Analysis

Testimony on Libya by Lizzie Phelan at the Stop the War Coalition, Oxford.

As the world financial and economic crisis comes into its own, the Western community leaders are seeking to impress on mankind the idea that this upheaval will end up ‘turning the world into something different’. Even though the picture of the 'new world order’ remains vague and fuzzy, the main idea is quite clear: A single global government, goes the argument, has to be established if we don’t want general chaos to prevail.

There are fears that the conflict between Russia and Georgia may threaten existing and planned Caucasus energy routes seen by the West as vital supply corridors that avoid Russian territory.

The devastating Russian military retaliation occasioned by President Mikheil Saakashvili's disastrous miscalculation in launching an offensive against South Ossetia during the night of August 7-8 initially impelled the entire nation to close ranks behind the beleaguered leadership. But some observers anticipate that the show of solidarity will be short-lived, and that some Georgians may seek to hold Saakashvili responsible for the economic damage and needless loss of life that resulted from his actions.

The activities of banks which invested heavily in flawed US subprime mortgages has been likened to 'wild parties' by Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England. In the aftermath of a wild party, the merry makers will suffer a hangover the next morning. But the wild parties of UK and US bankers are now causing misery in the general population.

The recent conflict between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia has dramatized the separate perspectives held by each of the main parties to the conflict as well as their European neighbors. The one point on which nearly everyone can agree is that the stakes are huge.

The popular definition of “inflation” is a general increase in the level of prices. But what causes the price level to rise? It is an increase in the money supply without a corresponding increase in goods and services; there is more money with which to bid up the prices of available goods and services.

The American-armed and trained Georgian army swarmed into South Ossetia last Thursday, killing an estimated 2,000 civilians, sending 40,000 South Ossetians fleeing over the Russian border, and destroying much of the capital, Tskhinvali. The attack was unprovoked and took place a full 24 hours before even ONE Russian soldier set foot in South Ossetia. Nevertheless, the vast majority of Americans still believe that the Russian army invaded Georgian territory first.

President Mikheil Saakashvili is invoking the ghosts of Cold War battles past -- Moscow's suppression of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan in 1979. The Georgian leader's strategy is clear, his only chance of success in his bid to regain control of the Moscow-backed breakaway region of South Ossetia is to globalize the conflict and turn it into a central front of a new struggle between Moscow and the West.

Tensions remain high between Russia and Georgia, especially over the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Georgia's bid to become part of NATO.

Globalization, a U.S. capitalist policy, will destroy capitalism as we know it. Higher global competition will require domestic reduction in production cost, outsourcing the production, increased unemployment at home, reduction in benefits such as health care and retirement, and reduction in domestic production of goods and services. Pushed reduction in the margin of profits will finally eliminate capitalism as we know it.

Assessing opportunity costs associated with decisions can allow policymakers to make better-informed decisions. Today, the U.S. urgently needs, not a revised national security strategy, but a coherent foreign policy strategy.

Political analysts around the world are hailing Sunday’s parliamentary elections as “historic.” The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) scored a huge victory, winning nearly 47 % of the vote.

If you were to consider Undecided to be a genuine candidate for the Republican nomination, it would be in the top tier. Most polls show that more potential Republican voters are undecided than those in support of Mitt Romney.

The prevalence of authoritarianism in the Muslim World is not a result of the democratic shortcomings of Islam. Surely the West is not solely to blame, but the West must take responsibility for the continuation of these regimes by allowing them to become rentier states.