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Tuesday, March 22, 2005 |
AsiaTimes: "In 2005 Russia is likely to surpass Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil exporter. This, combined with continued contraction of global oil stocks, gives Moscow enormous leverage over international oil prices. Russia could easily push the price of crude oil above US$100 per barrel by reducing oil production. No other oil-producing country, including Saudi Arabia, has sufficient spare production capacity to counter a production cut by Russia.
Rather than establishing economic and geopolitical hegemony around the world, the 'war on terrorism' is making the US increasingly vulnerable to a sharp economic recession delivered to Washington by Moscow. The Bush administration should consider this when formulating plans to expand US power into Russia's traditional sphere of influence or to undermine Iran's government. Without this consideration, Washington risks an economic war."
In fact, the cold war is back on. In some places it is plain war. The appointment of Wolfowitz as World Bank president must be seen in that light: pulling the sheets and the money towards America's corporations.
Telegraph: "Joseph Stiglitz, the former chief economist of the World Bank and one of the world's most influential economic thinkers, has launched a savage attack on US plans to appoint Paul Wolfowitz as the World Bank's new president.
In an exclusive interview, the American Nobel laureate said: 'The World Bank will once again become a hate figure. This could bring street protests and violence across the developing world.' He described President Bush's determination to appoint his deputy defence secretary to the important post as 'either an act of provocation or an act so insensitive as to look like provocation'. Wolfowitz is widely regarded as the creator of the policy that led to the US war in Iraq."
Just one example of how the Bush regime acts in the world:
CounterPunch: "The global bully, the United States, has just coerced Guatemala, its latest victim, into repealing an important law to lower the price of pharmaceuticals and promote generic competition. The U.S. ambassador to Guatemala acknowledged that the Guatemalan law was intended to advance public health objectives. But, no matter, he said - U.S. commercial interests in the form of Big Pharma demanded that the law go."
So you can already imagine that the World Bank which is the main lender to poorer countries for a whole range of projects, including the fight against poverty and HIV/Aids, will only promote the interests of American corporations and probably simply demand that these corporations take care of those projects under profitable conditions for them; the countries involved will only get help if they change their national laws in favour of 'free enteprise' (free for the US, that is, not for anyone else) and privatization, which means total American control.
Countries that have managed to escape the clutches of the World Bank are doing well, those that submit to it live in poverty and violence. Under Wolfowitz the situation will become worse.
12:12:02 PM 
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© Copyright 2005 Hetty Litjens.
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