The BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – have agreed to provide credit to each other in local currencies. Officials say the deal will facilitate economic growth in times of crisis. The currency swap deal is aimed at promoting trade and investment in local currencies as well as to cut transaction costs. It’s also seen as a step to replace the dollar as a reserve currency in trade between BRICS. “The idea is in line with many interests and economic exigencies in the world economy,” Yaroslav Lissovolik, the chief economist at Deutsche Bank told RT. “The euro and dollar are no longer seen as unquestionable monopolies in the role of reserve currencies. Clearly the world needs more reserve currencies.” The deal would also increase the BRICS influence on the international arena and will make their cooperation less sensitive to sanctions from the West, experts say.
Category: Korea
“How you define your role, and where and how you decide to pursue it, is of vital interest to the United Nations, given the long tradition of cooperation and coordination between NATO and the UN…
Taking out the garbage: The Dalai Lama being escorted from the White House after a meeting with President Obama. And apparently being given a 21-bag salute. &&& Editor’s note: This picture which was taken…
In 2006, a high level meeting took place between Zhu Zhixin, vice chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, and Jun Hamano, vice minister for economic and fiscal policy (Cabinet Office) to discuss the…
“You cannot get the water to clear up, until you get the pigs out of the creek!” [Editor’s note: There are some informal discussions particularly on the numbers presented on the poster. The…
Seven months after the official announcement on 9/21/11 of “Operation Twist” not much progress has been made at the long end of the market to reduce yields.The yield on the 10-year T-note has gone from 1.88% to 2.3% and the 30-year bond went from 3.03% to 3.41%. The episode has been marred by hedge fund and sovereign selling, which has left the short end a little higher, but the long end much higher. The question now is how much did this cost the Fed for such disappointing results? Or in fact was this really their objective? We may never know, because the Fed hides what they do not want anyone to know. These results might not seem important but US Treasury instruments are the foundation of the global monetary system.
America’s 450 launch-ready land-based nuclear-armed ballistic missiles are the opposite of a deterrent to attack. In fact, their very deployment has the potential to launch World War III and precipitate human extinction – as a…
The Western mainstream media continuously beat the war drums for Libya-like treatment of Syria, using body count statistics to attempt to paint the year-old Syrian conflict as a humanitarian disaster crying out for NATO and…
When I first entered the floor and learned about oil pricing, it was clear that the cash market, where real barrels of oil were bought and sold, was where pricing was decided. Later, it became…
So this is how the cookie crumbles. From burning books to butchering babies, it seems everything is fair game as the victors near their tether. Four years after Barack Hussein Obama offered a “new way forward”; the gulf between America and the world’s Muslims is at its widest. The horrific details of the Panjwai massacre, with first person accounts recounting how the brave US soldiers coolly went about killing women and sleeping children, have poured fuel over a land already ablaze. Obama has condemned the massacre but chose to describe it as “an isolated incident.” Is it really now? Why do I feel we have been here before? From bombing wedding parties to striking funeral processions and even cemeteries, there’s been a long trail of such ‘isolated incidents.’ Interestingly, the latest in Yankee shenanigans coincides with a groundbreaking book that seeks to make sense of Uncle Sam’s worldview. Andrew Alexander’s America and the Imperialism of Ignorance is a damning critique of the US foreign policy over the past six decades and offers a cogent analysis of the military-industrial complex mindset that commands and dictates the actions of the most powerful nation on the planet.