria en el contexto del incidente del avión de combate turco", indica el comunicado al señalar que la conversación tuvo lugar por iniciativa de la parte turca.

Un caza turco F-4 Phantom con dos pilotos a bordo, que despegó el viernes desde una base aérea en el sur de Turquía, desapareció de los radares mientras sobrevolaba el Mediterráneo en una zona fronteriza con Siria, en la provincia turca de Hatay.

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Grecia pedirá alargar al menos en dos años el plazo para cumplir los ajustes

El Periódico (Catalunya)

 

El griego Antonis Samarás. 

El nuevo Ejecutivo griego del conservador Andonis Samarás pedirá ampliar "al menos en dos años", es decir, hasta el 2016, el plazo acordado con la troika para cumplir el plan de reformas y ajustes fiscales, según el texto del programa del Gobierno hecho público este sábado en Atenas.

El documento pide ampliar el plazo acordado en febrero pasado por el Ejecutivo interino que había en Grecia y los representantes de la troika, compuesta por la Comisión Europea (CE), del Banco Central Europeo (BCE) y del Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI), que se espera vuelvan a la capital helena el próximo lunes.

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Morsi Is Winner of Egyptian Presidency

NY Times

Andre Pain/European Pressphoto Agency

Supporters of Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate for president, gathered in Tahrir Square in Cairo to await the declaration of a winner on Sunday. 

CAIRO — Election regulators named Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood the winner of Egypt’s first competitive presidential elections, handing the Islamist group a symbolic triumph and a new weapon in its struggle for power with the ruling military council.  

After an hourlong speech in which he detailed dozens of specific inquiries down to the ballot-box level, the chairman of the election commission, Farouk Sultan, announced that Mr. Morsi had won 51.7 percent of the runoff vote completed last weekend. The other candidate, the former general Ahmed Shafik, won 48.3 percent. 

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Kenneth Waltz: Iranian nukes? No worries

USA Today.

The past several months have witnessed a heated debate over the best way for America and Israel to respond to Iran's nuclear activities. Although the U.S., the European Union and Iran have recently returned to the negotiating table, a palpable sense of crisis still looms.

It should not. In fact, a nuclear-armed Iran would probably be the best possible result of the standoff and the one most likely to restore stability to the Middle East.

The crisis over Iran's nuclear program could end in three ways. First, diplomacy coupled with sanctions could persuade Iran to abandon pursuit of a nuclear weapon. But that's unlikely: The historical record indicates that a country bent on acquiring nuclear weapons can rarely be dissuaded. Take North Korea, which succeeded in building its weapons despite countless rounds of sanctions and U.N. Security Council resolutions. If Tehran decides that its security depends on possessing nuclear weapons, sanctions are unlikely to change its mind.

The second possible outcome is that Iran stops short of testing a nuclear weapon but develops a breakout capability, the capacity to build and test one quite quickly. Such a capability might satisfy the domestic political needs of Iran's rulers by assuring hard-liners that they can enjoy all the benefits of having a bomb (such as greater security) without the downsides (such as international isolation and condemnation).

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El BCE defiende la ayuda masiva a la banca para "salvar la economía"

Expansión
España

El miembro del consejo de gobierno del Banco Central Europeo (BCE) Ewald Nowotny defiende la masiva ayuda a los bancos en dificultades como medida para "salvar la economía", en alusión al apoyo financiero para la banca española aprobado por la Unión Europea (UE).

"Se trata de una lección aprendida de la crisis económica mundial de la década de 1930: un colapso del sistema bancario tiene consecuencias masivas en toda la economía. No salvamos a los bancos, sino a la economía", ha explicado el gobernador del Banco Nacional Austríaco en declaraciones a la radio pública ORF.

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Cumbre Rio+20: un texto firmado y una ola de críticas

BBC Mundo

El compromiso se negoció durante meses pero se acordó poco antes del inicio de la cumbre.

Fue definida como la mayor cumbre en la historia de la ONU, pero parece difícil que sea la más aplaudida: el encuentro Rio+20 sobre desarrollo sostenible concluyó este viernes en Brasil con un texto firmado y una ola de críticas.

El documento final de la cumbre de 191 países en Río de Janeiro abre un camino para definir metas de desarrollo sostenible a fines de 2014, señala un apoyo a la "economía verde" y prevé negociaciones para la proteger la vida marina.

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OPEC: Monthly report June 2012

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Dilma Rousseff sugiere expulsión de Paraguay del Mercosur y la Unasur

Ultima Hora
Paraguay

La presidenta del Brasil Dilma Rousseff sugirió expulsar a Paraguay del Mercado Común del Sur (Mercosur) y la Unión de Naciones Suramericanas (Unasur) a raíz de la destitución de Fernando Lugo, la cual calificó de antidemocrática.

Rousseff recordó que, tanto Mercosur como Unasur disponen de cláusulas para preservar la democracia en sus países integrantes y que podría considerarse que Paraguay transgredió una de ellas con los últimos hechos acontecidos, informó la agencia de noticias Télam.

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Alemania, Francia, Italia y España aprueban un plan de crecimiento

Público.es
España

La llamada cumbre del crecimiento que reunió en Roma a los cuatro jefes de Gobierno de Alemania, Francia, Italia y España, hizo honor a su nombre: Merkel, Hollande, Monti y Rajoy acordaron lanzar un plan para fomentar el crecimiento en Europa por valor de 130.000 millones de euros, lo que equivale al 1% del PIB de la UE.

Después de meses pronunciando la palabra "austeridad", los líderes se atreven ahora con el crecimiento. Los cuatro grandes presentarán su propuesta en el próximo Consejo Europeo, que se celebrará en Bruselas los próximos 28 y 29 de junio. De esta forma se da satisfacción al recién nombrado presidente francés, que desde la campaña electoral francesa venía reclamando políticas de estímulo para combatir la dureza de la crisis. Sin embargo, 130.000 millones no parece una cantidad suficiente como para que el crecimiento se asiente en la UE.

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Urgente: Crisis política en Paraguay

Telesur TV

Unasur se reúne con representantes del Partido Colorado en Paraguay

Defesa.Net

Brasil tenta salvar o governo do Paraguai 

Infobae 

Paraguay: matanza entre policías y campesinos evidencia el conflicto agrario 

El Universo

Lugo presenta recurso de suspensión de juicio en Paraguay 

Infobae

La Iglesia pide a Lugo que renuncie

Urgente 24

Día decisivo para el complot en Paraguay

 

 

 

Return to capitalism 'red in tooth and claw' spells economic madness

Robert Skidelsky
Guardian

John Maynard Keynes predicted that technological unemployment would present problems for 21st century economies. Photograph: Corbis

 

As people in the developed world wonder how their countries will return to full employment after the global recession, it might benefit us to take a look at a visionary essay that John Maynard Keynes wrote in 1930, called Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (pdf).

Keynes's General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, published in 1936, equipped governments with the intellectual tools to counter the unemployment caused by slumps. In this earlier essay, however, Keynes distinguished between unemployment caused by temporary economic breakdowns and what he called "technological unemployment" – that is, "unemployment due to the discovery of means of economising the use of labour outrunning the pace at which we can find new uses for labour".

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Julian Assange seeking asylum in Ecuadorian embassy in London

The Guardian

Julian Assange has asked for asylum at Ecuador's embassy in London. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Julian Assange has dramatically sought political asylum at the Ecuadorean embassy in London, days after the supreme court rejected the last of his appeals against extradition to Sweden to face sex crime accusations and after what he called a "declaration of abandonment" by his own government in Australia.

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¿La Unión Bancaria Europea?

Hans Werner-Sinn
Project Syndicate

MÚNICH.– En una ostensible violación del Tratado de Maastricht, la Comisión Europea ha ofrecido un plan de rescate tras otro a las economías europeas en problemas. Ahora no solo desea socializar la deuda pública con la introducción de eurobonos, sino también la deuda bancaria, proclamando una «unión bancaria».

Illustration by Mike Wuerker

Socializar la deuda bancaria, además de ser injusto, dará como resultado una futura asignación inadecuada de recursos. La socialización de la deuda bancaria a través de las fronteras implica que el costo de los créditos privados de un país se reduce artificialmente por debajo de las tasas de mercado, ya que el seguro (que asume la forma de swaps de incumplimiento crediticio) es proporcionado en forma gratuita por otros países. Por lo tanto, los flujos de capital desde el centro a la periferia continuarán por encima del monto óptimo, debilitando el crecimiento de Europa en su conjunto.

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Asia’s Next Axis

Project Syndicate.

SEOUL – Last month, the leaders of China, Japan, and South Korea agreed to begin negotiations later this year on a trilateral free-trade agreement. If the talks succeed, the global trade map will need to be redrawn. An FTA that encompasses, respectively, the world’s second, third, and 12th biggest economies (in purchasing power parity terms in 2011), with a population of 1.5 billion, would dwarf the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement, comprising the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

 Indeed, Northeast Asia would become the third major axis of regional economic integration, following the EU and NAFTA. Until now, the region has been unable to institutionalize economic cooperation as vigorously as Europe and North America have. But if the proposals discussed in Beijing last month are realized, the resulting FTA could surpass NAFTA in its degree of integration and importance to the world economy.

In addition, the formation of a China-Japan-South Korea FTA would most likely trigger a chain-reaction. For example, the momentum could expand southward and stimulate ASEAN, which has bilateral FTAs with all three countries, to join the group. Such a turn of events would be equivalent to establishing the East Asia Free Trade Area, which the ASEAN+3 envisioned about a decade ago. If that happened, other countries – Australia, New Zealand, and, most importantly, India – might seek to jump on the bandwagon.

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Think Again: Energy.

Foreign Policy.

For months, headlines have proclaimed a surge in U.S. energy production: Crude oil production in March 2012 was nearly 20 percent higher than it was on average in 2008, increasing from 4.95 million to 5.93 million barrels per day, and it is predicted to keep going up to levels not seen since the 1990s. And shale gas production has risen over the past decade from 2 percent of U.S. natural gas supply to 37 percent. While the United States still imports more than 40 percent of its oil overall, it became a net exporter of petroleum products in 2011 for the first time since 1949, and the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that the country will become a net exporter of natural gas by 2021. So how will this U.S. uptick affect the geopolitics of energy? We asked some of the world's top experts about the consequences of growing demand in China and growing tension in Iran, the Obama administration's energy record, and -- yes -- oil prices. If they agreed on one thing, it's that we're in the midst of a shake-up of major proportions. 

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US backtracks on claims Russia is arming Syrian regime

The Guardian

The US state department has acknowledged that Russian helicopters it claimed had been sent recently to the Syrian regime were, in fact, refurbished ones already owned by Damascus.

Secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, claimed on Tuesday that "the latest information we have that there are attack helicopters on the way from Russia to Syria".

The state department admitted details had been omitted from Clinton's speech in which she accused Russia of escalating the violent situation in Syria. But spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said: "Whether they are new or they are refurbished, the concern remains that they will be used for the exact same purpose that the current helicopters in Syria are being used, and that is to kill civilians.

 "These are helicopters that have been out of the fight for some six months or longer. They are freshly refurbished. The question is simply what one expects them to be used for when one sees what the current fleet is doing. Every helicopter that is flying and working is attacking a new civilian location so the concern is when you add three more freshly refurbished helicopters to the fight, that is three more that can be used to kill civilians."

Clinton's accusation prompted a stern Russian denial and countercharges of hypocrisy against the US for selling military equipment, including jet engines and patrol boats, to Bahrain despite civil strife in the Arab state.

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The Economic and Geo-Political Implications of China-Centric Globalization

The New America Foundation.

The last 30 years have witnessed the era of globalization which has been marked by the creation of an integrated global economy. Globalization has been the product of both policy and market forces, and U.S. policymakers have persistently been in the vanguard. However, what began as a project of globalization has been transformed with little explicit public discussion into a project of China-centric globalization.

China-centric globalization is characterized by three features: (1) the emergence of China as the global center of manufacturing, with China playing the role of factory for the world; (2) the creation of a new dollar zone shared by the U.S. and China and enforced by China’s adoption of an exchange rate pegged to the dollar; (3) the development of China as the fulcrum of U.S. engagement with the global economy, with the U.S. having a massive trade deficit with China and transferring significant chunks of manufacturing capacity to China.

Globalization has always been controversial but China-centric globalization has made it even more so. Globalization poses challenges for the character of America’s economy, for the goal of shared prosperity, and for U.S. national security. China-centric globalization amplifies these concerns by aggravating adverse economic tendencies within the globalization process, and by raising additional national security concerns about dependence on China, with whom the U.S. still has an uncertain geo-political relationship.

Looking into the future, the current path of China-centric globalization poses a threat to both U.S. economic recovery and global growth and development. It has not only hindered American attempts to escape from the post-bubble recession that began in December 2007 but it has also threatened to block future attempts to recalibrate and improve the globalization process. If anything, U.S. policy has failed to come to grips with the problems associated with China-centric globalization. Especially troubling is the U.S. Treasury’s policy toward China’s exchange rate. The Treasury’s past policy can be accused of dereliction of duty in its failure to protect the U.S. manufacturing sector. Its current policy of encouraging China to introduce a flexible yuan exchange rate with free capital mobility promises to compound that damage.

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Is Brazil the next cop on the beat in Africa? The Pentagon seems to hope so

Al Jazeera.
 

New York, NY - Behind the scenes, US diplomats are reportedly becoming very leery about Brazil's rise on the world stage. An exporting dynamo with a growing middle class, Brazil has recently sought a greater role in global affairs and is discombobulating Washington in the process. Classified US diplomatic cables recently disclosed by whistle-blowing outfit WikiLeaks underscore such geopolitical tensions.

In Lima, for instance, US ambassador to Peru Curtis Struble wrote that Washington was enmeshed in an "undeclared contest" with Brazil for political influence in the Andean region. Back in the US meanwhile, right-wing hawks at the Brookings Institution view Brazil's rise with trepidation, remarking gloomily that the country "appears determined to position itself as the Latin American hegemon as it deepens its investment in various schemes of regional political and economic integration that pointedly exclude the United States".

Whatever its long term reservations about Brazil, however, Washington has apparently come round to the view that it needs the South American nation's help in the here and now. Speaking at the Brazilian War College in Rio de Janeiro recently, US Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta remarked, "This is a relationship, the United States and Brazil... between two global powers, and we welcome Brazil's growing strength. We support Brazil as a global leader, and seek closer defence cooperation because we believe that a stronger and more globally engaged Brazil will help enhance international security for all of us."

 

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Daniel Yergin: America’s New Energy Reality.

The New York Times.

AMERICA needs a new political discourse on energy. This would recognize the emerging reality that the United States has turned around as an energy producer and is on a major upswing. And the impact will be measured not just in energy security and the balance of payments. Energy development also turns out to be an engine for job creation and economic growth — something that would hardly have been considered the last time we were electing a president. 

In 2008, the rise in oil prices was accompanied — and partly fueled — by a belief that an era of permanent scarcity was at hand. This mentality had deep roots extending back to the 1970s, when the United States went from being a minor importer of oil to a major importer. In the 2008 rendition, falling oil output was considered simply inevitable. The only questions were at what rate petroleum imports would rise and whether that rate would be slowed. 

The outlook was much the same for natural gas. Production would inevitably decline, and the country was on the way to spending $100 billion a year to import liquefied natural gas from West Africa, the Middle East, even Australia and Russia. The energy burden on our trade deficit would only increase, adding to our economic distress. 

But that is not at all how things are turning out. Technology made the difference. The natural gas market has been transformed by the rapid expansion of shale gas production. A dozen years ago, shale gas amounted to only about 2 percent of United States production. Today, it is 37 percent and rising. Natural gas is in such ample supply that its price has tanked. This unanticipated abundance has ignited a new political argument about liquefied natural gas — not about how much the United States will import but rather how much it should export. 

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Estado compensador y nuevos extractivismos.

Nueva Sociedad.

Sin duda América del Sur, gobernada mayoritariamente por partidos y movimientos que se autodefinen como progresistas, ha logrado varios avances en los últimos años, en general centrados en la reducción de la pobreza y el regreso de un Estado más activo. Sin embargo, parte de los buenos desempeños van en paralelo a la consolidación de un modelo sostenido en la explotación de la naturaleza –desde el gas hasta la soja, pasando por una diversidad de productos de la minería– y la consolidación de lógicas y prácticas extractivistas. El artículo analiza las potencialidades y los límites de los nuevos «Estados compensadores», la diferencia entre viejos y nuevos extractivismos y los crecientes conflictos socioambientales.

 

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Venezuela respalda candidatura de Ecuador a la secretaría general de la OPEP

El Telégrafo
Ecuador

Venezuela ratificó este martes su apoyo a Ecuador para asumir la secretaría general de la Organización de Países Exportadores de Petróleo (OPEP), responsable del 40 por ciento de la producción mundial de crudo. 

El ministro venezolano de Petróleo, Rafael Ramírez, afirmó que Caracas apoyará la candidatura a ese cargo del titular ecuatoriano de esa cartera, Wilson Pástor. El funcionario adelantó que la presencia de Pástor "sería un elemento refrescante dentro de la organización".

Reconoció, no obstante, que la decisión requerirá aún de un debate en el seno del grupo de doce países. "Hay bastantes candidatos, eso es bueno porque abre la discusión", señaló el ministro, y aludió así al hecho de que Pástor compite por el puesto con otros tres candidatos. 

El Gobierno saudí ha presentado a Mohamad al-Monif, actual gobernador permanente ante la OPEP, mientras que Irak se ha apostado por Tamir Ghadhban, asesor del primer ministro en los asuntos petroleros. 

Irán, según diversas fuentes no oficiales, ha presentado al ex ministro de Petróleo Gholam Hosain Nozari como su candidato.

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Fracassa diálogo EUA-Paquistão sobre rota para o Afeganistão

DefesaNet
Brasil

Os Estados Unidos anunciaram nesta segunda-feira a retirada de seus negociadores de Islamabad, depois do fracasso das negociações para a reabertura de rotas de reabastecimento para a Otan do Paquistão ao Afeganistão.

"Foi tomada a decisão de fazer a equipe voltar para casa (Estados Unidos) por um breve período", explicou George Little, porta-voz do Departamento americano de Defesa.

A equipe de negociadores permaneceu no Paquistão por cerca de seis semanas, explicou o porta-voz do Pentágono, quando altos funcionários americanos acreditavam estar perto de conseguir um acordo com Islamabad para levantar o bloqueio aos comboios da Otan.

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Yemen army in assault on militant stronghold

Gulf Times

A handout photo made available yesterday by the Yemeni defence ministry shows soldiers posing for a photo after they advanced on the frontline against Al Qaeda militants in the southern province of Abyan on Sunday

Yemeni warplanes and troops bombarded the Islamist militant stronghold of Jaar yesterday, officials and witnesses said, part of a US-backed offensive in a country Washington sees as a frontline in its war against Al Qaeda.

 
At least 44 soldiers and militants were killed as the army launched its most serious assault on Jaar to date and also attacked positions near Shaqra, a coastal town on a major shipping route, and other areas, a Yemeni military official said.

Yemen is battling to retake towns and territory in the southern province of Abyan that were seized by militants linked to Al Qaeda last year during a popular uprising against president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

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El euro se la juega

Cinco Días

Las dudas de los mercados sobre la intervención quirúrgica de la zona euro en la banca española y la creciente incertidumbre sobre el resultado de las elecciones en Grecia alimentaron ayer la tensión en torno a la moneda única hasta límites desconocidos.

Mientras la Comisión Europea pedía calma y se negaba a juzgar el plan para España por la reacción bursátil en un solo día, numerosos analistas desconfiaban de las posibilidades de éxito de un rescate de la banca española que carga la factura al Estado español.

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Chile y su talón de Aquiles energético

Infolatam

(Especial para Infolatam por Rogelio Núñez)-. Chile aspira a convertirse a lo largo de esta misma década en un país desarrollado y alcanzar incluso a naciones europeas como Portugal. Pero para lograrlo debe solucionar el problema de su fragil matriz energética, verdadero cuello de botella para el desarrollo integral de Chile.

Ese objetivo nacional, ser un país del primer mundo, es el norte que persigue el actual ejecutivo de Sebastián Piñera. En palabras del Ministro Secretario General, Cristián Larroulet: “Chile quiere ser desarrollado a fines de esta década y para eso necesitamos energía limpia y al menor precio posible”.

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El patrimonio neto de las familias de EE.UU. cae casi 40% entre 2007 y 2010

WSJ Americas

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)—El patrimonio neto de los hogares estadounidenses disminuyó casi 40% entre 2007 y 2010 a niveles no registrados desde 1992.

El lunes, la Reserva Federal de Estados Unidos publicó un informe que mostró que la media del patrimonio neto de las familias disminuyó a US$77.300 en 2010, frente a los US$126.400 en 2007, lo que representa una disminución de 38,8%, el mayor descenso desde que comenzó este sondeo en 1989.

Bernardi Real Estate Group

El patrimonio neto de los hogares es un indicador de los activos totales, como viviendas, acciones y pensiones, menos las obligaciones totales, como hipotecas y deuda en tarjetas de crédito. El patrimonio neto promedio cayó 14,7% en el período.

Los ingresos y el patrimonio neto de las familias estadounidenses cayeron en concordancia con las turbulencias de la economía del país durante los últimos tres años, según el Sondeo de las Finanzas del Consumidor de la Fed, un panorama detallado de las cuentas de los hogares que se realiza cada tres años.

Los hogares cuyos activos estaban más vinculados con propiedades residenciales registraron la mayor merma en su patrimonio neto medio, que declinó a US$75.000 en 2010, frente a los US$110.000 de tres años antes.

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Grecia nos salvará

Slavoj Zizek
Rebelión

Texto de la intervención del filosofo esloveno en la convención de Syriza. Traducido por nemoniente.

 Al final de su vida Sigmund Freud, el padre del psicoanálisis, hizo la famosa pregunta «¿qué quiere una mujer?», admitiendo su perplejidad frente al enigma de la sexualidad femenina. Similar perplejidad surge hoy: «¿Qué quiere Europa?» esta es la pregunta que vosotros, los griegos, estáis dirigiendo a Europa. Pero Europa no sabe lo que quiere. El modo en que los estados europeos y los medios de comunicación se refieren a lo que está pasando hoy en Grecia, creo que es el mejor indicador de la Europa que pretenden. Es la Europa neoliberal, la Europa de los estados aislacionistas. Los críticos acusan a Syriza de ser una amenaza para el euro, pero Syriza es, al contrario, la única posibilidad que tiene Europa. ¿Qué amenaza?. Vosotros estáis dando Europa la posibilidad de salir de su inercia y encontrar una nueva vía.

En sus notas sobre la definición de cultura, el gran poeta conservador Thomas Eliot subrayó esos momentos en que la única elección es entre la herejía y la incredulidad, momentos en que el único modo de mantener la creencia, de mantener viva la religión, es desviarse drásticamente de la vía principal. Esto es lo que ocurre hoy en Europa. Solo una nueva herejía –representada en este momento por Syriza- puede salvar lo que merece la pena salvar de la herencia europea, la democracia, la confianza en las personas, la solidaridad igualitaria. La Europa que vencerá, si Syriza no gana, será una Europa con valores asiáticos y, naturalmente, estos valores no tienen nada que ver con Asia, sino con la voluntad actual y evidente del capitalismo contemporáneo de suspender la democracia.

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Alemania anuncia que la troika vigilará a la banca española

Público.es

Wolfgang Schaüble, ministro de Finanzas de Alemania.EFE

Desde que el pasado sábado se anunciara el multimillonario rescate de hasta 100.000 millones a la banca española, el ministro alemán federal de Finanzas, Wolfgang Schäuble, se ha multiplicado en los medios para tratar de explicar a los alemanes la necesidad de poner dinero para salvar a España. Dos de tres cada tres alemanes están en contra del rescate español.

Schaüble no se ha cansado de repetir desde el sábado que "España está en el camino correcto". Pero ese rescate no será sin condiciones: este lunes, en una entrevista con la radio pública alemana, Schaüble anunció que la troika formada por la Comisión de la Unión Europea (UE), el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI) y el Banco Central Europeo (BCE) controlará la reestructuración de la banca en España.

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Tema energético y ataque a la pobreza objetivos de Araque al frente de Unasur

Telesur

Este lunes el venezolano Alí Rodríguez Araque, asumirá en Bogotá la secretaría general de la Unasur, cargo que hasta ahora era desempeñado por la colombiana María Emma Mejía. En el marco de ese traspaso de funciones, Araque participó en una entrevista exclusiva para teleSUR donde destacó que una de las metas fundamentales a futuro para la Unasur será en materia energética y también ejecutar planes sociales que combatan la pobreza.

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¿Se puede reformar el sistema financiero global?

Paul Volcker*
Project-Syndicate

HONG KONG – En la actualidad hay abundantes pruebas de que los sistemas financieros pueden dejar de funcionar correctamente, de lo que sirven como ejemplo Asia en los noventa y Estados Unidos y Europa una década después. Cuando ello ocurre, se paga un costo intolerable en la forma de interrupción del crecimiento y desempleo.

Illustration by John Overmyer

Pero una reforma del sistema no será posible, o resultará muy endeble, a menos que se alcance un consenso internacional en torno a ciertos temas clave. La libertad del dinero, de los mercados financieros y de las personas para trasladarse de un lugar a otro (y, de ese modo, eludir reglamentaciones e impuestos) puede ser un freno aceptable e incluso constructivo al exceso de intervención oficial, pero no cuando eso da pie a una competencia desregulatoria entre países que impide la adopción de normas éticas y prudenciales necesarias.

* Ex presidente del directorio de la Reserva Federal de los Estados Unidos

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Peru: La gran transformación

Oscar Ugarteche
ALAI

El complemento directo de “Adiós Humala” es “bienvenidos fujimoristas”. Con las técnicas y sistemas mafiosos, el gobierno de Humala ha dado el gran viraje. La llamada hoja de ruta dibuja una trayectoria de 180 grados que se ha dado constantemente desde el inicio del gobierno. Es la ruta del viraje en la política exterior ya mencionada (ver “Adiós Humala”), en la política de género, en la política ambiental y en la Política. Lo demás no tiene viraje alguno, es el piloto automático hacia la derecha natural de todo gobierno, al que se refiere Patricia del Río en su columna en un diario limeño.

Cuando dispararon contra los que protestaban en Espinar, votantes de Humala en su gran mayoría, ya estaba cumplida la hoja de ruta. El viraje ya es de 180 grados y está el partido y su jefe enfrentado a sus aliados y miembros. En la calle esto tiene como resultado el aumento de las protestas y quizás -en un efecto de bola de nieve- reproducir lo que Santos, presidente de la región Cajamarca, dijo con tanta certeza hace pocos días: procesos sociales análogos a los de Jamil Mahuad y Lucio Gutiérrez en Ecuador y Sánchez de Losada y Carlos Mesa en Bolivia. Esto por no mencionar a los que se produjeron en Argentina con “el que se vayan todos” en diciembre del 2001 o el propio pueblo peruano del 2000 cuando los cuatro suyos marcharon para sacar a Fujimori. En la calle peruana actual, los actores son los jóvenes y los afectados por la minería. Ellos no necesitan de líderes naturales. Podrían autoconvocarse bajo el lema “que me devuelvan el voto”.

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The European Commission and the ECB must act now

Paul de Grauwe*
Social Europe

The seeds of the current crisis were sown nearly twenty years ago when European leaders agreed to create a currency without a country. Now, the Eurozone is split in two, with the creditor countries of the north able to borrow at next to zero interest rates, and those of the south facing massive deficits and economic instability. But both face a prescription of heavy austerity from the European Commission. Paul De Grauwe argues that the ECB and the European Commission can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines while the stability Eurozone continues to be undermined by those who fear for its future. The ECB must step in to guarantee the bonds of solvent but illiquid countries, such as Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Italy, the European Commission must encourage surplus countries to spend to offset the southern countries’ deficits, and the Eurozone must take steps towards budgetary union.

*Professor Paul De Grauwe is the John Paulson Chair in European Political Economy at the LSE’s European Institute. Prior to joining LSE, he was Professor of International Economics at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He was a member of the Belgian parliament from 1991 to 2003.

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Scots will not be British if they vote for independence, says Miliband

Guardian

Ed Miliband adapts the union flag as a backdrop in his speech in defence of the union. Photograph: Tony Kyriacou/Rex Features

Scots will no longer be British if their country votes to leave the United Kingdom, Labour leader Ed Miliband has warned in a keynote speech on national identity.

Miliband insisted that leaving the union would mean that Scottish people would lose their British identity – challenging the argument put forward by the Scottish Nationalists, who have insisted that Scottish people would continue to be British in a geographical sense.

Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National party, has drawn a parallel with the way Swedish or Norwegian people can also consider themselves Scandinavian.

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Rusia admite incrementar número de observadores en Siria e introducir correctivos en plan de Annan

Ria Novosti

El viceministro de Asuntos Exteriores de Rusia, Mijaíl Bogdánov, admitió hoy la posibilidad de incrementar el número de observadores internacionales en Siria e introducir ciertos correctivos en el plan del arreglo presentado por Kofi Annan, enviado especial de la ONU y la Liga Árabe.

“No descartamos aumentar, en caso de necesidad, el número” (de observadores internacionales”, reconoció Bogdánov en una entrevista con RIA Novosti.

Bogdánov, quien es enviado especial del presidente de Rusia para Oriente Próximo, señaló al mismo tiempo que “se requiere tiempo para ver cómo podemos mejorar su labor”. “Trescientos observadores militares y más de 70 civiles son una fuerza seria para determinar quién viola el armisticio”, dijo.

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China to loan $10 bln to SCO members states

Global Times

The large group meeting of the 12th Meeting of the Council of Heads of Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is held at the Great Hall of the People in downtown Beijing, capital of China, June 7, 2012. Photo: Xinhua

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)'s Beijing summit concluded Thursday with a joint communiqué outlining its future blueprint. China also pledged loans worth $10 billion to the bloc's member states to promote economic development.

In the communiqué, member states called on the international community to work for peaceful coexistence and promote coordinated, sustainable development.

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Autoridades decretan "preemergencia ambiental" en Santiago de Chile

Telesur

El Gobierno de Santiago de Chile decretó para este viernes la primera “preemergencia ambiental' de este año, debido a los altos índices de polución registrados y el empeoramiento de las condiciones de ventilación de la ciudad capital.

La contaminación afecta principalmente a los barrios ubicados en zona sur de Santiago, donde residen aproximadamente unos siete millones de habitantes. La medida se dicta luego de diez Alertas Ambientales que se han establecido en lo que va de 2012.

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