politics for the 99%

… (and) pressures Anastasiades to accept NATO plan for Turkish troops in Cyprus – Published on naked capitalism, by Yves Smith, May 4, 2016.

Yves here. We were one of the few sites to follow the brutal handling of the Cyprus banking system when one of its major banks got wobbly in 2013. Cyprus was demonized as a money laundering center, when its main sin was that it served as a conduit for inbound investment into Russia, including investment by large, well-recognized companies.

The reason for structuring investments via entities in Cyprus was that that enabled them to be subject to British law, which investors greatly preferred to relying on Russian law and courts. Cyprus thus has a significant amount of its economy dependent on lawyers and bankers to structure these deals. The ECB lowered the boom and forced bail-ins, which were more severe than they needed to be by virtue of one of the major banks being restructured in a way that led to a significant subsidy to a Greek bank that bought some of its operations. In other words, while something may well have needed to be done with the Cyprus banks, the brutality of the operation was driven by geopolitics, not the professed reasons.

The geopolitical angle of the West’s meddling in Cyprus a bit more obvious in this John Helmer sighting.

By John Helmer, the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears.

The US is intensifying the pressure on Cyprus to accept a secret NATO plan to keep Turkish forces on the island … //

…. British forces already occupy extensive military bases on Cyprus. Over the years these have been used for signals intelligence and attack operations against Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. The UK protectorate was one of the terms the Cypriots accepted for an end to their fight to liberate the island from British occupation during the 1950s. The 1960 treaty of guarantee preserved the British bases. It provided for Greece and Turkey also to “guarantee the independence, territorial integrity, and security of the Republic of Cyprus.”

After its attack and military occupation of the north in 1974, Turkey has insisted on keeping its forces on the island as a security “guarantee”, and refuses to comply with United Nations (UN) resolutions ordering their withdrawal.

US military commanders and political leaders have never advocated Turkish withdrawal from the island, or compliance with the UN resolutions. Instead, they have recommended incorporating both parts of Cyprus into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) … //

… A Cypriot analyst following Anastasiades closely says: “you can see Anastasiades agreeing to Nuland’s plan for camouflaging the Turkish forces in northern Cyprus as a NATO partnership for peace. But don’t forget that any kind of deal will surface, and something like that is a non-starter among people, even some of his own supporters. In secret he can do one thing, and say another thing in public. The difference between this and the haircut [of March 2013] is that with the Eurogroup Anastasiades was making the final decision. But here [for the inter-communal settlement] it is the entire population. This is a very important difference.”

(full long text, hyper-links).

(On en.wikipedia: Victoria Nuland, (born 1961) is the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the United States Department of State … or said in other words: the State Department official in charge of regime change in Russia and Ukraine …).

Links:

Turkish ground op in Syria unlikely due to presence of Russian air force – Lavrov, on RT, May 5, 2016;

There’s no need to release the 28 classified pages of the 9/11 report – CIA director, on Business Insider, by JEREMY BENDER, May 3, 2016;

Une initiative européenne: Travailler pour avoir un revenu, ou bien avoir un revenu pour travailler? dans The Dissident.eu, par Pierre Serkine, le 2 mai 2016;

La nouvelle proposition surprenante du MR: verser 1000 euros par mois à chacun, le 2 mai 2016;

Manifeste: affirmer le droit des auteurs face à la captation du droit d’auteur, dans ActuaLitté, par Neil Jmunsi, le 2 mai 2016;

Sovereign funds ignore climate risk, on Financial Times, by Attracta Mooney, May 2, 2016: World’s largest investors warned that environmental change will affect returns;

Bernard Friot et Usul: la gauche de demain? dans Unidivers.fr, par Thibault Boixiere, le 2 mai 2016;

Abu Dhabi sovereign fund paints the picture for oil and global growth, on Malaymail online, May 1, 2016;

Could paying everyone benefits – rich and poor – be the best way to tackle poverty? on The Telegraph.co.uk, by Peter Spence, May 2, 2016;

This could be the most important holiday when robots take all our jobs, on Tech Insider, by Chris Weller, May 1, 2016;

The Anti-Poverty Experiment That Could Fix America’s Broken Welfare System, on New York Mag, by Annie Lowrey, May 1, 2016.