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19
November
2009

Making (Non)Sense of Obama’s Half-Brother’s “Surprise” Surfacing in China

Make no mistake about it, Obama’s visit not only marks America’s belated acknowledgement of China as a world power, perhaps the world power unless India catches up (a debatable point), but also that the two countries are showing early, hopeful signs that they realize that their interests are and must continue to be aligned enough to cooperate. The topics they discussed– climate change, the global economy, Asian and Middle Eastern security risks– are no doubt very important to them and world, but perhaps not as important as the very meeting itself. Now Obama’s half-brother (he does have a name, it’s Mark Ndesandjo) is another story…

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12
November
2009

Jews Killing Non-Jews is Kosher, Asserts Prominent Israeli Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira

This is one among many realities that we wish would be too bad to be true. Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the prominent right-wing spiritual leader in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has openly condoned Jews killing any non-Jews, including children and babies, who pose a threat to Israel. In his new book, the warmongering Rabbi asserts: “If a gentile endangers the existence of Israel, it is allowed to kill him. Also if he is completely not to blame for the situation that has been created.” He might have well said that a genocide of non-Jews (no doubt referring primarily to Arabs) along Holocaust lines is kosher too…

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10
November
2009

Three Places Where World War Three May Start, And Soon

Where is a Third World War most likely to be sparked? For at least a decade before World War One began, those most concerned knew that the ongoing arms race was leading to disaster, as did those who sat on the sidelines and watched Germany and Japan build up to World War Two. World policy wonks have taken a long sigh of relief after the Cold War ended some twenty years ago yesterday, but in so doing have been all too lax at identifying– and diffusing– actual “hotspots” that are likely to trigger a global conflict on the scale of the World Wars, or bigger if you consider the nuclear capabilities of the countries involved. Here are three possibilities…

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27
October
2009

Asian States Initiate EU-Like Bloc for Peace, Prosperity (and to ‘Lead World’)

Asian states have united to officially oppose the Euro-American formula for global dominance emphasizing “peace and security” with one based on “peace and prosperity” instead, and which has a much better track record historically.  The two focal points of their meeting in Hua Hin, Thailand, was on reducing China-India tensions over a dispute about commercial projects in Kashmir and capitalizing on Asia’s relative and growing economic strength worldwide compared to others, like the U.S. and U.K., who continue to struggle with the financial crisis and downturn. This meeting marks a watershed moment in world power politics and world history that should not be underestimated…

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21
October
2009

NATO is ‘A Corpse Decomposing’ Says General, Should it be Revived?

Halloween seems to be coming early to the largest and most powerful military alliance in existence anywhere today, if not ever. The former head of Canada’s armed forces, a longtime member of NATO command whose soldiers are still at the front line in Afghanistan, characterizes the organization as “a corpse decomposing and somebody’s going to have to perform a Frankenstein-like life-giving act by breathing some lifesaving air through those rotten lips into those putrescent lungs or the alliance will be done.” This is also a clear indication of more fundamental and yet unaddressed issues about NATO… 

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20
October
2009

The Return of U.S. Big Stick and Dollar Diplomacy with Olive Branch to Sudan

The “comprehensive strategy to confront the serious and urgent situation in Sudan” President Obama outlined yesterday was far from anything new in American diplomatic affairs, which is not to say ineffective. Actually, the shift in policy marks a sharp return to diplomatic tactics the U.S. perfected during its expansionist phase in the 19th and early 20th centuries: ‘big stick’ and ‘dollar’ diplomacy.  Here is how the two policies worked then and are intended to now…

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15
October
2009

China-India Tensions Rise over Pakistan and Kashmir Commercial Projects

Tensions between the two most populous countries totaling about one third of world inhabitants were ratcheted up a notch this week, with no resolution in sight. Indian Prime Minister Singh strongly objected to China’s new and ongoing commercial projects in Pakistan and the disputed territories it controls in Kashmir. Within a wider context from China’s point of view, this is only one more step towards total domination of Central Asian natural resources and industry, highlighted by China’s monopolies on most such resources in Afghanistan, to NATO’s and the U.S.’s great dismay… 

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12
October
2009

Che Who? Obama’s Global Cult of Personality Begins

President Obama has now reached a pinnacle of global popularity cults matched only by Che Guevara. Cults of personality are a constant throughout human history, but in recent times they have been primarily based on nationality, race and/or ideology, a powerful propaganda machine and a perception of merit (think Nelson Mandela, Adolf Hitler, George Washington and Mao Zedong). Obama has now earned himself a place among them and others, and has bettered them in certain respects…

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24
September
2009

Brazil Reasserts its Regional Leadership Role by Moderating Honduran Crisis

“If Brasil can somehow find the key to peaceful, prompt resolution, they will win major plaudits, and many will begin to see Brazil as the new arbiter of hemispheric issues.”…

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15
September
2009

Will Japan Remain a U.S. Colony?

U.S. Admiral Timothy Keating, who heads the Hawaii-based U.S. Pacific Command covering East Asia, is in his own words “very confident, almost certain, that there will be — maybe some discussions about certain aspects of US-Japan military alliance — but writ large no significant change.”

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