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How Iran's oil
bourse could kill the
dollar
The nuclear rap
It's summer holidays, so what better
way for university students to spend a hot
afternoon than protesting outside the French,
German and British embassies in Tehran. ROVING EYE
Pepe Escobar joins in.
DAILY FOREX
COMMENTARY
"Oil may be the only alternative strong enough
to wage battle with the dollar. Black
gold may be the new gold," a correspondent
tells Jack Crooks. | Oil
is priced and traded in the greenback, entailing
huge transaction costs for non-dollar countries
that have to buy these dollars. The oil bourse
that Iran plans to start next year would change
all that. It would make transactions
cheaper, and it could drive a nail
into the dollar's coffin, because a large part
of the currency's clout stems from the fact that
resources are quoted in it. - Toni
Straka |
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War
games or word games?
The
more Russia and China deny ulterior motives behind
their joint war games, which end this week after
eight days, the more people infer sinister
motives: maybe North Korea should be concerned
after all. - Sergei Blagov
The art of Chindogu in a
world gone mad
 Kawakami Kenji
looks odd, and his inventions are odder: duster slippers for cats, a portable
zebra crossing, self-lighting cigarettes. He is
dismissed by many as a maker of party
goods, but hailed by some as a
surrealist genius. He sees himself as a critic
of Japanese and American society, which he
despises. |
COMMENTARY
Pakistan
looks to its image
Despite being
an important ally in the US "war on terror",
Pakistan gets pretty bad press in the
international media. President General Pervez
Musharraf wants to change this, but first he will
have to go to the roots of the problems -
jihadis, for starters. - Ehsan
Ahrari
Musharraf
gets his moment
The first round of
local elections in Pakistan has been highly
rewarding for President General Pervez Musharraf,
effectively laying the foundations at the
grass-roots level for him to consolidate his
position. He is also now well placed to make
some of the changes that the world demands of him.
- Syed Saleem Shahzad
SPEAKING
FREELY
Hugo, Uncle
Ho and Uncle Sam
American
religious broadcaster Pat Robertson has apologized
for recommending the assassination of Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez. But was he just echoing
what other Americans are thinking? His
"frustrations" are eerily reminiscent of the
frustrations the US had decades ago with Ho Chi
Minh in Vietnam. - Curtis A
White
Democrats fumble Iraq policy
While
President George W Bush and the Republicans take
the heat over Iraq, the Democrats, too, are
beginning to squirm. They are deeply divided about
their position on a conflict that most of them
privately describe as a major foreign policy
disaster. - Jim
Lobe
China: Great deal, drop in the oil
ocean
 PetroKazakhstan
will be a good acquisition for China's CNPC: oil
industry experts tell ATol it has a
relatively new refinery and some top-quality
fields; it produces high-quality light, sweet
crude; and it's strategically located near the
Chinese border. But it's not a solution to
China's growing oil demand: PetroKazakhstan
represents about 30% of one year's demand
growth in China. - Jeff Moore (Aug 24,
'05)
India irked
Indians have reacted with annoyance
to Chinese state media's characterization
of CNPC's successful bid as a "victory" over
India. Indian officials pointed out that the
Chinese people would have to pay $580 million
more due to the raised bid. (Aug 24,
'05) |
COMMENTARY
Nuclear
modernity and identity in
Iran
Iranian hardliners are
playing the nationalist card with the nuclear
issue, but this popular nuclear identity can
become a policy trap, boxing officials at the
negotiation table into predetermined positions
partly dictated by the crowds in the streets. -
Kaveh L Afrasiabi (Aug 24, '05)
DISPATCHES
FROM AMERICA
Iraq
through the crazy
mirror
In the past weeks
in the US it's been like watching a nation
blinking and slowly emerging from a state of
denial: a genuine debate has begun about being
in Iraq, about the Bush administration lies that
got the country there and about how in the world
to get out. - Tom Engelhardt (Aug 24, '05)
Why Casey Sheehan was
killed
Cindy Sheehan wants to know
why her son had to die in combat. President
George W Bush is not giving her answers.
Someone who was in Baghdad's Sadr City the day
that Casey Sheehan died can, however, respond.
(Aug 24,
'05)
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Kazakh oil coup for
China
 China
is set to make its largest-ever
overseas acquisition after Canadian-registered
PetroKazakhstan Inc agreed to the US$4.18
billion bid by China's biggest oil and gas
producer, China National Petroleum
Corporation. Beijing is delighted,
following some recent high profile setbacks
in its quest for energy sources. But the deal is
not sealed yet. India, which was also in the
bidding, is fighting back. (Aug 23 '05)
China's foot in India's
door
Beijing
has used the smaller economies of South Asia to
establish a footprint, transforming the region
from India's "near abroad" into China's
backyard. India's economic power and military
might are thus countered, leading to cooperation
between the two Asian giants. -
Tarique
Niazi
A relationship
in nots
Another
Unocal-like saga may be unfolding for China in
India. Chinese telecom major Huawei
Technologies' offer to pump in US$60 million for
its Indian arm has run into a security wall,
with Indian intelligence and
defense agencies raising objections to
Chinese presence in this strategic sector. -
Siddharth
Srivastava
"Purely commercial" -
CNOOC describes its failed bid for
Unocal, Aug 2
"A victory
for China in its rivalry with India" -
Chinese state media describe CNPC's
winning bid for PetroKazakhstan, Aug
23 | |
The
fuel behind Iran's nuclear drive
Arguments over the motives behind
Iran's nuclear program suggest the country has no
need to use that source for energy due to its huge
oil and gas reserves. However, history and the
numbers may not support such an argument. -
David Isenberg (Aug 23 '05)
SPENGLER
The demographics of radical
Islam
The
Muslim birthrate is the second highest in the
world but it's falling faster than that of
any other culture. Thus, the Islamists have 30
years to establish a global theocracy
before the pool of unemployed Arabs -
expected to reach 25 million by 2010 - becomes too
small to win a war. (Aug 22, '05)
More power to the
Sunnis
The Shi'ites, the Kurds and their
interlocutor, the United States, are riding the
tiger of democracy in Iraq. But it is the weakest
group of post-Saddam Iraq - the Sunnis - who
have the wherewithal, and the will, to push their
agenda. And it's an agenda that has little to do
with democracy. - Ehsan Ahrari
(Aug
22, '05)
Iraq
at the gates of hell
The joke in Iraq before the invasion
was that Iraqis wanted the gates of hell to be
opened so they could get out. Now they are in
another kind of hell: every day the violence
continues there are countless new scores to be
settled, new hatreds born, and a greater
likelihood the country will erupt in ferocious
civil war. And whether the US stays or goes, it
will be blamed. - Ashraf Fahim (Aug 19,
'05)
THE COMING TRADE WAR, Part
6
Trade wars can
lead to shooting wars
 The rapid rise of
China as a major economic force has provoked US
policymakers to wonder whether free trade is still
in the US national interest; after all, "free"
trade always favors the strong. Now that the US
has gotten its way and China has unpegged the
yuan, its ill-considered policies will come home
to roost, making for desperate times - for
everyone. This is the final article in this
series. - Henry
C K Liu (Aug 19,
'05)
Deadly
avian flu on the wing
 From
Lake Qinghai in China to Southeast Asia, India,
Russia, Europe and the United States,
the migration of avian flu is already under
way as the birds take wing. Yet for all the
talk of preparedness, antiviral drugs and
vaccines, most governments, especially the US,
are helplessly doing too little too late. -
Mike Davis (Aug 17,
'05)
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The Beijing-Taipei
 fruit
fracas
Beijing's recent measures allowing
Taiwanese farmers to export certain fruits to
China tariff-free have attracted a huge amount
of attention on both sides of the strait, vastly
out of proportion to the money involved. The
reason, predictably, is politics: China thinks
it can tilt Taiwan's 2008 election by winning
over the farmers. - Ting-I Tsai
China's furniture sector sitting pretty
as exports jump
The furniture business is booming in
China. The export sector has attracted big names
like Ikea and is now operating in such volume
that one US group alone is buying 500 containers
a month for shipment to the US. Domestic demand
is rising fast, too, as Chinese seek to outfit
their new
apartments.
SPEAKING
FREELY
More
FDI, comrade?
The chief
minister of the communist-ruled West Bengal
state in India has been mouthing amazingly
capitalist-friendly lines in his current tour of
Southeast Asia to woo foreign investment. While
it's music to the central government, fighting
it out with the left to push through reforms,
his comrades are a little red-faced.
-
Aruni Mukherjee
Market Indices
Asian Markets Report
Business
in Brief
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(Advertorial)
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ATol Specials
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The Coming
Trade War
By Henry C K Liu
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A series
by Henry C K Liu
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Kim Comes Out
North Korea's nukes and what they mean
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Sinoroving
Pepe Escobar in China
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Money, Power
and
Modern Art
A series by Henry C K Liu
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Andre Gunder Frank on Uncle Sam and his
shrinking dollar
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By Pepe Escobar with
photographs by Kevin Nortz
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Nir Rosen goes inside the Iraqi
resistance
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Islamism, fascism
and terrorism
By Marc Erikson
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Nir Rosen rides with the US 3rd
Armored Cavalry in western Iraq
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