BRICS nations to kick Washington out of South America

© Reuters / Sergio Moraes
Russia's President Vladimir Putin (R) and Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner arrive to the official photo session for the BRICS summit

    

It started in April with a rash of deals between Argentina and Russia during President Cristina Kirchner's visit to Moscow.

And it continues with a $53 billion investment bang as Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visits Brazil during the first stop of yet another South American commercial offensive - complete with a sweet metaphor: Li riding on a made in China subway train that will ply a new metro line in Rio de Janeiro ahead of the 2016 Olympics.

Where is the US in all this? Nowhere; little by little, yet inexorably, BRICS members China - and in a smaller measure, Russia - have been no less than restructuring commerce and infrastructure all across Latin America.

Countless Chinese commercial missions have been plying these shores non-stop, much as the US did between World War I and II. In a key meeting in January with Latin American business leaders, President Xi Jinping promised to channel $250 billion for infrastructure projects in the next 10 years.

Top infrastructure projects in Latin America are all being financed by Chinese capital - except the Mariel port in Cuba, whose financing comes from Brazil's BNDES and whose operation will be managed by Singaporean port operator PSA International Pte Ltd. Construction of the Nicaragua canal - bigger, wider and deeper than Panama's - started last year by a Hong Kong firm, to be finished by 2019. Argentina, for its part, clinched a $4.7 billion Chinese deal for the construction of two hydroelectric dams in Patagonia.

© Reuters / Ueslei Marcelino
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) and Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff look on before a meeting at the Planalto Palace in Brasilia, May 19, 2015

    

Among the 35 deals clinched during Li's visit to Brazil, there was financing worth $7 billion for Brazil's oil giant Petrobras; 22 Brazilian Embraer commercial jets to be sold to Tianjin Airlines for $1.3 billion; and a raft of agreements involving top iron ore producer Vale. Chinese investment might go some way into overhauling Brazil's appalling network of roads, railways and ports; airports are in slightly better condition due to upgrades prior to the World Cup last year.

The star of the whole show is undoubtedly the proposed $30 billion, 3,500 kilometer-long, Atlantic-Pacific mega-railway, that is slated to run from the Brazilian port of Santos to the Peruvian Pacific port of Ilo via Amazonia. Logistically, this is a must for Brazil, offering it a Pacific gateway. Winners will inevitably be commodity producers - from iron ore to soya beans - exporting to Asia, mostly China.

The Atlantic-Pacific railway may be an extremely complex project - involving everything from environmental and land rights issues to, crucially, the preference for Chinese firms every time Chinese banks deliberate on extending lines of credit. But this time, it's a go. The usual suspects are - what else - worried.

Watch the geopolitics

Official Brazilian policy, since the Lula years, has been to attract top Chinese investment. China is Brazil's top trading partner since 2009; it used to be the US. The trend started with food production, now it moves to investment in ports and railways, and the next stage will be technology transfer. The BRICS New Development Bank and the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), of which Brazil is a key founding member, will definitely be part of the picture.

The problem is this massive trade/commerce BRICS interplay is intersecting with a quite convoluted political process. The top three South American powers - Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela, which also happen to be Mercosur members - have been facing repeated "destabilization" attempts by the usual suspects, who routinely denounce the foreign policy of Presidents Dilma Rousseff, Cristina Kirchner and Nicolas Maduro and yearn for the good ol' days of a dependent relationship with Washington.

With different degrees of complexity - and internal strife - Brasilia, Buenos Aires and Caracas are all simultaneously facing plots against their institutional order. The usual suspects don't even try to dissimulate their near total diplomatic distance from the South American Top Three.

Venezuela, under US sanctions, is considered a threat to US national security - something that does not even qualify as a bad joke. Kirchner has been under relentless diplomatic assault - not to mention US vulture funds targeting Argentina. And with Brasilia, relations are practically frozen since September 2013, when Rousseff suspended a visit to Washington in response to the NSA spying on Petrobras, and herself personally.

And that leads us to a crucial geostrategic issue - so far unresolved.

NSA spying may have leaked sensitive information on purpose to destabilize the Brazilian development agenda - which includes, in the case of Petrobras, the exploration of the largest oil deposits (the pre-salt) found so far in the young 21st century.

© Reuters / Sergio Moraes
The Petrobras headquarters in Rio de Janeiro

    

What is unraveling is so crucial because Brazil is the second-biggest economy in the Americas (after the US); it is the biggest Latin American commercial and financial power; it hosts the former second-biggest development bank in the world, BNDES, now overtaken by the BRICS bank; and it also hosts the biggest corporation in Latin America, Petrobras, also one of the world's top energy giants.

The hardcore pressure against Petrobras comes essentially from US shareholders - who act like the proverbial vultures, bent on bleeding the company and profit from it, allied with lobbyists who abhor Petrobras's status as the priority explorer of the pre-salt deposits.

In a nutshell, Brazil is the last great sovereign frontier against unbounded hegemonic domination in the Americas. The Empire of Chaos had to be annoyed.

Ride the continental wave

The constantly evolving strategic partnership of the BRICS nations has been met by Washington circles not only with incredulity but fear. It's virtually impossible for Washington to do real damage to China - but much "easier", comparatively, in the case of Brazil or Russia. Even though Washington's wrath targets essentially China - which has dared to do deal after deal in the former "America's backyard".

Once again, the Chinese strategy - as much as the Russian - is to keep calm and carry a "win-win" profile. Xi Jinping met with Maduro in January to do - what else - deals. He met with Cristina Kirchner in February to do the same - just as speculators were about to unleash another attack against the Argentine peso. Now there's Li's visit to South America.

Needless to say, trade between South America and China continues to boom. Argentina exports food and soya beans; Brazil the same, plus oil, minerals and timber; Colombia sells oil and minerals; Peru and Chile, copper, and iron; Venezuela sells oil; Bolivia, minerals. China exports mostly high-value-added manufactured products.

A key development to watch in the immediate future is the Transul project, which was first proposed at a BRICS conference last year in Rio. It boils down to a Brazil-China strategic alliance linking Brazilian industrial development to partial outsourcing of metals to China; as the Chinese increase their demand - they are building no less than 30 megalopolises up to 2030 - that will be met by Brazilian or Sino-Brazilian companies. Beijing has finally given its seal of approval.

So the long-term Big Picture remains inexorable; BRICS and South American nations - which converge in the Unasur (The Union of South American Nations) - are betting on a multipolar world order, and a continental process of independence.

It's easy to see how that is oceans away from a Monroe doctrine.

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Man killed and 4 others injured in 3 separate bear attacks in Kashmir, India

Bear track

    

One person was killed and four others were injured in three different bear attacks across the Valley.

35-years-old Mohammad Yaseen Famda, son of Noor Mohammad, resident of Fakeer Gojri, who had gone for grazing his cattle in the jungle area was reported to have died in a bear attack on Wednesday. Police has started the investigation under section 174 CrPC in this regard.

The body of deceased was handed over to his relatives for last rites, police spokesman said.

Meanwhile, a bear attacked and injured two persons Mohammad Lateef Chohan, son of Ghulam Mohammad, and Bashir Ahmed Chohan, son of Galtar, both resident of Ahlan Kokernag. Both the injured were shifted to PHC Kokernag for treatment.

In another incident, a bear attacked and injured two persons Alyas Khan, son of Abdul Qayoom, resident of Iqbal Colony Check Ferozpora, Tangmarg, and Mohammad Sultan Khatana, son-in-law of Jallildin, resident of Drang, in adjacent forest area. Both the injured have been shifted to the hospital for treatment.

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Computerized military suit with suspended armor makes debut

© http://ift.tt/SvJAO1
"Toto, we ain't in Kansas anymore." Prototype achieved, revealed at McDill Air Force Base.

    

A computer-run military suit of the future, with suspended armor, makes its debut at a military convention held at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, FL. Geared to special ops forces, the suit has built-in night vision, computers, a communications system and a suspended metal skeleton that wraps 60% of a soldier's body in armor. It is so heavy, it has a motorized metal skeleton that carries the weight. It is designed to feel zero load on the top of the head via a suspended helmet. This project is being pursued by SOCOM.

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Background and project issues:

Special Operations Command in 2013 introduced the world to its tactical assault light operator suit concept via a widely disseminated YouTube animated video of a hulking human figure bursting through a door as bullets pinged off its metallic skin. The press immediately dubbed it the "Iron Man suit."

Then SOCOM leader Navy Adm. William McRaven said the program's goal was to protect commandos entering buildings during raids. [...] He managed to have $80 million over four years allocated toward the effort and gave technologists until 2018 to deliver a working prototype.

Powering the suit, allowing the operator freedom of movement and view screens that don't have latency issues are three of the main challenges, said Anthony Davis, director of science and technology at SOCOM.

Exoskeletons consume power based on a wide variety of factors having to do with what function they are performing in operation and how much they weigh. For instance, running consumes more energy than standing still, and a heavier exoskeleton will consume more energy to move than a lighter exoskeleton. The power hurdle is particularly challenging because missions that are only expected to last minutes or hours can sometimes extend for days.

A 500-pound armored exoskeleton may stop a 7.62 mm armor-piercing bullet, but is not agile enough to operate in mountainous, littoral or riverine environments. And while a 500-pound exoskeleton can stop the penetration of a 7.62 mm bullet, that same armor cannot protect the soldier from a rocket-propelled grenade, larger caliber munitions or improvised explosive devices.

SOCOM officials said from the beginning that in order to put the technology into the field as soon as possible, the program was forgoing traditional acquisition practices, and reaching out to labs and private companies that don't normally work with the military.

SOCOM has a staff of almost 30 working full time on the TALOS project, Davis said. Twelve of them are Army and Navy special operators who have recently returned from battlefields.

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Hear Costa Rica's Turrialba volcano rumble

Ever wondered what the inside of a volcano sounds like? The Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica (OVSICORI) has you covered.

OVSICORI took a selection from a seismograph registered inside Turrialba Volcano's central crater and converted it into a sound file. The effect allows you to "hear" the volcano's sub-audible rumbling.

This particular example was mostly for fun, but Dr. Javier Pacheco, a seismology expert at OVSICORI, said that the technique had practical uses for scientists too. Converting the seismographs into audio files can help scientists identify variations in the frequency of seismological activity that would be difficult to identify visually from the readouts alone, he explained.

Turrialba Volcano has been active during the last several months, closing Juan Santamaría International Airport several times after large eruptions of ash that blew across the Central Valley.

Volcanologists expect that the eruptions will get more frequent and more violent in the coming months and the National Emergency Commission (CNE) has maintained a yellow alert in the area. The Commission recently expanded the evacuation zone around the volcano from 2 km to 5 km.

Pacheco said that Turrialba Volcano was calm on Friday.

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Massive 85ft-wide sinkhole opens up at golf course in Branson, Missouri

© NBC
The chasm is 85ft wide and 35 ft deep

    

A mysterious giant sinkhole opened up at a golf course in what could be the world's easiest hole-in-one.

The 80ft-wide pit formed on Friday at the Jack Nicklaus designed Top Rock Golf Course in Missouri.

And remarkably, the main course, which hosted a Champions Tour event in April, is unaffected and still open for play.

An estimated 7,000 cubic feet of material has been displaced by the phenomenon, with experts speculating that recent heavy rain collapsed the pathway to an undiscovered underground cave.

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The huge hole is close to the driving range at the par-three course, which is close to the town of Branson.

However one wisecracking golfer remarked that the course had a 'challenging new bunker'.

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Minimum wage workers cannot afford a one-bedroom apartment in any state in the US

© Reuters/John Gress

    

Earlier this month we learned that in 21 out of the 26 OECD member countries that have a minimum wage, working 40 hours per week at the pay floor would not be sufficient to keep one's family out of poverty. That rather stunning revelation comes as Democrats in the US push for a $12 minimum wage by 2020 and as pressure grows on companies like McDonald's to raise wages for its lowest-paid employees.

Of course rising minimum wages can also have the rather counterintuitive side effect of harming those they're meant to help because after all, when the cost of labor goes up, employers may simply fire people or, as we saw yesterday when McDonald's pledged to reduce the number of company-owned restaurants by 10% over the next several years, resort to other measures aimed at getting around pay floor hikes.

So while one can debate pros and cons of addressing abysmal wage growth by legislating a non-market-driven solution, what is not up for debate is this: it's getting harder and harder to subsist above the poverty line for low-income workers.

In fact, as the following map shows, in no state can a minimum wage worker afford a one bedroom apartment.

    

Here's some color from a study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition:

Rents for apartments have risen nationally for 23 straight quarters. As of the third quarter of 2014, rents were 15.2% higher than at the tail end of the Recession in 2009. Rising rents are an outcome of increased demand for rental housing. One recent study of 11 major cities found double-digit growth in the number of renters in nine of the 11 cities between 2006 and 2013. In the fourth quarter of 2014, the homeownership rate dropped to its lowest rate in twenty years and the rental vacancy rate fell to 7% as more households sought rental units. The downward pressure on vacancy rates directly impacts the rental housing market, making landlords less willing to offer rent concessions and more likely to increase rents. The tightening rental market has the most significant impact on low income renters.

So thank you Wall Street (and a hat tip to Alan Greenspan as well) for creating an entirely unsustainable housing bubble which finally collapsed on itself, turning a nation of homeowners into a nation of renters many of whom will now have to pony up everything they make each month to someone who may have gotten a landlord loan from Wall Street to buy up rental properties from home flippers who also got loans from Wall Street where some very clever investment bankers are busy securitizing these landlord and home flipper loans in order to sell billions in new ABS on the way to recreating the very same bubble only to have it burst all over again.

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'US hunt for Russians': Moscow warns citizens traveling abroad

© Reuters/Jenevieve Robbins

    

Russia has urged its citizens to weigh all the risks before traveling abroad, warning that the US is on a global "hunt" for Russian nationals, according to the latest statement published by the Foreign Ministry.

Russian citizens abroad face a very "real" threat of being detained or arrested by US law enforcement and special services, especially when traveling to countries that have extradition treaties with Washington, the ministry said on its website.

There have been over a dozen cases demonstrating just that, the statement added. The American authorities continue the unacceptable practice of 'hunting' for Russians all over the world, ignoring the norms of international laws and twisting the arms of other states."

American forces have in effect kidnapped Russians from other countries, the statement said, citing the case of Roman Seleznyov, who was abducted by American agents in the Maldives, and then forcibly transported to the US in July 2014. He is still being held in custody, awaiting trial.

the ministry said.

Those who get detained by US services face prejudicial justice, including threats demanding confessions, despite lack of any evidence. Even if the American authorities fail to secure a confession, the detainees are slapped with huge prison terms, the ministry said.

Examples of such cases include Viktor Bout and Konstantin Yaroshenko.

In the most recent development, a New York court has refused to hold a retrial in the case of Russia pilot Yaroshenko, who was given a 20-year sentence in 2011 for allegedly participating in a conspiracy to smuggle drugs to the US. He was arrested in Liberia following a sting operation and handed over to the US, despite protests from Russia and violations of the diplomatic code.

Meanwhile, back in 2012, the US Justice Department declined Russia's request to repatriate businessman Viktor Bout, who is currently serving a 25-year prison term.

American authorities are accused of violating procedures and using bribery to strong-arm Thailand into surrendering Bout.

During the trial, the prosecution relied heavily on the testimony of undercover agents rather than actual material evidence, as both Bout and Yaroshenko pleaded not guilty in court.

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