March 13, 2018 – Astute News

March 13, 2018

Nato Air Force is Moving from Turkey to Jordan

People in the Middle East are joking, cynically: “From Incirlik, Turkey to Al-Azraq, Jordan with love.” That is, if they pay any attention to the movement of NATO troops in this part of the world. They should. At least one substantial part of an incredibly deadly and aggressive force has been gradually relocated, from an ‘uncertain’ and according to the...

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March 13, 2018

Putin’s Missiles: Deterring an American Attack?

Putin’s March 1st presentation of new Russian weapons has been greatly misunderstood as a declaration of strategic parity or triumphalism. There was a much more urgent need, namely, to prevent an imminent strike. This danger is not over yet, for a week later, on March, 7, President Putin emphasised his readiness to employ the nuclear weapons for retaliation purposes, even...

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March 13, 2018

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif Invites Pakistan and China to Invest in Chabahar

Iran’s influential Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is in the midst of a three day visit to Pakistan where he has been warmly welcomed by officials in Islamabad. One of the sticking points between the two countries, is a myth perpetuated in the Indian media that New Delhi’s investment in Iran’s Chabahar Port on the Gulf of Oman, is implicitly designed to...

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March 13, 2018

Marco Polo in Reverse: How Italy Fits in the New Silk Roads

The Chinese economy is bound to surpass the 19-nation eurozone before the end of the year. You don’t need to be an analyst in China to know that. Common knowledge from Guangdong to Gansu is that China’s economy was bigger than Europe’s up to the mid-19th century. Then came a bad spell – unleashed by Brit gunboat diplomacy – for a...

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March 13, 2018

Is US/China Trade War Looming?

Trade wars assure losers, not winners. So far, Trump announced tariffs on imported solar panels and modules, washing machines and parts, steel and aluminum fall far short of waging one. At the same time, his rage to reduce America’s trade deficit with China could launch a bilateral one hurting both countries. Countless numbers of US corporations moving production and other...

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March 13, 2018

Are Nuclear Weapons in a Multipolar World Order a Guarantee for Peace?

In the previous article I explained how the invention of the nuclear device altered the balance of power after WWII and during the cold war era. In this second article I intend to explain why nuclear-armed powers decrease the likelihood of a nuclear apocalypse, as counterintuitive as it seems. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the power that had...

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March 13, 2018

Hold that Twitter! The Donald Agrees to ‘Meeting of the Century’ with Kim Jong-un

Long reviled in the Western media as a pariah state with devilish ambitions, Pyongyang is showing real savvy on the political stage in an attempt to lure Trump to the negotiating table. Can Kim and Trump agree to disagree? Last week, a South Korean envoy arrived at the White House bearing a surprise invitation for Donald Trump from none other...

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March 13, 2018

Congo Mining Code: Kabila vs. Cobalt Companies

The Congolese legislature passed an initiative at the beginning of the year nullifying a previous act allowing companies a 10-year delay in complying with new fiscal demands and simultaneously decreed that the royalty on “strategic minerals” such as the cobalt that’s used in today’s gadgets, missiles, and electric vehicle batteries could jump fivefold from 2% to 10%. President Kabila has...

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Daily Archive: March 13, 2018

Nato Air Force is Moving from Turkey to Jordan

Putin’s Missiles: Deterring an American Attack?

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif Invites Pakistan and China to Invest in Chabahar

Marco Polo in Reverse: How Italy Fits in the New Silk Roads

Is US/China Trade War Looming?

Are Nuclear Weapons in a Multipolar World Order a Guarantee for Peace?

Hold that Twitter! The Donald Agrees to ‘Meeting of the Century’ with Kim Jong-un

Congo Mining Code: Kabila vs. Cobalt Companies