Thursday, August 28, 2014

Russia Announces Latin America is Key Pillar Like USA, EU, BRIC

Russia: Latin America is one of the Pillars of the New World Economy

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Latin America is one of the pillars of the new world Economy, says Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov, stressing that his country cooperates with all Latin American
countries, especially Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, Chile,
Peru and Venezuela.

Rapprochement between Russia and Latin America
A trade mission from Argentina to Russia angers EU
Ecuador does not ask permission to trade with Russia
Ecuador studying wish list of exports to Russia

The Russian Foreign Minister addressed a Youth Forum in Seliguer. The Community of
Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) is setting a trend to create a
multi-polar world. "Latin America is No. One in growth, and is actively being
developed, and has a very good future, and already is one of the pillars of
the New World Economy," he said.

In that sense, Lavrov stressed that the Countries' political and economic organizations,
"are actively developing an integration process".

"There is no country outside of one organization or another, at least one organization
for integration, and we have relationships with each of these partnerships and
with all countries, without exception, in Latin America," said the Russian Foreign minister.

Also Lavrov has proposed both Russia and Latin American countries will be
studied. From now on, there will be more frequent Official visits, and he recalled
that Russia has already formed commissions on inter-Nation trade and
cooperation with many of the Latin American countries.

Referring to the cancellation of 90% of the debt that Cuba had contracted
with the Soviet Union, the chancellor noted that this move will help increase the
growth of the Cuban economy. "Not everything can be measured with money.
We waited a long time to forgive much of the Cuban debt and, ultimately, decided
to help," said the Minister, noting that the current debt represents about
3.5 Billion dollars. It will be invested in the island with the support of
Russian companies.

Russian Foreign Minister recalled the historical tour of Latin America a month
after President Vladimir Putin, during which he toured countries such as Cuba,
Argentina and Brazil, participated in the summit of the BRICS and an additional
forum with 12 leaders of South America. The extensive import-export
program of President Putin outlines areas such as energy, transportation,
defense, space and heavy machinery, areas of great interest to all
Countries addressed.

Meanwhile, Lavrov stressed that the US, European Union and Russia must help
efforts to eliminate global threats. "Our collective on the international stage
will be to eliminate all these threats and challenges.

We also hope to restrain the intentions of the USA, and the West to retain
its dominance in the world, a position to which they have become accustomed
over several hundred years.
The US artificially delays and prevents the arrival of a multi-polar and poli-central
world, reflecting the actual objective conditions of the development world, "he said.

Pentagon Demanded a War on Syria, now a War on Syria's Enemy, ISIS

Let's Treat Assad Fairly - Like Any Other Pro-West Dictator in the Middle East

Wednesday, 27 August 2014 14:39By Robert Naiman, Truthout | Op-Ed

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A portrait of President Bashar al-Assad on a street in Homs, Syria, March 23, 2014. (Photo: Sergey Ponomarev / The New York Times)

Glenn Greenwald thinks it's funny that while a year ago, we were told that it was an absolute emergency to bomb Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and arm insurgents fighting to overthrow him, now we're being told that it's an absolute emergency to bomb Assad's main military opponents. Greenwald concludes that the mainconstant of US foreign policy is that we always have to bomb people; exactly whom we have to bomb right now is much less important.

I don't dispute Greenwald's thesis as far as it goes, but there is another important way to look at the situation, which is that appearing to commit the US government to the project of overthrowing the Syrian government was a poorly-thought through and deeply immoral strategic blunder in the first place, and now we have a strategic opportunity to correct that historic blunder. "Never let a good crisis go to waste," as the saying goes; this crisis is a good opportunity to "shake the etch-a-sketch" on the foolish and dangerous idea that the US government had an obligation to overthrow the Syrian government.

If we take the statements of US government officials and members of Congress about non-democratic US allies in the region at face value, or even if we look at actual US engagement on democracy and human rights with these allies, it's a lie to say that the only choices in Syria are "overthrow the Syrian government" or "forget about human rights and democracy."

I will pass over, as Cicero said, the question of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

Consider instead cases that are more obvious from the point of view of the majority of Americans: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and Bahrain are not democracies by any meaningful definition of the term; they are all committing grave violations of human rights, and yet we are not seeking to overthrow their governments. Turkey is a democracy with severe human rights issues. Iraq and Iran are "majority rule" countries (more than you can say for Bahrain) that have severe human rights issues, which in the case of Iraq, are generally conceded to be a key cause of the fact that the Iraqi government has lost control of Sunni Arab areas to Sunni Arab insurgents.

If we were to ask US officials, "Does the fact that the United States is not seeking to overthrow these governments mean that the United States is not trying to promote democracy and human rights in these countries?" they would say no, and they would not be lying. They would, if they were being fully honest, say that we are dealing with these countries on a case-by-case basis, and subject to the constraints of the facts that our "national security concerns" take first priority, and the fact that our ability to influence these countries varies, we are doing what we can to promote democracy and human rights in these countries.

We can and should dispute whether the United States is doing everything it can in these countries to promote democracy and human rights subject to those constraints - fuzzy constraints which are notoriously subject to tendentious interpretation. But suppose we take it as a given that this is how US officials and people who have influence on them view the situation. Why would it be a moral outrage to view Syria the same way?

Suppose that, from now on, we adopt the following policy with respect to democracy and human rights in Syria: "Subject to the fact that our national security concerns take first priority, and subject to the degree of influence we have in Syria, we will do what we can in Syria to promote democracy and human rights." That is, suppose we were to adopt the same policy in Syria that we have with respect to other non-democracies and human rights abusers in the region. Why would that be a moral outrage? Why should our unwillingness to commit to overthrowing the Syrian government be a litmus test of our commitment to promoting democracy and human rights?

In particular, given what happened in Libya (among many other examples) after the United States helped overthrow Libya's government, shouldn't we question the automatic assumption that US overthrow of a government automatically leads to an improvement in the human rights situation in the country from the point of viewof the country's residents? And what other point of view should have greater weight than the views of the country's residents?

Finally - and perhaps most importantly - recall that a year ago, the argument that was supposed to be trumping inside Washington for bombing the Syrian government was that it was necessary to "confront Iran."

Well, Iran is our most powerful ally on the ground right now on the issue of the day, confronting the so-called "Islamic State" Sunni Arab insurgency. Haggling over boring technical details continues indefinitely in the negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. What's the urgency now, or in any future that we can see, to "confront Iran" by overthrowing the Syrian government?

ROBERT NAIMAN

Robert Naiman is policy director at Just Foreign Policy and president of Truthout's board of directors.

Progressive Democratic Workers for America