Dive into the archives.
- Venezuela’s Vendetta
For years it looked as if only Western companies were subject to President Hugo Chavez’s socialist revolution and nationalization of industry. No longer. On Wednesday, Venezuelan troops marched into four cement plants owned by Cemex, a Mexican cement company. The invasion took place at the dead of night and was celebrated with [...]
- Kim Jong Il is dead… long live Kim Jong Il!
Waseda University professor Toshimitsu Shigemura claims in this week’s Shukan Gendai that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il passed away in the fall of 2003 and has been replaced by a body double.
Note that the Shukan Gendai is not the World Weekly News. JT has an English overview of the article which lists some of [...]
- Contemplating Georgia, Part 3: Mongolia
Guest post by regular commenter and reader Aceface, who has extensive professional and personal experience in Mongolia.
Georgia and Mongolia have many similarities, especially in the context of US foreign relations. Both are former communist states. Both were dominated by Russia through the 20th century even before the Communist revolution. This influence waned [...]
- Gold Medal to Zimbabwe
...for seeing inflation rise to a new peak of 11,200,000%. Prices rise by 30-40% a day, and have multiplied 110,000-fold, a world record.
After introducing a 200,000 dollar bill, the Zimbabwean Central Bank devalued the currency by 10 zeros. That means that a previous 10 billion dollar bill is now a one dollar bill. [...]
- Angola beats Nigeria
No, I’m not talking about the Olympics. Angola recently beat out Nigeria to become Africa’s largest oil producer, exceeding its 1.9 million barrel a day OPEC quota.
Angola shows that, while mega producers such as Saudi Arabia cannot meet the expectations of a decade ago, a number of other potential producers such as Angola, Chad, [...]
- Contemplating Georgia, Part 2: Taiwan
Taiwan was a big geopolitical topic in the 1990s and into the 2000s. It is a small independent nation that could be subject to an invasion from China. Such talk has moved off the international newspaper pages, what with a newly elected moderate government in Taiwan, a growing China that appears more rational [...]
- Serving your focused obsession
It is has nothing to do with the crisis in Georgia or international politics, but I thought this was worth sharing with everyone here at ComingAnarchy: internet celeb and überblogger Merlin Mann has put together a list of what makes a good blog.
The list resonated with me as I have been considering my lack of [...]
- East Asia News Roundup
– Japan applauds Beijing Olympics and urges China to continue its liberalization of its politics and economy. China also wished Tokyo “good luck” in its bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games.
– On that note, Tokyo actually registered the highest score and presently the strongest bid to host the 2016 Olympics when scores were [...]
- Deconstructing Globalization
Three and a half years ago in a discussion on dollar devaluation and foreigner purchase of US bonds, I wrote a post breaking down the definition of so-called globalization:
What the “globalization” of the world economy really means is that many, many countries—from Japan and China to Southeast Asia to Latin America—merely provide goods for US [...]
- Contemplating Georgia, Part 1: Geopolitical Impact
A lot of smart people are talking about the geopolitical impact of Russia’s invasion of Georgia in some of the best popular magazines on world affairs. A few summaries, and links to relevant articles, appear below.
– The Economist says the war is a victory for Russia, and reckons the sudden explosion into violence of [...]
