Oops, sorry Noirette at 87, not Nana2007 at 98.
Since I botched that, let me make amends. This is the most interesting thing I’ve seen on Yemen. The War Nerd: A Brief History Of The Yemen Clusterf*ck. The author worked for a time in Yemen.
Further to the point that Demian makes at 91, about support for fundamentalism as a block to modernity.

Arabs were getting very “modern” at that time [in the early 60’s – rm]. It’s important to remember that. You know why they stopped getting modern, and started getting interested in reactionary, Islamist repression?
Because the modernizing Arabs were all killed by the US, Britain, Israel, and the Saudis.
That was what happened in the North Yemen Civil War, from 1962-1967. After a coup, Nasser backed modernist Yemeni officers against the new Shia ruler. The Saudis might not have liked Shia, but they hated secularist, modernizing nationalists much more. At least the Northern Shia kings ruled by divine right and invoked Allah after their heretical fashion. That was much better, to the Saudi view, than a secular Yemen.
And the west agreed. To the Americans of that time, “secular” sounded a little bit commie. To the British, it sounded anti-colonial and unprofitable. To the Israelis, it raised the horrible specter of an Arab world ruled by effective 20th-century executives. States like that might become dangerous enemies, while an Arab world stuck in religious wars, dynastic feuds, and poverty sounded wonderful.
Why do you think the IDF has not attacked Islamic State or Jabhat Al Nusra even once?….
Arabs are reduced to choosing which Allah and which Emir to support because a half-century alliance between the worst oligarchies in the West and the most reactionary elements in their countries wiped out the alternative. That’s why it’s so grotesque to hear right-wingers blaming the Arabs for the lack of commitment to democracy and even more ridiculous that Leftists demand respect for fascist thugs like Islamic State, as if they were the voice of the Muslim people.
These sectarian wars are what’s left when you’ve killed everybody else who was attempting to provide Arabs with an effective, secular, modern existence.

Cf. to US support for the mujaheddin vs. the PDPA and the Soviets in Afghanistan. Is it coincidental that Arab modernization collapsed with the Soviet Union?
ps — loved the “crazy” riff, N2007, that WOW complained about on the other thread, it was inspired.
To WOW at 93 — a standard academic definition of modernity.
1. an ideology of progress
2. democratic politics
3. social mobility
4. secularization
5. application of science & technology to production
6. globalization of the economy
Did the West “impose” these features? Well, if societies with these features are more creative and productive than pre-modern societies, then others will need to emulate them in order to compete. Such is the nature, to date, of human social evolution.
These transformations can be compatible with other cultures. See the example of Japan; it consciously adapted itself to Western institutions, but did so in a uniquely Japanese way.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 1 2015 5:19 utc | 104

@Demian, 51:
Yes, Friedman does seem to be a “realist and treats Russia as a rational actor”—and if he said much the same to a Russian paper this would tend to confirm this about him personally. The problem is the psychopaths he works with and for, and the imperial system (financial, political, military, psycho-cultural… full spectrum) that spawned them. That an insane system has rational advisers isn’t much comfort…
In an earlier post I mentioned that I am enough of a materialist to take note of geography in human relations, but would not say that I myself adhere to Mackinder’s thesis or its variants. At the very least the Russians and Chinese linking up the “World Island” via high speed rail gives Mackinder’s geopolitics a whole new meaning, though—the ultimate “interior lines” Land Power to freak out the global Sea Power. And it is always helpful to know how one’s enemy thinks. What surprised me here is how open Friedman is being about it. Things seem to have gotten to a point at which the Empire no longer cares about pretenses any more—the ultimate political decadence, the eve of World War, or both…
Yet WW1 resulted, among other things, in the Russian Revolution, and WW2 in the Chinese Revolution. Assuming we can avoid nuclear catastrophe, what might WW3 yield?
and @58:
I think I see why you believe The Rise of Russia article might complement the Friedman interview, but have to disagree with the author’s perspective and analysis. I agree with rufus magister’s critique @ 64; additionally I have a hard time seeing how US troops at Murmansk and Vladivostok were “imposing the Bolshevik Revolution on Russia…” For half of the 1920’s the US was engaged in military conflict against the USSR, Lenin died before the first five year plan was conceptualized, and there were only two complete five year plans (not “several”) before WW2.
If some US capital was invested in the early USSR it doubtless helped the industrialization process but I doubt it was particularly decisive. I do not get the impression it was anywhere near the scale of US and other capitalist investment in, say, China over the past 30 years. And as with China, I do not believe that it was with any decades-long scheme in mind, but simply for profit. As T.J. Dunning put it:
“With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10% will ensure its employment anywhere; 20% will certain produce eagerness; 50% positive audacity; 100% will make it ready to trample all human laws; 300%, and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage both. Smuggling and the slave-trade have amply proved all that is here stated.”
With adequate profit, capital will even build up the productive base of ideological and/or geopolitical rivals, “sanctions” notwithstanding.

Posted by: Vintage Red | Apr 1 2015 5:43 utc | 106

@jfl, 80:
“The embarrassment, the shame, is our misfortune, ain’t none of his own.”
As I’ve heard chanted at antiwar actions here in the Bay Area:
Not my war, not my president,
Not my flag, not my government.
Proper identification means a lot on so many levels, most especially avoiding demoralization over the class enemy’s actions. As the Vietnamese used to say, “Turn hatred into energy!”

Posted by: Vintage Red | Apr 1 2015 5:48 utc | 108

Amusing that a century later there are still some shills who are still desperately trying to hide what was acknowledged back in 1919 regarding Wall St’s financing of people like Trotsky and his bolshevik death squads.
Funny that the redshills (Shills fer Schiff!) here have no problem with wall st financing death squads in russia a century ago but are now up in arms over present day US financing of death squads in the M.E.
I guess a propensity for hypocrisy and dishonesty are a fundamental part of every idealogue

Posted by: to the shills | Apr 1 2015 6:50 utc | 110

At least 37 killed in Saudi raids on dairy plant in Yemen

The overnight raid in Al Hudaydah Province on Tuesday also left dozens injured.

Just like the IDF, aren’t they? Nihilist fundamentalists, slayers of the innocent. The only difference is that the Saudis pay for their American weapons while we Americans pay for the Israelis’ American weapons.
This is WW III, rolling down the runway in the middle of the oilpatch. Wait till it’s airborne.
The neocons must be delighted. Whoopee, we’re all gonna die!

Posted by: jfl | Apr 1 2015 11:59 utc | 112

Ukraine refuses to extradite former Georgian president to Tbilisi
April 01, 15:23 UTC+3
Ukraine’s Prosecutor’s Office says the request to extradite Saakashvili to Georgia is “politically motivated” and contradicts the European Convention on Human Rights
http://tass.ru/en/world/786441

Posted by: okie farmer | Apr 1 2015 14:46 utc | 114

In one regard the fearmongering of the neocons did have the desired outcome. The big stumbling block in the Geneva negottiaions is the when & how the sanctions are lifted.
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/03/31/phasing-out-sanctions-bedevil-iran-talks

Posted by: Willy2 | Apr 1 2015 16:35 utc | 116

@108, as a general rule, the harder to find, the more valuable. This is particularly true of communism. The eager searcher will find plenty to prove that fascism and communism are two sides of the same coin, that both were corrupted by wall st, even pawns of the Rothschilds, especially Lenin who was a wicked Jew, for good measure. Just combine any of: Bolsheviks, Lenin, Wall St, Stalin, Trotsky…the usual, and a cornucopia of obfuscation will overflow into your browser.
Pioneers! Remember this: Dark is not the opposite of light, it is the lack of light.

Posted by: ruralito | Apr 1 2015 20:29 utc | 118

in re 110 —
Name calling will not make up for a lack of facts.
Can you cite a reputable historian of the Civil War on any of your points or QUQ’s? The 1919 Red Scare Senate hearings that constitute the slight evidence presented is probably not the best source on the Bolshevik Revolution (see Quote/UN-Quote at 84). And in any case states an obvious fact — medieval, autocratic Russia had decades of catching up to do.
The rest on Schiff and Milner is, in this context, irrelevant gibberish. Since you don’t provide publication data and a page ref., they are impossible to check.
Milner was a cabinet minister throughout the Great War and into the 20’s — while Britain was intervening in the Baltic and Black Seas.
How does what Schiff might have done in 1905 relate to what happened over a decade and a “Great War” later? I doubt if Schiff’s money went to the Bund, the Jewish labor movement in Tsarist Russia.
In any case, the origins of the 1905 revolution lie in the earlier labor troubles and political protests that victory in the Russo-Japanese War was supposed to quash. Strikes and demos were well underway even before the defeat. See Wikipedia on the 1905 Revolution.
Folks might be interested in what little Wikipedia has on Gen. de Goulevitch. From their article on the Cleon Skousen, a leading ultra-conservative.

According to Southern Poverty Law Center, among the sources Skousen cited to substantiate his claims in The Naked Capitalist was a former czarist army officer named Arsene de Goulevitch, whose own sources included Boris Brasol, a White Russian émigré who provided Henry Ford with the first English translation of the fraudulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and later became a supporter of Nazi Germany.

For Skousen, see also Salon from 2009; Clousen was a “right-wing crank whom even conservatives despised” until Beck took a shining to his work.
VR @ 109 — Thanks, and keep up the good work yourself. I got to thinking, it seems to me that Wash. tends to go secular and for its paid guerillas, except in the Middle East, (the contras in Nicaragua, e.g.) though sometimes with clerical backing. And it usually prefers to work through states or militaries (e.g., Pinochet), again, except the Mid-East.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 2 2015 0:07 utc | 120

Nana at 121 —
I like Wayout, fights the good fight and keeps us on our toes. I trust WOW is working on a second wind. Your no. 56 on this thread was maybe a bit over the top, but quite imaginative and a real tour de force.
I was a teenage communist (in rural Delmarva) and rapidly became deeply interested in “the Russian Question.” I was through Trotsky and many of the revisionist social historians by the time I went back and finished college. I owe War Nerd to the daily “Links” at Naked Capitalism.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 2 2015 3:06 utc | 122

RM@104&122
“I was a teenage Communist? sounds like a B-Movie from the ’50s Red Scare.
You certainly have grown out of that phase especially with the six points about progress and modernity you supplied which I would expect from someone from USAID or the Ford Foundation to offer. Here is my translation of those points into real world effects.
1. Progress for some and exploitation for the rest.
2, Corporate control.
3. Individualism
4. Divide and rule.
5. Robots took my job.
6. More corporate control.
Japan with their modern clean and safe nukes might not be the best example of scientific progress and their economy has been stuck in stagnation for over twenty years but they do make good robots to take our jobs.

Posted by: Wayoutwest | Apr 2 2015 5:31 utc | 124

Wayout @ 124 —
No, still officially a Fourth Internationalist, but we probably could use a Fifth.
My source for the definition is a textbook I used a no. of years ago, Discovering the Global Past, by Merry Wiesner. You raise a number of problems with the status quo. If I may restate upon your alternatives, and perhaps clarify them.
First, let me note, Soviet industrialization conforms, to a degree, to this model (weak on democracy, strong on industry and social mobility). Turkey has done OK, from what I can tell, since Ataturk.
Progess and exploitation — the lower class has always been exploited. Would you prefer yours with or without running water (a luxury in much of the 3rd. World, granted, or cell phone service, etc.) The pre-modern world does not believe in or appreciate change, seeing things as at best cyclic and hoping for static; we’ve fetishized it.
Corporate control and democracy– as I socialist, I stand for industrial democracy. What’s your solution. You would prefer, say, theocratic absolutism? Or an aristocratic feudalism?
Individualism and social mobiilty — not really a problem, IMHO. I’m an old-fashioned Enlightenment kinda guy, people should be able to think for themselves. They do anyway, if you encourage it folks are better at it. You would prefer closed castes, or hereditary aristocrats? Social mobility is regrettably decreasing here in the US.
Secularization and divide and rule (which I don’t get, frankly) — the sort of demystification of religion and the relaxation of inquisitorial control over individual behaviour. Public policy is settled by intellectual debate, not invocation of divine will (yeah, I know, Indiana, Fox, etc; it’s an ideal)
Robots and science and technology — it’s not robots, it’s off-shoring and financial capital that are moving jobs. Again, your exploitation with or without the modern conveniences? Technology could allow everyone to work less, instead of few to own and control more.
Corporate control and a global economy — covered under industrial democracy. Isn’t cool to have stuff from all over the world? I used to work shoreside in international shipping, inbound, for lines, agents, customhouse brokers. Russian plywood, Indian ossein (for gelatin), Italian wine, Dutch beer, Asian clothes and toys.
Cultural items, too, like Bollywood and gangnam style, anime, etc., as well as the goods and materials.
Despite Fukushima, the bullet trains still run, Japanese firms control major markets and pioneer new technologies, and on economic stagnation, we seem to be starting to catch up with the Japanese.
The fact remains, Japan after Meiji went from a feudal to an industrial society. Formerly isolated, it began borrowing selectively from Britain, France, Holland, and Germany as it suited their needs. They insisted on rights to manufacture the technologies they licensed, and typically improved on it, sending managers and techs to the West for training.
Within 40 years, they had defeated a Great Power, Russia. Thirty years later they were confident enough to attach the United States, giving Uncle Sam a run for his money. And still believe in Shinto, sumo, kabuki, geishas, and so on.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 2 2015 6:48 utc | 126

A new satanic liberal attack on Christians: teaching yoga in public schools:
Yoga classes do not violate students’ religious rights, Californian court rules

Posted by: Demian | Apr 4 2015 7:49 utc | 128

Are the ukrainian neo-nazis killing their (moderate) opponents ?
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/04/03/mysterious-deaths-in-ukraine/

Posted by: Willy2 | Apr 6 2015 8:23 utc | 130

Who’s going to put together your spiPhone 10? Cheaper than the Chinese? Why … American prisoners!
Boycott, Divest and Sanction Corporations That Feed on Prisons

[P]rison administrators throughout the country are lobbying corporations that have sweatshops overseas, trying to lure them into the prisons with guarantees of even cheaper labor and a total absence of organizing or coordinated protest.

Hey … gotta do it! It’s the ‘rational’ next-step for ‘free market’ capitalism.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 6 2015 12:57 utc | 132

@127
Greece Confirms April 9 Payback to IMF

According to the Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, Greece plans to fulfill all obligations to its creditors seeking to quell fears of a possible default ahead of a US$500 million International Monetary Fund loan repayment later this week.
Meanwhile, Varoufakis is scheduled to meet with officials of the U.S. Treasury on Monday to discuss the proposed country’s economic reforms.

So much for …
Greece draws up drachma plans, prepares to miss IMF payment

Greece no longer has enough money to pay the IMF €458m on April 9 and also to cover payments for salaries and social security on April 14, unless the eurozone agrees to disburse the next tranche of its interim bail-out deal in time.
“We are a Left-wing government. If we have to choose between a default to the IMF or a default to our own people, it is a no-brainer,” said a senior official.

… the IMF comes before salaries and social security? I guess the ‘senior official’ meant the Greek government has no brains … or some other body part that begins with ‘b’.
Well … maybe they’ll pull a rabbit out of a hat?

Posted by: jfl | Apr 6 2015 22:00 utc | 134

Killings in the Name of Ukrainian Land of Donbas

On March 22, in his Sunday sermon, the Patriarch Philaret of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate explained to his parishioners in Volodymyrsky cathedral in Kyiv that Ukrainian soldiers who are killing civilians and rebels in Donbas do not transgress God’s commandment “thou shalt not kill”.
Why? Because they are defending their own land against “separatists” who want to join Donbas to Russia. These separatists as well as their masters in Moscow carry inside themselves the root of evil.

And here we have civil religion. Makes no difference which ‘brand’. Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Islamic. Makes no difference. Its role is to ‘sanctify’ state murder and all other manners of abuse.
I believe there are sacred things in this world – the world itself, the universe is sacred – and mysterious beyond our understanding.
I also believe the human institutions – religious, governmental, non-governmental. certainly commercial – are decaying, putrifying, from the instant they are born. They need literally and periodically to die, and others to be reborn, on the model of life in our sacred and mysterious universe.
Civil religion is like all other institutions in this respect – if it can be justified, and I wonder if it can – it needs periodically to die and a distinct successor reborn. In fact civil religion, having appropriated the mantle of the sacred and mysterious, is potentially the most unambiguously criminal of all human institutions. And all too frequently it realizes its potential.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 8 2015 1:05 utc | 136

@jfl #136:
Makes no difference which ‘brand’. Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Islamic. Makes no difference. Its role is to ‘sanctify’ state murder and all other manners of abuse.
Oh really? Please give me an example of when an Orthodox or Lutheran church (Missouri Synod does not count: it is fundamentalist and hence not Lutheran by definition) has sanctified state murder. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Kyiv Patriarchate is not an Orthodox church: it is another Ukrainian fiction. From Wikipedia:

The church is unrecognized by other canonical Eastern Orthodox churches, including the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) is the legitimate Orthodox church in the Ukraine, and it is resolutely against the civil war.
You shouldn’t make denigrating statements about religions you know little about.
P.S. On second thought, Luther sided with the aristocracy in the Peasants’ War. So it is fair to include Lutheranism in your list. The Russian Orthodox church is still excluded, however. As has been noted here before, the Russian Orthodox church does not accept the doctrine of “just war” of the Roman Catholic church, and considers it to be heretical.

Posted by: Demian | Apr 8 2015 3:13 utc | 138

Lest we forget that the New American Century started with Bill Clinton, “The Whole Town Cried”. Devastation of the helpless is as American as apple pie. Going back to the Philippines and Cuba … abroad. Not to mention the indigenes.
Clinton, Bush, Obama … let’s hope its one, two, three strikes – you’re out! at the old ball game.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 8 2015 4:01 utc | 140

@141
Take your meds, Demian.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 8 2015 5:35 utc | 142

Brazil’s Dom Helder Camara — The People’s Saint

During these years, he was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize, but Brazil’s military dictatorship pressured Norway mercilessly not to give him the award. When the prize was given to Henry Kissinger, Dom Helder wrote to the Nobel Committee and respectfully asked it never to consider him again. The outrage in Europe over Kissinger getting the prize instead of Dom Helder was such that the Alternate Peace Prize was established and a cash amount equal to the Nobel Prize was raised by popular subscription and given to Dom Helder, who used it for an experiment in land reform in the State of Pernambuco, of which Recife is the capitol.

Perhaps there can be an Alternate Nobel Peace Prize instituted again. One awarded, not to Warmongers for enriching the armaments manufacturers, like Alfred Nobel and Barack Obama, thereby laundering left-handedly their wars and war crimes as well, but one awarded instead to those who actually further peace in this world.
Each prize is worth 8 million SEK (c. US$1.2 million, €0.93 million). that’d be €10 from about 93,000 Europeans. There are 742.5 million souls in Europe (2013) so only 125 out of every million European citizens willing and able to pony up €10 need be found. Surely that could be done.
Overthrowing the villainous choices of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee would be empowering. Who knows, once that was accomplished, the Europeans might go after NATO and the US stooges in the European Union as well. Run them off the continent on a rail.
And as far as the Vatican goes … they’re pulling a tawdry trick indeed. Where were the Pope’s when they could actually have helped Dom Helder’s work? Same place the Nobel Peace Prize Committee was. Sharing brandy and cigars in the backroom?
The Vatican doesn’t make saints, the people make saints. The Vatican gloms onto the charisma of the saints recognized by the people … or tries to.
Just as the Nobel Peace Prize Committee does, on occasion. About every third or fourth or fifth round of Prizes.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 8 2015 13:21 utc | 144

jfl, demian at 136, 138-141
The Orthodox Church was legal but subject to various bouts of repression (a regrettably common Soviet experience), and indeed was promoted during The Great Patriotic War.
I believe you will find it aided and abetted the notorious 1903-05 pogroms in the Ukraine. The autocracy required most Jews to live in “Pale of Settlement” in the Ukraine, so most of the violence took place there, little in Russia itself, even allowing for the smaller population. Nor was the hierarchy very nice to the Old Believers after Nikon’s reforms following the Reformation.
I would think the continuation of autocracy and serfdom, along with the promotion of European reaction following the Congress of Vienna, would rival the misdeeds of imperialism in that period. Of course, since The Great War begun just over a hundred years ago the West has got this hands down. We’re still running up the score; payback’s a b****, as they say.
I would note, as Halyna Molrushyna did at Counterpunch (see 136), that the status of Philaret’s organization as an autonomous unit of the Moscow Patriachate got canonical recognition at its founding in 1990. He had coveted the Moscow see, but lost the election to Aleksey II, and this prompted his sudden interest in autonomy.
Molrushyna reports that Philaret’s vainglorious life-style (including a wife and family he flaunted openly; parish clergy are married, but the hierarchy is celibate) was going to get him excommunicated, so he took the next step and got himself made Patriarch.

On November 1, 1991, Philaret convened the Council of Ukrainian Bishops at which he declared that since Ukraine now was now an independent state, it needed an independent church. Kyiv should therefore demand complete independence from Moscow and accept the creation of a Kyiv Patriarchate.

Already looking a bit less than holy. Things do not improve.
Harold at 137 — He said that, and much more. It made some right wing site as a top Russian lie on the Ukraine — they’re not killing people, they’re defending themselves, is the spin they put on it.
Conveniently they (like Molrushyna) link to the Patriach’s statement, and with the aid of Bing, some highlights from the Ukrainian text. It clearly justifies killing folks in the Donbas with a clear conscience, and indeed, a sense of Christian duty. His history and theology both look a bit dicey to me.

Do we have the right to defend our own land, or we do not have this right? Think! [he uses the imperative form of this verb – rm] Because we are told that we should maintain peace, not to fight, not to defend their land. What is the truth and where the root of evil?
The root of evil lies in those people who live in the Donbas, and those who are in Moscow.
What is the error of those living in the Donbas, not all, but of the separatists?
It lies in the fact that they don’t recognize that Donbass is a land — for Ukrainians. And there Ukrainians lived and are living. Take yourself through the villages of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. There lives the indigenous population…. But who are the separatists? These are people who came from Russia and other republics of the Soviet Union or Russian Empire and settled on the Ukrainian lands. And Ukrainian soil gladly accepted them….
Where lies the truth for Ukrainians, of separatists who want to sell Ukraine, instead of being thankful that the Ukrainian land gave them shelter, gave them life, because they were born there? They want to sell Ukrainian land as Judas sold his teacher the Lord Jesus Christ. Betrayal in all ages remains unchanged….
Think about where God whom God in times like these, with the truth, with love or with the invader-aggressor? Where Is God? And every intelligent person will say: God is where the true God where there is love.

The bad history — Crimea, Donbas and Odessa were conquests by Catherine II from the Ottomans, and never part of the putative Ukrainian patrimony until transferred by Lenin in 1919 (well, Crimea by Khrushchev). The solidly industrial Red Donbas was a counterweight to the peasant nationalists of Kiev.
And of course, the legitimate government installed last year in Kiev attacked no one, right? No right to self-defense in the Donbas, it would seem. Well, not the city slickers, anyway, just the good country folk have rights.
The bad theology — isn’t the Lord supposed to be with us all, no matter how grievous the sin (assuming the act sinful)? He may or may not be happy with you, but he’s there for whosever may call upon his name, he says.
I never got the beef against Judas. Dad’s scheme required Jesus’ death for forgiveness (“the Lamb of God,” i.e., blood sacrifice). I would think Judas got a good spot in the heavenly choir. To judge from this, the guy had pipes.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 9 2015 1:43 utc | 146

Brazil to Cancel Rocket Launch Agreement with Ukraine

After nearly 12 years of delays, the Brazilian government decided to cancel the bilateral agreement for the launch of Ukrainian rockets with commercial satellites from a base in Alcântara, in the Brazilian State of Maranhão.
The two governments have spent approximately R$ 1 billion in the failed venture, splitting the bill.
Folha learned that the decision was made by President Dilma Rousseff based on a report by an inter-ministerial group in January, but has not yet communicated the decision to Kiev.
The claim was that the cost of the satellite launcher, Cyclone-4, may have become too high in the current scenario of fiscal contraction. The project was always costly: it was predicted that it would bring about losses for 20 years. Officially, until Ukraine is informed, the agreement is maintained.
Thus, the door has been reopened to a negotiation that has long interested the US: to use the Alcântara facilities for commercial purposes. An agreement was signed in 2000 but never concretized, because it set out that Americans could use the base, but would not willingly share their technology.
Alcântara is an object of desire due to its equatorial position – most communications satellites orbit in parallel to the equator, so less fuel is spent on its release. Europeans, for example, launch satellites from French Guiana.
As Rousseff is in the process of rapprochement with the US government in the wake of the scandal where she found herself spied upon, this subject could only recently be resumed.
The Russian diplomacy, according to what Folha learned, had also been quietly pressing Brazil to abandon the agreement with their Ukrainian rivals. The Russians may even offer launchers.
Cyclone-4 is a distant child of the Soviet Union’s space program that was in Ukrainian hands after the dissolution of the communist empire in 1991.
It was offered to Brazil in 2003 to launch in 2007. Nothing happened. In 2006, a binational company was put together to run the project, called ACS (Alcantara Cyclone Space), scheduled for release in 2010.
Due to lack of funds and a territorial dispute with Afro-Brazilian slave-descendants, called quilombolas, the deal plodded along–the last forecast was to launch the rocket in 2015.
So far, almost half of the works are completed at the base, and the Ukrainians say they have almost finished the rocket.
In addition, since 2014 the European country has been involved in a civil war with pro-Russia separatists, which does not inspire political confidence.
The Cyclone-4 program was the creation of the former Minister of Science and Technology, Roberto Amaral, who represented Brazil in the binational ACS until 2011. He has always been criticized by the FAB (Brazilian Air Force), which has traditionally managed the Brazilian space program.
According to the military, Cyclone-4 withdrew investments from national projects, which had already been suffering losses since 2003, when a fire in Alcântara killed 21 technicians working in the VLS-1 model.
Since then, the Brazilian space program is stuck. The military also plan to launch the VLS-1, but the design of the rocket is obsolete and there is a new generation of launchers currently being studied.

Posted by: Ed Lozano | Apr 9 2015 12:28 utc | 148

Giorgio Cafiero (see previous post) works/writes for “Gulf State Analytics””
http://gulfstateanalytics.com/

Posted by: Willy2 | Apr 9 2015 14:11 utc | 150

South Africa: The Rhodes Statue Falls

The University of Cape Town in South Africa removed the statue of Cecil Rhodes, a white supremacist colonialist, in response to the “Rhodes Must Fall” campaign which began in March.
“Why should we not form a secret society with but one object?” Rhodes once said. “The furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole world under British rule, for the recovery of the United States, for making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire?”

Amazing that its taken this long! Cecil Rhodes, the inventor of the ‘5 eyes’.
The West institutionalizes its greatest criminals : Rhodes Scholarships, Nobel Peace Prizes, Pulitzers …

Posted by: jfl | Apr 10 2015 23:17 utc | 152

I opened North Star (1943) … the Samuel Goldwin propaganda piece set in the Ukraine when the USSA and the USSR were allies.
Unbelievable. I’ve only seen three and a half minutes so far. Not a Ukrainian in the film! Shot on a Hollywood lot. Music by Aaron Copeland! Lyrics (haven’t heard any so far) by Ira Gershwin!
What a fraudulent piece of fluff this is going to be. Oklahoma! or The Music Man set in The Ukraine. Why, they’re just like us! The Hollywood version of ‘us’.
Make-believe Media … what a good title. Whatever they put out it’s unrelated in any way to reality – it’s related only to the tasked projection at hand.

Posted by: jfl | Apr 11 2015 2:29 utc | 154

And Gratuitous Musical Post Script to 155
Copeland is quite populist and accessible for modern classical, good choice for the soundtrack. It also makes for some perfectly acceptable arena rock. The notes remark that a speech by Henry Wallace inspired the piece.

Posted by: rufus magister | Apr 11 2015 3:02 utc | 156