News Archive – July-August 2016

NEW WORLD DISORDER:
Deglobalization is already in full swing
EU’s economic, political integration process inspired ASEAN, NAFTA, Mercorsur, et al
By Amotz Asa-El, MarketWatch, Aug 31, 2016 – We have come full circle. Globalization, until last decade the Left’s antichrist, is now the same thing but for the Right. What made anarchists disfigure downtown Seattle in 1999 has now made Donald Trump disfigure American politics. In 1999, globalization was derided as a rich-world conspiracy to abuse the Third World, rob the planet’s riches and contaminate its air. In 2016, globalization is demonized as the poor world’s ploy to flood the West with immigrants and take abroad its jobs….
By sheer coincidence, these three elections will take place while Europe will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Common Market, the EU’s precursor, whose establishment in the winter of 1957, inspired by a vision of economic harmony between former enemies, sparked the age of globalization. The consequent free movement of people, goods, and credit was such a success that what started off with six nations gradually swelled to 27 and what began with a shared bureaucracy produced a shared Parliament and unified currency while inspiring other regional associations like Asia’s ASEAN and the Americas’ NAFTA and Mercosur…. Now this legacy’s reaction, the age of deglobalization, is under way.
I hope the writer is correct about globalization’s demise, but I wouldn’t bet on it. The globalists’ response to a set-back is to say to its detractors, “You can go back to sleep now. We’re in disarray and in crisis.” That has been their “order out of chaos” modus operandi since the EU’s Common Market in the 1950s. Note: Mercosur is South America’s economic integration bloc, while UNASUR (Union of South American Nations) is the more recent, leftist attempt to accelerate political integration on the continent.

EUROPEAN UNION:
Brexit boosts plans to create a European Union army
The Australian, Aug 25, 2016 – ….Also fuelling the revival of the long-held federalist dream is the aggressive stance adopted by Russia, the threat of Islamist terrorist infiltration and pressure on the European Union’s external borders from an unprecedented number of migrants. A push to put the concept of a common army on the agenda of the EU summit in October has come from the normally Eurosceptic Czech Republic. Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka ­issued the appeal at an annual gathering of Czech diplomats in Prague — shortly after German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had met on an aircraft carrier off Naples in a display of unity.
“In the face of uncontrolled mass migration, even states in the centre of Europe have ­realised that internal borders must be better controlled,” Mr Sobotka said…. A common army should not compete with NATO but should make the EU a “more reliable partner”, he added….
So the EU’s “solution” for the created chaos of open national borders is to have a common European army in the midst of each country monitoring “internal” borders within the EU. Globalist Henry Kissinger’s fascist-minded “new mercantilism” of “competing regional units” is proceeding undeterred.
The EU’s most powerful official says ‘borders are the worst invention ever’
Business Insider, Aug 22, 2016 – “We have to fight against nationalism,” said Juncker, who is the president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch. “We have the duty not to follow populists but to block the avenue of populists.” He added: “Borders are the worst invention ever made by politicians… In the concentration of globalisation and European problems, we must not lose our way.”
National borders are the ultimate check and balance to prevent power-hungry bureaucrats like Jean-Claude Juncker from further expanding big government into a global federation of regional blocs.
Tony Blair Praises Sharia State UAE As Model Nation, Slams ‘Uneducated’ Brexit Voters
Breitbart, Aug 21, 2016 – Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has slammed the “catastrophe” Brexit vote as “pushing back against globalisation”, whilst also praising an autocratic Sharia state as a role model for the rest of the world. Mr. Blair said the United Arab Emirates (UAE) “is leading the way” and called on the UK to copy their education system in a lecture in the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research, the UAE’s The Nation reports. The UAE is an undemocratic theocratic monarchy, where Sharia courts regularly sentence Muslims and non-Muslims to flogging and imprisonment for “crimes” such as of drinking, adultery, and prostitution…. “Brexit is a catastrophe for Britain,” Mr. Blair also claimed in the lecture, insisting that people only voted against the European Union (EU) because they were uneducated.

UNASUR:
Interview: Regional integration more urgent for LatAm to face rise of “mega-blocs”
TPP forces drive for deeper continental integration
Xinhua (China), Aug 18, 2016 – Emerging giant trade blocs around the world make it “more urgent” than ever for Latin American countries to achieve regional integration and compete, a United Nations officer has told Xinhua in a recent interview…. Latin American countries are grouped into numerous sub-regional blocs, including the four-member Pacific Alliance, the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), the Union of South American Nations (Unasur), the Andean Community, the Venezuelan-led Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), among others. “It would be more viable if there was a single expanded market with shared trade and investment rules,” said Herreros.
TPP would not supersede or replace regional blocs, but, like mortar in a block wall, would strengthen and align the blocs into a global network. When just several nations within a regional bloc sign on to inter-regional agreements like TPP, the global network forms a “beachhead” within that region by forcing those signatory nations to honor the TPP agreement when negotiating with member nations within their own region. Thus, “maverick” regions, like South America’s leftist UNASUR bloc, would be brought into line with the globalist system.

NORTH AMERICA:
Trump’s Border Wall Idea Dismissed by Mexico’s Foreign Minister
Cites TPP as opportunity for greater integration between NAFTA nations
Bloomberg, Aug 4, 2016 – Mexico’s foreign minister, Claudia Ruiz Massieu, dismissed Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump’s calls for the nation to pay for a border wall, calling instead for greater integration between the nations. In interviews with Bloomberg Radio and Bloomberg TV in New York on Thursday, Ruiz cited the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership as an opportunity to deepen the trade relationship created by the North American Free Trade Agreement, which took effect in 1994.

EUROPEAN UNION:
Why is the EU appointing a British security chief after Brexit?
Jean-Claude Juncker nominates Sir Julian King to be Commissioner for the Security Union
The Independent (London, UK), Aug 2, 2016 – Britain’s representative to Brussels has been nominated to be the EU’s new counter-terrorism security commissioner despite the UK voting to leave the European Union…. The appointment of a Briton to help implement Mr Juncker’s goal of creating a new EU security union is a particularly unexpected twist, given the fierce opposition the concept aroused among Eurosceptics in Britain. When Mr Juncker first called for the Security Union in April, insisting “fragmentation is what makes us vulnerable,” he was bitterly attacked by supporters of Brexit. Ukip’s defence spokesman, the MEP Mike Hookem claimed: “Juncker must be literally mad if he thinks British people will sign up to a security union with the EU. Does he really believe that inexperienced bureaucrats at the European Commission are better placed to deal with British security than British security services?”

NORTH AMERICA:
Nehlen: Paul Ryan a ‘Soulless Globalist’ ‘Grown in a Petri Dish in DC’ Who Puts ‘Corporate America’ Over WI Workers
Repeatedly called Ryan an ‘open borders’ politician
Breitbart, August 2, 2016 – Paul Ryan challenger Paul Nehlen said of Ryan in an interview Tuesday with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon that Ryan “says he’s a conservative from the conservative wing of the Republican Party. He is a soulless globalist from the Democrat wing of the Uni-Party. That’s what he is.”
Nehlen repeatedly called Ryan an “open borders” politician, adding, “Paul Ryan was grown in a petri dish in D.C. He is absolutely an open borders guy, through and through.”
Nehlen, whose campaign website is here, faces off against the current House Speaker in the Wisconsin Republican primary on August 9th.

NEW WORLD DISORDER:
Why borders matter — and a borderless world is a fantasy
‘Elites’ continued attempts to erase borders are both futile and destructive’
By Victor Davis Hanson, Los Angeles Times, July 31, 2016 – ….The migrant most certainly does not wish to return to face sharia law in Pakistan…. if he had his way, institutionalizing his native culture into that of his newly adopted land, he would eventually flee the results — and once again likely go somewhere else, for the same reasons that he left home in the first place.
Similarly, when undocumented Latino youths disrupt a Donald Trump rally, they often wave Mexican flags or flash placards bearing slogans such as “Make America Mexico Again.” But note the emotional paradox: In anger at possible deportation, non-citizens nonsensically wave the flag of the country that they most certainly do not wish to rejoin, while ignoring the flag of the nation in which they adamantly wish to remain….
Clearly delineated borders
and their enforcement, either by walls and fences or by security patrols, won’t go away because they go to the heart of the human condition — what jurists from Rome to the Scottish Enlightenment called meum et tuum, mine and yours. Between friends, unfenced borders enhance friendship; among the unfriendly, when fortified, they help keep the peace.

Victor Davis Hanson is a contributing editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal and a fellow in Classics and Military History at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University
The interim “synthesis” among elites – between the “thesis” reality of national borders and their “antithesis” vision of a borderless world – is simply to expand borders into regional blocs of nations with continental borders and jurisdictions. Their interim “solution” is equally futile, but it won’t be for lack of trying on their part, as they continue to impose heartache and bloodshed on populations in a Machiavellian attempt to achieve their goal.

EURASIAN UNION:
Turkey May Leave NATO If Ankara Finds Out US Was Involved in Coup Attempt
In favor of enhanced cooperation with Eurasian Economic Union
Sputnik (Russia), July 29, 2016 – German political scientist Alexander Rahr believes that if it is revealed that Washington was involved in the failed Turkish coup attempt, Ankara may very well leave NATO and join Chinese and Russian-led security and economic organizations instead…. Furthermore, Rahr noted, if this happens, Ankara may also attempt to shift its geopolitical stance in favor of integration into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and enhanced cooperation with the Eurasian Economic Union.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is the Asian version of NATO’s defense pact, while the Eurasian Union perceives itself as an alternative to the European Union.

GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL:
How Middle Eastern monarchies survived the Arab SpringGCC Eyes Expansion to non-Gulf monarchies
Washington Post, July 29, 2016 – Consider the inverted geographic logic of this.
Rather than adding another Gulf country to the Gulf Cooperation Council, royal leaders fancied the inclusion of two non-Gulf countries. The common denominator? Royalism. Ultimately, the GCC did not expand, but because of a startling reason: some of the smaller Gulf kingdoms, such as Kuwait, feared the spread of popular uprisings from Morocco and Jordan to the Gulf….
This cross-policing possible is made possible by a little-known agreement reached in November 2012 called the Joint Security Agreement, which nominally covered the Gulf kingdoms but to which Morocco and Jordan also assented. The JSA calls for signatories to suppress any citizen who endangers the domestic affairs of other kingdoms, making it markedly unsafe for anyone living under these monarchies to criticize any other Arab monarchy.
From the Archives:
The EU Offers a Model for Unifying the Middle East
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), June 19, 2014

AFRICAN UNION:
Common passport, common currency?
AU aims to implement single currency, single continent-wide economic union by 2025
Moneyweb (South Africa), July 25, 2016 – At present 14 African nations – including 12 former French colonies – make use of two common currencies the West African – CFA franc and Central African CFA franc, both of which are guaranteed by the central bank of France and pegged to the euro. Six nations in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have committed to establishing a common currency that will be merged with the West African CFA franc. In 2013, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi agreed to merge their currencies over a 10-year period. And SADC’s regional economic integration plan targets the implementation of a single currency in 2018. According to a United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) paper, the various regional initiatives are expected to result in the establishment of an African economic and monetary union, as laid out in the Abuja Treaty of 1991. Officials at the 2015 AU Summit in Johannesburg said they aimed to implement a single currency and establish a single continent-wide economic union by 2025.
Who ate our borders? They’re almost gone! – NTV-Uganda, July 25, 2016 – At one window, a Kenyan immigration official stamps your travel document to log your exit. And you step right over to the next window, hand over your passport and a Ugandan official stamps your entry. If you are a law-abiding citizen, you are through in about two to three minutes. You walk through a short corridor, and you are in Uganda. On the return leg, you head to the opposite immigration complex, and the process happens in reverse. The same thing happens for Customs clearance. This exercise used to take travellers at least 30 minutes, and sometimes clearing your car could run into an hour!

EUROPEAN UNION:
Brexit Update: Effect of Brexit on Data Transfers Between United Kingdom and European Union
National Law Review, July 21, 2016 – While Brexit will likely have the biggest impact on the financial sector, it will also affect businesses in the United Kingdom that rely on the free flow of personal data to and from EU nations. This is not only the case for businesses engaging in some sort of data processing, such as cloud service providers, outsourcing service providers or data centre operators, but may also apply to the handling of personal data within a group that has branches in both the United Kingdom and EU/EEA countries.
There are instances where, just as within U.S. constitutional government, the “efficiency” of an expanded, consolidated jurisdiction such as the EU must take a back seat to the natoinal security of limited jurisdiction, as a means of checks and balances among governments.

DAWN OF FEDERAL EU: Now MEP demands dictatorial BAN on countries opting out of its rules – The Express (London, UK), July 19, 2016 – In a controversial intervention former Belgian prime minister and eurocrat Guy Verhofstadt called for EU leaders to ban countries from being able to opt out of unpopular measures like the Schengen zone and the Euro. Bizarrely the MEP, who leads the main liberal party in the European Parliament, believes that the rise of euroscepticisim across the continent is actually a sign that people want more diktats from Brussels. Mr Verhofstadt – a longstanding and vocal critic of Britain – said bureaucrats “cannot defend” the status quo and called for a massive push towards a unified European state.

AFRICAN UNION:
Pan-African Parliament seeks to integrate continent
‘We will enact laws that will apply to the whole continent’
New Times (Rwanda), July 16, 2016 – This was announced by Roger Nkodo Dang, the president of the Pan-African Parliament…. But the parliament will do that after getting the authority to exercise legislative power which it is yet to get. “The Parliament seeks to adopt laws that facilitate travel on the continent. Once the Pan-African Parliament begins to exercise legislative power, we will enact laws that will apply to the whole continent and will facilitate the integration of the continent,” he said.

EUROPEAN UNION:
Germany eyes EU defense union without Britain
British resisted ceding sovereignty to EU authorities
Reuters, July 13, 2016 – Germany and France want to forge closer defense cooperation in the European Union following the departure of Britain, which has “paralyzed” such initiatives in the past, German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday…. Von der Leyen suggested the construction of a European “civilian-military headquarters”, from which EU missions could be deployed, as well as a European medical force.
Brexit could take six years, says Hammond – The Times (London, UK), July 13, 2016 – Disentangling Britain from the European Union could take six years, Philip Hammond said yesterday: two years to negotiate and a further four years to fully ratify. The foreign secretary said: “Until we have served an Article 50 notice, we remain a full, participating member of the EU and our ability to negotiate new trade agreements is restricted by the continued application of EU law until we have negotiated our exit.”
Mogherini presents her Global Strategy to the European Parliament
Partnerships with international organizations, i.e., NATO, UN, African Union, CELAC, Arab League, ASEAN, are key
The Parliament Magazine (European Union), July 11, 2016 – On July 6, the European Parliament hosted High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini in order to present her EU Global Strategy published on June 28 2016….
The UK referendum will change many things, she continued, but the EU project is not stopping here…. If we want to be relevant in the world, we cannot think as national states. There is no contradiction of local, national or European identities, but it is important to realise that some challenges can only be dealt at European level…. It focuses on military security that the EU could provide…. Partnerships with international organisations, i.e. NATO, the UN, as well as the African Union, CELAC, the Arab League and ASEAN, are key for a successful global strategy, she stressed.

EURASIAN UNION:
Lack of progress on NATO may turn Georgia towards Russia
Daily Mail (London, UK) | Reuters, July 7, 2016 – Ex-Soviet Georgia could start a gradual drift back into the orbit of its former overlord Russia if it does not see tangible signs soon that it will be invited to join NATO. Georgian officials will be at a NATO summit in the Polish capital on Friday where they will be seeking assurances that the alliance will make good on the promise it delivered in 2008 that Georgia would eventually become a member.

EUROPEAN UNION:
Brexit: Germany vying to emerge as European Union superpower following Britain’s exit
Financial market, immigrant labor may gravitate to Germany from Britain
ABC News (Australia), July 6, 2016 – After living in the shadow of London for decades, Britain’s move should also allow the German financial capital, Frankfurt, to shine as a global market hub and emerge at the heart of European financial life…. The Brexit vote could open up a new source of much-needed immigrant labour for Germany to help fill the big gaps in its workforce as it replaces Britain as a destination for those from other parts of the EU looking for work.

AFRICAN UNION:
United States of Africa? African Union launches all-Africa passport
‘Free movement’ of people around the continent – with ‘centralized records to show who is going where’
KITV Honolulu | CNN, July 5, 2016 – As the European Union threatens to unravel in the wake of Britain’s vote to leavce, the African Union is pursuing a path of closer integration through the launch of a common passport that will grant visa-free access to all 54 member states…. Critics have suggested open borders risk strengthening terror groups and organized crime, but Zounmenou disagrees. “One key advantage is that we will have centralized records to show who is going where,” he says.
How nationalism hinders Pan-African agenda
Greater continental integration’ of sub-regions requires ‘homogeneous form of Africanist nationalism’
The Herald (Zimbabwe), July 4, 2016 – African countries are moving towards regionalisation albeit at a slow place. Regional organisations such as SADC, ECOWAS and EAC can be seen as building blocks to greater continental integration…. The crisis however, faced is that this requires African countries to surrender part of their sovereignty which most leaders due to nationalist ideologies are reluctant to do….
The challenge in the unification of the continent has been to find a homogeneous form of Africanist nationalism.
Why Sweat the Brexit?
Daily Trust (Nigeria), July 4, 2016
“Under a major political union of Africa, there could emerge a great and powerful nation in which the territorial boundaries which are relics of colonialism will become obsolete and superfluous” – Kwame Nkrumah, (first President of Ghana)
….How many Africans know that the 27th AU summit comes up in Kigali next week even as we agonize about fractured EU? Why must we be eager to build a stronger EU and be indifferent to a strong Africa Union as envisioned by late Kwame Nkrumah?… Let’s sweat about a better AU not a weakened EU.

GCC:
Is It Time For OPEC To Dissolve?
Yahoo! Finance, July 4, 2016 – As members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), these countries previously wielded power over oil prices and enjoyed the benefits of high oil prices…. The Gulf nations might be better served by strengthening the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The member nations of the GCC (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates), are major oil producers who hold 40 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Due to their similar beliefs, oil dependency, and geographical closeness, they are in a much better position to help each other. However, in order to expand their reputation, they would need to follow the successful, single-market policy of the European Union and project a united front for all their business dealings.

EUROPEAN UNION:
Brexit vote makes united Ireland suddenly thinkable
Daily News & Analysis (India), July 3, 2016 – Eighteen years after a peace deal ended decades of fighting between mainly Catholic nationalists who favour a united Ireland and mainly Protestant unionists who favour remaining part of the United Kingdom, Britain’s Brexit vote is making people on both sides of the divide in Northern Ireland think the unthinkable. Northern Ireland, like neighbouring Scotland, voted to stay in the European Union, with 56% in favour, even though Britain as a whole voted to leave the bloc.

ASEAN:
Brexit Vote a Wake-Up Call for Asean, Indonesia’s Lembong Says
Bloomberg, July 1, 2016 – Often criticized for being too slow to integrate, consistently missing deadlines and dithering on removing costly logistics barriers, Asean has long suffered in comparison to the EU. Yet the adoption of a less stringent timetable for integration, and avoiding decisions on thorny issues such as allowing the free movement of people, could actually help maintain Asean unity. Asean’s Director of Community Affairs Lee Yoong Yoong said that with the broader impact of Brexit still an unknown, the British vote reinforced the fact that Asean should keep the speed of integration moving at its own pace.

SAARC:
Leaving Brexit behind
EU model for SAARC
France, Germany held up as example for India, Pakistan
The Nation (Pakistan), July 1, 2016 – The role of the EU in helping France and Germany bury past differences was often held up as an example to India and Pakistan. SAARC was supposed to serve as the EEC [European Economic Community] for South Asia. If the EU cannot sustain this shock, SAARC would look even less promising than it does. SAARC has a particular resonance, for all its members except Afghanistan were part of the British Empire, and all have important diasporic populations there.
The European Union was formed in 1993 out of the European Economic Community, first organized in 1957.

AFRICAN UNION:
The opposite of Brexit: African Union launches an all-Africa passport
EU offers model of progress, pitfalls of regional integration
Washington Post, July 1, 2016 – On June 13, two weeks before the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, the African Union announced a new “single African passport.” The lead-up discussion was much like the original debate on the European Economic Community, the E.U.’s predecessor. African passport proponents say it will boost the continent’s socioeconomic development because it will reduce trade barriers and allow people, ideas, goods, services and capital to flow more freely across borders. But now the A.U. faces the challenge of making sure the “e-Passport” lives up to its potential – and doesn’t fulfill detractors’ fears of heightened terrorism, smuggling and illegal immigration…. An A.U. passport represents the latest effort to create a common market spanning the continent, much like that in the E.U….
The E.U. offers a model that the A.U. can use to study both the progress and pitfalls of regional integration: managing a common currency, balancing economies of vastly different sizes and structures, and building solidarity within and across culturally diverse nations. Brexit is a reminder of the challenges inherent in a shared political and economic space.
‘Brexit a wake-up call for East Africa’
East African Community espouses EU integration model
The Herald (Zimbabwe), July 1, 2016 – Britain exiting the European Union (EU) is a wake-up call for the East African Community (EAC) member states to critically look at the integration process, a top government official said on Wednesday…. The EAC, a regional trading bloc that brings together Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan espouses the EU integration model in its efforts to fast track economic development. The bloc already has a Customs Union, Common Market and is now working on a Monetary Union. Its ultimate goal is to have a political federation, a similar quest by the EU.

ASEAN:
Brexit and the EU: Lessons for ASEAN
Jakarta Post, July 1, 2016 – Certainly some of the determinant factors that pushed 17.4 million Britons to vote “Leave” are, to an extent, relevant to Indonesia and the ASEAN region. The free movement of people that resulted in unrestricted immigration, elitist officials and bureaucrats making decisions that did not serve the interests of the people and the feeling that the country would do better alone rather than tied to an unwieldy regional grouping are arguably just as applicable to Indonesia as to the UK.

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