NEWS,01.AND 02.03.2013

Senators Push Promise to Support Israeli Strikes on Iran

 

New legislation introduced by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) calls for the U.S. to provide military, economic, and diplomatic support for Israel should its government decide to launch military strikes on Iran. The measure would effectively signal that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can decide not just whether to enter Israel into war with Iran, but whether the United States enters such a war. It comes as tentative diplomatic progress was reported from negotiations involving the U.S. and Iran.The unprecedented measure is being unveiled as part of the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference this weekend in Washington, DC, that will bring thousands of the group's supporters to push the measure on Capitol Hill. The group will also support a new sanctions bill in the House that could authorize the U.S. to sanction companies, including in Europe and Asia, for any commercial dealings with Iran. That measure has raised concerns about further exacerbating medicine shortages impacting the people of Iran.The Graham resolution is framed as a non-binding measure aimed at encouraging the President to implement and escalate sanctions on Iran. But the final clause "urges that, if the Government of Israel is compelled to take military action in self-defense, the United States Government should stand with Israel and provide diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence."Senator Graham has made clear that "self defense" can be defined as preventive war based on redlines that Netanayahu has established that contradict President Obama's stated policy.Graham initially announced the resolution during the 2012 Election campaign as a challenge to President Obama's comments that he "has Israel's back" and said his resolution would clarify that "in the event Israel had to take preventive action, we would have their back" in terms of military, financial, and diplomatic support.In discussing his planned resolution, he made clear that Israel has a different set of military capabilities than the U.S., but that his measure would compel the U.S. to take action based on Tel Aviv's window instead of Washington's. "There are two different clocks here, the Washington clock and the Tel Aviv clock...The Israelis are not going to let the window close on their ability to slow down this program. They're going to act... They're going to control their own destiny."The measure may raise a red flag for the Pentagon, which has been concerned that Israel could draw the U.S. into a war against the authority of the President and his military leadership. Joint Chiefs Chairman Dempsey explicitly warned last year that he does not want the U.S. to be "complicit" in an Israeli strike. The Pentagon also conducted a simulation last March that determined and Israeli strike on Iran would draw in the U.S. and leave hundreds of Americans dead in the immediate aftermath. The Pentagon leaked the report to the press, in a move widely viewed as seeking to stop Netanyahu from pushing the U.S. into war.Military leaders from both Israel and the United States have warned in dire terms that strikes on Iran would only delay the nuclear program and make it more likely that Iran would build a weapon. Former Joint Chiefs Chairman James Cartwright recently stated that such action would require "tens of years" of military occupation by the U.S. Others have noted that such action would require as many as one million troops. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said "such an attack would make a nuclear-armed Iran inevitable."The Graham-Menendez resolution also "reiterates that the policy of the United States is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon capability and to take such action as may be necessary to implement this policy." However, this is not the policy of the United States. AIPAC last year pushed measures in Congress to attempt to change that, and managed to pass them in both chambers. But the measure never was sent to the White House and did not become policy. The President pointedly stated at AIPAC's convention last year that preventing nuclear weapon acquisition, not capability, was his policy. That message has apparently been ignored.

Hugo Chavez Chemotherapy: Venezuela Says President Receiving Treatment For Cancer Again

 

President Hugo Chavez has been receiving chemotherapy since recovering from a severe respiratory infection in mid-January and "continues his battle for life," his vice president said late Friday.Vice President Nicolas Maduro suggested the chemotherapy was continuing in the government's first mention of it as among treatments that Venezuela's cancer-stricken president has received since his Dec. 11 cancer surgery in Cuba. Maduro made the disclosure after a Mass for Chavez in a new chapel outside the military hospital where authorities say the socialist leader has been since being flown back to Caracas on Feb. 18.The vice president quoted Chavez as saying he decided to return to Venezuela because he was entering "a new phase" of "more intense and tough" treatments and wanted to be in Caracas for them.Maduro's offering of the most detailed rundown to date of Chavez's post-operative struggle came hours after an accusation by opposition leader Henrique Capriles that the government has repeatedly lied about Chavez's condition."We'll see how they explain to the country in the (coming) days all the lies they've been telling about the president's situation," Capriles, whom Chavez defeated in Oct. 7 elections, said in a tweet.Chavez has not been seen nor heard from since going to Cuba for his fourth cancer surgery, except for a set of "proof of life" photos released Feb. 15 while he was still in Havana.Chavez first revealed an unspecified cancer in the pelvic region in June 2011, and reported undergoing radiation treatment and chemotherapy after earlier operations.The government has sent mixed signals on Chavez's condition, although Maduro has said several times that Chavez was battling for his life. He repeated that Friday, and also accused opponents of spreading rumors about Chavez's health to destabilize the nation.Maduro, Chavez's chosen successor, said his boss' condition was extremely delicate over New Year's as he battled a respiratory infection that required a tracheal tube."In mid-January he was improving, the infection could be controlled, but he continued with problems of respiratory insufficiency. Afterward, there was a general improvement, and the doctors along with President Chavez decided to initiate complementary treatments," Maduro said."You know what the complementary treatments are, right? They are chemotherapy that is applied to patients after operations."Cancer specialists couldn't be reached immediately for comment on Maduro's announcement. But oncologists have said that chemotherapy is sometimes given to slow a cancer's progression, ease symptoms and extend a patient's life.The opposition says Chavez should either be sworn in for the new term he won in the election or declare himself incapable and call a new election. The constitution says he should have been sworn in on Jan. 10, but Venezuela's Supreme Court said it was OK to wait.Earlier Friday, Maduro accused the Spanish newspaper ABC and Colombia's Caracol network of spreading lies about Chavez's condition.ABC said without specifying its source that Chavez's cancer had spread to a lung. It said he had been moved to an island compound in the Caribbean.Chavez's son-in-law, Science Minister Jorge Arreaza, said on state TV that Chavez continues "to fight hard and is in the military hospital, as peaceful as he could be, with his doctors, with his family."

Italy's Democratic Triumph

Italy's most recent election is further proof that democracy works.The election in which Italian citizens ignored the 'sensible' center parties, gave a large mass of votes to a political coalition recently organized by a comedian. The election which created a divided government that has virtually no chance of forming a stable coalition. The election which has been roundly panned by pundits from The Atlantic to The Economist, from the Brookings Institution to The Daily Show. The election which caused a nose-dive in international markets. Yes, that election. As bad as it sounds on the surface, it was, in fact, a great triumph of democracy.You see, there is a reason that so many Italians voted for a protest party. They are in the midst of a terrible economic recession. For years, they have been told by European Union economic planners that the way out of this recession is to implement a series of austerity measures and as the recession gets worse each year, so must the austerity measures. These austerity measures, including tax increases and cuts to social services, are extremely unpopular. And just as importantly, the Italians feel that these measures are being imposed upon them from the outside; that the EU has successfully bullied the two major political parties in Italy to continue along the austerity path, despite the unpopularity of the austerity agenda.The political equation in Italy at the time of the election was: high unemployment  widespread belief that government is ignoring the needs of the citizenry public perception that things are only getting worse. In many countries that adds up to rioting, perhaps even a constitutional crisis or revolution, maybe some crackdowns by a government that gets nervous to hold onto its power and starts to fear that its citizenry will get too far out of hand. But instead, the Italians took their frustration, they went to the ballot box, and they voted. That's a triumph of democracy if there ever was one.Many pundits are criticizing the Italians for voting for the 'wrong' people. The pundits seem to think that the Italians ought to have voted in a way that has the least impact on international markets. But that's absurd. The Italian people don't answer to Wall Street. Instead, the Italian government answers to the Italian people a people who are angry, increasingly unemployed, and feeling ignored by the powers that control their fate. In the real world, the alternative to this "chaotic" election isn't a business-friendly utopia; it's weeks of rioting shutting down Rome, or even worse, the Arab Spring. So who cares if the Italian people voted for the 'wrong' parties? Yeah, maybe this election leaves the markets a little unstable, and maybe it means that Italy might need another election in six months. Those are pretty small complaints in the grand scheme of things. Or to put it another way, as poorly as the markets reacted to the Italian election, think about how poorly the markets would have reacted to rioters looting and pillaging their way through Rome. There is basically no other way that the Italian people could have vented their anger which would have led to a better market reaction and plenty of things they could have done to cause much more harm. Not only would most ways of expressing anger stall the economy and leave investors jittery, they would also cause damage to infrastructure and create costs for the already over-stressed Italian budget (e.g. cleaning up debris, rebuilding burned buildings, etc.). How do we know that democracy works? Because when faced with a situation that leads many countries dissolve into chaos, Italy's citizens were able to let off steam in a way that let the powers that be know the displeasure of the people, but which didn't shut the country down. Compared to the alternative, voting in a protest party is a credit to both the Italian people and to their democratic institutions.

An Unhealthy Nexus: Iran and Argentina

 

This week the Congress of Argentina is debating the approval of an agreement signed by Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi, which aims to create a "Truth Commission" into the 1994 terrorist bombing attack on the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires.By voting to approve the agreement majorities in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies of the Argentine Congress have joined with President Kirchner in failing to act in the interest of the Argentine people and all those affected by this heinous terrorist attack; the deadliest terror attack in the Americas prior to 9/11. Argentina now seems set on a path of colluding with the those who stand accused as the perpetrators to replace the Argentine criminal justice process with a vague arrangement that will, at best, further delay justice and, at worst, result in a gross miscarriage of justice. How did we get to this point in which the Argentine government is party to a sham agreement with the Iranian regime? How did Argentina agree to allow Iran to injure the victims and their families again this time by disrespecting the memory of those citizens of Argentina who lost their lives and were injured.According to Argentinean and Iranian news reports, it seems the conversations began about two years ago. Foreign Minister Hector Timerman had been on record, several times condemning such allegations. His declarations now prove to be untrustworthy because reality proves different.It is hard to believe that Argentina will now play into the hands of the Iranians and collaborate with the world's most notorious state sponsor of terrorism. This agreement only serves the interests of the Iranian perpetrators in their nearly 20 year efforts to evade the consequences of their culpability in the attack and bypass the Argentine justice system. What troubles me more is that Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in her interest to defend this agreement goes to the point to intimidate the Jewish community through social media and challenges its leaders. Moreover, she implicitly exonerates the Iranian regime from any responsibility in case of a future terror attack. How can President Kirchner be so blind about who she is talking about?Iranian President Ahmadinejad's repeated anti-Semitic rants, outright Holocaust denial and statements calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map" are a venomous expression of the contempt that the Iranian president has for the Jewish people.The extremism of the Iranian government is well understood by its citizens, its neighbors and the international community and goes far beyond rhetoric. We need to remind Argentina's government that in the aftermath of its 2009 elections, Iran showed its true colors. A regime that so blatantly denies the voice of its people by rigging an election and violently suppressing public outrage cannot be trusted on the international scene.At a time when the international community is sanctioning Iran over its nuclear aspirations, countries like Argentina, who have been direct targets of Iranian terror, should be at the forefront of isolating rather than engaging in a sham negotiation with its rogue regime.For more than 18 years the international community supported the Argentine government's efforts to investigate the AMIA bombing. We cannot support President Kirchner's intentions to turn away from pursuing justice for the victims.In the interest of the 85 innocent Argentinians killed, the hundreds more who were injured, Jews and non-Jews alike, and their families, justice needs to be served and it won't be through this agreement as Argentine Foreign Minister Hector Timerman and President Fernandez de Kirchner want us to believe.

The Second Battle of Marathon

 

The Second World War was the most destructive and bloody conflict of all times. Large and small countries fought bitterly to the end, killing millions of humans and causing immense devastation of both nature and societies. To some degree, WWII was also a holocaust of civilization.Germany and Italy started the war against other European countries in 1939 and 1940. Germany dealt with the countries of Western Europe and Italy started with Greece, which it attacked on October 28, 1940. The Greeks soundly defeated the invading Italians in the northern Greek province of Epirus and Albania. The Greek victory became the "first victory" of the Allies in WWII. This historical fact was so important in the evolution of WWII, indeed, largely determining the course of the war between Germany and Russia, and, therefore, the outcome of WWII, that it deserved its own history. It found its student in George Blytas, a Greek from Egypt who had an engineering career in America. Blytas' father was born in a village in Epirus, Sitaria, where fierce battles took place between Greeks and Italians. Blytas visited Sitaria in 1951. Eventually, he became a self-taught historian to record the events of the fateful 1940-1941 war between a large European country, Italy, successor to Rome and partner of Nazi Germany, and small Greece, successor of ancient Greece.Blytas spent 18 years in composing his story - a detailed narrative of war between Greeks and Italians and Germans in 16 chapters, and a record of the dreadful consequences of the occupation of Greece by Germans, Italians and Bulgarians in 8 chapters. The 24 chapters of the book represent the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet.Blytas starts his account by quoting Hitler talking about WWII. Hitler acknowledged the Italian war against Greece was a bad idea. "The shameful defeats that the Italians suffered in their pointless campaign in Greece," Hitler said, "compelled us, contrary to our plans, to intervene in the Balkans primarily Greece, April 6, 1941, and that in turn led to a catastrophic delay in the launching of our attack on Russia."Blytas says Greece played a "crucial" and "defining" role in WWII. His book, "The First Victory" (Cosmos Publishing, 2009), backs him up. The Greek victory over the Italians was no small skirmish. Italy poured more than 500,000 soldiers supported by hundreds of tanks and warplanes. Then, starting on April 6, 1941, the Germans added even more troops, tanks and warplanes. All together, the Axis powers, Italy, Germany, Albania and Bulgaria, marshaled about 750,000 soldiers against Greece. The Greeks decimated the elite German paratroopers in Crete.WWII lasted for 72 months. The Allies failed in Europe where German troops captured Poland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark in less than 3 months. In the midst of this failure, Greece resisted the Axis powers for 7 months. This was, according to Blytas, an "astonishing achievement" hardly less important than the battle of Marathon. In 490 BCE, Athenians and Plataeans defeated a vastly larger invading Persian army, thus keeping Greece and Europe free from Persian occupation and slavery. The war and resistance of Greece to Italians and Germans in WWII also saved Europe from Nazi German occupation and slavery. "The battle of Greece," Says Blytas, "was the twentieth-century version of the battle of Marathon."The world watched Greek heroism against the armies of Mussolini with admiration. Blytas quotes President Roosevelt praising Greece. Speaking on October 28, 1943, the third anniversary of the Italian invasion of Greece, Roosevelt said Greece "set an example that every one of us must follow until the despoilers of freedom everywhere are brought to their just doom."The end of WWII brought partial doom to the despoilers of freedom. But the historians did not hear Roosevelt. They rushed defending the strong powers and ignored Greece. Indeed, they neglected the strategic role Greek resistance to Italy and Germany had in the delayed German attack on Russia, which led to the defeat of Germany. They also distorted the first victory of Greece, suggesting British troops made that possible. Not a single British soldier, Blytas says, was in continental Greece in the winter of 1940.For these reasons read "The First Victory." It is the first scholarly treatment of what Greece did and suffered in WWII. The story Blytas tells is gripping, thorough, thoughtful and backed by reliable evidence.The Axis powers dismembered Greece and killed 10 percent of her population and wiped out her infrastructure. When the occupiers left Greece, the country looked like a nuclear bomb had hit it. This is important because truth is important.s Euripides said, "Blessed is the man who has learned history."

NEWS,07.11.2012

How Obama won

US President Barack Obama confounded political logic by triumphing over a sluggish economy to win a second term in office.A gruelling and often unpleasant campaign yielded, in the end, a decisive victory, built on the strong foundations laid down months ago by his crack campaign team.Here are some of the keys to Obama's win over Republican Mitt Romney.The economy, despite tepid growth rates and high unemployment, was not bad enough to doom Obama, and he appears to have finally received belated credit for halting the slide into a second Great Depression.When he took office in January 2009, the economy was losing 700 000 jobs a month, and while Americans are still dissatisfied with the economy, exit polls suggest they still blame ex-president George W Bush as much as Obama.Obama endured months of grisly monthly unemployment numbers, which told a tale of an economy struggling to gain steam.He got a break over the last few months, as the unemployment rate dipped below the psychological barrier of eight percent.Consumer confidence and optimism began to rise along with the stock market, and Americans began to feel a bit more optimistic as house prices finally began a slow rise, despite a lingering foreclosure crisis.Often criticised as aloof and professorial, Obama, in the final days of his campaign, his voice hoarse, finally seemed to strike a chord with blue collar workers who enrich the Democratic coalition in the rustbelt.In a twist of political history, Obama was helped by the embrace of his former Democratic antagonist, ex-president Bill Clinton, who buried the hatchet after Obama's defeat of his wife Hillary in the 2008 Democratic primary.Clinton, remembered for leading an era of economic prosperity, often made the case for Obama better than the president himself.The two Democratic giants will now stand together in history as the only two Democrats to win a second term since World War II.The Obama campaign made a gamble soon after Romney captured the Republican primary to go negative.Searing Obama ads and rhetoric branded the former investment manager a corporate vulture, who bought and sold firms for his own profit and heartlessly put good Americans out of work or shipped their jobs overseas.The plan was to define Romney in a harsh light before he had the chance to introduce himself to Americans with a multi-million dollar blitz of television advertising in the swing states, like Ohio, which would decide the election.Romney's limp defence of his record as head of Bain Capital, and his missteps - including a refusal to divulge his complicated offshore tax arrangements and a video in which he was seen decrying 47% of Americans as freeloaders who paid no income taxes played into the stereotype.By the time of Romney's stellar performance in the first presidential debate in October, the damage had been done.The killing of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a daring Navy SEAL raid in 2011 did not win Obama re-election.But it bolstered the image of the president as a steely commander-in-chief who kept Americans safe and defused the classic Republican attack that Democrats are weak and cannot be trusted on national security.Kudos Obama won with the Bin Laden raid, not to mention a ruthless drone war against terror suspects abroad, may have also insulated the president against a late-election furore over the killing of the US ambassador to Libya in Benghazi.For the second election running, Obama's campaign team has reinvented the way presidential elections are won.In 2008, Obama's political brain trust, led by the intense David Plouffe, outwitted the political machine of Bill and Hillary Clinton with a delegate collection strategy that redefined the way primary campaigns are won.This time around, they defied the strong headwinds of a slowly growing economy and re-elected their president in the face of ferocious Republican opposition.The path to victory lay in the most sophisticated voter targeting and turnout machine in history, which reached all the way down to neighbourhoods and was constructed over several years.Way back in October 2011, Obama's political high command insisted to sceptical journalists that the president, smarting from a drubbing in mid-term congressional elections, could and would win re-election.The strategy: position Obama as a populist warrior for the middle class, and brand his opponent as a rich plutocrat oblivious to the suffering of regular Americans.Obama's team insisted all along that his coalition of young voters, Hispanics and African Americans, as well as the educated white middle class, would show up for him in 2012, just as they did in 2008.Republicans scoffed, but they were proven wrong.According to exit polls, 93% of African Americans backed Obama, along with 69% of Latinos and 70% of Jewish voters, and he was able to limit his losses among white voters.Obama also won an important victory among unmarried women voters, 68% of whom backed him.

 

Obama has little time to savour election triumph

Fresh from a decisive re-election win, President Barack Obama returns from the campaign trail today with little time to savour victory, facing urgent economic challenges, a looming fiscal showdown and a still-divided Congress able to block his every move.Obama defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney last night in a gruelling presidential race and used his acceptance speech in front of a huge cheering crowd in Chicago to strike a conciliatory note toward his political opponents.But in the cold light of the 2012 election's morning-after, it was clear that even though voters have endorsed a second Obama term, the president will have a hard time translating that into a mandate to push forward with his agenda.Obama need to get back to work straight away "because he's got major problems with the economy".The "fiscal cliff" a combination of expiring tax cuts and automatic across-the-board reductions in federal spending due to come in at the end of the year could take out over half a trillion dollars from the US economy.The fact that Obama won the popular vote as well as getting more than 300 Electoral College votes meant "he's got that mandate I guess that power a little bit behind him - where he can push on."However, Americans chose to preserve the status quo of divided government in Washington.Obama's fellow Democrats retained control of the Senate and Republicans kept their majority in the House of Representatives, giving them power to curb the president's legislative ambitions on everything from taxes to immigration reform.This is the political reality that Obama - who won a far narrower victory over Romney than his historic election as the country's first black president in 2008 - faces when he returns to Washington later on Wednesday.But that did not stop him from basking in the glow of re-election together with thousands of elated supporters in his hometown of Chicago early yesterday."You voted for action, not politics as usual," Obama said, calling for compromise and pledging to work with leaders of both parties to reduce the deficit, to reform the tax code and immigration laws, and to cut dependence on foreign oil.Obama told the crowd he hoped to sit down with Romney in the coming weeks and examine ways to meet the challenges ahead though the president may be more in need of mending fences with Republican congressional leaders who wield clout in Washington.The problems that dogged Obama in his first term, which cast a long shadow over his 2008 campaign message of hope and change, still confront him. He must tackle the $US1 trillion annual deficits, rein in the $US16 trillion national debt, overhaul expensive social programs and deal with the split Congress.The immediate focus for Obama and US lawmakers will be to deal with the "fiscal cliff," a mix of tax increases and spending cuts due to extract some $US600 billion from the economy at the end of the year barring a deal with Congress. Economists warn it could push the United States back into recession.House Majority Leader John Boehner moved swiftly on the fiscal cliff issue, saying he would issue a statement on it today citing "the need for both parties to find common ground and take steps together to help our economy grow and create jobs, which is critical to solving our debt."Concern about US fiscal problems after Obama's re-election contributed to a decline in global financial markets.World shares turned lower and Wall Street stocks, which had been expected to rise on relief over the clear election outcome, opened lower partly due to fears over economic weakness in Europe.Obama also faces international challenges like the West's nuclear standoff with Iran, the civil war in Syria, the winding down of the war in Afghanistan and dealing with an increasingly assertive China.Romney, a multimillionaire former private equity executive, came back from a series of campaign stumbles to fight a close battle after besting Obama in the first of three presidential debates.But the former Massachusetts governor failed to convince voters of his argument that his business experience made him the best candidate to repair a weak US economy.The nationwide popular vote remained extremely close with Obama taking about 50% to 49% for Romney after a campaign in which the candidates and their party allies spent a combined $US2 billion. But in the state-by-state system of electoral votes that decides the White House, Obama notched up a comfortable victory.Yesterday, Obama had 303 electoral votes, well over the 270 needed to win, to Romney's 206. Florida's close race was not yet declared, leaving its 29 electoral votes still to be claimed.Romney, 65, conceded in a speech delivered to disappointed supporters at the Boston convention centre. "This is a time of great challenge for our nation," he told the crowd. "I pray that the president will be successful in guiding our nation."He warned against partisan bickering and urged politicians on both sides to "put the people before the politics."In Boston there would be "plenty of soul-searching for the Republicans over the next few weeks to find out exactly what when wrong".The party is expected to look particularly closely at how it has alienated Hispanic voters, an important constituency in Obama's victory."The fact is Republicans are going to have to do a lot of rethinking at the presidential level," Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker who lost the Republican nominating race to Romney. In the election aftermath, there were indications that partisan gridlock would persist in Washington.Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell gave no sign that he was willing to concede his conservative principles, signalling potential confrontations ahead."The voters have not endorsed the failures or excesses of the president's first term, they have simply given him more time to finish the job they asked him to do together with a Congress that restored balance to Washington after two years of one-party control," McConnell said.Obama's win puts to rest the prospect of wholesale repeal of his 2010 healthcare reform law, which aims to widen the availability of health insurance coverage to Americans, but it still leaves questions about how much of his signature domestic policy achievement will be implemented.Obama, who took office in 2009 as the ravages of the financial crisis were hitting the US economy, must continue his efforts to ignite strong growth and recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. An uneven recovery has been showing some signs of strength but the country's jobless rate, currently at 7.9%, remains stubbornly high.Obama's re-election puts him in the company of three of his past four predecessors whom voters granted a second term. He now faces the need to reshuffle his cabinet, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton planning to step down soon.In keeping control of the 100-member Senate, Democrats seized Republican-held seats in Massachusetts and Indiana while retaining most of those they already had, including in Virginia and Missouri.The Republican majority in the 435-member House means that Congress still faces a deep partisan divide as it turns to the fiscal cliff and other issues."That means the same dynamic. That means the same people who couldn't figure out how to cut deals for the past three years," said Ethan Siegel, an analyst who tracks Washington politics for institutional investors.British Prime Minister David Cameron also said Britain and the United States should make finding a way to solve the Syrian crisis a priority following Obama's re-election.

What to expect in Obama's second term

US President Barack Obama is expected to pursue an active trade agenda during his second term, centred on tough final negotiations of a new free trade pact in the Asia-Pacific region and continued challenges posed by China.

Here is a glimpse of what's ahead:

Trans-Pacific partnership agreement

Talks on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership pact date back to the administration of Republican George W. Bush, but the Obama administration relaunched negotiations in March 2010 and has overseen their expansion to 11 countries: the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Chile, Peru, Brunei, Canada and Mexico.A final deal could come in 2013, with negotiators just now beginning to grapple with the most politically sensitive issues. For the United States, the pact could require opening up protected sectors like dairy, sugar and textiles in exchange for new US export opportunities.Other countries such as Japan and South Korea could join the talks.

US-EU trade agreement

The United States and the 27-nation European Union are expected to announce a decision by the end of this year to negotiate a comprehensive trade agreement.US Trade Representative Ron Kirk, who is a member of the president's Cabinet, and EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht have led an effort over the past year to explore how to expand the already huge US-EU bilateral trade and investment relationship to create new jobs and economic growth.They are expected to release recommendations in December. Negotiations on the landmark agreement would likely start in early 2013 and take one to two years to complete.

China

Trade with China is expected to remain contentious during Obama's second term, with US manufacturers irritating Beijing by filing additional petitions for anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Chinese products.The Obama administration is likely to file more cases against China at the World Trade Organization, and will likely face continued pressure from US companies to confront growing competition from China's state-owned and state-supported enterprises.Early this year, Obama created a trade enforcement unit to bring together resources from across the executive branch to make sure China and other countries follow the rules.The Obama administration has filed eight WTO cases against China since January 2009, compared with seven by Bush in the previous five years.Obama is likely to continue to put pressure on China to allow its currency to rise more rapidly in value, but stop short of taking any provocative move like declaring China a currency manipulator or authorizing the use of countervailing duties against undervalued currencies.

Trade promotion authority

Trade Promotion Authority, also known as "fast-track" trade legislation, allows the White House to negotiate trade agreements it can submit to Congress for straight up-or-down votes within 90 days and with no amendments.The Bush administration used fast-track authority to negotiate trade deals with 16 countries in Latin America, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region before it expired in June 2007.Obama has not sought to renew the legislation, which is generally considered essential to encouraging other countries to make their best offers in trade talks with the United States.For four years, administration officials have said they would seek the authority "at the appropriate time." While the business community would like Obama to make an early push to renew the legislation, union groups oppose it and the White House has yet to signal when it might move forward.

Obama’s plans to fix US economy

President Barack Obama, who has convinced Americans to give him another four years in office, now faces the tough task of getting the US economy to grow more quickly.Gross domestic product has struggled to expand by more than 2% a year since the 2007-09 recession and unemployment remains high at 7.9%. About 23 million Americans are either unemployed, working part-time because they can’t find full-time work, or want a job but havegiven up the search.Here are Obama’s key plans for the economy:Obama has said his jobs plan would strengthen manufacturing, help small businesses, improve the quality of education and make the country less dependent on foreign oil.He envisions 1 million new manufacturing jobs by 2016 and more than 600 000 jobs in the natural gas sector, as well as the recruitment of 100 000 math and science teachers.Repairing and replacing old roads, bridges, airport runways and schools are part of his plan to put Americans back to work. Half of the money saved from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be used to fund infrastructure projects.Unlike at the start of his first term, when a Democrat-run Congress approved Obama’s $840bn in stimulus, the president will struggle to get any new major spending plans approved by the House, which remains under Republican control.Obama has proposed cutting the government budget deficit by more than $4 trillion over the next decade by allowing tax cuts for upper-income Americans enacted during the George W Bush administration to expire, and by eliminating loopholes. The goal is to balance the budget down the road.Obama backs cutting the top corporate income tax rate to 28% from 35%. He has offered a long list of corporate tax breaks to end, ranging from inventory accounting to interest on overseas profits and tax provisions benefiting oil and gas companies. He wants to eliminate tax breaks for companies that send jobs and profits overseas.Half of the money saved from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be used to reduce the deficit.Obama may want to offer Ben Bernanke a third term in charge of the central bank but Fed watchers say the former Princeton professor has probably had enough after eight grueling years in the job. Bernanke’s term as chairperson expires on January 31, 2014.Fed vice-chairperson Janet Yellen is viewed as a leading candidate to succeed Bernanke and would be at least as ready to keep monetary policy ultra-stimulative until the labour market has improved substantially. Obama is likely to stick to the path he laid out in his first term, which included a broad reform of Wall Street in response to the financial crisis that blew up in 2008. Regulators are due to put in place the small print of the so-called Dodd-Frank financial reform law. Obama has promoted efforts to help troubled borrowers refinance their mortgages and benefit from record low interest rates but far fewer American homeowners have been helped than originally planned.Obama has locked horns with the regulator of government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Edward DeMarco, failing to convince him to allow the mortgage finance firms to reduce principal for borrowers who owe more than their homes are worth. Resolution of the standoff is unlikely any time soon.Democrats and Republicans agree that the government’s outsized presence in the US mortgage market through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needs to be curtailed. Fannie and Freddie account for about 60% of the mortgage market.

 

Re-elected Obama faces fiscal cliff

 

Barack Obama won re-election on Tuesday night, but the US president faces a fresh challenge confronting the "fiscal cliff," a mix of tax increases and spending cuts due to extract some $600bn from the economy barring a deal with Congress. At stake are two separate issues  individual tax cuts due to expire at year's end and tens of billions of dollars in across-the board federal spending cuts due to kick in the day after New Year's Day. Failure to prevent a dive off the cliff could rattle US markets, and push the US economy into a recession, which could have global implications. How Obama fares with a familiar set of challenges most notably a Republican-controlled House of Representatives could colour his second term.Obama, who defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney based on television projections, will want to strike a deal with Washington lawmakers before December 31 or risk a recession in the first half of 2013, budget experts and Democratic aides say.His backers say his win gives him a mandate for an elusive "grand bargain" he sought in his first four-year term. Such a pact would raise new revenue, make changes to popular programs like the Medicare health program for the elderly and pare the federal deficit. "They have signalled that they want a big deal and I think Obama will be aggressive about getting it," said Steve Elmendorf, a former House Democratic senior adviser and now a lobbyist.Obama and most Democrats are at odds with Republicans in Congress over the stickiest issue  whether to let low tax rates for the wealthiest Americans expire on December 31.The president and most Democrats want to raise taxes on income earned above $250 000; Republicans want to extend the current low rates for all income levels. Financial markets and the business community crave long-term certainty and that is what a major deal envisioned by Obama is intended to tackle.A big X-factor is how congressional Republicans will respond to an Obama win. The hard line against raising revenue taken by many Republicans in the House may not abate after the election.House Speaker John Boehner said this week that his Republicans would stand firm on their position opposing any tax increases, even for millionaires, though he was speaking before the election results.Republicans kept control of the House, as expected, and Democrats were projected to maintain control of the Senate.An Obama victory "takes a lot of air out of the room for Republicans", Jim Walsh, a former Republican representative, who retired in 2009, predicted before the election. The odds of a grander deal with increased revenue though not in the form of higher tax rates goes up with an Obama victory, he said.Former Democratic representative Bart Gordon was unsure whether more conservative elements of the party, associated with the Tea Party movement, would go along so easily. "Those folks don't need much of a reason to fight," Gordon said.

Violence erupts in Athens over austerity measures

Greek police fired teargas and water cannons to disperse thousands of protesters who flooded into the main square before parliament today in a massive show of anger against lawmakers due to narrowly pass an austerity package.The violence erupted as a handful of protesters tried to break through a barricade to enter parliament, where Prime Minister Antonis Samaras is expected to barely eke out a win for the belt-tightening law despite opposition from a coalition partner.But the parliamentary session was briefly interrupted when parliament workers went on strike and opposition lawmakers walked out of the chamber in protest. Outside parliament, loud booms rang out as protesters hurled petrol bombs and police responded with teargas and stun grenades. Smoke and small fires could be seen on a street next to parliament.That came after a sea of Greeks braved a steady downpour holding flags and banners saying "It's them or us!" and "End this disaster!" stood before riot police guarding parliament.In all, nearly 100,000 protesters - some chanting "Fight! They're drinking our blood" - packed the square and side streets in one of the largest rallies seen in months, police said.Protesters held aloft Italian, Portuguese and Spanish flags in solidarity with other southern European nations enduring austerity."These measures are killing us little by little and lawmakers in there don't give a damn," said Maria Aliferopoulou, a 52-year-old mother of two living on 1000 euros a month."They are rich, they have everything and we have nothing and are fighting for crumbs, for survival."Public transport was halted, schools, banks and government offices were shut and garbage was piling up on streets on the second day of a two-day nationwide strike, called to protest against the vote.Backed by the leftist opposition, unions say the measures will hit the poor and spare the wealthy, while deepening a five-year recession that has wiped out a fifth of the country's output and driven unemployment to a record 25%.

NEWS,05.11.2012

'King-maker' Ohio final stop before poll

President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney stormed into the final day of campaigning before Election Day, on 6 November, once again visiting the toughest battleground state of all - Ohio. The industrial Midwestern state has picked the winner of the last 12 electionNationwide polls show the two locked in one of the closest, and most expensive, presidential races in recent US history.But a majority of polls in the battleground states especially in Ohio and other Midwestern states of Iowa and Wisconsin show Obama with a slight advantage. That gives him an easier path to the 270 electoral votes needed for victory. No Republican has won the White House without carrying Ohio, and it was possible that Romney would make a last-minute visit to the state on Election Day.Under the US system, the winner is not determined by the nationwide popular vote but in state-by-state contests, making nine "battleground" states that don't consistently vote Republican nor Democratic extremely important in such a tight race. Winning a state gives Romney or Obama that state's electoral votes, which are apportioned to states based on a mix of population and representation in Congress.This year's tight race raises the possibility of a replay of the chaotic 2000 election, when Republican George W Bush won the presidency with an electoral vote majority while Democrat Al Gore had a narrow lead in the nationwide popular vote.Both Obama and Romney say this year's winner will be determined by which of their campaigns can get the most supporters to the polls. "This is going to be a turnout election," the president declared in an interview airing on Monday. Obama needs the support of blacks and Hispanics to counter Romney's support among while men, but his campaign knows that the feeling of making history by electing America's first black president that fired up the 2008 campaign, has cooled.Rock legend Bruce Springsteen and rapper Jay-Z were joining Obama for Ohio events on Monday."We have one job left," and that's getting people out to vote, Romney told a Florida crowd on Monday morning. The crowd chanted, "One more day!"The cost of the presidential campaign has surged past $2bn.Romney, who described himself as "severely conservative" during the Republican primary campaign, has shifted sharply in recent weeks to appeal to the political centre and highlights what he says was his bipartisan record as governor of Democratic leaning Massachusetts. He continues to insist that his experience as a businessman would help fix the still-weak US economy a top issue with voters.Obama has come back from a weak performance in his first of three debates with Romney last month and hammered at Romney's shifting positions.The final national Wall Street Journal Poll, released on Sunday, showed Obama with the support of 48% of likely voters, with Romney receiving 47%. The poll had a margin of error of 2.55 percentage points.The final national poll from the Pew Research Centre found Obama with a three-point edge over Romney, 48% to 45% among likely voters, an improved showing that indicates the president may have benefited from his handling of the response to last week's Superstorm Sandy. Obama suspended three full days of campaigning to deal with the East Coast disaster. The Pew poll had a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.If the election were held now, an Associated Press analysis found that Obama would be all but assured of 249 electoral votes by carrying 20 states that are solidly Democratic or leaning his way and the District of Columbia. Romney would lay claim to 206, from probable victories in 24 states that are strong Republican ground or tilt toward the Republicans.Up for grabs are 83 electoral votes spread across Colorado, Florida, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia and Wisconsin. Of those, Republicans and Democrats alike say Obama seems in slightly better shape than Romney in Ohio and Wisconsin, while Romney appears to be performing slightly better than Obama or has pulled even in Virginia and Florida.With Obama sustaining his lead in Ohio, Romney has made a surprise, last-minute move in neighbouring Pennsylvania. The state has voted Democratic in the last five presidential elections and has long been counted in the Obama column. Romney made his first visit of the fall campaign on Sunday.The theme from the movie Rocky blared from the loudspeakers as he stepped to the podium in a Philadelphia suburb. "The people of America understand we're taking back the White House because we're going to win Pennsylvania," Romney told a large crowd on a cold night.Obama's campaign said Romney's move in Pennsylvania showed the Republican's desperation over his diminished chances in Ohio. And the Obama campaign announced that former president Bill Clinton Obama's most powerful surrogate would make four campaign stops in Pennsylvania on Monday.About 30 million people have already cast ballots in 34 states and the District of Columbia, although none will be counted until Election Day on Tuesday.Storm-hit New York and New Jersey hurried to make voting accessible in a region where more than 1 million remain without power. The states, however, are considered by both campaigns to be heavily for Obama.

 

Obama and Romney in final voter appeals

The Democratic incumbent, appearing in Madison, Wisconsin, drew a large crowd that was warmed up by Bruce Springsteen."Wisconsin, tomorrow you have a choice to make," he said. "It is a choice between two different visions for America."On the defensive throughout the year for presiding over persistently high unemployment, Obama said the choice was between the Republicans' "top-down policies that crashed our economy" and his own approach to moving the country forward.Romney was in Lynchburg, Virginia, telling voters: "One final push is going to get us there."We're only one day away from a fresh start, one day away from the start of a new beginning," he said.Obama was making stops in three swing states and Romney was hitting four.Their goal was to piece together the 270 Electoral College votes needed for victory in the state-by-state battle for the presidency.All eyes were on the Midwestern state of Ohio, whose 18 electoral votes could be decisive.After voting early in his home state of Massachusetts, Romney was considering a last-second visit to Ohio on election day to try to drive turnout, aides said.The election's outcome will impact a variety of domestic and foreign policy issues, from the looming "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax increases that could kick in at the end of the year to questions about how to handle illegal immigration or Iran's nuclear ambitions.The balance of power in Congress also will be at stake, with Obama's Democrats now expected to narrowly hold their Senate majority and Romney's Republicans favoured to retain control of the House of Representatives.In a race where the two candidates and their party allies raised a combined $US2 billion , the most in US history, both sides have pounded the heavily contested battleground states with an unprecedented barrage of ads.The close margins in state and national polls suggested the possibility of a cliffhanger that could be decided by which side has the best turnout operation and gets its voters to the polls.In the final days, both Obama and Romney focused on firing up core supporters and wooing the last few undecided voters in battleground states.Romney reached out to dissatisfied Obama supporters from 2008, calling himself the candidate of change and ridiculing Obama's failure to live up to his campaign promises."He promised to do so very much but frankly he fell so very short," Romney said at a rally in Cleveland on Sunday.Obama, citing improving economic reports on the pace of hiring, argued in the final stretch that he has made progress in turning around the economy but needed a second White House term to finish the job."This is a choice between two different versions of America," Obama said in Cincinnati.Obama will close his campaign with a final blitz across Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa - three Midwestern states that, barring surprises elsewhere, would be enough to get him more than the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.Polls show Obama has slim advantages in all three. His final stop on Monday night will be in Iowa, the state that propelled him to the White House in 2008 with a victory in its first-in-the nation caucus.Romney will visit his must-win states of Florida and Virginia where polls show he is slightly ahead or tied along with Ohio before concluding in New Hampshire, where he officially started his presidential run last year.The only state scheduled to get a visit on Monday US time from both candidates is Ohio, the most critical of the remaining battlegrounds - particularly for Romney. He has few paths to victory if he cannot win in Ohio, where Obama has kept a small but steady lead in polls for months.One in every eight jobs in Ohio is tied to car manufacturing and Obama has been buoyed in the state by his support for a federal bailout of the auto industry.Ohio also has a strong state economy with an unemployment rate lower than the 7.9% national rate.That has undercut Romney's frequent criticism of Obama's economic leadership, which has focused on the persistently high jobless rate and what Romney calls Obama's big-spending efforts to expand government power.Romney, who would be the first Mormon president, has centered his campaign pitch on his own experience as a business leader at a private equity fund and said it made him uniquely suited to create jobs.Obama's campaign fired back with ads criticising Romney's experience and portraying the multimillionaire as out of touch with everyday Americans.Obama and allies said Romney's firm, Bain Capital, plundered companies and eliminated jobs to maximize profits. They also made an issue of Romney's refusal to release more than two years of personal tax returns.

States that will decide White House race

The White House race has narrowed to a fight over less than 10 states ahead of Tuesday's tight election between President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.Obama's strategy, with a final day of campaigning to go, is to solidify his last line of defence in the industrial Midwest, and to try to pluck away several insurance states from Romney's target list elsewhere.The Republican challenger trails the president in polls in many of the battleground states but retains a narrow and plausible path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.Romney's camp also argues that the challenger may not even be behind, claiming that state polls are based on unrealistic assumptions of the size of the Democratic slice of the electorate and underplay Republican enthusiasm.Here is the state of play in swing states that will decide whether Obama wins a second term, or Romney recaptures the White House for Republicans.

The number of electoral votes each state has is in brackets.

Obama's last line of defence

If Obama wins Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa, and avoids any upsets on his turf, he is all but certain to become only the second Democrat to win two White House terms since World War II.

Romney spent months trying to tear the president's Midwestern "firewall" but was hampered by an Obama advertising blitz hammering him as a wealthy plutocrat who disdains the middle class.

-    Ohio (18)

In most recent polls, Obama led Ohio between two and five points, an ominous sign for Romney, as no Republican since the Civil War has lost the state and gone on to win the White House.

Obama touts his bailout of the indebted auto industry in 2009 and Romney's opposition to it, as one-in-eight jobs in the state are linked to the sector.

His team believes that Romney has undermined his hopes in Ohio by running an ad warning that Chrysler will outsource production of its Jeep vehicles to China, a charge the company's CEO has said is false.

Obama leads an average of polls in Ohio by the  website by 2.8%.

-    Wisconsin (10)

Wisconsin has been solid Democratic territory for years: the last time a Republican won the state was Ronald Reagan in 1984.

But Republicans, who managed to repel an attempt by Democrats to oust Governor Scott Walker in a recall election this year, have a solid ground game in the state, and Romney's running mate Paul Ryan is a local boy.

The president leads average by 4.2%.

-    Iowa (6)

Where it all started for Obama. The president built his grass roots operation in the agricultural heartland state and believes that after carving out an advantage in early voting, he has the edge on Romney.

Obama leads average in Iowa by 2.5%.

Up for grabs

-    Florida (29)

The Sunshine State, the largest electoral battleground, is often decisive in presidential elections, but may not be the kingmaker this time. But Obama is competing fiercely there because if he wins, it is all but impossible for Romney to take the White House.
A punishing foreclosure crisis and an unemployment rate higher than the national average have many analysts expecting Florida to swing to Romney.

Obama has led several recent polls however, and if he can get a bumper turnout in Democratic strongholds in the southern part of the state, he could pull off a surprise.

Romney leads average by 1.4%.

-    Virginia (13)

Neither side seem to know whether the state will revert to Republicans after Obama became the first Democrat to win there since 1964. Obama needs to maximize turnout among students, and African American voters around the cities of Richmond and Norfolk.

Romney will count on old school conservatives in rural areas of the state and look to cut down on Obama's margins with educated middle class voters in the Washington DC suburbs.

Currently, Romney leads average by 0.3%.

-    North Carolina (15)

The most likely state to move from Democratic to Republican because Obama won it by only 14 000 votes in 2008. Romney aides are certain their man will win, but the Obama camp has mobilised a massive early voting effort, which it says will keep the president competitive into election day.

Romney is up 3.8% in scoreboard.

-    Colorado (9)

Romney's best chance to grab a western swing state. Obama is relying on women and Hispanic voters to keep him in the game here and currently heads the RCP average by 0.6%.

-    New Hampshire (4)

The flinty northeastern state with an independent streak knows Romney well after he served as governor of neighbouring Massachusetts.

Obama won this state, in 2008 and leads average this year by 1.5%.

May be over

-    Nevada (6)

The Obama campaign says it has a substantial lead after early voting which means Romney needs to win big in election day voting.
Obama has a powerbase among Hispanic voters, and his trip to the bowels of a vast Las Vegas casino hotel to greet culinary workers a few weeks ago looks to have paid off.

Obama leads Nevada by 2.8% in average.

Romney's last stand

-    Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16), Minnesota (10)

Romney will make a late swoop into Pennsylvania on Sunday after ignoring the Keystone State for much of the campaign. Democrats say his move shows desperation and recognition that he cannot get to 270 electoral votes elsewhere. Obama leads the RCP average by 3.9%.

Republicans have also made big advertising buys in Democratic states Minnesota, where Obama is up by 5.8 five points, according to RCP and in Michigan where Obama leads by 3.8% in the averages.

Obama aide David Axelrod is so confident that he has offered to shave his trademark moustache if Romney wins any of the trio.

NEWS,05.10.2012

Venezuela's Chavez faces cliffhanger election

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez faces the toughest election of his 14-year rule on Sunday in a vote pitting his charisma and oil-financed largesse against fresh-faced challenger Henrique Capriles' promise of jobs, safer streets and an end to cronyism.Chavez, 58, staged a remarkable comeback from cancer this year and wants a new six-year term to consolidate his self-styled socialist revolution in the OPEC nation.Capriles, a boyish 40-year-old state governor, has run a marathon eight-month campaign of house-by-house visits that have galvanised the historically fractured opposition and set up its best shot at the presidency since Chavez's election in 1998.Defeat for Chavez would defenestrate Latin America's leader of anti-US sentiment while potentially boosting oil companies' access to the world's largest crude reserves.Victory would allow Chavez to continue a wave of nationalisations and consolidate control over the economy, though a recurrence of his cancer would weaken his leadership and possibly give the opposition another chance.In torrential rain, red-shirted supporters of the president filled much of downtown Caracas on Thursday for his final rally."Chavez will not fail the Venezuelan people," the president said, soaked to the skin in a dark raincoat, on a stage before a sea of fans. "You know that my loyalty to the people almost brought me to the point of death. This is my path."The former military officer, who survived a short-lived coup in 2002, has developed a near cult-like following by casting himself as a messianic reincarnation of 19th century liberation hero Simon Bolivar while pushing billions of dollars in oil revenue into social programmes.Most best-known pollsters put Chavez in front. But two have Capriles just ahead, and his numbers have edged up in others.The opposition leader has had more momentum in the final days of the campaign and he is confidently predicting victory."The time has come to leave the past behind," the opposition leader told a cheering crowd on Thursday, wrapping up a grueling months-long series of rallies across the country.The vote is also a cliffhanger for other left-wing governments in the region, from Cuba to Ecuador, who depend on Chavez's discounted oil sales and generous financial assistance.Emotional ties Seamlessly flipping from jocular prankster to blustering anti-capitalist crusader, Chavez's stories of his poor but happy childhood in a small village have helped him create an emotional bond with poor Venezuelans who see him as one of the family.For nearly a decade, he has won over voters with free health clinics, subsidized groceries and new universities.Over the last year he launched programs to give pensions to the elderly, stipends to poor mothers, and tens of thousands of new homes were handed over on live TV to tearful supporters.Everywhere Chavez has gone on the campaign trail, supplicants have shouted to him asking for help getting a home or a job, or thrust hand-written letters at his staff."I work for the state and I'm offended that the loser (Capriles) says we're made to attend and made to wear red!" said Paulo Garralaga, at Thursday's giant rally in Caracas. "I came to support Chavez and to tell him I'm going to vote for him."Yet day-to-day issues are overshadowing ideological fervor.Nationalisations have weakened private enterprise and given party apparatchiks growing control over jobs. Weak law enforcement, dysfunctional courts and plentiful arms have made Venezuela more violent than some war-zones. Frequent blackouts are an annoying reminder of squandered oil income."Each one of you should make a list of the problems that you have, and ask yourself, how many of those problems has this famous revolution solved for you?" the wiry and sports-loving Capriles intoned at one of his final rallies.The business-friendly law graduate easily won an opposition primary election in February and has united anti-Chavez parties like no one before him. His rallies have been notably more energetic and swollen with ecstatic fans in the final weeks.Sporadic violence has dogged the campaign, with three Capriles activists shot dead last weekend, demonstrating the volatile atmosphere and potential for violence around the vote.Capriles has promised to shed Chavez's doctrinaire vision of a state-led economy for a pragmatic balance between social welfare and free enterprise. He calls himself an admirer of Brazil's market-friendly left, which has pulled close to 35 million people into the middle class over a decade.Chavez has made ample use of state resources to bolster his campaign, speaking for hours about the virtues of socialism in "chain" broadcasts that all public access channels are required to run. The electoral authority has demurely declined to regulate such broadcasts, calling them "institutional" messages.Despite complaints of Chavez's advantages, opposition leaders say they see little risk of fraud during the electronic balloting itself. There will be no formal international observation of the vote, though local groups will be present and voting centers will have witnesses from both sides.Chavez's frequent vote victories over the last 14 years have undermined shrill opposition criticism that he is a dictator.But he has never had to hand over power. Though he accepted defeat in a 2007 referendum on his proposed overhaul of the constitution, in less than a year he used special decree powers to make many of the changes that voters had rejected.A win for Chavez could prompt a sell-off of Venezuelan bonds, which have risen steadily since June and jumped in recent weeks as investors bet on a possible Capriles win.Venezuela's heavy borrowing has made its debt among the most actively traded emerging market bonds - creating an odd romance between Wall Street and one of the world's most virulent critics of capital markets.Capriles is promising to improve the country's finances by cutting wasteful expenditures and halting politically motivated gifts to allied left-wing and anti-American nations."President Chavez, I thank you for what you have been able to do," the opposition leader said at his final campaign rally, in Lara state, in a rare direct use of his opponent's name."With the greatest respect: the time has come to move forward, and you will not be able to stop the people's advance."

Washington Doesn't Like Democratic Elections in Venezuela, Because of the Result

On May 30, Dan Rather, one of America's most well-known journalists, announced that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez would die "in a couple of months at most." Four months later, Chávez is not only alive and campaigning but widely expected to win re-election on Sunday. Such is the state of misrepresentation of Venezuela it is probably the most lied-about country in the world  that a journalist can say almost anything about Chávez or his government and it is unlikely to be challenged, so long as it is negative. Even worse, Rather referred to Chávez as "the dictator"a term that few, if any, political scientists familiar with the country would countenance.Here is what Jimmy Carter said about Venezuela's "dictatorship" a few weeks ago: "As a matter of fact, of the 92 elections that we've monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world."Carter won a Nobel Prize for his work through the election-monitoring Carter Center, which has observed and certified past Venezuelan elections. But because Washington has sought for more than a decade to de-legitimize Venezuela's government, his viewpoint is only rarely reported. His latest comments went unreported in almost all of the U.S. media.In Venezuela, voters touch a computer screen to cast their vote and then receive a paper receipt, which they then verify and deposit in a ballot box. Most of the paper ballots are compared with the electronic tally. This system makes vote-rigging nearly impossible: to steal the vote would require hacking the computers and then stuffing the ballot boxes to match the rigged vote.Unlike in the United States, where in a close vote we really have no idea who won (see Bush v. Gore, 2000), Venezuelans can be sure that their vote counts. And also unlike the U.S., where as many as 90 million eligible voters will not vote in November, the government in Venezuela has done everything to increase voter registration (now at a record of about 97 percent) and participation.Yet the U.S. foreign policy establishment (which includes most of the American and Western media) seethes with contempt for Venezuela's democratic process. In a report timed for the elections, the so-called "Committee to Protect Journalists" says that the government controls a "media empire," neglecting to inform its readers that Venezuelan state TV has only about 5-8 percent of the country's television audience. Of course, Chávez can interrupt normal programming with his speeches (under a law that pre-dates his administration), and regularly does so. But the opposition still has most of the media, including radio and print media -- not to mention most of the wealth and income of the country. The opposition will most likely lose this election not because of the government's advantages of incumbency  which are abused throughout the hemisphere, including the United States. If they lose, it will be because the majority of Venezuelans have dramatically improved their living standards under the Chávez government. Since 2004, when the government gained control over the oil industry and the economy had recovered from the devastating, extra-legal attempts to overthrow it (including the 2002 U.S.-backed military coup and oil strike of 2002-2003), poverty has been cut in half and extreme poverty by 70 percent. And this measures only cash income. Millions have access to health care for the first time, and college enrollment has doubled, with free tuition for many students. Inequality has also been considerably reduced. By contrast, the two decades that preceded Chávez were one of the worst economic failures in Latin America, with real income per person actually falling by 14 percent from 1980-1998.In Washington, democracy has a simple definition: does a government do what the State Department wants them to do? And of course here, the idea of politicians actually delivering on what they promised to voters is also an unfamiliar concept. So it is not just Venezuela that regularly comes under fire from the Washington establishment: all of the left and newly independent governments of South America, including Argentina, Ecuador, and Bolivia are in the cross-hairs (although Brazil is considered too big to get the same treatment except from the right). But the State Department tries to keep its eyes on the prize: Venezuela is sitting on 500 billion barrels of oil, and doesn't respect Washington's foreign policy. That is what makes it public enemy number one, and gets it the worst media coverage.But Venezuela is part of a "Latin American Spring" that has produced the most democratic, progressive, and independent group of governments that the region has ever had. They work together, and Venezuela has solid support among its neighbors. This is Lula da Silva last month: "A victory for Chávez (in the upcoming election) is not just a victory for the people of Venezuela but also a victory for all the people of Latin America . . . this victory will strike another blow against imperialism." South America's support is Venezuela's best guarantee against continuing attempts by Washington - which is still spending millions of dollars within the country in addition to unknown covert funds to undermine, de-legitimize, and destabilize democracy in Venezuela.

The Lifeline for Damascus and Tehran Is in Putin's Hands

The collapse of the Iranian currency by one-third of its value over a week will leave an impact on Iran's nuclear and strategic ambitions - especially through the gateway of Syria. Russia may thus find itself in need of salvaging its Iranian ally for numerous reasons, among them, its need for Iran in its battle against the United States in its Muslim neighborhood, in the wake of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. There are three schools of thought on where things are going in the relationship between the United States and Iran, and what it entails in terms of indications and repercussions in the Middle East and for Russia.The first states that President Barack Obama - who is likely to win a second term  will not bomb Iran no matter what and that the Islamic Republic of Iran will therefore obtain military nuclear capability, and perform a nuclear test within a year or two.The second states that there is no escaping a military confrontation between the United States and Iran, which would start with an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear sites, followed by Iranian retaliation against economic locations in Arab countries in the Gulf region. Finally, the third states that sanctions are leading Iran to collapse from within, and that the deterioration in the value of the currency and the economy at large will lead to reducing Tehran's ability to fund the regime in Damascus and Hezbollah in Lebanon. At the end of the day, it is purported, Russia will not be able to bankroll Iran and save it at the economic and nuclear levels.Each of those schools of thought advances detailed and noteworthy scenarios. What they have in common is that the Russian-Chinese-Iranian alliance with the regime in Damascus will not be able to maintain President Bashar Al-Assad in power, no matter how long it takes. In addition, prolonging the conflict in Syria will lead to a war of attrition, in a civil war that could lead to dividing Syria in a manner similar to what took place in the former Yugoslavia. Yet opinion is divided over this scenario, with some considering it possible, while others believe otherwise. Another common denominator is the assessment of both US President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin, as both lacking in strategic visions and thinking into long-term interests. Obama is, in the view of some, arrogant and stubborn, as well as an isolationist who lacks the courage to take the initiative and prefers to hide behind the American aversion to further interventions, instead of being a leader who knows where the interest of the United States lies in these times of transitions and new strategic equations. As for Putin, he is, again in the opinion of some, aman of posturing and excessive Russian nationalism, who values himself highly and considers himself to be the leader of a superpower - while Russia remains at the level below. He adopts revenge as a policy in the face of offense, and does not care for the price paid by innocent civilians in return. Vladimir Putin exploited the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) in Afghanistan, then rebelled against it in Libya and is now taking revenge against it over the dead bodies of innocent Syrians. Former US President George W. Bush did favors to both Russia and China in Afghanistan, in his war against terrorism and Islamic extremism. The aim was to eradicate Islamic extremism in Afghanistan before it spreads and reaches the five Muslim republics that surround Russia and come near to China, without Moscow and Beijing participating in covering the exorbitant cost. Barack Obama made the mistake of not satisfying Putin in a so-called "Grand Bargain", including by not granting Russia the port of Tartus. Yet what he is preparing to do in Afghanistan may well unintentionally represent a lethal blow for Vladimir Putin. The withdrawal of the United States within the framework of NATO's withdrawal from Afghanistan may well represent the tipping point for Russia to slip into a war against Islamic extremism on its home soil and in its immediate neighborhood in the five Muslim republics. Vladimir Putin will find himself alone in such a confrontation, of which he has sowed the seeds himself in Syria, when he could have done the opposite if he had not made use of his veto for a third time, committing a major strategic blunder in the process.Vladimir Putin may well be forced to wage his own war on terror as George W. Bush had done in the past - and in fact probably believes himself to be doing just that in Syria. Bush summoned Al-Qaeda and groups like it to Iraq and waged the war there in order to keep terrorism away from American cities, as he said. Similarly, Putin contributed to the arrival of jihadists to Syria through the series of vetoes he made use of at the Security Council, in revenge for what NATO did in Libya. He thus encouraged the rise of extremism in Syria, while demonstrations had at the beginning been secular and only demanded reform in Syria. Bush entered into a war with his troops in Iraq. Putin is gathering a budget of around 70 billion dollars to confront the Muslim extremism arriving at his gates. Bush offered Iraq to Iran and played the Shiite-Sunni card based on the fact that the 9/11 terrorist attacks had been the work of Sunnis. Putin is allying himself with Iran on the same confessional basis, but also for reasons connected to his hatred of the United States on the one hand, and of the Arabs on the other. He respects Iran's arrogance and despises the weakness and fragmentation of the Arabs. He also finds a common denominator between himself and Tehran's mullahs in their absolute hatred of the United States and their need to confront it - yet only through proxy wars. This kind of thinking reveals Vladimir Putin's ignorance of both the Arabs and Iran, and it will lead him to take Russia down a slippery slope to collapse, if he does not correct his course quickly before it is too late. What he is doing in Syria is investing against himself in the Muslim republics and in Chechnya. And if he is to correct his course, Syria is the place to start, as it would improve his relations with the leaderships of the Arab Maghreb and would lead him to partner with them, with the Gulf countries and with the United States to eradicate the Jihadist extremism that is spreading in the Arab Maghreb. The interviews conducted by Al-Hayat last week with Libyan President Mohamed El-Magariaf and Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, show the extent to which this trend has proliferated. There is no use for Russia to be alone in the forefront, and this is what will happen after the withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan, the stronghold of jihadists, as well as the base from which this new jihadist action will be launched against Russia as a result of the stances taken by Vladimir Putin and of his short-sightedness. He will come to regret it. So will China, if it continues to follow the direction into which Putin is taking it. Indeed, it in turn is exposed to this, particularly in Turkestan (Xinjiang), and will suffer after the Western withdrawal from Afghanistan, which will become the center of Russia and China's entanglement with Jihadistextremism. China in turn will foster enmity with the Arabs because of Syria, and will not benefit from allying itself with the losers in Damascus or perhaps in Tehran. Iran will not be among the losers according to the first scenario, adopted by the school that states that it will obtain nuclear capabilities after performing a military nuclear test some say will take place within a year or two. After the test, it will be too late. Then, an arms race will begin in the Gulf region, and there are indications that serious precautionary preparations are being made by some Gulf countries capable of obtaining nuclear capabilities. Then, it will be too late for the United States and for Israel, as they will not be able to rein in Iran or the nuclear arms race in the Arab region. Yet this will not mean salvation for the regime in Damascus, because Iran moving to the level of a nuclear power will make it, in the opinion of some, more cautious and careful not to get implicated in confrontations. Indeed, it will not make use of nuclear weapons even if it obtains them - it will behave like a nuclear power and will avoid proxy wars because it will have no need for them. Thus, according to those who are of this opinion, Tehran will adopt of policy of neglecting the regime in Syria as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon, because it will stabilize and position itself at the nuclear level, and rein itself in at the regional level.As for Israel, what is referred to as the "weakness" of its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will lead Iran to move forward at the nuclear level, according to an opinion held by some, especially as the US President will not let himself be dragged into bombing Iran on behalf of Israel. The second scenario is based on the assumption that Israel will direct a military strike against Iranian sites that would implicate the United States and force Obama to intervene militarily, if Iran were to respond to Israel at the military level. Yet there is information indicating that Iran will not take revenge on Israel directly or on American troops in the region, but will rather respond by striking against vital economic locations in Arab countries in the Gulf. Then too, some deem it likely that the United States will not be able to stand idly by and will be forced to strike against Iran, because directing military strikes against such vital economic locations would represent a blow to interests essential to the United States. Thus, according to this scenario, a war between the United States and Iran will take place either way.It is unlikely for Iran's leadership to remain completely silent in the face of an Israeli strike, because this would represent a national offense and would be perceived as weakness at the domestic level. If it does remain silent, this could be because it would have come very close or even become ready to perform a nuclear test. Matters developing in the direction of a war between the United States and Iran will lead to a quicker collapse of the regime in Damascus. Hezbollah could get implicated by using the Lebanese scene as an arena for Iran's revenge on Israel, and thus in turn quickly collapse. Or it could disassociate itself from the issue and choose to reform its ways.The third scenario is based on economic collapse within Iran, which would start with the sharp devaluation of its currency and would go through an economic crisis that would turn the Iranian interior against the leadership in Tehran. Such decay will lead to Tehran being forced to seriously lower the support it is extending to its ally in Damascus, which in turn has entered the cycle of economic erosion and decay. It will also lead to reducing Iranian funding of Hezbollah in Lebanon as well. Indeed, the three of them are subject to economic sanctions that will become increasingly stifling, even if they have tremendous reserves of weapons. No matter how arrogantly they behave, these sanctions will weaken and besiege them. Their lifeline to salvation rests in Putin's hands alone, but he in turn is besieged, after having allowed himself to commit strategic mistakes he may well sorely regret.