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The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

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  • Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

    Though differing in the specifics, the overall attitude displayed here is strongly reminiscent of that of the West toward the East during the last great Islamic offensive in Europe as the dying Byzantine, Bulgarian, and Serbian states faced Ottoman conquest in the 15th century. The West then was explicit: we will help you only if you renounce Orthodoxy in favor of Roman Catholicism. In today's geopolitical context, when western churchmen join in calls for military action by western governments against Orthodox countries to help Muslims, Pope John Paul's calls for ecumenical dialogue and eventual reunion of East and West, the topic of his encyclicals Ut Unam Sint and Slavorum Apostoli , look suspiciously familiar to eastern eyes. While this perception is somewhat simplistic if only because the West today is no longer the Roman Catholic monolith it once was, the larger question should not be so easily dismissed: the Orthodox East is being told today that unless they unquestioningly submit to the West's tutelage in political, social, moral, and economic matters - the collective "religion" of the Enlightenment heritage - they again will be thrown to the wolves. In fact, the West will even help the wolves to devour them.

    The immorality, not to mention the stupidity, of this should be obvious. Maybe Christians will never come to agreement on doctrinal matters, maybe the East will insist on retaining its distinctive religious and cultural heritage. But even if, broadly speaking, East and West are never able to share a common Eucharistic chalice, does that mean they must be enemies? Some seem to suggest: yes. Instead, I submit that the survival of Christian Orthodox civilization in the East should be hardly less important to the West than to the Orthodox themselves, and indeed over the long term the West's own fate may depend on it. The fact that the West cannot recognize this reality is part of the same inability to recognize its own internal vulnerability, with the forest of minarets going up mainly in Western Europe but also now in North America.

    Some Christians see the Muslim influx primarily as an opportunity for evangelization, and indeed we should never neglect to share the Gospel, the only real liberation, with Muslims, who should not, as individuals, be held responsible for the violent system into which they were born and of which they are perhaps more than anyone else victims. At the same time, in light of the growing volume of Muslim immigration, western Christians will soon find out - maybe sooner than they think, given western birthrates - that confronting the Islamic advance has become, as it has always been for eastern Christians, a simple matter of physical survival. But by that time it may be too late for the West as well.

    This article was taken from Volume 13 of The Christian Activist. Permission was given to the Orthodox Christian Information to republish on the Web.

    Comment


    • Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

      Although I disagree with certain attitudes, perceptions and conclusions found within the article you posted, I thought it was quite interesting. I also more-or-less agree with your comments. However, I think you are needlessly panicking about an "Islamic" threat. The so-called Islamic threat we are being encouraged to believe in does not exist. Islam today is a tool at the mercy of special global interests. If Islam is a threat to western civilization its not because of Islam per se its because of western policy of importing Islamic peoples into the western world while creating wars and economic misery within certain Islamic areas of the world. For over a century it has been Islam under attack, not the other way around. Nonetheless, the Russian Federation is indeed a powerful obstacle against the growth of Islam and pan-Turkism in Eurasia.

      Originally posted by Hye_Psycho View Post
      Though differing in the specifics, the overall attitude displayed here is strongly reminiscent of that of the West toward the East during the last great Islamic offensive in Europe as the dying Byzantine, Bulgarian, and Serbian states faced Ottoman conquest in the 15th century. The West then was explicit: we will help you only if you renounce Orthodoxy in favor of Roman Catholicism. In today's geopolitical context, when western churchmen join in calls for military action by western governments against Orthodox countries to help Muslims, Pope John Paul's calls for ecumenical dialogue and eventual reunion of East and West, the topic of his encyclicals Ut Unam Sint and Slavorum Apostoli , look suspiciously familiar to eastern eyes. While this perception is somewhat simplistic if only because the West today is no longer the Roman Catholic monolith it once was, the larger question should not be so easily dismissed: the Orthodox East is being told today that unless they unquestioningly submit to the West's tutelage in political, social, moral, and economic matters - the collective "religion" of the Enlightenment heritage - they again will be thrown to the wolves. In fact, the West will even help the wolves to devour them.

      The immorality, not to mention the stupidity, of this should be obvious. Maybe Christians will never come to agreement on doctrinal matters, maybe the East will insist on retaining its distinctive religious and cultural heritage. But even if, broadly speaking, East and West are never able to share a common Eucharistic chalice, does that mean they must be enemies? Some seem to suggest: yes. Instead, I submit that the survival of Christian Orthodox civilization in the East should be hardly less important to the West than to the Orthodox themselves, and indeed over the long term the West's own fate may depend on it. The fact that the West cannot recognize this reality is part of the same inability to recognize its own internal vulnerability, with the forest of minarets going up mainly in Western Europe but also now in North America.

      Some Christians see the Muslim influx primarily as an opportunity for evangelization, and indeed we should never neglect to share the Gospel, the only real liberation, with Muslims, who should not, as individuals, be held responsible for the violent system into which they were born and of which they are perhaps more than anyone else victims. At the same time, in light of the growing volume of Muslim immigration, western Christians will soon find out - maybe sooner than they think, given western birthrates - that confronting the Islamic advance has become, as it has always been for eastern Christians, a simple matter of physical survival. But by that time it may be too late for the West as well.

      This article was taken from Volume 13 of The Christian Activist. Permission was given to the Orthodox Christian Information to republish on the Web.
      Մեր ժողովուրդն արանց հայրենասիրութեան այն է, ինչ որ մի մարմին' առանց հոգու:

      Նժդեհ


      Please visit me at my Heralding the Rise of Russia blog: http://theriseofrussia.blogspot.com/

      Comment


      • Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

        IRAN TO SUPPLY ARMENIA WITH GAS AND ARMENIA TO EXPORT ELECTRICITY TO IRAN

        By Emil Danielyan

        Tuesday, September 30, 2008

        Armenia appears to have completed construction of a pipeline from neighboring Iran that will supply it with natural gas and significantly ease its heavy dependence on Russia for energy resources. The development will also allow the small landlocked country to avoid disastrous consequences if Moscow decides to cut off gas deliveries to Georgia, a possibility that has become real since the outbreak of the Russian-Georgian war.

        The first, 24.6 mile (41-kilometer) Armenian section of the pipeline was inaugurated by the presidents of Armenia and Iran in March 2007, more than a decade after the two governments agreed to launch the multimillion-dollar project. The national gas distribution company ARG has since been busy building its second and final section. Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian announced on September 3 that work on the almost 120-mile (200-kilometer) stretch, passing through the country’s most mountainous region, was essentially complete; and that the pipeline would go on stream “in late October or early November” (Armenian Public Television, September 3).

        Armenian Energy Minister Armen Movsisian confirmed this later in September, saying that ARG specialists only needed to conduct testing and other technical operations on the facility within the next few weeks. "Iran will pump three million cubic meters of gas [a day] to Armenia during this winter," the head of the Iranian Gas Export Company, Reza Kasaei-Zadeh, was reported to have announced last week (www.panarmenian.net, September 23).

        The pipeline project has given a massive boost to the close political and economic relations that the Islamic Republic has maintained with its sole Christian neighbor since the break-up of the Soviet Union. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reaffirmed Tehran’s intention to deepen those ties when he received Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian in mid-September. "There is no limit to the expansion of relations with Armenia," the Iranian media quoted him as saying. Armenian-Iranian cooperation, said Ahmadinejad, should serve as a model for the rest of the world (IRNA news agency, September 16).

        Successive Armenian governments have keenly sought this cooperation in order to mitigate the effects of the economic blockades that its two other neighbors, Turkey and Azerbaijan, have imposed on it because of the unresolved conflict over Karabakh. The war in Georgia, which temporarily disrupted the vital transit of Armenian cargo through Georgian territory, has only enhanced Iran’s geopolitical significance for Armenia in the eyes of local policy-makers and the public in general. As Movsisian put it, the Iran-Armenia pipeline will “guarantee” his country’s energy security in “cases of crisis” in the region. It was an obvious reference to the continuing Russian-Georgian conflict and its possible consequences for Armenia.

        The most severe of those consequences would be a Russian decision to end gas supplies to Georgia through a pipeline that also feeds Armenia. With Georgia still heavily reliant on Russian gas, such a move is arguably the most powerful weapon in Moscow’s arsenal of sanctions against Tbilisi. Should the Russians decide to use it, they will almost certainly be unable to pump gas to Armenia through Georgian territory. Both South Caucasus countries use Russian gas for winter heating and for generating a large part of their electricity.

        The launch of the pipeline from Iran could thus hardly come at a better time for Armenia. Access to Iranian gas will not only give Yerevan a viable alternative to Russian deliveries but could strengthen its bargaining position in difficult tariff negotiations with Gazprom. The Russian monopoly plans gradually to raise its gas price for Armenia, which is currently set at $110 per thousand cubic meters, to international levels. Under an agreement signed by Gazprom and ARG executives in Moscow on September 17 and disclosed by the Armenian government a week later, the price will rise to $154 per thousand cubic meters in April 2009 and on to $200 in April 2010. Yerevan’s bargaining position will be limited, however, by the fact that Gazprom has a controlling share in ARG. Whether the Armenian gas company will be ready to cut back on supplies from its parent company if the Iranians offer it a better deal remains to be seen.

        According to energy officials in Yerevan, the new pipeline will have the capacity to pump at least 2.3 billion cubic meters of Iranian gas per annum. That is slightly more than the 2007 volume of Armenia’s gas imports from Russia, which was enough for meeting its energy needs. Officials say that Iranian gas will therefore be mainly converted into electricity at Armenian thermal power plants which will then be exported to Iran. In preparation for a surge in Armenian electricity exports, the two countries are currently building a third high-voltage transmission line linking their power grids.

        Armenia might also need extra gas if it starts selling electricity to Turkey, with which it has no diplomatic relations or open border. According to Movsisian, a relevant agreement was reached during Turkish President Abdullah Gul’s historic September 6 visit to Yerevan that marked an unprecedented rapprochement between the two historical foes. “The Turkish side has asked for four months to complete their part of the [preparatory] work, after which we will start electricity supplies experimentally for a few days and then on a regular basis,” he said (RFE/RL Armenia Report, September 11). Armenia’s state-run power transmission company said that it would deliver 1.5 billion kilowatt/hours of power to a Belgian utility firm in Turkey in the next two years with the option of more than doubling the supply in 2011 (Arminfo news agency, September 16). The Turkish government has yet to confirm the agreement.

        From http://jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2373408
        Azerbaboon: 9.000 Google hits and counting!

        Comment


        • Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

          October 1, 2008, 20:02


          Russia's Last Tsar’s Family Rehabilitated



          Russia’s Supreme Court has ruled that the last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, and his family be rehabilitated, overturning earlier objections. They were killed in 1918 by the Bolsheviks, who feared the Tsar could become the figurehead for royalist opposition.

          The court’s decision follows a long legal battle over whether the murder of the royal family was an act of political repression.

          The General Prosecutor’s office argued they were killed without any charges or a court order so there was no need to rehabilitate them.

          The head of the Romanov family, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, insisted the last Russian emperor and his family were killed for political motives. The Supreme Court backed her position on Wednesday.

          The remains of the last Tsar’s family and their servants were discovered in early 1990s. Since then investigators have identified all the victims. In 1998 the royal family were reburied in a chapel in the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in St.Petersburg, where many Russian Tsars are buried. Two years later they were canonised as ‘passion bearers’ for the way they died.

          READ MORE -- http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/31214


          Comment


          • Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

            Andrey Areshev: pro-American Georgia is weak link in Caucasus communication projects

            /PanARMENIAN.Net/ As result of the war it unleashed, Georgia is losing infrastructure projects one after another, according to a Russian expert.

            "Pro-American Georgia is a weak link in Caucasus communication projects. It's quite natural that Armenia can replace it," Andrey Areshev, expert at Strategic Culture Foundation, told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.

            "The Kars-Akhalkalaki-Baku track will not be a success, since overseas transport is considerably cheaper. Finally, there is Transsib, an overland corridor from China to Europe, there is Gyumri-Kars line and there are Poti and Batumi ports," he emphasized.

            "The incumbent Georgian authorities as if do everything in their power to exhaust poor economic possibilities of the country. It's not surprising that Kazakhstan has cancelled a number of projects in Georgia. It rejected construction of a terminal for cereal storage in Poti. Before, Kazmunaigas Corporation decided not to build a refinery in Batumi. Under the circumstances' Armenia's regional significance is growing. Thus, hearsay about Turkey's doubts is grounded. Political and economically insufficient projects may be wrapped up," the Russian expert said.





            Plans to isolate Armenia likely to be shelved


            /PanARMENIAN.Net/ Information on Turkey's doubts about expedience of Kars-Akhalkalaki-Baku line is verisimilar enough, a Russian expert said.

            "The project had a goal to isolate Armenia. Aspired to segregate Armenia from all regional communication projects, Azerbaijan showed the highest interest in it," Andrey Areshev, expert at Strategic Culture Foundation, told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.

            "I would like to mention that construction of another line from Kars to Nakhijevan would ensure complete transport isolation of Armenia. However, the situation changed when Russian Railways (RZD) became the concessioner the Armenian Railways. One of major Russian giants would hardly engage in abstract philanthropy. Anyway, plans to lift isolation can be realized only in case of warming in bilateral relations," he said, adding that Serzh Sarsgyan announced his intention to invite his Turkish counterpart Gul when he was in Moscow.

            Plans to isolate Armenia are likely to be shelved, according to the expert. "Turkey's position seems logical. It doesn't wish to stubbornly support Baku in Karabakh talks. Moreover, it coordinates its moves with Russia and I would like to emphasize that Russian specialists are engaged in reconstruction of the Gyumri-Kars line," Areshev said.

            For the first time in more than 600 years, Armenia is free and independent, and we are therefore obligated
            to place our national interests ahead of our personal gains or aspirations.



            http://www.armenianhighland.com/main.html

            Comment


            • Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

              Russian warships plan Mediterranean show of strength en route to Venezuela


              4 hours ago

              MOSCOW — Moscow says four warships carrying out the Russian navy's first deployment to the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War will make a side trip to the Mediterranean.
              The nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great and three accompanying ships are expected to sail through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean on Sunday.


              Naval spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo says the ships will call at the Libyan port of Tripoli and also visit several other unspecified Mediterranean ports before heading to Venezuela.
              Russian news reports have said the squadron is expected to visit the Syrian port of Tartus, which hosted Soviet ships during the Cold War and now is being renovated for a permanent Russian naval presence in the Mediterranean.
              Since defeating Georgia in August in a war over the breakaway republic of South Ossetia, the Kremlin has vowed to send its military on regular manoeuvres worldwide.
              It has also moved to intensify contacts with Venezuela, Cuba and other Latin American countries amid increasingly strained relations with Washington.
              In a separate move, Russia has also dispatched a missile frigate to waters off Somalia where pirates seized a Ukrainian vessel carrying over 30 Soviet-designed tanks.
              The Kremlin's decision to send warships to the Caribbean for joint manoeuvres with the Venezuelan navy follows a week-long visit to Venezuela by two Russian strategic bombers last month.
              During the Cold War, Latin America was an ideological battleground between the Soviet Union and the United States.
              The intensifying contacts with Venezuela appear to be a response to the U.S. dispatch of warships to deliver aid to Georgia, which angered the Kremlin.






              Russian navy ships to visit Libya

              10 hours ago

              MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's navy says its warships will visit Libya and other Mediterranean countries en route to Venezuela.
              A nuclear-powered missile cruiser and several accompanying ships will sail through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean on Sunday.
              Navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said in a statement Wednesday the Russian ships will call at the Libyan port of Tripoli and also visit several other unspecified Mediterranean ports before heading to Venezuela.
              Russian news reports have said the squadron was expected to visit a Syrian port.
              The Kremlin sent a pair of strategic bombers on a weeklong visit to Venezuela last month amid increasingly strained relations with Washington after last month's war between Russia and Georgia.





              The Marshal Shaposhnikov, an Udaloi-class anti-submarine warship. The Russian Navy has resumed patrolling the world’s oceans, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov told Russia’s President Vladimir Putin at a meeting in the Kremlin.

              Russian Navy modernized
              Sputnik International is a global news agency keeping you updated on all the latest world news 24/7. Browse Sputnik for breaking news and top stories on politics, economy, social media and the most viral trends.

              Comment


              • Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

                Armenian, how can we contrast the arms production and export, and military drills of Russia with those of the US? Do you think it's worth discussing to any extent? We don't see much talk of it around here.

                Comment


                • Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

                  Originally posted by jgk3 View Post
                  Armenian, how can we contrast the arms production and export, and military drills of Russia with those of the US? Do you think it's worth discussing to any extent? We don't see much talk of it around here.
                  I'm not sure if I understood your question, but the US is still by far the number one arms producer and exporter in the world. Despite Russia's recent advancements, it still lags way behind the US. The overwhelming power and influence the US has had over the financial, political and socio-cultural aspects of this world in the post Second World War era is a bit difficult for an average humanbeing to realize, let alone understand. However, this decades long US set trend in politics, finance and culture is visibly changing. The US is no longer the undisputed leader of the so-called free world, nor it is the economic powerhouse it once was. Despite what some may want to believe, there is no turning back. New centers of political and economic powers (Russia, China, India, Brazil) are rising on the horizon. It will take some time to hit bottom, but the US is definitely in its downward slide. The following news articles relate to the separation anxiety and growing pains the world is feeling in its attempt to finally create a true "multipolar" financial system as it gradually begins to move away from the US dominated global financial system:

                  Moscow Says U.S. Leadership Era Is Ending



                  Perhaps inevitably for a country often lectured by the United States about its own economy, Russia is using the occasion of the American financial crisis to do some lecturing of its own. President Dmitri A. Medvedev has blamed what he called financial “egoism” for the crisis and said it should be taken as a sign that America’s global economic leadership was drawing to a close. Along with some European leaders, Mr. Medvedev has called for greater multilateralism in financial regulation, echoing a Russian position on international relations generally. “The times when one economy and one country dominated are gone for good,” he said Thursday at St. Petersburg State University during the eighth annual Petersburger Dialog, a forum devoted to developing relations with Germany. After the American banking collapses, he said, the world does not want America as a “megaregulator.”

                  Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, in Russia for the forum, said Germany, too, would “always support a multilateral approach” to market regulation. Along with the Germans and others, Russian leaders contend that poorly regulated American markets caused the current crisis. While it is hardly a new sentiment, in Russia there is a gloating quality, as the American crisis deepens. There has been a drumbeat of pronouncements in recent days on this theme. Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin made a speech about what he called American financial “irresponsibility” on Wednesday, blaming non-Russian causes for Russia’s stock plunge of more than 50 percent. Of the financial crisis, he said, “This is not the irresponsibility of some people but the irresponsibility of the system, which as it is known, claimed to be the leader.” In contrast to the Europeans who have also criticized lax American regulation, however, Russians are facing a financial system that has been in such chaos that regulators suspended trading on the stock market three times last month. The global credit crisis could trim about 1 percent from Russian growth next year, said the finance minister, Aleksei L. Kudrin.

                  As in other emerging markets, investors are pulling money out of Russia and depositing it in United States Treasury securities because they are considered the safest place to park money. By the time Mr. Medvedev spoke on Thursday, investors had pulled about $52 billion in net private capital out of Russia since the second week of August, when the war in Georgia and political tension with the West heightened concern about political risk here. The criticism of American finance coincided with a rise in Russian military bluster that has been viewed by some in the West as a resurgence of the Kremlin’s cold-war mentality. On Thursday, Russian generals announced plans for the largest air force exercise since the collapse of the Soviet Union, called Stability 2008, to be held next week. Also on Thursday, the deputy commander of Russia’s navy said the country would build eight new nuclear submarines before 2015.

                  Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/wo...russia.html?em

                  After Financial Crisis, Uncertainty and Lectures From Abroad



                  As America’s financial crisis was gathering speed, Brazil’s president seemed dismissive, almost gleeful, about the troubles up north. “What crisis?” said the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, when asked last month about the financial maelstrom. “Go ask Bush about that.” Like a number of South American countries, Brazil had been flashing a newfound confidence, one born of a deliberate push to decrease political and economic reliance on the United States. But on Monday, shortly after Congress rejected a proposed $700 billion bailout package, Mr. da Silva struck a very different tone, saying in his weekly radio address that Brazil was not immune from the spreading woes after all. “A recessionary crisis in a country like the United States,” he explained to Brazilians, “can bring problems to all countries.” In only a few days, Latin American leaders have gone from schadenfreude to fear. Despite strong economic growth this decade and some aggressive efforts to break free of the American orbit, there is a growing nervousness that once again Latin America cannot escape the globalized connections in the financial sector that run through the United States. After seeming to revel in the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, skipped the opening of the United Nations General Assembly last week to visit China instead, saying that Beijing was now much more relevant than New York.

                  But by Tuesday, after the American stock market plunged nearly 778 points, dragging down Latin American exchanges with it, New York, and Wall Street in particular, had suddenly become relevant once more, with Mr. Chávez saying at a summit meeting in Brazil that the financial crisis would have the force of “one hundred hurricanes.” A number of governments in the region have been working for the past decade to reduce their dependence on the American economy. They have diversified trade with the rest of the world, while also making efforts to save tens, and sometimes hundreds, of billions of dollars for times when international conditions turn sour. As their economies strengthened and their political cooperation took off, it seemed the United States was being rapidly pushed out of the picture. Latin American leaders were standing up to America with growing bravado. In the past month, both Venezuela and Bolivia expelled the American ambassadors to their countries. Not only did Brazil, thought to be among America’s strongest allies in the region, support the expulsion by Bolivia, a major source of natural gas, but Mr. da Silva also railed against an American naval presence in the region, warning that his nation needed to put its own warships on alert in response.

                  Such anti-American sentiment reflects a longstanding bitterness over Washington’s economic prescriptions for Latin America, policies that some countries in the region blame for undercutting them. As Wall Street itself started to unravel, some leaders seemed to feel vindicated by the collapse. “We are witnessing the First World, which at one point had been painted as a mecca we should strive to reach, popping like a bubble,” Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina’s president, said two weeks ago. But the financial crisis has exploded far beyond Wall Street. Whipsawing global markets are already having a ripple effect across Latin America. As nervous investors pulled money out of emerging markets, Brazil’s currency, the real, plunged 16 percent against the dollar last month, resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses at large food and eucalyptus-pulp exporters that placed bad bets on the direction of the real. In Mexico, falling remittances from the United States are also raising concern, with Finance Minister Augustín Carstens warning that money sent home from across the border could decline by $2.8 billion, or 8 percent, this year. In Venezuela, a sharp drop in the value of the country’s bonds in the last two weeks reflects fears about plunging oil prices, especially since the United States remains by far the largest buyer of Venezuelan oil despite the deterioration of relations between the countries.

                  The issue, economists say, is largely about access to credit, which is needed to keep Latin America’s export-oriented economies humming along. “The credit crunch and the liquidity constraints we are seeing are going to affect everyone in the world,” said Alfredo Coutińo, a senior economist at Moody’s, the credit-rating agency. “That means that the cost for Latin American companies, particularly for those with the need for external funds, is going to be higher.” Plummeting commodity prices could also hamper growth in countries like Argentina and Ecuador, while the psychological effect of a crash in the United States is already reverberating through Latin American stock exchanges. That could lead to a reining in of household spending, which has driven much of the recent growth in Brazil’s economy, especially, economists said. Some governments are also directly tied to the American institutions they have derided, as in Venezuela, where the government has lost about $300 million in Lehman-related investments. Ricardo Sanguino, director of the finance committee in Venezuela’s National Assembly, said the losses were minor compared with the Central Bank’s reserves of more than $30 billion and previous decisions to shift some of those reserves into gold and out of American investment banks into Swiss banks. “The crisis affects us because we’re not a completely closed economy, but the impact won’t be disastrous,” Mr. Sanguino said.

                  With increased fiscal discipline, some countries have built up stabilization funds that should help them weather the fallout from the Wall Street mess, economists said. Brazil’s government has directed its national development bank, the BNDES, to extend $2.5 billion in credit to agricultural exporters for the next harvest to try to prevent a major slowdown. Other countries in the region may struggle more. Before the crisis, foreign investment had already dwindled in Bolivia and Ecuador, where governments flush with revenues before commodities prices began declining had nationalized foreign companies and clashed with multinationals. Argentina, still weighed down by debt, saved much less than Brazil or Chile during its economic expansion. Now it faces declining commodity prices, especially for soybeans, its main export, and will have less flexibility to infuse cash into its industries, analysts said. In recent weeks, the Argentine government, realizing it may face a fiscal shortfall, has been focused on international investors to gain new funds, and has leaned on Venezuela to refinance billions of dollars in debts. But with oil prices plummeting, Venezuela may impose harsher conditions on lending to Argentina. Even before the Wall Street meltdown, the region’s Achilles’ heel — high inflation — was rearing its head in several countries, notably in Venezuela, Bolivia and Argentina. Economists had been warning for months that Argentina could be headed toward a financial crisis of its own if it could not get rising inflation under control.

                  One silver lining for some countries could be China, which has become a strong export partner for South American soybeans, oil and other commodities. If China’s growth remains robust, the country will continue to lean on Brazil and Argentina for the crop. By traveling to China last month to sign a deal aimed at tripling oil exports to the country, Mr. Chávez may end up reducing his country’s dependence on the American market. “The world will never be the same after this crisis,” Mr. Chávez told reporters in Brazil. “A new world has to emerge, and it is a multipolar world. We are decoupling from the wagon of death.” Other leaders, like Mr. da Silva, have gone from being dismissive of the crisis to outright incensed at Wall Street and Washington for it. “We did what we were supposed to do to get our house in order,” an angry Mr. da Silva said Monday. “They spent years telling us what to do and they themselves didn’t do it.”

                  Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/wo...l?ref=business
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                  • Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

                    well, I was curious about how zealous the American military is being these days with their tests of high tech weapons and military drills because my impression of Russia in the past while is that they are really pushing their limits with them since the collapse of the Soviet Union. I was just wondering how determined the US has been these days in pushing their own limits, though upon reflection I realize that it's quite a different situation for the US because they have already achieved military supremacy and didn't have to go through a spectacular setback like the Russians did during the collapse of the USSR.

                    Nonetheless, the articles you posted summarize the global trend of unipolarity of mlitary might and wealth shifting to multipolarity very well. I am quite interested to see the fate of the Latin countries and the role they will be playing in the world once they shed the American yoke. So far, it seems Mexico is the most resistant to joining the bandwagon of the South American countries and it is just whoring itself out to The States in the same way Canada is. Mexico probably doesn't have a choice either, being right next door, but I'm curious about how this reflects the relations between Mexico and it's Latin counterparts south of it.

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                    • Re: The Rise of the Russian Empire: Russo-Armenian Relations

                      USA is probably working on a project to counter this now:


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