Showing posts with label Americas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Americas. Show all posts

Sunday, December 3, 2023

23-12-3 Venezuela vs Guayana Esequiba □

24-3-5 Alliance Between Venezuela and Iran - IDF > .
24-1-26 Why Venezuela wants to annex Guyana - Caspian > .
23-12-26 Oil Wars and the Venezuela-Guyana Crisis - Spaniel > .
23-12-11 Venezuela's Invasion Armada, What You Need To Know - HIS > .
23-12-10 Venezuela, Guyana & Essequibo Crisis - Posturing, XIR SMO? - Perun > . 
23-12-7 Venezuela To Annex 70% of Guyana's Territory? - gtbt > .
23-12-7 [XIR] Ruscia-backed Venezuela to start war in South America? | DiD > .
23-12-7 Venezuela-Guyana Hostilities Rise | Oil War? | Palki Sharma > .
23-12-5 Why Venezuela wants to annex a huge chunk of Guyana - CBC > .

People around the globe are witnessing the disintegration of an oil-rich country. Venezuela had the world’s fourth-highest per-capita income in 1950. Now it’s being ripped apart by record levels of poverty.
More than 90% of Venezuelans struggle to subsist. How did Hugo Chávez drive this once affluent, democratic country to ruin? This documentary ... investigates the political, economic, societal and geostrategic reasons for Venezuela's crisis. The film features interviews Debray did with then presidential candidate Chávez in 1998, and with Juan Guaidó in 2019. Multiple countries recognize Guaidó as Venezuela's president, rather than the man who occupies the office, Nicolás Maduro. 

Guayana Esequiba, sometimes also called Esequibo or Essequibo, is a disputed territory of 159,500 km2 (61,600 sq mi) west of the Essequibo River. The territory is claimed by both Guyana and Venezuela, but it has been administered and controlled by Guyana since the 1899 Paris Arbitral Award. The boundary dispute was inherited from the colonial powers (Spain in the case of Venezuela, and the Netherlands and the United Kingdom in the case of Guyana) and has been complicated by the independence of Guyana from the United Kingdom in 1966.

On 31 October 2023, the government of Guyana filed a request with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), requesting intervention against a proposed referendum approved by the Venezuelan National Electoral Council on 23 October 2023, asking to support its position in the dispute, arguing that the referendum served as a pretext for the Venezuelan government to abandon negotiations with Guyana. The proposed referendum was condemned by the Commonwealth of Nations and Caribbean Community (CARICOM), who both issued statements in support of Guyana and the agreed ICJ process for dispute resolution. In response to the increased tensions, the Brazilian military on 29 November 2023 "intensified defensive actions" along its northern border. On 1 December 2023, the ICJ ordered Venezuela to not make any attempts to disrupt the current territory controlled by Guyana until the court makes a later determination. The referendum took place on 3 December, and the National Electoral Council initially reported that Venezuelans voted "yes" more than 95% of the time on each of the five questions on the ballot. International analysts and media reported that turnout had been remarkably low and that the Venezuelan government had falsified the results.
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Friday, January 7, 2022

Vlad ➾ West 2022

Russia [whose plausible deniability mutterings cannot be trusted] has hinted at deploying missile systems in Cuba. Is a second Cuban Missile Crisis possible?

22-2-16 Will Russia Send Missiles to Cuba? - gtbt > .
23-9-4 Backbone of P00tinism | [P00's P0wer: Scapegoating, Fear] (subs) - Katz > .
23-8-29 Dictatorships: From Spin to Fear | Ruscist Regression (subs) - Katz > .
23-4-16 R-U Hybrid Warfare: P00paganda, cyber, hybrid methods - Perun > .
23-3-1 [Seven Losses of P00tin: How to Fail Ztupidly as Dicktator - Matters > .
23-2-22 How Ukraine Saved Kyiv: Ruscian Missteps, Ukrainian Ingenuity - Spaniel > .
23-2-9 Russians vs Ruzzians - "Public" Opinion re Pooti - Times > .
23-2-5 Scary Stalinism vs Pathetic Pootinism [electioneering] (subs) - Katz > .
23-2-3 [Demented Krumblin Conspiracy Poopaganda] (subs) - Katz > .
23-1-22 Politics Can Destroy Armies: Factionalism & R-U War - Perun > .
23-1-8 War Economies - Russia and Ukraine won't collapse tomorrow - Perun > .
22-11-22 Why [the Ruscian Federation] cannot become a democracy - Caspian > .
22-12-5 Russians tired of poopaganda | Gardening beats Soloviev (subs) - MK > .
22-10-21 Response if Russia uses a nuclear weapon in Ukraine? - J K-L > .
22-9-22 How many troops can Russia really mobilize? - Binkov > .
22-9-4 6 Months of Ukraine War - Economics, Endurance, Energy War - Perun > .
22-8-20 How Long Will It Take Russia to Rebuild Its Military? - CoCa > .
22-8-18 Ruscism: World's Last Colonial Empire: Collapse or Survival - gtbt > .
22-8-3 Gas shortage and the war in Ukraine - Anders > .
22-7-25 Ireland at center of Ruscia’s $10 billion plane heist - CNBC > .
22-7-21 How the economy of Russia is dying (English subtitles) - Максим Кац > .
22-7-19 Central Asia ⇌ Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, USA - gtbt > .
22-6-4 Mapping Structure of Russian Ground Forces; Why It Matters - CoCa > .
22-4-4 Russia’s David vs Ukraine’s Goliath? Manpower woes - Binkov > .
22-3-30 Cold War 1, Russian Invasion of Ukraine - Ċold Ŵar 2 Sanctions > .
22-3-29 Will the invasion of Ukraine lead to Russia's collapse? Day 32 - gtbt 13 > .
22-3-27 Are Tanks Obsolete? [Vlad's Disaster &] The Future of Warfare - nwyt > .
22-3-25 Will The New Cold War Crash The U.S. Economy? - CNBC > .
22-3-22 Is Russia Threatening a Nuclear War? - VisPol > .
22-3-21 Russia's Strategic Weaknesses in Ukraine - Kamome > .
22-3-19 [Тѕаr Rυnt dragging] Russia headed to strategic defeat in Ukraine - Caspian > .
22-3-18 Ukraine-Russia War, Nukes and Anti-Aircraft Missiles | Peter Zeihan - tco > .
22-3-17 Mapping Russia's Invasion 'Z': Distribution Mapped - Battle Order > . 
22-3-16 Timeline of Russian Cyberattacks on Ukraine - 2014+ | WIRED > .
22-3-11 Sanctions, Tech-Denial, Psychology of Isolated Russia | Kotkin | New Yorker > .
22-3-10 How Russia Could Attack Britain - Ukraine War Special - Mark Felton Pr > .
22-3-8 Russia's war in Ukraine is not going to plan - CaspianReport > .
22-3-2 How The West Broke Russia's Economy - Money & Macro > .
22-3-4 Is The Russian Military Actually Failing In Ukraine? - CoCa > .
22-3-6 Europe is addicted to Russian Gas - Into Europe > . skip ad > .
22-2-24 Global Power Rivalry | Michael Buckley > .
22-3-2 True state of Ukraine's military today - Binkov > .
22-2-22 Russia Orders Troops Into Eastern Ukraine: What’s Next? | WSJ > .
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Friday, March 26, 2021

Challenges - Geography of USA, Russia

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22-1-23 US Geography Weaknesses - Kamome > .
24-12-3 Mississippi Floods & Droughts - America's Geographic Flaw - Map Pack > .
24-4-20 Canadian Defense Spending is a Joke | Solutions? - Waro > .
24-2-16 Why Russia is Invading the Arctic (why it matters) - Icarus > .
23-7-21 Canada’s Arctic Patrol Ships Will Secure the Northern Frontier - USNI > .
22-11-25 Race for the Arctic is ramping up - DW Planet A > .
22-11-22 Why [the Ruscian Federation] cannot become a democracy - Caspian > .
Mexico 
Canada & Arctic - Graydations >> .
Geography +/- ~ Chink in Armor >> .

"The United States benefits from ideal geographical conditions. However, the changing environment in the Arctic and the Caribbean offers two main threat to the US security. On one hand the melting ice in the Arctic is making Russia's port more accessible during winter months, whilst this is still a potential threat, Cuba is a far more direct menace. The Caribbean island is America's biggest strategic threat given its proximity to US mainland and as it creates two chokepoints into the Gulf of Mexico."

00:00 US Geopolitical Power
01:45 US Reliance on Sea Trade
03:42 US first Geography weakness: Melting of Arctic Ice
05:45 Russia's Warm Water Ports in the Pacific
07:07 US Power in the Arctic
08:34 US biggest Geography Weakness: Cuba
09:52 The importance of the Mississippi River to US economy
10:40 The trade through the Gulf of Mexico
13:21 Cuba Role in US Strategic Weakness

Alaska ..
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Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Democracy - A History


Lessons from all democracies: Democracy is not a torch passed from ancient Athens but a globally common form of government with much to teach us today

Today, many people see democracy as under threat in a way that only a decade ago seemed unimaginable. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it seemed like democracy was the way of the future. But nowadays, the state of democracy looks very different; we hear about ‘backsliding’ and ‘decay’ and other descriptions of a sort of creeping authoritarianism. Some long-established democracies, such as the United States, are witnessing a violation of governmental norms once thought secure, and this has culminated in the recent [21-1-6] insurrection at the US Capitol. If democracy is a torch that shines for a time before then burning out – think of Classical Athens and Renaissance city republics – it all feels as if we might be heading toward a new period of darkness. What can we do to reverse this apparent trend and support democracy?

First, we must dispense with the idea that democracy is like a torch that gets passed from one leading society to another. The core feature of democracy – that those who rule can do so only with the consent of the people – wasn’t invented in one place at one time: it evolved independently in a great many human societies.

Over several millennia and across multiple continents, early democracy was an institution in which rulers governed jointly with councils and assemblies of the people. From the Huron (who called themselves the Wendats) and the Iroquois (who called themselves the Haudenosaunee) in the Northeastern Woodlands of North America, to the republics of Ancient India, to examples of city governance in ancient Mesopotamia, these councils and assemblies were common. Classical Greece provided particularly important instances of this democratic practice, and it’s true that the Greeks gave us a language for thinking about democracy, including the word demokratia itself. But they didn’t invent the practice. If we want to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of our modern democracies, then early democratic societies from around the world provide important lessons.

The core feature of early democracy was that the people had power, even if multiparty elections (today, often thought to be a definitive feature of democracy) didn’t happen. The people, or at least some significant fraction of them, exercised this power in many different ways. In some cases, a ruler was chosen by a council or assembly, and was limited to being first among equals. In other instances, a ruler inherited their position, but faced constraints to seek consent from the people before taking actions both large and small. The alternative to early democracy was autocracy, a system where one person ruled on their own via bureaucratic subordinates whom they had recruited and remunerated. The word ‘autocracy’ is a bit of a misnomer here in that no one in this position ever truly ruled on their own, but it does signify a different way of organising political power.

Early democratic governance is clearly apparent in some ancient societies in Mesopotamia as well as in India. It flourished in a number of places in the Americas before European conquest, such as among the Huron and the Iroquois in the Northeastern Woodlands and in the ‘Republic of Tlaxcala’ that abutted the Triple Alliance, more commonly known as the Aztec Empire. It was also common in precolonial Africa. In all of these societies there were several defining features that tended to reinforce early democracy: small scale, a need for rulers to depend on the people for knowledge, and finally the ability of members of society to exit to other locales if they were unhappy with a ruler. These three features were not always present in the same measure, but collectively they helped to underpin early democracy.


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Saturday, November 14, 2020

Origins of L/R Labeling

2021 History of Labeling Liberals "Left" and Conservatives "Right" - tifo > .
2021 - Political Divisions - Bonum >> .
Clash of Ideologies - Praeparet >> .
Kratocracies ~ Kakistocracies - Fallax >> .Populism & Fascist Autocracy - Praeparet >> .
Democratic Socialism - Weighs >> .Fair vs CON Economics - Fallax >> .

Extremism

Sociopolitical Conflict

The Estates General of 1789 was a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second Estate), and the commoners (Third Estate). It was the last of the Estates General of the Kingdom of France. Summoned by King Louis XVI, the Estates General of 1789 ended when the Third Estate formed the National Assembly and, against the wishes of the King, invited the other two estates to join. This signaled the outbreak of the French Revolution.

The estates of the realm, or three estates, were the broad orders of social hierarchy used in Christendom (Christian Europe) from the Middle Ages to early modern Europe. Different systems for dividing society members into estates developed and evolved over time.

The best known system is the French Ancien Régime (Old Regime), a three-estate system used until the French Revolution (1789–1799). The monarchy included the king and the queen, while the system was made up of clergy (the First Estate), nobles (Second Estate), peasants and bourgeoisie (Third Estate). 

In some regions, notably Scandinavia and Russia, burghers (the urban merchant class) and rural commoners were split into separate estates, creating a four-estate system with rural commoners ranking the lowest as the Fourth Estate. Furthermore, the non-landowning poor could be left outside the estates, leaving them without political rights.

In England, a two-estate system evolved that combined nobility and clergy into one lordly estate with "commons" as the second estate. This system produced the two houses of parliament, the House of Commons and the House of Lords. In southern Germany, a three-estate system of nobility (princes and high clergy), knights, and burghers was used. In Scotland, the Three Estates were the Clergy (First Estate), Nobility (Second Estate), and Shire Commissioners, or "burghers" (Third Estate), representing the bourgeois, middle class, and lower class. The Estates made up a Scottish Parliament.

Separation of Powers: Today the terms three estates and estates of the realm may sometimes be re-interpreted to refer to the modern separation of powers in government into the legislature, administration, and the judiciary. Additionally the modern term of the fourth estate usually refers to forces outside the established power structure (evoking medieval three-estate systems), most commonly in reference to the independent press or media. Historically, in Northern and Eastern Europe, the Fourth Estate meant rural commoners.

Robert Morrison MacIver FRS (April 17, 1882 – June 15, 1970) was a sociologist. He received degrees from the University of Edinburgh (M.A. 1903; D.Ph. 1915), the University of Oxford (B.A. 1907), and Columbia University (Litt.E. 1929) and Harvard (1936). He lectured in Political Science (1907) and Social Science. His work in sociology was distinguished by his acumen, his philosophical understanding, and extensive study of the major pioneering works of Durkheim, Levy-Bruhl, Simmel and others. (Works read in the British Museum Library in London, whilst resident as a student in Oxford.)

Hans Jürgen Eysenck (4 March 1916 – 4 September 1997) was a German-born British psychologist who spent his professional career in Great Britain. 

The Psychology of Politics (1954)

In this book, Eysenck suggests that political behavior may be analysed in terms of two independent dimensions: the traditional left-right distinction, and how 'tenderminded' or 'toughminded' a person is. Eysenck suggests that the latter is a result of a person's introversion or extraversion respectively.

Colleagues critiqued the research that formed the basis of this book, on a number of grounds, including the following:
  • Eysenck claims that his findings can be applied to the British middle class as a whole, but the people in his sample were far younger and better educated than the British middle class as a whole.
  • Supporters of different parties were recruited in different ways: Communists were recruited through party branches, fascists in an unspecified manner, and supporters of other parties by giving copies of the questionnaire to his students and telling them to apply it to friends and acquaintances.
  • Scores were obtained by applying the same weight to groups of different sizes. For example, the responses of 250 middle-class supporters of the Liberal Party were given the same weight as those of 27 working-class Liberals.
  • Scores were rounded without explanation, in directions that supported Eysenck's theories.
Eysenck was accused of being a supporter of political causes on the extreme right. Connecting arguments were that Eysenck had articles published in the German newspaper National-Zeitung, which called him a contributor, and in Nation und Europa, and that he wrote the preface to a book by a far-right French writer named Pierre Krebs, Das unvergängliche Erbe, that was published by Krebs' Thule Seminar. Linguist Siegfried Jäger [de] interpreted the preface to Krebs' book as having "railed against the equality of people, presenting it as an untenable ideological doctrine." In the National Zeitung Eysenck reproached Sigmund Freud for alleged trickiness and lack of frankness. Other incidents that fuelled Eysenck's critics like Michael Billig and Steven Rose include the appearance of Eysenck's books on the UK National Front's list of recommended readings and an interview with Eysenck published by National Front's Beacon (1977) and later republished in the US neo-fascist Steppingstones; a similar interview had been published a year before by Neue Anthropologie, described by Eysenck's biographer Roderick Buchanan as a "sister publication to Mankind Quarterly, having similar contributors and sometimes sharing the same articles." Eysenck also wrote an introduction for Roger Pearson's Race, Intelligence and Bias in Academe. In this introduction to Pearson's book, Eysenck retorts that his critics are "the scattered troops" of the New Left, who have adopted the "psychology of the fascists". Eysenck's book The Inequality of Man, translated in French as L'Inegalite de l'homme, was published by GRECE's publishing house, Éditions Corpernic. In 1974, Eysenck became a member of the academic advisory council of Mankind Quarterly, joining those associated with the journal in attempting to reinvent it as a more mainstream academic vehicle. Billig asserts that in the same year Eysenck also became a member of the comité de patronage of GRECE's Nouvelle École.

Remarking on Eysenck's alleged right-wing connections, Buchanan writes: "For those looking to thoroughly demonize Eysenck, his links with far right groups revealed his true political sympathies." According to Buchanan, these harsh critics interpreted Eysenck's writings as "overtly racist". Furthermore, Buchanan writes that Eysenck's fiercest critics were convinced that Eysenck was "willfully misrepresenting a dark political agenda". Buchanan argued that "There appeared to be no hidden agenda to Hans Eysenck. He was too self-absorbed, too preoccupied with his own aspirations as a great scientist to harbor specific political aims."

Eysenck is best remembered for his work on intelligence and personality, although he worked on other issues in psychology. At the time of his death, Eysenck was the living psychologist most frequently cited in the peer-reviewed scientific journal literature. A 2019 study found him to be the third most controversial of 55 intelligence researchers.

Virginia Inman Postrel (born January 14, 1960) is an American political and cultural writer of broadly libertarian, or classical liberal, views. She is a recipient of the Bastiat Prize (2011).

Postrel was editor-in-chief of Reason from July 1989 to January 2000, and remained on the masthead as editor-at-large through 2001. Prior to that, she was a reporter for Inc. and the Wall Street Journal. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). From 2000 to 2006, she wrote an economics column for the New York Times and from 2006 to 2009 she wrote the "Commerce and Culture" column for The Atlantic. She also appeared on the last episode of the third season of Penn and Teller's Bullshit!.

Postrel wrote the biweekly column "Commerce & Culture" for the Wall Street Journal until April 2011. Since May 2011, she has written a biweekly column for Bloomberg View.

She is best known for her non-fiction books including The Future and Its Enemies and The Substance of Style. In the former she explains her philosophy, "dynamism", a forward-looking and change-seeking philosophy that generally favors unregulated organization through "spontaneous order". She contrasts it with "stasis", a philosophy that favors top-down control and regulation and is marked by desire to maintain the present state of affairs.
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Thursday, January 23, 2020

Future Battle? - Seabed Mining

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24-1-9 Deep Sea Mining: do we really need it? - Our Metallic Earth > .
Mining the deep sea: the true cost to the planet | Economist > .Lanthanides - REEs - Omnia per Scientiam >> .
Energy Challenges - Omnia per Scientiam >> .

To meet the world's growing demand for batteries, private companies have turned their attention to mining the ocean floor. But this practice could come at a greater cost to the planet than it's worth.

Terrestrial mining doesn’t have a perfect record, it comes with a long list of environmental and human rights abuses, including pollution and child labor. All this to dig up raw materials like nickel, manganese, and cobalt that are necessary for our lithium-ion batteries.

Some strategies for a carbon-free future depend on making these batteries in much larger numbers and using them as a power source for electric cars or a storage method for electricity generated by renewables. 

But another source of these materials could lie at the bottom of the ocean. Potato-sized lumps called polymetallic nodules are rich in manganese, copper, cobalt, nickel, and other precious metals; and they are found in abundance in some areas like the Clarion-Clipperton Zone that stretches from Hawaii to Mexico.

History’s Largest Mining Operation Is About to Begin
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/... .
"Regulations for ocean mining have never been formally established. The United Nations has given that task to an obscure organization known as the International Seabed Authority, which is housed in a pair of drab gray office buildings at the edge of Kingston Harbour, in Jamaica. Unlike most UN bodies, the ISA receives little oversight."

Treasure and Turmoil in the Deep Sea
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/op... .
"As a result of the mining, animals already living near their physiological limits would be eating mouthfuls of poisonous dirt for breakfast, respiring through clogged gills and squinting through a muddy haze to communicate."

Seabed mining is coming — bringing mineral riches and fears of epic extinctions
https://www.nature.com/articles/d4158... .
"The sea floor there boasts one of the world’s largest untapped collections of rare-earth elements. Some 4,000 metres below the ocean surface, the abyssal ooze of the CCZ holds trillions of polymetallic nodules — potato-sized deposits loaded with copper, nickel, manganese and other precious ores."

21-7-1 First seabed mines may be step closer to reality: 

The tiny Pacific nation of Nauru has created shockwaves by demanding that the rules for deep sea mining are agreed in the next two years. Environmental groups warn that [regulations concerning seabed mining] will lead to a destructive rush on the mineral-rich seabed "nodules" that are sought by the mining companies. But United Nations officials overseeing deep sea mining say no venture underwater can start for years.

[Partnered with DeepGreen], Nauru, an island state in the Pacific Ocean, has called on the International Seabed Authority - a UN body that oversees the ocean floor - to speed up the regulations that will govern deep sea mining. Nauru has activated a seemingly obscure sub-clause in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea that allows countries to pull a 'two-year trigger' if they feel negotiations are going too slowly. Nauru, which is partnered with a mining company, DeepGreen, argues that it has "a duty to the international community" to make this move to help achieve "regulatory certainty". It says that it stands to lose most from climate change so it wants to encourage access to the small rocks known as nodules that lie on the sea bed.

[The nodules] are rich in cobalt and other valuable metals that could be useful for batteries and renewable energy systems in the transition away from fossil fuels. The nodules, a habitat for countless forms of life, are estimated to have formed over several million years so any recovery from mining will be incredibly slow. Scientists say they're far from gaining a complete understanding of the ecosystems in the abyssal plains - but already know they're far more vibrant and complex than previously thought.

Still unknown are the impacts of giant machines' stirring up plumes of sediment that are likely to drift over vast distances underwater. Researching this question is a difficult and slow task - and is unlikely to be fully answered within the two-year period initiated by Nauru.

DSM - Deep Sea Mining ↠
Future Battle? - Seabed Mining ..
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Monday, January 13, 2020

Petroleum - Oil's History

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Petroleum - Modern History of Oil - GeoHx > .
24-8-14 History & Geopolitics of Oil - gtbt > .
24-4-3 North Sea - Geography, History, Oil - FactSpark > . skip > .
24-1-26 Saudi Arabia's Catastrophic "Iran" Problem - Hindsight > .
23-11-10 Qatar Angling to Be World’s Lead Hostage Negotiator | WSJ > .
23-8-11 Saudi Arabia's Challenging Geography - Real > .
23-7-22 Saudi Arabia’s Catastrophic “Everything” Problem - Real > .
23-7-25 Why US Troops Fought Wagner Mercenaries in Syria - T&P > .
23-7-22 Saudi Arabia’s Catastrophic “Everything” Problem - Real > .
23-1-2 Dutch Disease | Resource Wealth, Currency Inflation, Economy | EcExEss > .
22-12-14 Xi’s Saudi trip & Sino-Arab relations; X-¥ oil vs petrodollar - Lei > .
22-12-8 Xina seeking Saudi ties - Update > .
22-11-25 Why Saudi Arabia is Gladly Helping Russia - T&P > .
22-10-11 Gulf States, "Dutch Disease", Big Dumb Mega Projects | EcEx > .
22-9-19 How Guyana Could Become Richest Country in Latin America - VisPol > .
22-7-5 How Norway Became Insanely Rich - Dodging Oil Curse - Casual Scholar > .
22-6-22 Oman (ME's Switzerland) - Guarding Gulf, Strait of Hormuz - Explore > .
22-3-26 Why Russia’s War Drove Up US Gas Prices - CNBC > .
22-3-17 Why The Middle East Won't Survive Without Oil - OBF > .
2021 Is The Earth Actually Running Out Of Oil? | Spark > .

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Saturday, December 28, 2019

América del Sur/do Sul - 47-9-2 Rio Treaty

24-12-14 Javier Milei [1 Year of Chainsaw Austerity] - Patrick Boyle > .
24-1-23 Will Javier Milei's Experiment Save Argentina? - gtbt > .
Brazil 
22-4-27 Falklands War Legacy: How it Started | War Stories > .
Guyana 
South America 


The Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (commonly known as the Rio Treaty, the Rio Pact, the Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, or by the Spanish-language acronym TIAR from Tratado Interamericano de Asistencia Recíproca) was an agreement signed on September 2, 1947 in Rio de Janeiro among many countries of the Americas. The central principle contained in its articles is that an attack against one is to be considered an attack against them all; this was known as the "hemispheric defense" doctrine. Despite this, several members have breached the treaty on multiple occasions. The treaty was initially created in 1947 and came into force December 3, 1948, in accordance with Article 22 of the treaty. The Bahamas was the most recent country to sign and ratify it in 1982.

Decline: Though the action of the United States during the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état and the 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion raised questions among Latin American governments, the unilateral approach of the United States invading the Dominican Republic in 1965 during the Dominican Civil War, before the OAS's Inter-American Peace Force was organized, caused many members to believe that the United States did not respect the ideals of multilateralism. Conversely during the Falklands War in 1982, the United States favored the United Kingdom arguing that Argentina had been the aggressor and because Argentina had not been attacked, as did Chile and Colombia. This was seen by most Latin American countries as the final failure of the treaty.

In September 2002, citing the Falklands example and anticipating the invasion of Iraq, Mexico formally withdrew from the treaty; after the requisite two years, Mexico ceased to be a signatory in September 2004. In 2008, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) created a new regional security council manage their own defensive objectives. On 5 June 2012, Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) countries Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, under the leadership of leftist governments, initiated the retirement from the TIAR, a decision which the Obama administration described as "unfortunate" but respected. The treaty was officially denounced by Nicaragua on 20 September 2012, Bolivia on 17 October 2012, Venezuela on 14 May 2013, and Ecuador on 19 February 2014.

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American Empire

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American Empire, United States Alliances and Partnerships - Costas > .
24-9-6 How the Atlantic Ocean made the modern world - Caspian > .

American Empire, United States Alliances and Partnerships: 

The United States maintained a hemispheric defense policy relative to European influence under the Monroe Doctrine since 1823, which became increasingly interventionist with the Roosevelt Corollary in 1904. During the 1930s the United States had been alarmed by Axis overtures toward military cooperation with Latin American governments; apparent strategic threats against the Panama Canal were of particular concern. These were discussed in a series of meetings of the International Conference of American States and the 1936 Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Peace.

1947, Rio Pact - Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (commonly known as the Rio Treaty, the Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, or by the Spanish-language acronym TIAR from Tratado Interamericano de Asistencia Recíproca) is an agreement signed in 1947.
1948, Organization of American States (OAS), 
1951, ANZUS, 
(Bilateral Alliances, African states)
Major non-NATO Allies (MNNA), 
(2007, The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD), colloquially the Quad (sometimes stylised as QUAD despite not being an acronym), is a strategic security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States that is maintained by talks between member countries.)
2021, AUKUS.

Inter-American Peace Force
North Atlantic Treaty Organization .
Military alliance .
SICOFAA .
Mutual Defense Assistance Act .
Mutual Security Act .
Latin America–United States relations .
Inter-American Conference on Problems of War and Peace of 1945 .

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Thursday, December 26, 2019

CPTPP - Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership

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The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) is a trade agreement between 11 nations: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. The founding members signed the Pacific trade pact in March 2018 in Santiago, Chile. Between them, they generate 13% of the world's income.

The UK is the first non-founding country to join, and will be its second biggest economy after Japan. It takes the value of the new grouping to £11 trillion.

The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), also known as TPP11 or TPP-11, is a trade agreement among Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam. It evolved from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which never entered into force due to the withdrawal of the United States. The eleven signatories have combined economies representing 13.4 percent of global gross domestic product, at approximately US$13.5 trillion, making the CPTPP one of the world's largest free-trade areas by GDP, along with the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, the European Single Market, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

The TPP had been signed on 4 February 2016, but never entered into force, as the U.S. withdrew from the agreement soon after the election of UNpresident DJT. All other TPP signatories agreed in May 2017 to revive the agreement, with Japan widely reported as taking the leading role in place of the U.S. In January 2018, the CPTPP was created as a succeeding agreement, retaining two-thirds of its predecessor's provisions; 22 measures favored by the US, but contested by other signatories, were suspended, while the threshold for enactment was lowered so as not to require American accession.

The formal signing ceremony was held on 8 March 2018 in Santiago, Chile. The agreement specifies that its provisions enter into effect 60 days after ratification by at least half the signatories (six of the eleven participating countries). Australia was the sixth nation to ratify the agreement, on 31 October 2018, and it subsequently came into force for the initial six ratifying countries on 30 December 2018.

The chapter on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is unchanged, requiring signatories to share information about SOEs with each other, with the intent of engaging with the issue of state intervention in markets. It includes the most detailed standards for intellectual property of any trade agreement, as well as protections against intellectual property theft against corporations operating abroad.

21-9-17 China applies to join key Asia-Pacific trade pact: 

China has applied to join a key Asia-Pacific trade pact as it attempts to strengthen its position in the region. The move comes the day after a historic [AUKUS] security deal between the US, UK and Australia was unveiled. China's announcement that it has officially applied to join the CPTPP comes the day after the historic AUKUS security pact, in what has been seen as an effort to counter Beijing's influence in the Asia-Pacific region. The AUKUS pact will allow Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines for the first time, using technology provided by the US and the UK. The deal, which will also cover Artificial Intelligence and other technologies, is Australia's biggest defence partnership in decades, analysts said.

The pact that eventually became the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), was created by the US to counter China's influence. However, former UNpresident DJT pulled the US out of it in 2017.

In May 2020, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said that China is willing to consider joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping said at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit November 2020 that China would also “actively consider” joining the CPTPP. In response, trade experts interpreted China’s position as having a “different strategic significance” from an actual intent to join. Their analysis is that China aims to keep the US from joining and delay the CPTPP’s expansion into a larger-scale framework.

James Kane, a researcher with the UK’s Institute for Government, recently told Reuters that the CPTPP has a political purpose, as well as an economic one, in the sense that it aims to present a bloc as a common front — representing 13.5% of the global market economy — in order to create new rules countering China’s practices of disrupting global trade norms, including its subsidies to state enterprises.

Analysts also predicted that the existing members would be very likely to exercise veto powers if China does apply later on to join the CPTPP. The agreement of all 11 members is required for additional members to join.

On 16 September 2021, China submitted a formal application with New Zealand to join the CPTPP.

The original Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was promoted by then-President Barack Obama as an economic bloc to challenge China's increasingly powerful position in the Asia Pacific. After DJT pulled the US out of the deal, Japan led negotiations to create what became the CPTPP. The CPTPP was signed in 2018 by 11 countries, including Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan and New Zealand.

In June 2021, the UK formally launched negotiations to join the CPTPP, while Thailand has also signalled interest in joining the agreement.

Joining the CPTPP would be a significant boost for China, especially after it signed up to a different free trade agreement with 14 countries - called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) - in November 2020. RCEP is the world's largest trading bloc, with South Korea, China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand among its members.

Chinese commerce minister Wang Wentao said the world's second largest economy had submitted its application to join the free trade agreement in a letter to New Zealand's trade minister, Damien O'Connor. New Zealand acts as the administrative centre for the pact.

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