newnations.com
Monthly reports on finance, business, trade,
economics, & political analysis
NEWNATIONS BULLETIN 05 JANUARY 2009
Monthly reports on finance, business, trade,
economics, & political analysis
NEWNATIONS BULLETIN 05 JANUARY 2009
A WORLD STRATEGY
Writing to you about geopolitics with the World just two weeks 'Before Obama', emphasises that this inauguration is like the 'Second Coming,' so high are the world's expectations of this messianic figure. Inevitably we trace the biggies - and ouch! On the domestic front, the international, the economic, the climate, the task is huge!
Has any president in peacetime ever before entered office with such an array of disasters waiting to happen?
Our country reports this month as befits a new year, summarise where we had got to in December, with some idea of what is to follow, country by country.
The JANUARY OVERVIEW includes:
In the wake of the financial crisis we consider the
Architecture of the Financial System
We give our conclusions from the point of view of taxpayers, now the 'lenders of last resort'.
Architecture of the Financial System
We give our conclusions from the point of view of taxpayers, now the 'lenders of last resort'.
The Media on which we all rely for information, and its state of techno-flux, as print and paper and now TV, inexorably give ground to the web /internet, and the terminal crisis that this is causing them, to the great advantage of a new breed of techno-entrepeneurs
The Climate Crisis is creeping up through our other disasters, and the new president will face difficult choices.
What Future for War? Given that the US spends as much annually on arms as all the other nations of the world combined, is the US Military Industrial complex really going to continue to receive $700 billion annually, or thereabouts? We look at the nature of modern war and wonder at the Mach 3 fighters and naval Carrier groups, up against street fighters with automatic rifles and grenade launchers.
We suggest solutions for international problems based upon co-operation of an order not yet experienced in peace time. We suggest that the IRAN problem can be solved that way and many others as well. It is time, we say, to revisit the concept of the United Nations as well as to revise Bretton Woods, to rewrite and renew the franchises of the World Bank and IMF.
Entering 2009 we have two firm conclusions:
Diplomatic attention paid to rapprochement with RUSSIA, is the key to normalising the permanent state of aggravation that characterises present relationships.
The elusive stability in the middle-east depends on permanently resolving the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
RUSSIA as we report, is having a hard time with the collapse of the oil price, which they are struggling to avoid also meaning the collapse of the rouble.
The world has seen GAZA fighting escalate into a ground assault. We trace the origins of this latest outbreak of violence. SYRIA we have held is the key to a negotiated peace for the region, but the upcoming Israel elections will determine whether Israel is ready for peace, or are going to opt for continuing war.
SAUDI ARABIA has come through 2008 with credit, and is now in a position of great influence in several areas of world concern.
TURKEY surprised the world last month when 200 of their intellectuals joined together to bravely apologise to Armenia for the massacres of WWI. 'Bravely' because the Turkish establishment who have great weight, and indeed have laws backing their position, will not accept that there was this ugly period of their history, now nearly a century ago.
Iranians are intrigued with the election of Obama. We point out that IRAN and the USA have not talked for thirty years and the split came then, when both had been behaving badly.
AFGHANISTAN we have identified as the most toxic of all the many offshore problems that Obama inherits, and we explain why.
But PAKISTAN is not far behind! We look at the mass murder in Mumbai as we also do in our report on INDIA. But better news from BANGLADESH, now restored to democracy. This only after a caretaker government and the army went a long way towards cleaning up the Augean stables of Bangladeshi public life.
SOUTH AFRICA has seen a new party 'spring from the loins' of the ANC which has split, due to the degree of corruption and political arrogance displayed in SA politics, with their previously unassailable 75% parliamentary majority.
NORTH KOREA: we update on the continuing drama in North east Asia.
Our new feature "Hall of Shame" continues, with the UK and USA regrettably on display, but better news of our December story in TAIWAN.
Posts
