The US, the EU, the drowsy politicians, and the media are plunging us into a cesspool of hatred towards Russia as a nation

RUSSOPHOBIA, HATE FOR HATE

By Jon Kokura

In the wake of the war between Russia and Ukraine, an ice cream shop in the city of Cordoba in Argentina banned Russian cream from its ice cream menu.

And this seems like a joke, it's not.

It's the supreme idiocy cooked from the "media" and feeding so many guiles.

"You have to hate Russia, with no mercy, no compassion."

In December 1941, after the Japanese Navy's attack on Pearl Harbor (Hawaii) - a tsunami of hate was unleashed against all Japanese citizens residing in the US.

Humiliated, spat on and trampled on - they were taken to concentration camps in the desert - for the "crime" of being born in Japan, being children of Japanese, or looking Japanese. And they were just hard-working immigrants.

You know how hardworking and polite the Japanese are.

But in those years of war, when these thousands of people were in concentration camps on American soil for having "eyes sharp" - no one asked; "What are we doing...? "

You got to hate for hating.

Russophobia is not new in Europe. It's been around for hundreds of years. And in the US, Russophobia has been going on since Russia opted for communism at the beginning of the last century.

Napoleon, once, with an invincible army - attempted to destroy the Tsar Empire. He was defeated, and in his failure, set Moscow on fire.

Hitler said that the Russians were a people of slaves; sub-humans - who had to be annihilated and invaded. Russia, with an invincible army of millions of soldiers, including hundreds of thousands of nazis Ukrainians who were infinitely more cruel and bloody than the SS themselves... defeated Hitler's Army.

The war in Ukraine is 8 years old. There are 14,000 women, children and men killed by the Ukrainian Army in the separatist provinces. No servile and tracker "journalist" ever told you about those 14 thousand human beings that are no longer here.

Yeah, they keep lying to you. Never like today so many lies are exposed at the hours of being cackled by the media. Today, in a kind of "war tourism", hundreds of stray journalists are in Europe "covering" the war.

What did they go for if they all repeat the NATO report? And they even show you the same images, over and over again.

From so much media hammering, there's no shortage of the dumbass who owns an ice cream parlor and decides not to sell more Russian cream ice cream - because he was gripped by a terrible hatred of Russia.

The US, the EU, the drowsy politicians, and the media are plunging us into a cesspool of hatred towards Russia as a nation.

And it's dangerous, there won't be a duck of Russophobes who will give a beating to some young man for having been born in Russia - and living in this so good, innocent and Christian West.

The Russian people are like any people in the world - with their dreams, frustrations, and hopes. Thousands of Russians are in the streets today calling for an end to the war. Hundreds of them have been arrested for protesting.

Russians are neither aliens nor predators... Even if the media tells you yes, and celebrate like crazy every minute sanctions are imposed against the Russian people. Sanctions that are contrary to sanity and common sense.

The US even banned the release of "Batman" in Russia. "Holy robin bell tower!" We will not be able to perform in Moscow!"

(This Thursday 3rd is the Mudial Premiere of the last Batman Film, except in Russia)

Meanwhile from the media, Russophobia is encouraged every minute - like a Sunday sermon. I wonder; "In the not too distant future - if we will have to clandestinely buy the novels by Dostoyevsky, Tolsti, Chejov, Solzhenitsyn, Gorki, etc, etc...? "

"Are they going to ban the Russian salad...?" "If in doubt, I advise you to prepare it only when you have guests of your most absolute trust."

And lastly, even if I'm accused of being pro-Russian; I'll give you the ingredients for the Russian cream:

*5 eggs (only the yolks)

* 100 grams of whipped cream.

*8 tablespoons of condensed milk.

*1 tablespoon of cornstarch.

*1 tablespoon of lemon zest.

*1/2 cup chopped walnuts.

I'm not going to tell you how to prepare the Russian cream. I have a cat to look after. Who gone feed it if something happen to me....

Source/comment

ABJECT FOLLY: CARICOM NEED NOT ENGAGE THE EU

By Gilbert Morris


Since 1998, I worked with Pierre Darier directly (as Chairman of Darier Hentsch...now Lombard Odier; and at the Swiss Private Banker’s Association), with a notable Swiss industrialist. My role: to provide the intellectual counter-narrative to the OECD/EU’s wilful demonisation of IFCs; culminating in convincing US Secretary of Treasury, Hon. Paul O’Neill (together with others) to REJECT the OECD’s “Harmful Tax Competition Initiative; which he did did May 2001, and he and I explained the rationale in joint articles in Tax Notes International journal that same month.

In years intervening IFCs have grown punch-drunk from the OECD/EU’s goalpost moving fiats, constantly exempting their members; most notably the US (which has 7 actual tax havens) for the reason (which Prof. Jason Sharman detailed in writing) that the US pays the lion’s share of the OECD’s bill.

Let’s speak plainly: The OECD is NOT an international organisation recognised in international law; the FATF LESS SO. They have no legitimacy to call on sovereign states or constitutional territories.

The EU has acted OUTSIDE the multilateral system issuing fiats of no validity or legitimacy under the Vienna Convention on Treaties 1969.

Reject their Blacklist WITHOUT engagement!

Source

The European Union (EU) relations with Cuba

U.S.-Cuban rapprochement and the European Union – part 1

By CLéMENT DOLEAC

The European Union (EU), which has been working to normalize its ties with Cuba since 2010, defined the announcement of the reestablishment of the United States-Cuban relations as a “historical turning point.” The EU foreign affairs head, Frederica Mogherini said that “another wall has started to fall,” and that the European Union is willing to “expand relations with all parts of Cuban society.”

Representatives from Cuba and the EU will meet this month for a third round of negotiations aimed at normalizing relations after a decade tainted by the already recognized hypocritical European Union Common Position which pressed Cuba to discuss human rights and the role of civil society in the Cuban politics.

These new negotiations cannot help but bring on a high level of uncertainty because the turn in US-Cuban relations will impact EU-Cuba relations. Among other concerns, the economic standing of the European Union in Cuba as its second largest trading partner remains at risk.

EU common position and the progressive improvement of EU-Cuba relationship

In 1996, the then-15 EU member states adopted a common position (CP) related to Cuba. Under conservative Spanish leadership this position supported the latest US round of sanctions against Cuba, the Helms-Burton Act, which had the clear objective of tightening restrictions against the Castro regime. The US and EU intended to force the Cuban government to reform different sectors of its economy and society, and its political system, including the human rights situation.

Unsurprisingly, the CP was strongly criticized by Cuban authorities and led to a political stalemate between the EU and Cuba. Despite such a tense political situation, European companies were among the first to invest in Cuba when the government loosened economic restrictions in 1995, known as the “special period in times of peace” following the Soviet Union’s collapse which resulted in Cuba’s GDP falling 30 percent in four years.

However, European companies had to comply with the extremely strict and restrictive application of rules on foreign investments imposed by the Cuban government such as the obligation to submit to a 50/50 joint-venture with the state, the difficulties of repatriating dividends, and the impossibility of managing human resources directly.

Even with the CP, the EU had always been significantly less strict than the United States toward Cuba. The EU gradually improved ties with Cuba during the last two decades. In fact, 18 member states of the European Union have signed cooperation agreements with Cuba.

Also, as one observer put it, “[the EU has] never excluded Cuba from participating in their summits with Latin America and the Caribbean, such as the Iberoamerican conferences of heads of states and government since 1992, and the Latin America and Caribbean-European Union summit gatherings since 1994.”

However, in July 2003, several independent journalists, trade union activists and dissidents were arrested across Cuba, and accused of conspiracy for cooperating with the director of the US Interest Section in Cuba, James Cason. The accusations were based on diplomatic invitations of dissidents to attend official receptions, in order to symbolically further their struggle against political repression.

Seventy-five persons were sentenced to six to 30 years in jail. Consequently, the EU Council froze its diplomatic ties with Cuba, halting all cooperation and development aid that existed before. In addition to clamping down on the US-financed dissent, Fidel Castro apparently felt that the previous economic opening was too much, too fast. Thus, he reversed the decision regarding the still small Cuban private sector (“cuentaspropistas”), and placed additional restrictions on Cuban economic liberties and foreign investments.

Yet, it is fair to recognize that some foreign investors might have tried to escape the Kafkaesque Cuban system by illegal means, leading to corruption cases. As a result, the number of joint-venture companies was halved between 2001 and 2007 and the government used the occasion to seize some valuable assets.

In 2004 Cuba released a number of dissidents and the EU revised its strategy to maintain more discrete contacts with local dissidents. After nearly two years of tensions passed, the EU chose not to invite opponents of the regime to official celebrations. Consequently, Cuba normalized its ties with a number of European countries, including France, Spain, and Germany.

It was not until 2006, when Fidel Castro handed his leadership of Cuba to his younger brother, Raul Castro, that this diplomatic conflict ended. However, it would take two more years for the EU to restart cooperation with Cuba after the release of the majority of the dissidents.

In 2008, Cuba was hit by three successive hurricanes, which caused significant damage in parts of the country, crippling its economy, and leading to a partial default vis-à-vis its main trading partners. Since then, the European Commission has committed nearly €60 million for post-hurricane reconstruction, food security, climate change policies, renewable energy, culture, and education in Cuba. The EU also allowed Cuba to take part in EU-funded regional programs.

This pursuit of a more comprehensive approach toward Cuba was strengthened by the position of Spain, which has advocated since 2010 for a revised CP. At the time, Trinidad Jimenez, Spain’s Secretary of State, declared the CP to be a “discriminatory, inefficient and illegitimate” policy.

Still, for a policy change to occur, the unanimous support of the 27 EU member states was necessary. While several countries were supportive of the Common Position, mostly because of their past suffering of Soviet authoritarianism, other EU countries had a more flexible idea of what should be the nature of EU-Cuba relationship.

On May 12, 2010, the first Country Strategy Paper was adopted on Cuba, including an additional fund of €20 million during the period 2011-2013 in order to pursue the EU’s ongoing cooperation, as well as an additional aid of €4 million in order to help the Cuban population affected by the Hurricane Sandy in November 2012.

After the sixth Cuban Communist Party (CCP) Congress in 2011 revealed its lineamientos (“guidelines”) to “actualize [the] Cuban economic model,” as well as introduced the first reforms started to be implemented sin prisas pero sin pausas (“slowly but surely”) by Raul Castro, the EU-Cuba relationship continued to improve.

Finally, during the first months of 2014, all the EU member states agreed to give a negotiation mandate to the EU’s foreign policy chief to discuss and renew EU-Cuba partnership. The CP and its flexibility led to a significant improvement of the EU-Cuba relationship by encouraging Cuban government policies to move towards more liberal economic and political practices.

The EU as Cuba’s second largest economic partner

The EU is an important economic partner of Cuba, filling the void US trade sanctions produced. Trade between the EU and Cuba is now dynamic, representing a positive balance for the European Union. Among the top 10 trading partners of Cuba, four countries are member states of the EU: Spain is third, Holland seventh, Italy ninth and France tenth.

In 2013, the European Union imported €837 million worth of goods from Cuba and exported €1,834 million to Cuba, representing a nearly €1 billion surplus That year, transactions with the European Union and the rest of the continent accounted for 28.3 percent of Cuba’s foreign trade. This statistic shows that 36.7 percent of Cuban exports go to the EU market and 25.9 percent of national imports come from that region.

The trade relationship between the EU and Cuba is concentrated in two kinds of goods: agricultural and industrial products. Agriculture represents 42.5 percent of EU imports from Cuba while Cuban imports from the EU are 84.7 percent industrial products. On one hand, the EU imports foodstuffs, beverages, and tobacco, including rum, cigars and sugar derivatives (40.8 percent) and mineral products such as nickel and scrap metal (33.6 percent). On the other hand, the EU exports to Cuba machinery and appliances (34.5 percent), and products of the chemical, plastics and allied industries (13.4 percent).

It is easy to see that the trade relationship between Cuba and the EU is unbalanced: Cuba exports mostly primary products (85 percent of their trade total), while the EU exports manufactured ones (around 81 percent of their total exports).

EU-Cuba trade recently suffered a setback with the exemption of Cuba on January 1, 2014 from the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). The Cuban exclusion is due to the way Cuba changed its method to calculate its nominal GDP in the early 2000s in order to give it a statistical boost of 15 percent. Automatically, the country jumped to higher level in EU’s GSP ranking, making it a middle income nation.

Aware that this new methodology could present such a risk, Cuban authorities preferred to keep their obscure statistics and reduce its market in Europe, in order to appear among the “developed economies”. Thus, under the new rules, taxes on Cuban cigars jumped from 7.8 percent to 26.9 percent in 2014. Despite being considered a part of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) since 2010, Cuba does not benefit from the ACP-EU Sugar Protocol, and therefore loses an advantageous tariff for its sugar.

Other EU economic presence in Cuba

The EU presence in Cuba is not only a trade relationship. European companies are present in many areas of Cuba’s economy. For the last 20 years, the EU has been the second largest source of tourists to Cuba. Tourism brings the cash-starved Cuban economy $1 to 2 billion USD every year, and is its 3rd source of cash after medical services and remittances.

Therefore, it is no coincidence that the Cuban tourism industry is dominated by European operators from Spain, France, and Germany. But, since Obama’s easing measures in 2008, Cuban-Americans and authorized (or not) American visitors have also significantly increased.

Also, one would be surprised to see how many French Peugeots and Renaults are driven along with 1950s American Chevys and 1970s Soviet Ladas in Havana’s streets. Spanish Seats and Italian Fiats are not unknown either.

European exporters of food, machinery, industry, and chemicals also represent an alternative to cheap but unreliable Asian materials, antique Russian products and, of course, banned American goods.

To finance this trade, European banks are also vital to the Cuban economy. Indeed, it is clear that European companies benefit partly from the absence of American competitors in Cuba that were forced out by US sanctions.

• Clément Doleac is a research fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. This column was published with permission from Caribbean News Now. The second part will appear in Saturday’s Nassau Guardian.

March 06, 2015

thenassauguardian

Greek tragedy, Caricom, economic lessons for Jamaica

By Franklin Johnston



It is time for a mature discussion on Caricom and Jamaica and the EU/Greece crisis can guide us. Caricom is Jamaica's most costly overseas project. What do you know about it? Federation morphed into CARIFTA, now Caricom/CSME. I am "Carisceptic", as it hasn't delivered economic growth and I don't think it can. Jamaica is a global brand. Caricom is not, and for growth we must help our own first!

T&T is right to favour its industry and not give away its LNG. If we give away our bauxite, so be it. We need to chart our own growth path as they do. The Cabinet, PSOJ, UWI, Opposition must come clean. If Caricom is a device to draw down EU and other benefits, fine, but we need more to grow. Caricom has no traction here; most don't know it, the new HQ in Guyana does not affect us and as we are all "British" it is culture neutral.

Caricom is secretive. Where are its accounts? We work, sell and go on vacation north, so an oil spill off Louisiana concerns us, not in the Eastern Caribbean (EC). Caricom is of the cognoscenti; an elite club, those who make up the glitterati at its cocktail parties and banquets; workers have no part in it.

We need an independent inquiry. What can Caricom do for our economy? It went from common market to "single economy". What does this mean? Cabinet must publish full Caricom accounts, staff, expenditure, source of funds, etc. It cost us "a bag" since 1968 - for what? Now, with the shift from regionalisation to globalisation and WTO, is it relevant to our economic growth? No more speculation, we need answers!

What does Greece/EU teach us about Jamaica/CSME? We love Britain and our ex-slave, ex-colonial English-speaking brethren, but Caricom cannot just idolise "Britishness". The EC is not a destination of choice for us and the hostility at Air Jamaica's sale to T&T speaks volumes! Love at long distance is doomed as we are intimate with those close by! Notice, even our men go to Cuba, not the EC, to find wives and mistresses? Very French!

Caricom is our intergenerational project, but it does not work for us. The reason?

The preconditions to economic union are not met in our case. Consider the following:

*The EC is far from us and thousands of sea miles form a barrier to trade, travel, intimacy as they did for the Caribs and Columbus. English heritage is our only link with the EC.

*The union of several small, poor, distant island states with no major natural resource or intellectual property base cannot benefit our economy. CSME is politics, not economics!

*Our large population relative to the size of Caricom (ours is equal to the combined islands), our chronic poverty and failure to be sustainable in our heyday of bauxite and export preferences give our partners no confidence, and though rich, they are too small to support us. Let's now compare some common EU and CSME goals:

*Free movement for work, play and study. This works for Greece but not for us. Greeks can travel in the EU cheaply by air, car or on foot. Only UWI, government officials and the rich can travel in Caricom. Workers from poor members go to rich EU states to find jobs. Our workers are not allowed into the EC to seek employment.

*Common currency. If CSME had a common "cari" our debt would hurt all members. The euro is inflexible, so Greece can't devalue to help itself as it would hurt the eurozone. But the EU has mobilised US$1 trillion to help it. What does Caricom do to help us? Nada! One euro buys little in the north, but a lot in the south, so UK citizens live or work in Greece for the good weather and cheap living. Life is cheaper in the EC but we are not allowed to live there. Britain is not in the euro, but gives billions of pounds to save it as Greece's demand keeps UK factories open. Does T&T, our "trade gorgon", do this for us? No siree!

*Free trade. Caricom trade just makes us owe the EC more. Greece gets subsidy for farms and industry from the EU. In our distress do we get Caricom subsidy? No!

*Integration, fiscal, monetary discipline. The EU rides its members hard. They have to be prudent and balance their budgets. In the EU crackdown on Greece, they require cuts in spending, wages; higher taxes and oversight - it's done; budgets may soon be sent to the EU for approval and banks to pay a levy to fund bailouts. Germans cuss Greece as "lazy freeloaders" and Greeks cuss the EU and Germany as "Nazi", but Greece submits as the subsidies are good! Would we send our budget to Guyana for approval? No way!

The non-economic benefits of Caricom are modest and not unique. Check this:

*Our knowledge-based goals as CCJ can be had without union, some from "English" Canada, or India. We can get weather, legal services etc, based on treaty or payment.

*We all need new friends. EU masons, waiters, etc, work in Greece, the UK, and make friends - this is not so in Caricom. Only our officials and the rich have friends in Caricom!

*Our neighbours offer richer cultures than Anglocentric Caricom. Why not embrace all - French, British and Spanish? Let's unite with our close neighbours and enjoy their opera and ballet, then save up for that costly once-in-a-lifetime trip to T&T carnival!

*We share an ocean, geology, tectonic, climatic, security and air space with Haiti, DR, Puerto Rico, Cuba and our growth, environment and security future is with them. Will Caricom protect us from thousands of miles away? UWI has the EC and UTech must build joint campuses in Cuba, Haiti, DR; exchange students; train multilingual technologists, professionals, managers for job opportunities in the global economy.

We have Usain, Asafa and Bob but the EC states have Kim, Viv, Ato, Rihanna, Armatrading, some Nobel laureates and surpluses - Caricom works for them. Only growth and jobs can save us, so we need to do things differently. Do we focus on a distant market of 3m in Caricom or the 30m market of our close neighbours? A "no-brainer!" Stay conscious!

Alert: To raise standards, top UK universities may no longer admit students who resit A-levels and qualifying exams. One-one coco won't do, so if you got the subjects, but not at the first sitting, then apply to a second-rate university. UWI and UTech, please note!

Dr Franklin Johnston is an international project manager with Teape-Johnston Consultants, currently on assignment in the UK

franklinjohnston@hotmail.com

June 04, 2010

jamaicaobserver

Bahamas Blog International

ACP Countries: Sidelined by Europe again?

The European Union (EU) has not included in the Lisbon Treaty a crucial article that was a feature of treaties between the EU and African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states.  The Lisbon Treaty is the new "constitution" of the EU and it will replace the previous treaties that guided the policies of the EU and the work of the European Commission (EC).

Representatives of EC have offered reasons for this omission which might have had a ring of credibility had the Caribbean not been put through the threats and demands that characterized the negotiations leading to individual Caribbean countries signing up to an unequal Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the EU.

It is difficult for skeptics to take the EC at its word.  Indeed, since the EC unilaterally denounced the Sugar Protocol leaving Caribbean sugar producers without a market that the Protocol had guaranteed, and since the EC further unilaterally amended the preferential terms under which Caribbean-produced bananas entered the EU market leaving banana farmers in dire circumstances, there is every reason to be ultra-cautious of actions by the EU and its Commission.

What is not clear is why the ACP countries have not protested at the omission of the article which they were entitled to do, and which they were urged to do by at least one activist lawyer in Brussels where both the EC and ACP secretariats are located.

It has to be assumed that the ACP representatives had good reason for not howling publicly in protest and that, at some point, they will let their publics know why they did not.  On the other hand, it may very well be that they did protest but were rebuffed by the EC, and, again, they chose not to let their publics know that, once again, raw power trumped moral obligation.  Then, it could be that the ACP representatives chose to do nothing at all on the basis that since the EC has unilaterally denounced what the ACP thought were other legally binding agreements, there was no point in even raising the issue, since the EU, at some point in the future, might abrogate an article in their own treaty if it did not suit them.  And, the ACP would be able to do nothing about it just as they did not make a legal challenge to the denunciation of the Sugar Protocol.

To be fair to the EU and the EC, my previous paragraph is pure speculation.  It may very well be that no representation was made by the ACP to the EU/EC by representatives of the ACP and therefore, the EU/EC had no reason for regarding any omission of the ACP relationship as an issue.

As background to all this, it should be pointed out that an activist lawyer in Brussells, Joyce van Genderen-Naar, wrote in March 2004 pointing out that the Article which "makes reference to the ACP countries in the previous EC/EU Treaties had been omitted from the text of the proposed Lisbon Treaty that replaces them". 

She said, paragraph 3 of Article 179 of the provisions for Development Cooperation in the current EC Treaty states that: "The provisions of this Article shall not affect cooperation with the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries in the framework of the ACP-EC Convention".

Van Genderen-Naar went on to argue that "Article179, paragraph 3, refers to the special relationship between the EC/EU and the ACP-countries, which is the oldest and largest form of cooperation between Europe and countries from the South".  She contended that historical bonds "between Europe and the ACP-countries give Europe a special responsibility for these countries, which should not be forgotten and should be a part of the next Constitution for Europe. This responsibility is even more urgent, because after 37 years of cooperation 40 of the 79 ACP-countries still belong to the poorest countries in the world. Out of the 48 poorest countries in the world 40 are ACP-countries".  (The full text of her presentation can be read at: http://www.normangirvan.info/naar-acp-disappearance-from-lisbon/).

Very few in the ACP countries would seriously argue with van Genderen-Naar's contention.
She advised the ACP "to make an official request to the European Commission and Members of the Convention (representatives of the European Parliament and Member States) to insert a provision concerning the ACP-EC-Cooperation in the new Constitution in view of the special relationship between the EU and the ACP, historical bonds, responsibilities and mutual interest, as agreed by EC and ACP in Article 55 of the Cotonou Agreement" which says: "The objectives of development finance cooperation shall be, through the provision of adequate financial resources and appropriate technical assistance, to support and promote the efforts of the ACP States to achieve the objectives set out in this Agreement on the basis of mutual interest and in a spirit of interdependence".

The EU is redefining itself.  They are describing the Lisbon Treaty as more than a Charter; they say it is the EU Constitution.  Further, they have appointed a President of the EU and a common Foreign Minister.  Beyond this deepening of their relationship, it is clear that the majority of the 27 nations in the EU feel no responsibility for the former colonies of a handful; many of them believe that the EU's obligations are to the development and prosperity of its own member states. 

If there is no reference in the Lisbon Treaty to the ACP countries, the shift in Europe's attitude to them - evident in the unilateral denunciation of contracts and in the tactics of threat used in the EPA negotiations - will be confirmed.  So, too, will be the timidity of the ACP in exercising power that can come from joint action.

The ACP must find the strength to speak with one voice again; to resist divide and rule tactics; to eschew empty promises of aid; and to fund its own institutions particularly those which interact with the EU.  If the ACP countries remain mere supplicants without demonstrating a readiness to stand up together for themselves, then they will be omitted to their detriment from more than the EU's new arrangements.

27 Nov 2009 12:49:05

caribbean360

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International