The 2011. will be a ruthless year because it will mark the entry into the terminal phase of the world before the crisis. It will be marked by a series of violent shocks that will carry off, one by one, the “pillars” on which the “Dollar Wall” has rested for decades.

The world's four main emerging economic powers, known by the acronym BRIC - standing for Brazil, Russia, India and China - now refer to themselves as BRICS. The capital "S" in BRICS stands for South Africa, which formally joined the four on Dec.

The visit by President Hu Jintao of China to Washington this month will be the most important top-level United States-Chinese encounter since Deng Xiaoping’s historic trip more than 30 years ago. It should therefore yield more than the usual boilerplate professions of mutual esteem.

U.S. media have given more attention to hearsay allegations of Assange’s sexual encounters with two talkative Swedish women than to an official report accusing Kosovo prime minister Thaci of running a criminal enterprise which has murdered prisoners in order to sell their vital organs on the world market.

Senate ratification of the New START Treaty is an important step forward in U.S.-Russian relations and will also be useful in pursuing America’s broader nonproliferation goals. There is a danger that the treaty’s ratification will become a Pyrrhic victory.

The evidence mounts that Washington’s policy since the mid-1990s regarding Kosovo has been stubbornly obtuse. Governments are notoriously reluctant to acknowledge being responsible for a major policy blunder. But the USA need to make such an admission regarding Kosovo.

The second half of 2011 will mark the point in time when all the world’s financial operators will finally understand that the West will not repay in full a significant portion of the loans advanced over the last two decades. 

There is a history to the current predicament of the United States, a predicament of its own making. When put in this bigger context, the message that must be sent to Krugman and others making similar arguments is quite clear: blame the wars, not China.

Far from being Tony Blair's "good war", Nato's assault on Yugoslavia was in its own way as immoral as the assault on Iraq. And if it plays its part in making people more sceptical about any future western "liberal interventions", it is to be warmly welcomed.

Wikleaks is upheld as a breakthrough in the battle against media disinformation and the lies of the US government. In turn, we must ensure that the campaign against Wikileaks in the U.S., using the 1917 Espionage Act, will not be utilized as a means to wage a campaign to control the internet.