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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Qone0 who wrote (1392903)2/27/2023 9:55:09 PM
From: Sdgla1 Recommendation

Recommended By
POKERSAM

  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1579035
 
You should focus your hatred on the main culprits of the war.. 0bama/Nuland/Biden.

When Trump began the process of exposing these traitors and their money laundering scams piglosi impeached him to preserve their scam.

You dems are to stupid to figure it out.. without the ccp and ukraine to launder $$$ your pol party would dry up and blow away.



To: Qone0 who wrote (1392903)2/27/2023 10:25:51 PM
From: Broken_Clock  Respond to of 1579035
 
Where's you answer dipshit?
WaPo, NYT and Newsweek all agree...
Q is FOS!
LOL, they live in a world where all people are exactly like them. What they don't understand is very few people are like them.
Here's my proof. Where's yours?
+++

To: Qone0 who wrote (1392887)
2/27/2023 9:26:17 PM
From: Broken_Clock of 1392906
LOL, they live in a world where all people are exactly like them. What they don't understand is very few people are like them.
Could you be anymore wrong? Check in with tenshits...the Truth is out there Scully!

newsweek.com

Nearly 90 Percent of the World Isn't Following Us on Ukraine | Opinion
Michael Gfoeller and David H. Rundell
On 9/15/22 at 6:58 AM EDT

Current Time 0:14

/

Duration 0:51



China Gives Clearest Support for Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine So

Our familiar system of global political and economic alliances is shifting, and nothing has made this change clearer than the varied reactions to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While the United States and its closest allies in Europe and Asia have imposed tough economic sanctions on Moscow, 87 percent of the world's population has declined to follow us. Economic sanctions have united our adversaries in shared resistance. Less predictably, the outbreak of Cold War II, has also led countries that were once partners or non-aligned to become increasingly multi-aligned.

Nowhere is the shift more apparent than in energy markets where, unlike with currencies, governments cannot simply print what they need. Here the web of sanctions becomes a sieve.


An immigration inspection officer checks an oil tanker carrying imported crude oil at Qingdao port in China's eastern Shandong province on May 9, 2022. STR/AFP via Getty Images Saudi Arabia, long a committed American partner, has established a close alliance with Russia in the OPEC Plus cartel. The Saudis have very publicly declined the request of an American president to increase oil production. Instead, they imported Russian oil for domestic use to export more of their own production. Last week they even reduced production and made clear they may do so again.

China is selling Europe liquid natural gas (LNG) that originated in Siberia while importing Russian oil at the same time. It then refines and exports the oil.

Meanwhile, kept solvent by Chinese oil purchases, Iran has become the largest customer for Russian wheat.

India's petroleum minister has stated publicly that his government has no conflict with Moscow and a "moral duty" to keep down energy prices at home by buying Russian oil.

Alliances that were created in part to counter Western economic and political influence are expanding. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have announced their interest in joining the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The Shanghai Cooperative Organization currently links China, Russia, India, and Pakistan, among others. Iran plans to join this month while Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar are likely to become "dialogue partners," or candidate members.

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Additionally, China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative is tying many African nations to Beijing with cords of trade and debt. Russia is also reaching out in the form of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who recently addressed his 22 Arab League counterparts in Cairo before touring a number of African countries.

If that's not enough to give the West pause, Moscow is again on the offensive in Latin America, strengthening its military relationships with Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba. The two powerhouses of that region, Brazil and Mexico, have pointedly refused to back Western sanctions against Russia.

The dollar's reserve currency status remains a pillar of the global economic order, but trust in that order has been damaged. Economic sanctions have weaponized parts of the international banking and insurance sectors including the SWIFT fund transfer system. Assets have been seized and commodity contracts canceled. Calls for de-dollarization have become louder. When Russia demanded energy payments in rubles, yuan or UAE Dirhams, China and India complied.

Many Asian economies are now being hit by both rising oil prices and the depreciation of their own currency against the dollar. As a result, they are expanding their use of bilateral currency swaps which allow them to trade among themselves in their own currencies. Eighty years ago the British pound lost its preeminent position among the world's currencies. This is precisely what America's adversaries are trying to do to the dollar and if the Saudis ever stop pricing oil in dollars, they may very well succeed.

Globalization can function only if most participants believe it advances their interests. If the rest believe the West is unfairly using the system for its own benefit, the rules- based international order falls apart and alternatives will emerge.

Today, inflationary pressures and recession fears stalk much of the world. While the wealthy West can afford the cost of sanctions, much of the rest cannot. Europe now competes with the likes of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and Thailand for energy shipments. In North Africa and the Middle East, energy and food shortages have raised the prospect of political unrest similar to the Arab Spring.

These concerns are generating considerable anti-Western sentiment across much of the Global South. While a nuclear-armed Russia shows no willingness to end a war its leaders cannot afford to lose; the West is rapidly losing the rest and thus undermining the very rules-based international order it has sought to create. Our most promising solution to this dilemma is likely to be some sort of diplomatic compromise.

David H. Rundell is the author of Vision or Mirage, Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads and a former Chief of Mission at the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia. Ambassador Michael Gfoeller is a former Political Advisor to the U.S. Central Command.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.




To: Qone0 who wrote (1392903)2/28/2023 1:42:39 AM
From: Broken_Clock  Respond to of 1579035
 
keep on dancing as the Titanic sinks you dimwit.

The Great Game Reloaded: Superpowers In The Modern World By RFE/RL staff - Feb 26, 2023, 12:00 PM CST
  • Munich Security Conference reveals tensions between US and China, with China sensing an opportunity to strengthen its global status.
  • Chinese official Wang Yi accuses US of fueling war in Ukraine, while US Secretary of State Blinken accuses China of preparing to provide weapons to Russia.
  • Despite tensions, European leaders engage with China during Wang's diplomatic tour of Europe, raising concerns over de-dollarization and digital currencies decreasing Western leverage over China, Russia, and Iran.


Top foreign policy officials from the United States and China spent most of the last weekend at the Munich Security Conference stressing that their governments were not seeking a new Cold War, but amid tense rhetoric and accusations, a chill across much of the world is already being felt.

Finding Perspective: The Munich gathering is Europe's premier foreign policy conference and has long been a mainstay for leading officials from the West and elsewhere to hobnob and take the pulse of the current world order.

This year's diagnosis was far from optimistic. While the West showed that it is perhaps more united now than in recent years and that support for Ukraine is entrenched -- a message reinforced by U.S. President Joe Biden's unannounced visit to Kyiv -- it's hard to shake the sense that the West remains more out of step than ever with the rest of the world and that the damage done by Russia's invasion of Ukraine can't be undone.

Rightly or wrongly, Beijing clearly believes the West is in decline and is now sensing an opportunity to shore up its rising global status.




In Munich, China was represented by top foreign policy official Wang Yi who projected a message of self-confidence and swagger to Western officials as he took aim at the United States and accused it of fueling the war in Ukraine.

Wang also said China would launch its own peace plan for ending the war and that it would underscore the need to uphold the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and the UN Charter.

Those calls came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said China may be preparing to give weapons and ammunition to Russia, which would mark a significant escalation in the war and Beijing's relationship with Moscow.

China has brushed the accusations aside but not denied them, saying Beijing "will never accept U.S. finger-pointing or coercion on China-Russia relations."

In interviews with German and Italian newspapers following the accusations from Washington, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that China supplying weapons would result in a "world war," and that he hoped Beijing would refrain from doing so after making a "practical assessment."

Why It Matters: The United States has few good cards to play with China and, given the fallout from the Chinese spy balloon incident, a stabilization of relations isn't on the horizon.

Still, it's unclear if Beijing is willing to cross this threshold and suffer the consequences for explicitly supplying Moscow with weapons.

In the meantime, China's mention of a peace plan was met skeptically by U.S. and European officials, who largely see it as a move about optics as Beijing continues to up its standing across the Global South, where Chinese calls to portray the West as warmongers and itself as a peacekeeper have a receptive audience.

"China wants to be seen as very strong and as a leader of the global south and a peace promoter," a senior European Union official told RFE/RL. "[And] no, Europe is not wooed."

One Thing To WatchIt's hard to go a week without seeing new warnings from Western officials about Chinese intent to take over Taiwan. Such concerns are not unwarranted, especially as Chinese officials -- including Wang in Munich -- do little to dispel such fears.







But Colin Kahl, the Pentagon's undersecretary of defense for policy, recently offered a more sober assessment. In a recent interview with Defense News, he said that he doesn't "see anything that indicates [an invasion of Taiwan] is imminent in the next couple of years" and that Beijing is far more likely to pursue avenues beyond military force, such as political and economic pressure, in any attempt to annex Taiwan.

By RFE/RL

oilprice.com