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NEWNATIONS BULLETIN 1ST OCTOBER 2009
Monthly reports on finance, business, trade,
economics, & political analysis
NEWNATIONS BULLETIN 1ST OCTOBER 2009
THE CHANGING FACE OF HISTORY
We reflect on the impact the events of September 11th of eight years ago have had on our world, which as we have witnessed can never be the same –and it’s not all bad!
The nuclear weapons issue, about which we fulminated in this Bulletin only four weeks ago, to our delight was given the highest possible profile by none other than Barack Obama. He is fast becoming the essential international statesman.
His predecessor George W Bush declared a ‘War on Terror’ which surely reflected the mood at the time. We consider how this eight year old ‘war’ is going.
Our country reports for October include SYRIA, wherein we look at the apparent hopelessness of the cause for middle-east peace, so long as Netanyahu is PM of Israel. His characteristic shut-down of the Syrian negotiations under the tutelage of TURKEY that his predecessor in office had taken forward, reflects that he is a naysayer of gigantic proportions and the biggest obstacle that Obama has, relating to the cause of peace and justice in Israel/Palestine.
We do the numbers for Karzai’s fixed election in AFGHANISTAN.
TURKEY is unique in that its Islamic party represents progress and the attempt to bring the country squarely into the 21st century, by joining the EU. Nevertheless there is an opposition to them by semi-fascist former senior military men and judges, with others who have quite different ideas about how the nation should be run, but no public mandate, indeed remaining in the shadows..
UKRAINE of the ‘orange revolution’ somehow lost its way and currently is locked into bitter infighting which we describe, with the knock-down, drag-out presidential elections coming up in January.
RUSSIA naturally has a position on this and their neighbour's apprehension about their designs were not allayed when the two small satellite republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, once a part of GEORGIA's inheritance from the break-up of the Soviet Union (but neither of them ethnically Georgian), signed up formally for the new Russian empire, (which de facto they always were).
LIBYA has more than its fair share of prominence, but never more than when Col. Qadafi spoke at the UN’s General Assembly. He is now enjoying the role of elected President of the African Union and self-appointed spokesman, it seems, of the world's poor.
The IRAQ story grinds on and politicking is engaging its leaders in advance of the January elections. There has been a falling out with neighbouring SYRIA.
IRAN is another nation seldom out of the international news. The day of reckoning is fast approaching following the announcement jointly by the leaders of the US, France and the UK that that they had intelligence about a hitherto secret uranium enrichment plant, never declared to the IAEA. IRAN's rejoinder was a rocket–fest designed to show presumably that they had some. The point is though, that the question of IRAN's nuclear intentions, peaceable as they insist, or weaponised as is internationally suspected, is now close to the top of the international agenda.
We take a quick look at Central Asia’s authoritarianism, corruption and absence of human rights and it's not a pretty picture. Wouldn't you know that there's a lot of oil and gas however.
The BALKANS are gently, gently, slowly, slowly becoming tamed, except that is the artificial construct of BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA where the wounds will not heal. We believe it is in a state of near collapse with a real risk of renewed violence. Meanwhile CROATIA and SLOVENIA are about to resolve their long standing frontier disputes, which will immensely advance CROATIA's prospects of joining SLOVENIA in full EU membership.
SOUTH AFRICA unsurprisingly, is not doing well in the face of the recession. A new president just returned from the world stage of the G20 and UN, is having to deal with the gargantuan problems of too few jobs and too many people.
We are dismayed about the rapid erosion of democracy in TAIWAN, previously outstanding in achieving reliable justice and matching all democratic criteria. The KuoMinTang, previously the party of the corrupt mainland nationalists, has re-engineered the democratic way, since being re-elected after an absence of some years. The scandalous pre-trial imprisonment of the previous president, Chen Shui-ban and then a mockery of a trial, has more to do we believe, with the KMT’s intention to frogmarch TAIWAN into reunion with China, with Chen, the most prominent Taiwanese nationalist leader locked-up and incommunicado.
The PHILIPPINES has been a Spanish colony, later an American one, then a Japanese conquest, and finally some species of a democracy, but one where the ancient island aristocracy and their allies hold all the power, with which traditionally they enrich themselves. They are protected by a venal police force, infamous for extra-judicial killings, whilst the poor stay poor or get poorer, and millions have to go abroad to earn any kind of a living. We explain the forthcoming elections and the ray of hope labelled ‘Aquino’ on the horizon.
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