Brazil is a closed economy as measured by trade penetration. Global connectivity indicators, such as McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) and DHL Global Connectedness Index, which take into account financial, data, knowledge, persons, services and communication flows, suggest that Brazil is also closed in those areas.
Brazil’s interim government, led by former vice president Michel Temer, is facing a serious credibility crisis. Two ministers were dismissed in the first few weeks after leaked audio appeared to show them conspiring to stifle the ongoing Petrobras corruption investigation.
The African National Congress Chief Whip in parliament Jackson Mthembu writing on the party website ANC Today last December accused the local media of bias against the ruling party.
To drive home his point, Mthembu drew on the work of Noam Chomsky’s and Ed Herman’s Manufacturing Consent – The Political Economy of the Mass Media which argues that the mass media serve special interests through the choice of stories, of emphases and – importantly – of omissions.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the President of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, in Jomhouri Building, at Saadabad Palace, in Tehran on May 23, 2016 [Image: PMO, India]Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Iran on 22-23 May, 2016 has opened a new chapter of cooperation between India and Iran. Though much awaited, this was a significant visit by an Indian Prime Minister since former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who paid a state visit in April 2001.
As Baghdad reels from a wave of suicide bombings claimed by Islamist extremists which have killed and wounded over 400 in the past week, there are lessons to be learned from how the media deals with these terror attacks – whether they are in the Middle East or in the heart of Europe.
Semantics and social media narratives are crucial battlegrounds in the war against terrorism.
By the end of the year, the European Union must decide whether it will recognize China as a market economy or not. The global economic crisis and the recent trade dispute over steel, make this problem much more complicated. EU’s refusal to grant China Market Economy Status (MES) is bound to have a significant impact on the political trust between China and the EU.
China today faces a multitude of security challenges in its neighborhood, with the South China Sea leading the issues that will test China’s global strategy of peaceful development. What are the salient features of the security situation in China’s neighborhood?
First and foremost, it is the ever more complex security situation in Asia, in particular East Asia. The complexity is shaped by several factors as the regional security architecture transforms from the Cold War security order to a post-Cold War security order. A transitional period is as always full of perils.
The judicial coup against President Dilma Rousseff is the culmination of the deepest political crisis in Brazil for 50 years.
Every so often, the bourgeois political system runs into crisis. The machinery of the state jams; the veils of consent are torn asunder and the tools of power appear disturbingly naked. Brazil is living through one of those moments: it is a dreamland for social scientists; a nightmare for everyone else.
Ten years ago in March, UK’s Scotland Yard launched an investigation into the alleged sale of honours by the Labour party.
In 2006, Prime Minister Tony Blair became the first premier to be questioned by the police whilst in office. A British member of Parliament alleged that Tony Blair’s party was “selling” peerages in return for donations and often undeclared loans, as the now infamous ‘Cash for Honours’ scandal gripped the UK.
President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, third right, and President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping, left, at a formal reception hosted by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin in honour of the participants in the BRICS Summit and the SCO Heads of State Council Meeting on 9 July 2015 [Image: brics2015.ru]The official visit of China’s foreign minister Wang Yi to Russia on March 11, highlighted Russia and China’s similar visions of the crises in Syria and the Korean
