The Spanish Civil War
Contesting Barcelona’s Soul between Two Flags : Conceptual Frontiers of the Turn-of-century Catalonia between Catalan Nationalism and Anarcho-Syndicalism
It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Contesting Barcelona’s Soul between Two Flags : Conceptual Frontiers of the Turn-of-century Catalonia between Catalan Nationalism and Anarcho-Syndicalism
Tom Arms’ World Review: Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Justice at home and abroad, Sri Lanka
After a week of Ukrainian talks the question is whether Vladimir Putin is using negotiations to avoid war or create a pretext to start one. The communiques emerging from Geneva, Brussels and Vienna shed little light on the subject. They are peppered with insubstantial diplomatese phrases such as “frank,” “friendly” and “constructive.” Off the record, journalists are being told that chief US negotiator Wendy Sherman is offering to widen the talks with suggested discussions on missile deployments and other issues. The US is clearly trying to drag out talks in the hopes that protracted jaw, jaw will lead to reduced tensions. But on one issue the Americans and their NATO allies appear to be standing firm: They will not agree to a legally binding commitment to block Ukraine (and Georgia) from NATO membership. Putin has made it clear that Ukrainian enrolment in NATO is unacceptable. In fact, Putin has compared it to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. The Russian leader has also denounced America’s strategic arms policies, blaming them from withdrawing from the ABM Treaty (true), INF (not true) and the Open Skies Agreement (not true). However, Putin is also adamant that he will not be bogged down in the “swamp” of protracted negotiations. His concern over lengthy talks is at least partly related to the fact that if he doesn’t move soon Russian tanks will become mired in the mud of a Ukrainian spring. If Putin does invade, Biden has threatened sanctions “like none he has ever seen.” These are likely to include locking Russia out of the international banking system and blocking the Nordstream2 gas pipeline.
It now appears that the uprising in Kazakhstan was more of an internal power struggle than a popular uprising. In the wake of the violence the head of, Kazakhstan’s security services, Karim Masimov, has been sacked and charged with treason. In addition, 81-year-old former president Nursultan Nazarbayev has been removed from the chairmanship of the nation’s powerful Security Council and his family has dropped from public view. Nazabaryev, who was an autocratic president for 25 years, hand-picked Kassim-Zhomart Tokayev as his successor. It had been assumed that the ex-president was still pulling the puppet strings and grooming his daughter for the presidency. Now it seems that the puppet has cut the strings and turned on his master. He also appears to have the blessing of Russia’s Vladimir Putin who still holds considerable sway in the former Soviet republic. Twenty-five percent of Kazakhstan’s 18 million citizens are ethnic Russian. Its gas pipelines all run to Russia, and 2,000 Russian troops were called in by Tokayev to protect Russian assets when the revolt started. After killing 164 protesters, arresting 10,000 and possibly neutering the Nazarbayev family and their supporters, Tokayev appears to be firmly back in control and the Russian troops are back in their barracks.
It is reassuring to note that the blindfold over the eyes of Lady Justice (aka Justitia) appears to remain in place in at least some countries. Britain, Germany, Australia and America (acting with the UK) have this week shown that the greatest in the land are subject to the same laws as everyone else no matter how high they climb the greasy pole of ambition. In the case of the Germans it was a matter of “you can run but you can’t hide.” This week a Koblenz court sentenced former Syrian Colonel Anwar Raslan to life imprisonment for supervising the torture of more than 4,000 prisoners in war-torn Syria. He was found guilty of crimes against humanity under the UN’s Universal Jurisdiction rules. This coming week a Syrian doctor also appears before a German court. Austria, Norway, Sweden and France have also taken legal steps against former members of the Syrian regime who have sought refuge in their countries.
Australia has proven that rules apply to tennis players off the court as well as on. The country’s immigration minister, Alex Hawke, has overturned a court decision and ordered the deportation of the world’s number one tennis player—Novak Djokovic—who doubles as a prominent anti-vaxxer. Unfortunately for Djokovic, Australia has some of the world’s toughest rules on covid vaccinations and entry into the country. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson appears to be heading for the exit door at 10 Downing Street as journalists line up to reveal a succession of Downing Street parties held during covid lockdowns that he ordered. The latest was the day before the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh when the country was in national mourning. Boris has made what he calls a “heartfelt” apology but the press and many of his colleagues think it was half-hearted. Finally the highest in the land (almost) has also been subjected to the rules. Prince Andrew, ninth in succession to the British throne, has been stripped of his titles and military ranks. He will now appear as a private citizen in a US civil court where he will be accused of sexually abusing Ms Victoria Giuffre in 2001. A delighted Ms Giuffre said: “My goal has always been to show that the rich and famous are not above the law.”
Sri Lanka is in deep financial trouble. This creates problems for China, India, Japan, Russia, the US and several other countries. Sri Lanka’s problems started with the refusal of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to accept IMF conditions for a restructuring of the island nation’s debts. In desperate need of cash, the Sri Lankan president turned to China for replacement help. Since then a combination of the pandemic, poor investment decisions and a drop in tourism has worsened Sri Lanka’s economic situation. Its foreign currency reserves have dwindled to almost nil. Inflation is 12 percent. A $500m debt repayment is due on Tuesday (18 Jan). Another $5.4 billion has to be repaid by the end of the year. Enter China which is Sri Lanka’s fourth biggest creditor after Japan, the IMF and Asian Development Bank. Sri Lanka has asked Beijing to restructure its loans. It is not the first time that the Sri Lankans have gone cap in hand to the Chinese. In 2017 they swapped a proportion of their equity in the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota in a debt restructuring deal. The Chinese now own 70 percent of the equity in the port on the south eastern tip of Sri Lanka. The move set alarm bells ringing in Tokyo, Washington, Canberra and Delhi where it was feared that the Chinese might use their equity position to place naval forces in the Indian Ocean. The “Quad” started eyeing the facilities at Trincomalee, the region’s largest deep-water facility. So far, however, the Chinese have kept their presence in Sri Lanka on a strict commercial footing. But they will want something in return for helping the Sri Lankans out of their current financial mess. What that may be is what is causing sleepless nights elsewhere.
* Tom Arms is the Foreign Editor of Liberal Democratic Voice. His book “America Made in Britain” has recently been published by Amberley Books. He is also the author of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War.”
IRONIC
BEIJING - US sci-fi action film "The Matrix Resurrections" topped the Chinese mainland box office Saturday, the second day of its screening, figures from the China Movie Data Information Network showed Sunday.
Directed by Lana Wachowski, the sequel to 2003's "The Matrix Revolutions" and the fourth installment in The Matrix film series raked in nearly 18.8 million yuan (about $2.95 million) on Saturday.
Domestic drama "Embrace Again" came in second, finishing the day with a box office revenue of more than 16.77 million yuan.
It was followed by crime thriller "G Storm," which pocketed about 10.25 million yuan on Saturday.
In 2008, the United States prevented the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei from purchasing the network solutions provider 3Com. That marked the start of its 13-year-long campaign against the company. It has even drummed up and marshaled the cooperation of its allies in its "clean networks" initiative aimed at excluding Huawei and other Chinese companies from global 5G networks.
According to EurActiv, a Brussels-based media outlet, former United Kingdom business and industry minister Vince Cable said on Jan 10 that the UK government took moves against Huawei "because the Americans told us we should do it".
In July 2020, the Boris Johnson administration announced that all Huawei products were to be stripped from their country's 5G networks by the end of 2027 due to "security concerns". Yet in his remarks, Cable, who served in David Cameron's administration from 2010 to 2015, said that during his term the intelligence and security services repeatedly assured him that using Huawei equipment posed no risks.
Cable's remarks show that the US' justification for its witch hunt against Huawei on the grounds of "national security" is a shameless lie. Its sole purpose is to contain one of China's leading enterprises.
For Huawei, that might be considered an honor. That means the enterprise that started with six employees in 1987 has grown into a company influential enough to arouse the full force of the US' fear and loathing.
The campaign against Huawei is nothing new. The US has launched campaigns to bring down the high-flying tech companies of other countries before — Toshiba, Alston, and others. These companies share one thing in common, namely the ability to challenge the US' technological hegemony, which is why the US so ruthlessly guns for them.
But Huawei has not caved in. And the US' attacks on it are hurting its own companies too. By prohibiting its enterprises from selling chips to Huawei, the US has employed a double-edged sword. As early as 2019, the US chip giant Qualcomm worried that cutting chip supplies to Huawei might impact its sales in China. In September 2020, VLSI Research CEO, Dan Hutcheson, said that the ban on China's Huawei had triggered a large inventory backlog throughout the entire chip industry.
The UK is not the only country missing technological development opportunities because of their ally's hegemony-at-any-cost antics.
If its allies continue working with the US in its efforts to hobble tech competitors globally, they will only find themselves lagging behind in more emerging sectors.
"If Britain had kept with 5G, we would now be at the forefront of countries using the most advanced technologies," Cable is quoted as saying. "And we're not."
If more people tell the truth like Cable, the US' economic bullying will meet more resistance. That would be good for development and application of new technology.