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<p>US economic power is declining as a result of the financial crisis, the head of the World Bank has said.</p> <p>"One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations," said World Bank president Robert Zoellick.</p>

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for a revamp of the global currency system, saying Thursday that the dollar's supremacy is outdated. "We need to ask the question: shouldn't a world that is politically multi-polar correspond to a multi-monetary world economically?" he said in a news conference during a summit of world leaders in L'Aquila, Italy. Sarkozy compared an overhaul of the global currency system to the enlargement of the Group of Eight structure to encompass fast-growing emerging economies, which were invited to join the Italian summit. He said the supremacy of the dollar belongs to the post-Second World War era...

Challenging the American Empire will be the prime focus of extended meetings in Yekaterinburg, Russia (formerly Sverdlovsk) this coming Monday and Tuesday for Chinese President Hu Jintao, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and other top officials of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The alliance is comprised of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrghyzstan and Uzbekistan, with observer status for Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia. The SCO countries include former Soviet and CIS republics belonging to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), established in 2002 as a counterweight to NATO. The two overlapping groups, formally aligned in 2007, will be joined on...

There are voices in the Obama Administration who believe that the Kremlin is able and willing to exert pressure on Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. However, perceived geopolitical and economic benefits in the unstable Persian Gulf, in which American influence is on the wane, outweigh Russia's concerns about a nuclear-armed Iran. The Kremlin sees Iran not as a threat but as a partner or an ad-hoc ally to challenge U.S. influence. Today, both Russia and Iran favor a strategy of "multipolarity," both in the Middle East and worldwide. This strategy seeks to dilute American power, revise...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday that his two-day visit to Beijing this week is part of the creation of a "new world order," in light of the 'collapse of the US empire.' The frequent US critic, who met with China's president and Communist Party leader Hu Jintao on Wednesday, told reporters that power in the world was shifting from America to countries such as Iran, Japan and China. "We are creating a new world, a balanced world. A new world order, a multi-polar world," Chavez said after arriving Tuesday evening. "The unipolar world has collapsed. The power of...

European elites disdained George W. Bush and adulated Barack Obama. How will they feel as Obama starts putting his multicultural, multilateral, anti-free-trade rhetoric into practice?  Last summer, with several other Americans, I went to a garden reception attended by some French barristers, generals, and assorted professionals in Versailles. Most of them, conservatives and liberals alike, were quite ecstatic about the prospect of Barack Obama as the next American president — except one. He glanced around and then quietly whispered to me, “There is only room for one Obama — and, you remember, we already are the Obama.” I think we...

The French Minister of Defence Hervé Morin has confirmed the opening of a new base in the United Arab Emirates. ‘BA 104’ is the first new French base of this type since the Second World War. There will be three different establishments to house separate elements from France’s army, navy and air force. Together they will make up a total of 500 troops and be fully operational by May this year. The first Mirage French air force fighters arrived in the country in September last year. Washington is certainly content with this, as most of their allies cannot wait to...

MOSCOW -- Cuban President Raul Castro says Havana currently enjoys "extraordinary" relations with Russia and that his visit here next week will consolidate bilateral cooperation. After a pause for most of the 1990s, then-Russian President Vladimir Putin's 2000 journey to Havana opened a "second phase" in ties between the two countries, Castro said in an interview with Russia's Itar-Tass news agency. "Several accords were re-established that are now being put into practice," the Cuban leader said, going on to stress the crucial role played by the former Soviet Union in supporting Havana through the 1960s and beyond. "Cuba by itself...

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hosted his Nicaraguan counterpart Thursday, pledging to boost ties with an old ally. Nicaragua was a close ally of Moscow in the 1980s under Daniel Ortega, a leftist who returned to power in 2006. It is the only country that has followed Russia in recognizing the independence of two separatist regions in Georgia after the Russian-Georgian war in August. Ortega's trip to Moscow follows a four-day visit by Russian navy ships to Nicaragua that ended Monday. Medvedev, who hosted Ortega in an ornate Kremlin hall, said Russia wants to build an "all-format, long-term...

MOSCOW (AP) — The presidents of Russia and Argentina called for a world not dominated by the United States as the two countries signed deals Wednesday to cooperate in energy, agriculture and science and other areas. .... "The domination of one state, even the biggest, most powerful or most successful one, is unacceptable in any case," Medvedev said. After the signing, Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez expanded on the theme, complaining how "powerful states" had forced economic and security policies onto others. "We see the results of such policy — the whole planet is paying for it," she said. Medvedev and...

(from September 30, after the bailout first failed in the House) SAO PAULO, Brazil (AP) - Astounded by the U.S. government's failure to resolve the financial crisis threatening the foundations of the global free market, fingers of blame are pointing at America from around the planet. Latin American leaders say the U.S. must quickly fix the financial crisis it created before the rest of the world's hard-won economic gains are lost. "The managers of big business took huge risks out of greed," said President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, whose economy is highly dependent on U.S. trade. "What happens in...

November 21, 2008 National Intelligence Council report: sun setting on the American century The report said that global warming will aggravate the scarcity of water, food and energy resources Tim Reid in Washington The next two decades will see a world living with the daily threat of nuclear war, environmental catastrophe and the decline of America as the dominant global power, according to a frighteningly bleak assessment by the US intelligence community. “The world of the near future will be subject to an increased likelihood of conflict over resources, including food and water, and will be haunted by the persistence...

KIEV, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, newly on good terms with Washington, on Thursday hailed the election of Barack Obama as the next U.S. president as "the beginning of victory for black people". But Gaddafi said he feared for Obama's safety, and said he hoped the United States' first black president would not be assassinated like John F. Kennedy or black civil rights leader Martin Luther King. Gaddafi, dressed in a white safari suit emblazoned with a map of Africa, said recent events, including Obama's victory, were "set down 30 years ago in the Green Book," a...

BARVIKHA, Russia (AFP) — Libyan leader and former pariah Moamer Kadhafi met President Dmitry Medvedev Friday on his first visit to Moscow since 1985, a trip that could revive military ties between Tripoli and its Cold War ally. "Our countries have friendly relations that have continued for decades," Medvedev said at the talks in the Russian leader's residence outside Moscow. Kadhafi responded: "I hope this visit will be fruitful for our relations." Arms purchases and nuclear energy are on the cards for Kadhafi's three-day visit. Libya might also offer to host a Russian naval base on its Mediterranean coastline, a...

JEDDAH: Stronger ties between Russia and Muslim nations augur well for a world that has seen problems associated with US hegemony, according to religious, cultural and political leaders who attended the Russian-Islamic World Strategic Vision Group’s three-day forum at the Jeddah Conference Palace. “The first eight years of the 21st century have shown us how a world dominated by one superpower can be dangerous. These eight years have demonstrated that problems cannot be solved by a brute show of force,” said Veniamin Popove, director of the Russian Center for Partnership of Civilizations. “The balance of power is changing. The world...

(CNSNews.com) – A U.S. attack on Syrian soil over the weekend was intended to derail recent diplomatic breakthroughs between Damascus and the European Union, the Syrian government charged on Monday. The White House and State Department declined to comment directly on Sunday’s raid, but American officials told U.S. media that helicopter-borne troops had killed an Iraqi al-Qaeda leader responsible for smuggling foreign fighters into Iraq to fight coalition forces there. Syrian state media said eight civilians were killed. The cross-border attack came at a time when Syria, an ally of Iran and a sponsor of the Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist...

Moscow, October 28, Interfax - President Dmitry Medvedev has sent greetings to the fourth meeting of the Russia - Islamic World strategic vision group in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the Kremlin reported on Tuesday. "Russia's developing cooperation with the Islamic states remains highly dynamic. Your Group is playing no small part in this," Medvedev writes. "Russia, a country with observer status in the Organization of the Islamic Conference, intends to abide firmly to its course to expand active interaction with the Islamic world. I think in connection with this, that a broad discussion of the initiative to further develop interregional dialogue,...

The anticipated catcalls from Beijing and Moscow – as well as the usual suspects in the British and Continental and Indian leftwing media – had hardly echoed when the truth dawned on them. The financial screwup that had temporarily wrecked the American economy was the end of Washington’s dominance of the world, the schandenfreudians screamed. For the nth time, the early predictions were for an end to “the unipolar world” and the start of a new multipolar dawn in international relations minus American paramountcy that would bring nirvana. The verdict was unanimous among the usual suspects not excluding the Mullahs...

The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, has called on European leaders to create a new world order that minimises the role of the US. Confident that a spat with Europe prompted by Russia's invasion of Georgia in August was over, Mr Medvedev arrived in the French spa town of Evian determined to woo his fellow leaders into creating an anti-US front. Gone was the kind of war time rhetoric that saw Mr Medvedev lash out at the West and characterise his Georgian counterpart Mikheil Saakashvili as a "lunatic". Instead Mr Medvedev spoke of a Russia that was "absolutely not interested in...

MANAUS, Brazil, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Latin America's leftist leaders on Tuesday accused the United States of "irresponsibility" in its handling of the financial crisis that has pummeled markets and threatens economies around the world. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned the crisis over credit could slow economic growth across Latin America and took a stab at Washington, predicting that U.S. economic power is in dramatic decline. "This crash of capitalism and of neoliberalism will be worse than that of 1929," Chavez told reporters at a meeting with the leaders of Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador in Brazil's Amazon city of Manaus....

SAINT PETERSBURG (AFP) — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday the era of US financial dominance was over, and he won the backing of Germany's visiting chancellor in calling for a "more just" system. Both Medvedev and German leader Angela Merkel called for new measures to respond to a credit crunch that has raised fears of a deep worldwide recession since it spread from the United States into international markets. "The time of domination by one economy and one currency has been consigned to the past once and for all," Medvedev said during a forum alongside Chancellor Merkel. "We must...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday said U.S. "unipolar" policies had failed in Iraq and Afghanistan and helped provoke the recent conflict in Georgia. Russia's invasion of Georgia last month has brought relations with the United States to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War. In a strongly worded speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Lavrov called the U.S.-led war in Iraq a "painful blow" to global anti-terrorism efforts and questioned the NATO-led force fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. He described U.S. foreign policy as "unipolar" meaning that Washington regarded itself as...

Germany blamed the United States on Thursday for spawning the global financial crisis with a blind drive for higher profits and said it would now have to accept greater market regulation and a loss of its financial superpower status.

(English-language translation) MOSCOW (AFP) - Russia today received Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez with the announcement of the granting of credit worth $1 billion for the purchase of Russian weaponry and then proposed nuclear, military, and technological cooperation. "Russia has decided to grant Venezuela $1 billion in credit to implement programs in the technical-military cooperation sphere," the Kremlin said in a communiqué, using diplomatic jargon when referring to arms purchase. Venezuela has signed 12 arms contracts with Russia since 2005 worth a total cost of $4.4 billion (3 billion euros), according to the Kremlin. Chávez's government bought fighter jets, armored [vehicles],...

Within minutes of touching down in Beijing, Chavez declared himself an "anti-imperialist" and made constant allusions to his battles with the Bush administration, saying China's rise "has shown the world that one doesn't have to attack anyone to become a great power." A self-styled revolutionary, Chavez hailed Mao Zedong, the communist founder of modern China, whom many Chinese view as irrelevant nowadays as they chase wealth. "We are offering tribute in the land of Mao," the former army paratrooper said. "I am a Maoist." Last Sunday, before leaving on a five-nation journey that began in Cuba and also will take...

This summer's lightning war with Georgia and the emerging political crisis in next door Ukraine are happening right on Dugin's schedule. President Dmitry Medvedev's recent foreign-policy manifesto, outlining Russia's claim to its own sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union, might have been penned by Dugin. ... ...Dugin says Moscow will create a new Russian empire over much of former Soviet territory.... "The Americans are openly following the main law of geopolitics: whoever controls Eurasia, controls the world. It's a war against us, open war.... I was a voice in the wilderness about this a few years ago, but...

A decade ago, many of the most influential thinkers in today’s Russia were in the intellectual wilderness. While some sat in pamphlet-littered basements churning out copies of underground ultra-rightwing newspapers with names such as Lightning and Russian Order, others were in jail following failed coups in 1991 and 1993 against the pro-western “occupation regimes” of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin.Russia’s intellectual journey since then has been dizzying, as the radical has become mainstream and the hardline position increasingly moderate-sounding, with what were the margins emerging as the political centre.Now, against the backdrop of conflict in Georgia and deteriorating relations with...

Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday announced Moscow’s intention to preserve geographical spheres “of privileged interest” on or near its borders as part of a five point foreign policy statement in a television interview. The announcement, in the wake of the recent conflict in Georgia, is likely to raise the political temperature in neighbouring states, especially those with significant Russian minorities, as they try to gauge Russia’s appetite for future conflicts in the region. He said that Russia would defend “the life and dignity” of Russian citizens “no matter where they are located”. He was referring to Russia’s intervention in...

As Russian tanks rumble through Georgia, and Western pundits talk of the "new Cold War," one trope keeps reappearing in their discourse. Russia's newly aggressive stance, we are told, is partly our fault: After the fall of Communism, the West went out of its way to humiliate and trample Russia instead of treating it as a partner--and now, an oil-powered Russia is striking back. "Russia's litany of indignities dates to the early 1990s when the Soviet empire collapsed," Samantha Power, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and former Barack Obama adviser, wrote in Time. "A bipolar universe gave...

The audience was warned; Vladimir Putin had said he would “avoid excessive politeness.” Still, many were startled when the Russian President loosed an anti-American blast without equal in the post-Soviet period. The event was Putin’s Feb. 10 speech to a security affairs group in Munich. His 4,000-word address seethed with bitterness at today’s “unipolar”—that is, one-superpower—world. Putin called US moves “pernicious” and “illegitimate.” He slammed not only “hyper-use of force” and NATO expansion but also US “economic, political, cultural, and educational” imperialism. The ex-KGB chief’s speech sparked concern in Washington, where some thought it might signal the end of the...

Days after Russia scored a stunning geopolitical victory in the Caucasus, President Abdullah Gül of Turkey said he saw a new multipolar world emerging from the wreckage of war. The conflict in Georgia, Gül asserted, showed that the United States could no longer shape global politics on its own, and should begin sharing power with other countries. "I don't think you can control all the world from one centre," Gül told the Guardian.

MINSK (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez vowed on Wednesday to work with Belarus, an ex-Soviet state long at odds with Washington, to defeat "hegemonistic" U.S. imperialism. Chavez, a self-styled socialist revolutionary, was making his third visit to Belarus in as many years after overseeing energy deals in Russia that consolidated his country's relations with Moscow. Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko, described by Chavez as a "brother", has long railed against the influence of the United States in world affairs. Western nations accuse him of flouting freedom of speech and assembly in 14 years in power. "We are struggling against the...

Harare ZIMBABWE is a rich country with great potential for economic development and the white population should appreciate the rationale behind land reform designed to address land imbalances, former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has said. Briefing journalists after meeting President Mugabe at State House yesterday, Dr Mahathir said it was important to note that before Zimbabwe's independence, whites owned a larger portion of the fertile land and now the Government had moved to correct the situation. The former Malaysian premier said the land issue should be put in its proper context. Asked about his views on the situation...

PARIS (AFP) — On his first trip abroad as prime minister, Vladimir Putin met Friday with former French president Jacques Chirac who praised his time in the Kremlin as "great years for Russia." Putin met Chirac at his Paris hotel just two weeks before the former French leader is due in Moscow to receive Russia's highest honour, in recognition of his efforts to consolidate Franco-Russian relations. Ties between France and Russia are "expanding very well," Putin said as he greeted Chirac. "I thank you for the solid foundation you created for this," said the Russian leader, who stepped down as...

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez blamed the United States for violent protests in Tibet during the last two weeks that he said were aimed at trying to destabilize China. In comments reported by his press office on Sunday, Chavez said the protests were an example of the U.S. "empire" "going against China" and trying to divide the Asian powerhouse. Communist China has occupied Tibet, a Buddhist region previously ruled by monks, since a military invasion in 1950. At least 19 people were killed after protests and rioting against the occupation broke out on March 10. China has...

Paris - Russia wants to be part of the EU peacekeeping force deployed in Chad to protect refugees from the neighbouring crisis region of Darfur, Russian Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov said Tuesday in Paris. Serdyukov said that Moscow had decided to make transport helicopters available to the 3,700-strong EUFOR force deployed in February near Sudan's western border with Chad. Serdyukov came to Paris with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to hold talks with their French counterparts, Herve Morin and Bernard Kouchner. Kouchner said that during France's EU presidency, which begins July 1, he wants to see a strategic partnership agreement...

Iran Eyes the China Card February 06, 2008 Washington Post Kayhan Barzegar China’s presence in Iran and the Middle East might be a potential threat for the United States given its current regional policies – but it is an opportunity for emerging nations like Iran. For rising nations, like Iran, that tend to follow their own independent route to advancement, the best situation is a multi-polar world in which potential global powers like China can offer investments and technology to protect rising nations from the U.S. and Europe’s pressing strength. From an Iranian perspective, therefore, China’s increased presence in Iran,...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - On a holiday created to unite his country, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a veiled warning that foreigners were seeking to split up the vast country and plunder its resource wealth. "Some people are constantly insisting on the necessity to divide up our country and are trying to spread this theory," Putin told military cadets during a speech in Moscow on Sunday, Russian news agencies reported. "There are those who would like to build a unipolar world, who would themselves like to rule all of humanity," Putin said, a phrase he has used over the past seven...

HARBIN (China), October 24 (RIA Novosti) - The placement of U.S. missile defenses in Europe will not ease global security concerns but will undermine the global strategic balance, the Chinese foreign minister said Wednesday. Washington insists that the deployment of a radar in the Czech Republic and a missile interceptor base in Poland will protect the U.S. and its NATO allies from potential missile attacks coming from Iran or North Korea, despite Russia's objections. Speaking at a news conference after a meeting between foreign ministers of China, Russia and India, Yang Jiechi expressed hope that a new concept of global...

Harbin (China) (PTI): India, China and Russia on wednesday sought "democratisation" of international relations and a "just and rational" world order but said their ambitious trilateral cooperation was not targeted against any other country or organisation. "The trilateral cooperation is not targeted against any other country or organisation and is intended to promote international harmony and mutual understanding and seeks to broaden common ground amidst divergent interests," Foreign Ministers of the three countries said in a joint communique at the end of their third standalone meeting in this city of northeast China, in an apparent message to the US and...

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — The leaders of Russia, China and Iran said Thursday that Central Asia should be left alone to manage its stability and security — an apparent warning to the United States to avoid interfering in the strategic, resource-rich region. The veiled warning came at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and on the eve of major war games between Russia and China. The SCO was created 11 years ago to address religious extremism and border security in Central Asia, but in recent years, with countries such as Iran signing on as observers, it has grown into...

Russia and China on Friday stressed their common desire for a ''multi-polar world'' - one not dominated by the United States - and vowed to keep improving economic ties that President Vladimir Putin said are already improving fast. Putin met with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, a former ambassador to the United States who suggested the trip to Moscow less than three months after his appointment, underscoring Russia's importance for Beijing. ''In the past few years, thanks to great contributions by our leaders and our governments, great positive changes have occurred in bilateral relations, taking our strategic partnership further,'' Yang...

MOSCOW -- Russia may have turned its back on Vladimir Lenin's revolutionary ideology, but Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez on Thursday told Russians they should revere and revive the ideas of the Soviet Union's founder. ''We should remember Vladimir Lenin and come back to his ideas, especially when it comes to anti-imperialism,'' Chávez told the audience at the opening of a Moscow cultural center named for the South American revolutionary hero Simon Bolivar. The rhetoric was vintage Chávez -- mainly aimed at portraying Venezuela as a bastion of defiance of the United States. Chávez's comments emphasized Venezuela's solidarity with the Kremlin...

Rival comrades unite to slam ‘CIA’s bourgeois Kerala media’ RAJEEV PI Posted online: Saturday, April 07, 2007 at 0000 hrs 50 yrs after first Communist govt, Cold War sweeps Kerala, comrades say critical papers funded by US spooks Kochi, April 6: Fortunately for Kerala, and world communism, V S Achuthanandan has no beard—nor does Pinarayi Vijayan, his arch party foe and CPM state secretary. They don’t need to worry about the CIA trying to de-beard them, as it famously did with old Fidel in Cuba to make him and his ideology less popular, during the Cold War. But short of...

Moscow, March 19, Interfax - Russia cannot afford to quarrel with the countries of the Islamic world, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. "Russia has no right to quarrel with the Islamic world, not to mention to allow anybody to make it quarrel with the Islamic world," Lavrov said at a Foreign and Defense Policy Council session on Saturday. "I am sure that the choice that Russia and other leading countries, including the civilization-forming ones, like China and India, have made in favor of the consolidation policy should become the key factor and guarantee against a civilizational rift in...

MOSCOW. March 13 (Interfax) - A planned U.S. missile defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic will shield the whole of Europe and help create a multipolar world, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko argued in a television program on Tuesday. "It will be in the interests of peaceful coexistence if each state is protected, if we possess means of defense," and "the development of multilateral models is always better that the development of a bipolar system of confrontation," Yushchenko told Russian channel Vesti 24.

SA's relations with the U.S. in the era of President Thabo Mbeki have never been good; but they are now rapidly deteriorating. On the Iranian nuclear issue, the global war on terrorism, United Nations (UN) reform and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, SA is becoming increasingly strident in its opposition to the U.S. And recently there have been signs of fury in Pretoria over the number of South African Muslims refused entry into the U.S. The listing of the Dockrat cousins on a U.S. terrorism watch list is a point of serious contention. If the climate had been better, this might have...

The striking speed of the wave of nationalization sweeping through the oil extraction sector in Venezuela, as a result of which by May 1 the national flag will wave proudly over oil fields that have been developed by foreign companies, is the latest in a long line of surprising similarities and parallels that are increasingly leading experts to compare President Hugo Chavez's Bolivar Republic with Russia under Vladimir Putin. The companies that have been left empty-handed in Venezuela, which include British Petroleum, Statoil, and ExxonMobil, must share with Chevron Corp bitter memories of the misfortune that befell international investors on...

India, China and Russia account for 40 per cent of the world’s population, a fifth of its economy and more than half of its nuclear warheads. Now they appear to be forming a partnership to challenge the US-dominated world order that has prevailed since the end of the Cold War. Foreign ministers from the three emerging giants met in Delhi yesterday to discuss ways to build a more democratic “multipolar world”. It was the second such meeting in the past two years and came after an unprecedented meeting between their respective leaders, Manmohan Singh, Hu Jintao and Vladimir Putin, during...

The foreign ministers of India, Russia and China were meeting Wednesday in the Indian capital in a bid to strengthen relations and to explore cooperation on issues such as counterterrorism and energy security, Indian officials said. The meeting between India's External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and their Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing is part of efforts by the three countries to forge a trilateral forum to work more closely on regional security issues, the officials said. "This will be the second stand-alone meeting of its kind," said Navtej Sarna, external affairs ministry spokesman. The foreign ministers...