By Andrew Torchia DUBAI (Reuters) — Saudi Arabia announced a string of reforms to its stock market that could attract billions of dollars of fresh foreign money and smooth sales of state assets as the kingdom grapples with damage to its finances caused by low oil prices. When Riyadh opened its bourse to direct foreign investment last … Continue reading
By Salman Rafi Sheikh, Asia Sentinel The acknowledgement by Xu Shanda, a retired Chinese deputy director of the State Administration of Taxation, last week regarding potential losses of Silk Road projects has drawn widespread attention as it challenges the prevailing myth of an indomitable and inevitable system in which ultimately all roads will lead to Beijing. The … Continue reading
By Eric Simmons President Nicolás Maduro has implemented measures such as shortened workday, increased federal holidays and scheduled blackouts in an attempt to reduce energy consumption across the country amidst a nationwide energy crisis brought on by severe drought. However, the energy crisis is only a microcosm of the Venezuelan economy and regardless of oil’s recovery, the … Continue reading
Members of the Saudi royal family appear to be preparing to go into exile as they are selling as much oil as possible in order to move their petrodollars out of the country. The declining oil price doesn’t matter. Clear signals are coming from the U.S. that the days of the incumbent clans are numbered. In … Continue reading
By Pepe Escobar Major turbulence seems to be the name of the game in 2016. Yet the current turbulence may be interpreted as the calm before the next, devastating geopolitical/financial storm. Let’s review the current state of play via the dilemmas afflicting the House of Saud, the EU and BRICS members Russia, Brazil and China. … Continue reading
By Edwin Nieves On July 7th 2014, the Hong Kong Nicaragua Development Group (HKND) announced the approval of a plan to build a canal linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans through Nicaragua, roughly one hundred years after the United States completed the Panama Canal[1]. The Nicaraguan enterprise would be the largest civil engineering feat in … Continue reading
By Brandon Smith It’s been about 15 years now since passenger airliners struck the World Trade Center towers on 9/11, and we are still suffering the consequences of that day, though perhaps not in the ways many Americans might believe. The 9/11 attacks were billed by the Bush Administration as a “wake-up call” for the U.S., … Continue reading
By Pepe Escobar Soon after the impeachment motion against President Dilma Rousseff was approved in the Brazilian Congress by what I chose to call Hybrid War hyenas, President-in-Waiting Michel “Brutus” Temer, one of the coup’s articulators, dispatched a senator to Washington as special paperboy to deliver the news on the coup in progress. The senator in question … Continue reading
By Paul Craig Roberts The Third World War is currently being fought. How long before it moves into its hot stage? Washington is currently conducting economic and propaganda warfare against four members of the five bloc group of countries known as BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Brazil and South Africa are being … Continue reading
By David Haggith, The Great Recession Blog As predicted relentlessly here, the scuttled meeting in Doha to limit oil production broke up with no agreement at all. The meeting foundered like a tanker snagged in the dessert sands because of the singular obvious factor that should have sunken all hope weeks ago but did not: Saudi Arabia said, “No deal without Iran.” Doha Disaster Predictable … Continue reading