In northeast Syria last week, a U.S. military vehicle collided with a Russian armored vehicle, injuring four American soldiers.
Both the Americans and Russians blame each other for failing to follow established rules of the road. Had an American been killed, we could have had a crisis on our hands.
The market was supposed to save the planet.
That, at least, was the argument of many economists grappling with the problem of climate change. As fossil fuels became scarcer, they pointed out, the price of oil and natural gas would go up. And then other options, like solar and wind, would become cheaper, particularly as investment flowed into that sector and drove down the cost of new technologies.
And voila: The invisible hand would gradually turn down the global thermostat.
The days of the « Arab Spring » are almost over. As of now, the White House and the Kremlin are redesigning the contours of the « Greater Middle East ». However, their agreement, which was concluded before the Russian military intervention in Syria, could still be modified by the changes in the balance of power. There is no proof that Moscow will accept the stabilisation of Syria or ignore the partition of Turkey and Saudi Arabia which are soon to begin.
After the devaluation of the yuan, the international financial markets started trembling. Washington accused Peking of taking advantage of the market. As China wants to incorporate the yuan into the Special Drawing Rights, it is inconvenient to prolong the devaluation. Furthermore, if a currency war broke out, China would risk increasing the economic and geopolitical tensions between countries in the Asian-Pacific region.
In international press, a lot of ink has been devoted to the BRICS. Without a doubt the participation of the five-party in the world economy block has increased over the course of the last years, competing directly with the United States and the European Union. However, the details about the New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement make it clear that its members resist to abandoning the orbit of the dollar in order to destroy the shell of the Bretton Woods institutions.
The members of the G7 just ended their 41st summit. The leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and US gathered in a great Bavarian palace, the Schloss Elmau. It was a fitting location for the masters of the universe.
They claim that the maintenance of world order is their passtime. In fact, what they are most interested in is the preservation of their power at any cost.
The instability in Yemen is being caused not by Iran or the Houthis, but by US and Saudi interference in Yemen — from Saudi Arabia’s 2009 invasion to US drone attacks — and the decades of support that Saudi Arabia has provided for authoritarian and unpopular rule in Yemen.
The United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia became very uneasy when the Yemenese or Yemenite movement of the Houthi or Ansarallah (meaning the supporters of God in Arabic) gained control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa/Sana, in September 2014. The US-supported Yemenite President Abd-Rabbuh Manṣour Al-Hadi was humiliatingly forced to share power with the Houthis and the coalition of northern Yemenese tribes that had helped them enter Sana.
The China Development Bank (CDB), one of the two banks of Chinese development, and Brazil's Petrobras today announced an agreement to open a credit line of 3,5 billion dollars for the oil company.
In a brief statement, without specifying the details of the agreement, Petrobras reported that "the parties confirmed the intention to develop a new partnership in the future."
MOSCOW -- Russia, holder of the world's fifth largest stash of foreign currencies, is increasing its gold purchases. One reason for this is the country's increasing wariness of the dollar and euro now that Russia has come under U.S. and European sanctions over the Ukraine crisis. Another reason is that these currencies are becoming increasingly risky to hold due to the swelling debts of the governments that back them.
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