Falkland Islands: Premier Oil plan leads UK and Argentina to new dispute.

The Guardian.

Britain put itself on a collision course with Argentina over disputed sovereignty of the Falkland Islands when it gave explicit support to a £600m plan to develop oil reserves in the South Atlantic on Wednesday.

Barely three weeks since the two countries clashed over the issue at a G20 summit and 30 years on from military conflict, the Foreign Office announced the hydrocarbons exploration was a legitimate business.

The government's backing for Premier Oil's move to buy a 60% stake in a licence to explore and develop oil off the Falklands will infuriate Argentina, which has threatened criminal and civil charges against firms operating in the disputed area.

But a Foreign office spokesman said: "We have been unequivocal in our support for the people of the Falkland Islands as they seek to expand their economy. This [drilling] is a core principle of self-determination, and one which we are determined to uphold."

Link.

Robert Kaplan: The Divided Map of Europe.

The National Interest.

THE IDEA of Europe, in the minds of Westerners today, is an intellectual concept—liberal humanism with a geographical basis—that emerged through centuries of material and intellectual advancement, as well as a reaction to devastating military conflicts in previous historical ages. The last such conflict was World War II, which spawned a resolve to merge elements of sovereignty among democratic states in order to set in motion a pacifying trend.

Alas, this grand narrative now is under assault by underlying forces of history and geography. The economic divisions seen today in the European Union, manifest in the Continent’s debt crisis and pressures on the euro, have their roots, at least partially, in contradictions that stretch far back into Europe’s past and its existential struggle to grapple with the realities of its immutable geographical structure. It is this legacy—somewhat deterministic and rarely acknowledged—that Europe still must overcome and that therefore requires a detailed description.

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Russia loses hold on Tajikistan pivot.

 Asia Times Online

The simmering rivalries amongst Russia, China and the United States have begun bubbling up in Tajikistan against the backdrop of the uncertainties of the post-2014 period for regional security and stability. After months or years of secretive negotiations, Russian exasperation over Tajikistan's foot-dragging on the renewal of the lease agreement for its military base is surfacing.

However, the Russian-Tajik entanglement is more than a family quarrel, as it underscores the complex geopolitics of the post-2014 period in Central Asia when Western troops will have withdrawn from Afghanistan but the United States would still hope to keep permanent military bases in the region.

While the US intentions to expand its strategic footprints into Central Asia have not been a great secret to Moscow, a new factor is that China, too, is contributing unwittingly to the erosion of Russian influence in the region. 

Link.

Niall Ferguson y sus querellas (I).

Ambos Mundos.

Niall Ferguson es el historiador más mediático de la actualidad, aunque disguste a muchos de sus compañeros de profesión, y una de las voces más escuchadas del particular universo conservador anglosajón. No puede sorprendernos, por tanto, que la revista Time le incluyera hace algunos años en su elenco de las cien personas más influyentes del mundo e, incluso, el gobierno británico haya considerado algunas de sus ideas para mejorar la enseñanza de la historia en las escuelas. Sus libros, que habitualmente suelen situarse en las listas de libros más vendidos en Gran Bretaña, tienen la extraña habilidad de fomentar encendidas polémicas intelectuales, que siempre terminan por escapar del debate académico. Su último trabajo Civilización. Occidente y el resto (2011, recién editado en español por Debate) ha vuelto a situarle en el ojo del huracán. Para  sus detractores, entre otras muchas lindezas, Ferguson es un astuto revisionista, un racista encubierto y un nostálgico del imperialismo. Esta retahíla de insultos y descalificaciones podría continuar y, sin duda, continuará creciendo cuando publique la «biografía oficial» que se encuentra elaborando sobre Henry Kissinger, gracias a las facilidades ofrecidas por el antiguo secretario de Estado norteamericano. Esas páginas serán un auténtico cóctel explosivo que estallará en cuanto vean la luz muy pronto (ya se ha anunciado el primer volumen para este mismo año).

 

Link.

 

 

 

Not to let South China Sea issue derail Asian cooperation

Global Times

As foreign ministers of Southeast Asian countries gather in Phnom Penh, they should be wary of letting the South China Sea issue distract their primary focus of advancing regional cooperation.

Marking the 15th anniversary of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Plus Three (APT) cooperation, the 2012 ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting should work on the blueprint for APT cooperation, a dynamic and productive cooperation mechanism in East Asia.

Thus, all sides need to use the opportunity to further enhance and expand cooperation to give full play the role of the mechanism as the main vehicle of East Asia cooperation and to make greater contribution to regional stability, development and prosperity, which also correspond to the theme of the 2012 ASEAN summit, namely "One Community, One Destiny."

Link

Brasil comienza el desarrollo de su primer submarino nuclear

Ria Novosti

Brasil comenzó el desarrollo de su primer submarino nuclear, comunicó Jane's.

Los trabajos de diseño podrán ocupar hasta tres años. La construcción del submarino deberá comenzar en 2016 y el buque entraría en servicio como más temprano en 2025. En el proyecto también participa Francia.

Mientras, en Brasil fueron abiertos el Centro de Instrucción y Adiestramiento Nuclear Aramar (CIANA) y la primera de las cuatro plantas de producción de hexafluorido de uranio, utilizado para el enriquecimiento de uranio.

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Charles Kupchan: The international distribution of power is shifting substantially

Charles Kupchan
VoA

On this edition of Press Conference USA, a conversation with Charles Kupchan, professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University and author of: "No one's world. The west, the rising rest and the coming global turn" about shifting centers of power in the changing global order. With host Carol Castiel and VOA senior national analyst, Andre de Nesnera. 

Link to listen the entire INTERVIEW

La Argentina en la posconvertibilidad: ¿Un nuevo modelo de desarrollo?

Pablo Belloni
IADE

Luego de sufrir una de las crisis más graves y duraderas de su historia (1998-2002), la economía argentina ha presentado un desempeño económico notable que se refleja en buena parte de los indicadores macroeconómicos. En efecto, entre 2002 y 2010 el producto interno bruto (PIB) creció a una tasa anual acumulativa del orden del 7,6% (a precios constantes), el producto industrial lo hizo a una tasa aún más elevada (9,5% anual), las cuentas fiscales fueron superavitarias, se redujo el peso de la deuda pública sobre el producto y cayó significativamente el desempleo, entre otras cuestiones relevantes. En relación al sector externo, el déficit de cuenta corriente que había predominado durante la vigencia del régimen de convertibilidad fue revertido, dando lugar a un superávit explicado, fundamentalmente, por el positivo desempeño de las exportaciones en el intercambio comercial. 

 

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John Mearsheimer: Nuclear-Armed Iran Would Bring 'Stability' But Risks

John Mearsheimer & Dov Zakheim
PBS

JUDY WOODRUFF: Now: two views on whether a nuclear-armed Iran makes the Middle East a safer place.

John Mearsheimer is a professor at the University of Chicago. He's a West Point graduate and former Air Force officer. And he's written extensively on strategic issues. Dov Zakheim served in the Pentagon during the administrations of George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. He's now a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Link to watch to entire INTERVIEW

Behind the Paraguayan coup

Al Jazeera.

New York, NY - Shortly after Fernando Lugo was elected president of Paraguay, I wrote an article outlining many of the challenges facing the country's idealistic new leader. A man who never previously held elected office, Lugo had been a longtime political activist championing the needs of Paraguay's landless peasants. Incensed by social injustice all around him, he spoke out against the country's right-wing Colorado party. In a shot across the bow of vested elites, Lugo proclaimed his support for land reform.

That kind of talk did not go over very well among Paraguay's right wing, which recently acted to remove the president in what is being seen as a possible coup d'etat. Following a skewed vote in the opposition-controlled Congress, Lugo was removed from office for allegedly encouraging land seizures. In an upset, Vice-President Federico Franco of the Liberal Party assumed the presidency.

Needless to say, however, the actual circumstances surrounding the land occupations are subject to some debate. According to authorities, peasant squatters opened fire on police as the security forces moved in to eject them. The peasants, however, claim that the police had in fact conducted a massacre. 

Link

America The Absent.

Foreign Policy.

The release of another weak U.S. jobs report this Friday, July 6 -- which showed the economy adding only 80,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate holding steady at 8.2 percent -- raises some serious red flags. It's just one of many signs these days that the world economy is once again on the brink of an abyss. Nearly four years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, U.S. growth is flailing, central banks are racing to cut interest rates, and several European nations have plunged back into recession. Instead of powering the 21st-century world economy, export-dependent emerging markets remain hostage to the transatlantic economic morass. We should be out of this by now. The missing ingredient? U.S. leadership.

In the 20th century, beginning with the creation of the Bretton Woods system in 1944, America's great contribution was to champion an economic paradigm and set of institutions that promoted open markets and economic stability around the world. The successive Groups of Five, Seven, and Eight, first formed in the early 1970s, helped coordinate macroeconomic policies among the world's leading economies and combat global financial imbalances that burdened U.S. trade politics. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) spread the Washington Consensus across Asia and Latin America, and shepherded economies in transition toward capitalism. Eight multilateral trade rounds brought down barriers to global commerce, culminating in the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995. 

Meanwhile, a wave of bank deregulation and financial liberalization began in the United States and proliferated around the world, making credit more available and affordable while propelling consumption and entrepreneurship the world over. The U.S. dollar, the world's venerable reserve currency, economized global transactions and fueled international trade. Central bank independence spread from Washington to the world and helped usher in the Great Moderation, which has produced a quarter-century of low and steady inflation around the world. 

Globalization was not wished into being: It was the U.S.-led order that generated prosperity unimaginable only a few decades ago. Since 1980, global GDP has quadrupled, world trade has grown more than sixfold, the stock of foreign direct investment has shot up by 20 times, and portfolio capital flows have surged to almost $200 trillion annually, roughly four times the size of the global economy. Economic reforms and global economic integration helped vibrant emerging markets emerge: The "Asian Tigers" (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) that boomed in the 1980s were joined in the 1990s by the awakening giants of Brazil, China, and India. 

Link.

Kenneth Waltz on “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb”.

The Diplomat.

Kenneth Waltz speaks with The Diplomat‘s Zachary Keck on his controversial article in Foreign Affairs, “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb,” China, India-Pakistan troubles, terrorism and more.

Over the years you’ve entered into the policy debate only on a few choice occasions, such as your critique of the U.S. war in Vietnam. I’m therefore wondering what made you decide to write on the Iranian nuclear issue? 

I did think it was an important issue not adequately discussed. The issue was being very narrowly defined simply in terms of Iran. But there are a lot of important lessons beyond this country or this region that must be considered and that can be applied to Iran itself. So I was interested in what I might contribute to that aspect of this debate. But I did this mainly because I was asked by Foreign Affairs.

Policymakers work from the perspective of their own national interests. As you note in the Foreign Affairs piece, Israel confers substantial benefits from its regional nuclear monopoly, and a nuclear-armed Iran would significantly curtail Israel as well as the United States’ freedom of action in the region. How strong of an incentive is this for Israeli and U.S. policymakers to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear arms? 

Clearly Israel has a very great interest in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons state. I do not think the same applies to the U.S. The American interest in the long run is that the region be stable and peaceful. The existence of a single nuclear power without a balancer is a recipe for instability in the long-run. The amazing thing is that Israel managed to remain a single nuclear power for such a long time! Israel is an anomaly in this way. This anomaly will be removed if Iran becomes a nuclear power.

Link.

Wallerstein: Blowback o los imposibles dilemas de los poderes en decadencia

Immanuel Wallerstein

La Jornada

Blowback (sin traducción al castellano hasta el momento) es un término acuñado por la Agencia Central de Inteligencia (CIA). Originalmente eran las consecuencias negativas no intencionales que sufría un país a partir de sus propias operaciones de espionaje. Por ejemplo, si una operación secreta de la CIA conducía a un ataque de revancha contra individuos estadunidenses que no estaban en conocimiento de la operación de la CIA, esto se consideraba blowback. 

Pero en los días que corren muchas operaciones no son para nada tan secretas (por ejemplo el uso de aviones no tripulados –drones– en Pakistán y Yemen). Y los ataques en revancha con frecuencia se confiesan públicamente. No obstante, los países no dejan de involucrarse en tales operaciones.

Link

The Electoral Victory of Political Islam in Egypt

Samir Amin
MR Zine/Monthly Review Foundation

The electoral victory of the Muslim Brotherhood and of the Salafists in Egypt (January 2012) is hardly surprising.  The decline brought about by the current globalization of capitalism has produced an extraordinary increase in the so-called "informal" activities that provide the livelihoods of more than half of the Egyptian population (statistics give a figure of 60%).

And the Muslim Brotherhood is very well placed to take advantage of this decline and perpetuate its reproduction.  Their simplistic ideology confers legitimacy on a miserable market/bazaar economy that is completely antithetical to the requirements of any development worthy of the name.  The fabulous financial means provided to the Muslim Brotherhood (by the Gulf states) allows them to translate this ideology into efficient action: financial aid to the informal economy, charitable services (medical dispensaries etc.).

Link

Lo que dejó Río + 20

Sally Burch
IADE

La adopción de un tímido plan multilateral frente a los problemas ambientales del planeta; el bloqueo parcial a la legitimación del discurso que plantea la “economía verde” como solución a la crisis ambiental; y una agenda convergente renovada de los movimientos sociales, son algunos de los aspectos a destacar de los grandes encuentros mundiales que se desarrollaron en días pasados en Río de Janeiro, bajo el paraguas de Río + 20.

La Declaración política de la Conferencia de Naciones Unidas sobre Desarrollo Sostenible (20-22 de junio), titulada El Futuro que Queremos, es, como muchos documentos intergubernamentales de su género, una mezcla contradictoria de afirmaciones, recomendaciones, reconocimientos y algunos compromisos, donde se yuxtaponen enfoques de desarrollo, propuestas empresariales y visiones de nuevos paradigmas.

 

Link

Congress Pushes for War with Iran

Stephen Zunes
FPIF

In another resolution apparently designed to prepare for war against Iran, the U.S. House of Representatives, in an overwhelmingly bipartisan 401–11 vote, has passed a resolution (HR 568) urging the president to oppose any policy toward Iran “that would rely on containment as an option in response to the Iranian nuclear threat.”

With its earlier decision to pass a bill that effectively sought to ban any negotiations between the United States and Iran, a huge bipartisan majority of Congress has essentially told the president that nothing short of war or the threat of war is an acceptable policy. Indeed, the rush to pass this bill appears to have been designed to undermine the ongoing international negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program. According to Iranian-American analyst Jamal Abdi, a prominent critic of both the Iranian regime and U.S. policy, the motivation for the resolution may be to “poison those talks by signaling to Iran that the President is weak, domestically isolated, and unable to deliver at the negotiating table because a hawkish Congress will overrule him.”

Link

La marihuana sale del armario

Mario Vargas Llosa
La República Perú/Infolatam

Poco a poco, la batalla por la legalización de las drogas va abriéndose camino y haciendo retroceder a quienes, contra la evidencia misma de los hechos, creen que la represión de la producción y el consumo es la mejor manera de combatir el uso de estupefacientes y las cataclísmicas consecuencias que tiene el narcotráfico en la vida de las naciones.

Hay que aplaudir la valerosa decisión del gobierno de Uruguay y de su presidente, José Mujica, de proponer al Parlamento una ley legalizando el cultivo y la venta de cannabis. De ser aprobada –lo que parece seguro pues el Frente Amplio tiene mayoría en ambas cámaras y, además, hay diputados y senadores de los partidos de oposición, Blanco y Colorado, que aprueban la medida–, ésta infligirá un duro revés a las mafias que, de un tiempo a esta parte, utilizan a ese país no sólo como  mercado de la droga sino como una plataforma para exportarla a Europa y Asia. Esta ley forma parte de una serie de disposiciones encaminadas a combatir la “inseguridad ciudadana”, agravada de un tiempo a esta parte en Uruguay, al igual que en toda América Latina, por la criminalidad asociada al narcotráfico.

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The next reserve currency

Alexander Görlach
European Magazine

The euro is far from dead. Following successful integration, it will be nothing less than the next reserve currency of the world.

• 

In the end, the euro will not only survive but also be strong. It isn’t really the common currency that is currently in crisis, but instead the prevalent ways of managing funds, budgets, and running up debt. In a certain way, our democratic system is also in crisis, since it used to consist of promises made at election time, which would then be achieved through public debts. 

All discussions about the differences between Northern and Southern states really hinge on this fact rather than the meaning of the euro itself. Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s Minister of Finance, underlined this by stressing that anybody who can receive money without conditions would also spend it. It is, so to speak, a conditio humana of anyone, regardless of whether they live in Germany, Italy, or Greece. Consequently, it also doesn’t matter in which currency the money made that way is ultimately spent.

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Manuel Castells: “Las personas están cambiando de forma de pensar. Ellas son la gran esperanza”

Manuel Castells al momento de recibir el Premio Holdberg International Memorial 2012

Cadena SER/Sociología Contemporánea

Entrevista al sociólogo español Manuel Castells (Descarga directa del audio)

En una entrevista para el programa radiodifusor A
Ha
vivir que son dos días el sociólogo español Manuel Castells charló en su acostumbrado tono claro y conciso sobre la crisis económica financiera, el miedo, el modelo islandés, y la transformación de las mentes como la única esperanza de cambio en la sociedad.

— Isaías Lafuente: ¿Dígame qué es lo que no entiende de lo que nos está pasando en estos momentos?

—Manuel Castells: Como la gente aguanta esta clase política, es decir, el espectáculo esperpéntico que está dando la clase política española y en general europea. Viviendo en su mundo, cortado de los problemas de la gente. Preocupados por salvar unos bancos para que los salven a ellos, en circuito cerrado, mientras todo se va hundiendo, con una tasa de paro entre los jóvenes de 50% [...].

Link

Bielorrusia ayudará a Venezuela en la construcción de una base espacial

Ria Novosti

Bielorrusia ayudará a Venezuela en la construcción de un centro para el lanzamiento de satélites espaciales, declaró hoy Américo Díaz Núñez, embajador de la República Bolivariana en Minsk.

“Bielorrusia participará en la construcción de una base espacial en el estado de Aragua”, en el norte de Venezuela, dijo Díaz Núñez en una rueda de prensa celebrada en la capital bielorrusa.

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Robert Keohane: Hegemony and After.

Foreign Affairs.

Playing a dominant role in world politics does not make for an easy life. Even very powerful states encounter problems they cannot solve and situations they would prefer to avoid. But as Macbeth remarks after seeing the witches, "Present fears are less than horrible imaginings." What really scares American foreign policy commentators is not any immediate frustration or danger but the prospect of longer-term decline.

Recently, the United States has been going through yet another bout of declinism -- the fifth wave in the last six decades, by the scholar Josef Joffe's count. This one has been caused by the juxtaposition of China's rising power and American economic, political, and military malaise. Just as in the past, however, the surge of pessimism has produced a countersurge of defensive optimism, with arguments put forward about the continued value and feasibility of U.S. global leadership. 

Two examples of such antideclinist forays are Robert Kagan's The World America Made and Robert Lieber's Power and Willpower in the American Future. Both make some cogent points in their analyses of the past, present, and future of the existing U.S.-sponsored global order. But their authors' refusal to accord due weight to multilateral institutions and material power in their assessments of that order, and their overconfidence in making assertions about the future, reduce the books' value as appraisals of contemporary world politics.

Link.

El FMI pide a Alemania que fomente la demanda interna para beneficiar a la eurozona

Cinco Dias
España

En el análisis realizado por el Consejo Ejecutivo del FMI del Artículo IV de la economía alemana, los directores ejecutivos de la institución subrayan el papel "crucial" que desempeña Alemania en la reducción de los desequilibrios a nivel global y en la eurozona.

Por esto motivo, reclaman a las autoridades del país que continúen trabajando con sus socios europeos para diseñar de forma "clara y concreta" los nuevos esfuerzos que son necesarios para mejorar la respuesta europea a la actual crisis.

Asimismo, felicitan al país por su "sólida gestión macroeconómica", que se ha traducido en un "favorable" comportamiento de su economía a pesar del incierto entorno exterior. Sin embargo, advierten de que las perspectivas en el corto plazo están nubladas por varios riesgos a la baja, como una fuerte intensificación de la crisis de la eurozona y unas perspectivas mundiales de crecimiento potencialmente menores.

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China’s naval rise

Robert D. Kaplan
The Manila Times/Stratfor

The gradual rise of the Chinese navy and associated air power may qualify as the most important international trend that the major American media have ignored in recent years. To be sure, there have been the occasional stories about it, but not to the extent that China’s naval ascent has become embedded in the consciousness of what is often referred to as the knowledge elite. The story has been relatively ignored for a number of reasons.

The media love people stories; they love to humanize everything about a foreign country. Therefore, you have the obsession with individual Chinese dissidents to the exclusion of other critical developments in China. The media love military forces on land, for when land forces are in operation, the media can bear witness to how civilian populations are being treated by soldiers and marines. Navies and air forces make war more abstract and technological, something with which the media are less comfortable. A decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan has made the media expert in messy ground campaigns, so that there are relatively few journalists who write about air-sea issues. Finally, the media deal with drama—sudden developments, not with gradual transitions such as China’s acquisition of a formidable navy and civilian maritime force. We become preoccupied with the minutiae of every twist and turn in Egypt, Syria and Libya, even as we become blind to a larger and equally profound development elsewhere.

Link

De China a América

Alicia Bárcena*
El Comercio
Ecuador

*Secretaria ejecutiva de la Comisión Económica de Naciones Unidas para América Latina. CEPAL


Link

El pasado 26 de junio, en la conclusión de una gira que lo llevó a Brasil, Argentina, Uruguay y Chile, el primer ministro chino, Wen Jiabao, eligió a la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (Cepal) para pronunciar un mensaje con cinco propuestas concretas con las que China pretende perfilar su presencia futura en América Latina y el Caribe. Un hito trascendental, que sin duda tendrá un efecto transformador en el tejido de nuestra región.

Este contenido ha sido publicado originalmente por Diario EL COMERCIO en la siguiente dirección: http://www.elcomercio.com/alicia_barcena/China-America_0_729527237.html. Si está pensando en hacer uso del mismo, por favor, cite la fuente y haga un enlace hacia la nota original de donde usted ha tomado este contenido. ElComercio.com

El pasado 26 de junio, en la conclusión de una gira que lo llevó a Brasil, Argentina, Uruguay y Chile, el primer ministro chino, Wen Jiabao, eligió a la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (Cepal) para pronunciar un mensaje con cinco propuestas concretas con las que China pretende perfilar su presencia futura en América Latina y el Caribe. Un hito trascendental, que sin duda tendrá un efecto transformador en el tejido de nuestra región.

Este contenido ha sido publicado originalmente por Diario EL COMERCIO en la siguiente dirección: http://www.elcomercio.com/alicia_barcena/China-America_0_729527237.html. Si está pensando en hacer uso del mismo, por favor, cite la fuente y haga un enlace hacia la nota original de donde usted ha tomado este contenido. ElComercio.com

El pasado 26 de junio, en la conclusión de una gira que lo llevó a Brasil, Argentina, Uruguay y Chile, el primer ministro chino, Wen Jiabao, eligió a la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (Cepal) para pronunciar un mensaje con cinco propuestas concretas con las que China pretende perfilar su presencia futura en América Latina y el Caribe. Un hito trascendental, que sin duda tendrá un efecto transformador en el tejido de nuestra región.

Este contenido ha sido publicado originalmente por Diario EL COMERCIO en la siguiente dirección: http://www.elcomercio.com/alicia_barcena/China-America_0_729527237.html. Si está pensando en hacer uso del mismo, por favor, cite la fuente y haga un enlace hacia la nota original de donde usted ha tomado este contenido. ElComercio.com

El pasado 26 de junio, en la conclusión de una gira que lo llevó a Brasil, Argentina, Uruguay y Chile, el primer ministro chino, Wen Jiabao, eligió a la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (Cepal) para pronunciar un mensaje con cinco propuestas concretas con las que China pretende perfilar su presencia futura en América Latina y el Caribe. Un hito trascendental, que sin duda tendrá un efecto transformador en el tejido de nuestra región.

Este contenido ha sido publicado originalmente por Diario EL COMERCIO en la siguiente dirección: http://www.elcomercio.com/alicia_barcena/China-America_0_729527237.html. Si está pensando en hacer uso del mismo, por favor, cite la fuente y haga un enlace hacia la nota original de donde usted ha tomado este contenido. ElComercio.com

El pasado 26 de junio, en la conclusión de una gira que lo llevó a Brasil, Argentina, Uruguay y Chile, el primer ministro chino, Wen Jiabao, eligió a la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (Cepal) para pronunciar un mensaje con cinco propuestas concretas con las que China pretende perfilar su presencia futura en América Latina y el Caribe. Un hito trascendental, que sin duda tendrá un efecto transformador en el tejido de nuestra región.

Este contenido ha sido publicado originalmente por Diario EL COMERCIO en la siguiente dirección: http://www.elcomercio.com/alicia_barcena/China-America_0_729527237.html. Si está pensando en hacer uso del mismo, por favor, cite la fuente y haga un enlace hacia la nota original de donde usted ha tomado este contenido.

El pasado 26 de junio, en la conclusión de una gira que lo llevó a Brasil, Argentina, Uruguay y Chile, el primer ministro chino, Wen Jiabao, eligió a la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (Cepal) para pronunciar un mensaje con cinco propuestas concretas con las que China pretende perfilar su presencia futura en América Latina y el Caribe. Un hito trascendental, que sin duda tendrá un efecto transformador en el tejido de nuestra región. Primero, el premier Wen propuso la profundización de la cooperación estratégica entre China y América Latina y el Caribe sobre la base de la confianza política mutua creando el Foro de Cooperación China-América Latina y el Caribe, que supone un mecanismo de diálogo periódico entre China y la ‘troika’ de la Celac. Reconoció que Celac simboliza mayor cohesión y densidad regional que nunca antes. La escala importa y este nuevo espacio plurinacional es fundamental.

Este contenido ha sido publicado originalmente por Diario EL COMERCIO en la siguiente dirección: http://www.elcomercio.com/alicia_barcena/China-America_0_729527237.html. Si está pensando en hacer uso del mismo, por favor, cite la fuente y haga un enlace hacia la nota original de donde usted ha tomado este contenido. ElComercio.com

El pasado 26 de junio, en la conclusión de una gira que lo llevó a Brasil, Argentina, Uruguay y Chile, el primer ministro chino, Wen Jiabao, eligió a la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (Cepal) para pronunciar un mensaje con cinco propuestas concretas con las que China pretende perfilar su presencia futura en América Latina y el Caribe. Un hito trascendental, que sin duda tendrá un efecto transformador en el tejido de nuestra región. Primero, el premier Wen propuso la profundización de la cooperación estratégica entre China y América Latina y el Caribe sobre la base de la confianza política mutua creando el Foro de Cooperación China-América Latina y el Caribe, que supone un mecanismo de diálogo periódico entre China y la ‘troika’ de la Celac. Reconoció que Celac simboliza mayor cohesión y densidad regional que nunca antes. La escala importa y este nuevo espacio plurinacional es fundamental.

Este contenido ha sido publicado originalmente por Diario EL COMERCIO en la siguiente dirección: http://www.elcomercio.com/alicia_barcena/China-America_0_729527237.html. Si está pensando en hacer uso del mismo, por favor, cite la fuente y haga un enlace hacia la nota original de donde usted ha tomado este contenido. ElComercio.com

¿Balcanización del insulso G-20 en Los Cabos?

Alfredo Jalife-Rahme*
Voltaire

* Profesor de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales en la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Publica crónicas sobre política internacional en el diario La Jornada y el semanario Contralínea. Último libro publicado: El Híbrido Mundo Multipolar: un Enfoque Multidimensional, (Orfila, 2010).

Los cronogramas electorales de dos superpotencias geoestratégicas (EU y China) y la grave crisis de la eurozona infectaron la agenda del G-20 en Los Cabos.

Con una elección incierta, Obama estaba paralizado y no pudo tomar decisiones contundentes en el G-20, que padece acefalia y cuando el mismo anfitrión carece de liderazgo mundial, ya no se diga regional y local.

Para Hu Jintao, el saliente presidente chino, la cumbre fue un trámite y le corresponderá a su sucesor ungido (Xi Jinping) adoptar decisiones pertinentes en la próxima cumbre del G-20, el año entrante en Moscú, que marcarán su rumbo. China no salvará de su grave crisis financiera a Estados Unidos ni a la Unión Europea a los dos lados del Atlántico norte. De las tres superpotencias geoestratégicas, el único que llegó a Los Cabos con las manos sueltas fue el presidente ruso, Vlady Putin.

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Fiscal contractions to reduce deficits can only slow down the recovery

LSE

Richard Layard discusses his ‘Manifesto for Economic Sense’, co-authored with with Paul Krugman, which argues that fiscal deficits are due to stagnation, and that further austerity to reduce deficits will only slow down the recovery.

Thousands of economists disagree with the austerity policies being followed in so many countries. Yet few speak out and I am one of the guilty ones. That is why Paul Krugman and I have now written a ‘Manifesto for Economic Sense’ which is reprinted below. We hope this will be signed by thousands of economists. More importantly, we hope that they will use the arguments in the Manifesto to engage in vigorous debate worldwide about how to emerge from the current stagnation.

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Cómo facilitar el comercio

Robert B. Zoellick, Ahmad M. Al-Madani, Donald Kaberuka, Haruhiko Kuroda, Thomas Mirow, Luis A. Moreno

Project-Syndicate

WASHINGTON, DC - El mundo ha entrado en el cuarto año de la Gran Recesión. Hasta ahora, las economías que pertenecen a la Organización Mundial del Comercio se han resistido a la clase de proteccionismo generalizado que haría mucho peor una situación de por sí difícil. Sin embargo, se están elevando las presiones proteccionistas en la forma de crecientes llamados al nacionalismo económico.

Illustration by Paul Lachine

La mejor defensa del libre comercio por parte de la OMC es un buen ataque. Un nuevo Acuerdo de Facilitación del Comercio iría en beneficio de todos mediante el aumento de la capacidad de comercio de los países en desarrollo, el fortalecimiento del mandato de desarrollo de la OMC y el impulso al crecimiento económico mundial. Más de una década después del lanzamiento de la Ronda de Doha de conversaciones globales sobre libre comercio, este acuerdo podría ser un "pago inicial" a cuenta del compromiso que sus miembros han hecho de vincular comercio y desarrollo.

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Expresan UE y AL felicitaciones a Peña Nieto por virtual victoria

La Jornada.

Londres. La jefa de la diplomacia de la Unión Europea (UE), Catherine Ashton, felicitó al candidato del Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), Enrique Peña Nieto, por su ventaja en las elecciones de la víspera en México.

“La Alta Representante envía una calurosa felicitación a Enrique Peña Nieto por su elección como presidente de los Estados Unidos de México”, expresó su gabinete en un comunicado.

Ashton dijo confiar que bajo el liderazgo de Peña Nieto las “excelentes relaciones” construidas entre la UE y México a lo largo de los años “no solamente se mantendrán, sino que se reforzarán aún más”.

“México tiene un papel importante a jugar en los negocios mundiales y en el contexto regional de América Latina. La UE continuará apoyando a México para que pueda aprovechar las oportunidades y enfrentar los desafíos por delante”, aseguró.

La diplomática europea felicitó, igualmente, al pueblo mexicano por su “amplia y pacífica participación” en los comicios del 1 de julio y señaló la “fuerte asociación” entre la mancomnunidad y México, “con base en nuestros valores e intereses compartidos en tanto que socios estratégicos en el escenario global”.

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George Soros: The Accidental Empire.

Al Jazeera.

New York, NY - It is now clear that the main cause of the euro crisis is the member states' surrender of their right to print money to the European Central Bank. They did not understand just what that surrender entailed - and neither did the European authorities.

When the euro was introduced, regulators allowed banks to buy unlimited amounts of government bonds without setting aside any equity capital, and the ECB discounted all eurozone government bonds on equal terms. Commercial banks found it advantageous to accumulate weaker countries' bonds to earn a few extra basis points, which caused interest rates to converge across the eurozone. Germany, struggling with the burdens of reunification, undertook structural reforms and became more competitive. Other countries enjoyed housing and consumption booms on the back of cheap credit, making them less competitive.

 Then came the crash of 2008. Governments had to bail out their banks. Some of them found themselves in the position of a developing country that had become heavily indebted in a currency that it did not control. Reflecting the divergence in economic performance, Europe became divided into creditor and debtor countries.

When financial markets discovered that supposedly riskless government bonds might be forced into default, they raised risk premiums dramatically. This rendered potentially insolvent commercial banks, whose balance sheets were loaded with such bonds, giving rise to Europe's twin sovereign-debt and banking crisis.

The eurozone is now replicating how the global financial system dealt with such crises in 1982 and again in 1997. In both cases, the international authorities inflicted hardship on the periphery in order to protect the centre; now Germany is, perhaps unknowingly, playing the same role.

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Why Romney Is a Foreign Policy Lightweight

Slate.

Conventional wisdom holds that U.S. presidential elections do not hinge on foreign policy. On this point, conventional wisdom is almost certainly correct. But it shouldn’t be, for two reasons. First, foreign policy is the one realm in which presidents can do pretty much what they want. (Congress may rant at some action but rarely halts it.) Second, in this election in particular, Mitt Romney’s statements on foreign policy range from vague to ill-informed to downright dangerous.

Does Romney believe the things that he’s said about arms control, Russia, the Middle East, the defense budget, and the rest? Who can say? He has no experience on any of these issues. But his advisers do; they represent, mainly, the Dick Cheney wing of the Republican Party (some, notably John Bolton, veer well to the right of even that). While not all presidents wind up following their advisers, Romney has placed his byline atop some of his coterie’s most egregious arguments—not least, several op-ed pieces against President Obama’s New START with Russia, pieces that rank as the most ignorant I’ve read in nearly 40 years of following the nuclear debate.

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Exmilitares, de la patria a los Emiratos Árabes

Semana.

Desde hace un año, decenas de los mejores soldados del país están abandonando las filas del Ejército colombiano. La mayoría de ellos son curtidos militares con amplia experiencia que han combatido en unidades de élite como las fuerzas especiales, entre otras. La razón por la cual muchos de ellos han decidido colgar sus uniformes después de diez o 15 años de servicio es tan exótica como polémica. Renunciaron al Ejército de su país para viajar y enlistarse para formar parte como militares del Ejército en los Emiratos Árabes. 

El asunto no ha estado alejado de controversia y en algunos sectores del Ejército esa desbandada ha causado malestar. "Han reclutado soldados con mucha experiencia en combate, hombres valiosos con años de servicio y a los que el Ejército también les ha invertido mucho en entrenamiento. Sin duda, es una pérdida para el Ejército. Pero no hay mucho que se pueda hacer porque no es nada ilegal", explicó a SEMANA un general. Lo que afirma el alto oficial resume la posición oficial de la Fuerzas Militares, que ven impotentes ese reclutamiento. "El lío es que no podemos hacer nada para retenerlos e impedir que pidan la baja porque es un asunto de oferta y demanda. Para irse a Emiratos Árabes les pagan salarios que son cinco y hasta diez veces más de los que se ganan acá", dice el general.

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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.

Link.

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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