🤑 Whether the Chinese want to eat them, use them as lab rats or put them into zoos, the sheer scale of this order shows that China is now a major player in the monkey business.

💬 Declan Hayes writes

#Brazil #China #Crisis #DeDollarization #Economy #SriLanka

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🎱 The economic forces – those post war strong tailwinds – that have shaped the last 35 years, and which accelerated gilded journeys through the western ‘plentiful era’, are no longer blowing in a favourable direction. They were already slowing, but now are reversing.

The winds now have shifted 180° in direction – they are gusting headwinds. This is a structural shift within a long cycle. There are no quick ‘silver bullet’ solutions. The ‘Cabaret’ good-time years are gone. We will have to ‘make do’ with less; and consequent political volatility is inevitable.

China had earlier industrialized, giving us inflation-killing, cheap manufactures; Russia gave us the cheap energy that kept western economies (just) competitive, and (almost) inflation free. A ‘Frictionless Ease’ at that point characterised the movements of goods, capital, people – everything. Today however, it is Friction and Impediment that is prevalent.

The ‘turn’ began with the US determination to not allow an Asian ‘heartland’ to supplant it. But the shift has acquired its own powerful momentum, now generating severed trading blocs that are determined to shake free from ‘old hegemonies’.

There is no assurance at all that the tech prospect will materialise. It may, but it may not. And that is a huge gamble 🎲

💬 Alastair Crooke writes

#crisis #economy #NewWorldOrder

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🏙 Russia’s economy is performing strongly, according to recent forecasts from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. The outcome defies earlier predictions by the United States and its European allies which held that Western sanctions would bring the Russian economy to its knees and force it to submissively “Cry Uncle”.
 
When the conflict in Ukraine escalated 16 months ago (after eight years of NATO-sponsored aggression using the Kiev Neo-Nazi regime), various Western politicians and pundits were relishing the prospect of the Russian economy collapsing from “Total War” launched against its international banking and trade.
 
Well, it didn’t turn out like that. Far from it. As the World Bank noted above, the Western sanctions have simply helped Russia boost alternative markets in China, India, and elsewhere around the globe. A principal earner for Russia is energy exports of oil and gas. Increased sales to Asia have maintained revenues despite the loss of European markets due to Western sanctions.
 
The paradoxical thing is that U.S. and European sanctions against Russia while intended to cripple the Russian economy have actually made the latter stronger 💪

💬 Read more in this week’s Editorial

#sanctions #war #economy

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🏚 Hundreds of Syrian men, women and children have drowned last week in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Greece after the sinking of an Egyptian trawler headed for Italy. It is being called one of the deadliest migrant ship disasters in the Mediterranean Sea. As many as 750 persons were packed into the boat, with women and children under the deck, which may be why the 104 survivors were all young men. 78 bodies were recovered 75 kilometers offshore Kalamata, Greece.

Nine Egyptian human traffickers have been arrested in Greece and blamed as part of a smuggling network which advertised on Facebook. The ads promised a better life in Europe and charged between $5,000 to $6,000 per person. But, Greece is also being blamed for their part as they were monitoring the ship but never took steps to stop the ship and off-load passengers. The Greeks say they were communicating with the ship, and the ship requested to be allowed to continue sailing toward Italy. After the engine stopped, the passengers panicked, and their sudden movements caused the ship to roll over and sink.

The U.S. and EU sanctions on Syria are to blame ❌ There is no war in Syria. The battlefields are long silent across Syria, but there is no recovery or rebuilding allowed in Syria, because the U.S. and EU sanctions prevent any rebuilding or foreign investments in rebuilding projects.

But the days of U.S. dictating to the Arab world, and U.S.-engineered wars for regime change in the Middle East are over 🇸🇾

💬 Steven Sahiounie writes

#crisis #economy #Idlib #MiddleEast #sanctions #Syria

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🌐 The U.S. persists, against the evidence, in the conviction that Russia’s inherent fragility is explained by its move away from the ‘Anglo’ economic doctrines. It reflects western wishful thinking.

Most Russians, on the other hand, attribute Russia’s resilience in the face of a combined western financial onslaught as explicable, because Putin had largely moved Russia into self-reliance, outside of the U.S. dominated western economic sphere.

Thus, the paradox is explained: In the face of the Prigozhin ‘insurgency’, Russians expressed their confidence and support for the Russian State 🤍💙❤️

Whereas in the French insurgency, the people expressed discontent and anger at the ‘trap’ in which they find themselves. The political run on the Macron ‘bank’ is underway.

💬 Alastair Crooke writes

#Crisis #economy #Macron #France #Migration

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🇹🇷🇷🇺 At the Vilnius summit Erdogan’s activities and talks essentially reflected security and economic affairs. Not only he envisaged a purchase of U.S. F16 lots but also spoke about being accepted after fifty long years to be a member of the European Union in exchange for his approval of Sweden as a member in NATO. All this, even though some Swedes were demonstratively burning copies of the Holy Quran.

The NATO and EU officials made strenuous efforts to explain to Mr. Erdogan that to qualify for NATO and to qualify for EU are two quite different things and it is not a matter of applying any exchange mechanism: you allow me to join EU and I will allow Sweden to join NATO. Strictly speaking, the NATO spokesperson declared:

NATO and EU enlargement were ‘separate processes.’ The accession process for each candidate country is based on the merits of each country. The two processes cannot be linked.

This must have been the case of what some experts on Turkey call “transactional relationship” or “eastern bazaar mentality” 🌀

💬 Read more by Richard Hubert Barton

#Diplomacy #Economy #NATO #Security #Turkey

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🐉 Como a emergência de um país que rejeita dogmas neoliberais, e está construindo o Comum, pode sacudir um Ocidente às voltas com desigualdade, estancamento econômico, devastação ambiental e fascismo.

Crônica de uma viagem 🎑

💬 Por Antonio Martins

#SC_Portuguese #China #economy

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🔫 Many people have probably heard about the viral epidemic that is sweeping America, bringing mask-wearing back into fashion once again. No, it’s not Covid-19, at least not yet, but rather organized retail theft that is wreaking havoc on the nation’s heartland.

Back in the Soviet days, before mega malls and hyper-stores became prominent features across Russia’s 11 time zones, communist shoppers were forced to choose merchandise that was locked away behind display cases. A clerk would write down the price of each desired item and the shopper would take the piece of paper to the cashier, pay for the merchandise and then return to the salesperson with proof of purchase. Only then would the beetroot, bread and vodka be handed over. Times they are a changin’. Incredibly, and not a little ironically, the United States seems to be heading for such a grim, dystopian shopping experience 😱

The Wall Street Journal confirmed shoppers’ worst fears when they reported in a recent article, “stores have fewer workers than they used to, and are resorting to keeping more of their products locked up.” In modern America, the need to lock up merchandise is due to flash mob heists that are costing retailers millions of dollars each year, while threatening the very existence of the big-box and small-box merchandisers. The National Retail Federation (NRF) estimates that these incidents cost companies about $700,000 for every $1 billion in sales.

The future of shopping will no longer occur inside of shopping malls, boutiques, and business districts.

💬 Robert Bridge writes @russiawaytogo

#criminal #crisis #economy #society #UnitedStates

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