Sunday, January 29, 2017

USA - Response to Muslim Immigration Ban




Latest News on January 29:



U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly has blocked part of President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration, ruling that travellers who have already landed in the US with valid visas should not be sent back to their home countries.

..........

A group of state attorneys general, meanwhile, are discussing whether to file their own court challenge against the order, officials in three states told the Reuters news agency.

Officials in the offices of attorneys general in Pennsylvania, Washington and Hawaii said they were evaluating what specific claims could be filed, and in which court.

Trump signed the executive order on Friday, January 27, that effectively denies entry to refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries, including those with green cards, who otherwise have permanent residence in the US.

Signing the order at the Pentagon, Trump said the move would help protect Americans from "terrorist" attacks.

[Source: Al-Jazeera, international edition, on January 29, 2017]




Above: German news video showing U.S. protesters in front of a New York law court
and who are celebrating the court rule that partly dismissed Trump's immigration ban
for Muslims. [N24 News TV on Jan. 28/29]





Headlines of opinion pages for The New York Times on January 27 / 28, 2017.



In face of Donald Trump's Muslim ban,
Canada's Trudeau welcomes refugees.


Headline of The Sydney Morning Herald on January 29, 2017.


Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcomed those fleeing war and persecution on Saturday, January 28, even as Canadian airlines said they would turn back U.S.-bound passengers to comply with an immigration ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries.

In pointed tweets a day after U.S. President Donald Trump put a four-month hold on allowing refugees into the United States and temporarily barred travelers from the seven countries, Trudeau said refugees were welcome in Canada.



[Source: Reuters.com, Globalnews.ca on January 28, 2017]




Immigration ban protests erupt at JFK International Airport
as NY taxi drivers strike following Trump's immigration ban.


[Source: USA Today on January 28, 2017]




U.S. arrivals in 2015 from recently banned Muslim countries.
[U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security]



Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif issued a series of tweets in response to President Trump's order, saying the move would be "a great gift to extremists and their supporters."

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Welcome to the Year of Super Rooster Donald 2017 !


Monday, January 16, 2017

2017 - Year of Super Rooster Donald


Last Update: January 27

美国的鸡年


According to Chinese horoscope theory, the Chinese year 2017 is to arrive on January 28 and is called the Year of the Red Fire Chicken or Red Fire Rooster with "red" being connected to the "fire".

While the Chinese New Year's Day differs according to the Chinese Moon Calendar, the U.S. nation swears in their 45th president Donald Trump exactly on January 20 which is a pre-fixed date in U.S. history for the inauguration of any new president. Donald Trump will preside over the U.S. Year of the Super Rooster. However, Chinese fireworks will start just about a week later.

Chicken (or rooster) implies luxury, beauty, and wealth. The Red Fire Chicken of 2017 is related to the light bulb. When the rooster and his jewels are in the spotlight, he feels fine and presents himself as being even more valuable than he is. That implies we will deal with financial events in the year of the chicken.

As the chicken is related as well to, both, "female" and "metal", there are further implications:

While "male metal" is connected to air, wind or strong current, "female metal" is connected to fog or slow dirty air. We cannot see our future clearly until the fog disappears. That means the rooster blurs our vision and mystifies our decision. We need to wait for the sun to appear or the fog to disappear.

In my country we are still using that old expression:
"To put the Red Fire Rooster on top of the house."
which has the meaning of: "To set the house on fire."
And that seems to be exactly what voters for Donald
Trump are going to enjoy during the times to come ...



During his election campaign and up to now, Donald Trump insulted lots and lots of people. Here now a global list of politicians who fired back, together with their most remarkable comments. Click to the red buttons and enjoy it !

=> Happy Inauguration Day ! - Politicians worldwide challenging Trump <=






U.S. President Trump's opinion on the "efficiency of torture"
while torture is considered a crime not only under U.S. laws.


..............................


特朗普与普京为什么会互有好感?

Why do Trump and Putin enjoy a mutual understanding ?



也许是意识形态上的共鸣以及对地缘政治的共同利益,
让特朗普与普京“惺惺相惜”(图源:法国新闻社)


It's probably the resonance of their ideologies regarding
mutual benefits from geopolitics that made Trump and
Putin become aware of "sympathetic feelings".


[多维新闻2017年01月11日]

The above Chinese article shows how Donald Trump's expression of sympathy towards Russia's president Putin is not only disturbing certain conservative circles of U.S. politicians, even in the Republican Party that brought him to power. It is, as well, annoying PR China which maintains friendly relations with Russia despite mutual geopolitical rivalry in the frame of new Central-Asian alliances that are dominated by both countries. As Trump is so obviously busy to create mistrust between China and Russia in favor of U.S. interests, his success could only be limited. A related item from the same Chinese source:



Chinese cartoon showing how Trump damaged Beijing's idea of "One China" when he expressed "long-standing friendly terms" with Taiwan that is still regarded by Beijing as an integrate part of Mainland China. Former U.S. presidents, regardless how deeply involved in U.S.-Taiwanese relations they had been, always avoided to mention Taiwan as some kind of "ally to the West" while Donald Trump was the first to accept a direct phone call from Taiwan's president Tsai. It should be mentioned that nowadays the "One China" ideology is not based any longer on the idea of a military solution but rather on a political development between both Chinese countries.




Portuguese visitor to "blueprint news" interested in Chinese-Russian naval exercises.



U.S. visitor reminding Barack Obama's public speech in Berlin on his 2nd visit to Germany.



Reminder of Ghadafi's end in Libya.


Friday, January 06, 2017

US on Palestine - Status Quo Restored




ـ"النواب" الأميركي يندد بقرار مجلس الأمن ضد الاستيطان

US "parliament" [House of Representatives] denounces
a [UN] Security Council decision opposing colonialism
[literally: implantation of colonies in occupied territory].
[Source: Al-Arabia العربية on January 6, 2017]


The Jerusalem Post wrote on January 6, 2017:

Washington - The House of Representatives passed a resolution on Thursday [January 5] condemning the UN Security Council for censuring Israel over its settlement enterprise, and calling on the Obama administration– which allowed the UN move to pass– to veto any similar actions in the international chamber.

The resolution acknowledges America's longstanding and bipartisan support for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, but reminds the government of its historic policy opposed to "one-sided" UN resolutions that seek to impose parameters for such a solution onto the parties.

It is this policy, the resolution asserts, that the Obama administration undermined with its latest action at the UN, which condemned Israel over its construction in the West Bank and "east Jerusalem." The White House abstained from the vote, choosing not to utilize its permanent veto power.

The status of East Jerusalem remains a sticking point between Israelis and Palestinians, and the US has for years considered it a topic not for UN deliberations but for final-status, direct negotiations.

"The passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 undermined the longstanding position of the United States to oppose and veto United Nations Security Council resolutions that seek to impose solutions to final status issues, or are one-sided and anti-Israel, reversing decades of bipartisan agreement," the resolution asserts, referring to US President Barack Obama's decision to abstain from the vote.

.....








Monday, December 26, 2016

Merry X-mas and Happy New Year


Packing the Christmas tree before heading home. (We don't spoil the desert with our waste.)





Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Israeli Fighters Attack Syrian Regime


Two hours ago, Al-Arabiya العربية reported on Israeli air raids on Syrian government positions.



أنباء عن غارة إسرائيلية على موقع للنظام السوري

Information [spread] about an Israeli [air] raid
that targeted a Syrian government position.

الجيش الإسرائيلي: لا تعقيب على ما ورد في تقارير أجنبية حول الغارات

Israeli Army: No [reaction] mentioned from
foreign reports referring to the raids.


The Israeli attack was reportedly launched at some military position of the Syrian government situated on the route from Damascus to Beirut.

Monday, November 21, 2016

Donald Trump's Embarrassing Ancestor


Today German mass media are reporting about Donald Trump's grandfather and his embarrassing secret.



Friedrich (Frederick) Trump's Family in the U.S. (1918)


Journalists only recently unearthed documents about Donald Trump's German grandfather from the public archives of Germany's Pfalz region were Friedrich Trump was born in the rural town of Kallstadt in 1869.

Friedrich Trump, or Frederick Trump as he named himself much later, left his impoverished hometown in 1885 in order to emigrate to the promised land of America. There he got rich with saloons and a brothel he founded at the West Coast of the U.S.A. and at times when the gold rush was not yet over and lots of male gold diggers still needed some entertainment.

When Frederick Trump decided to return to his home region in Germany which then belonged to the Kingdom of Bavaria, he had in mind to marry a girl and settle again in Kallstadt. It turned out, however, that Bavarian authorities were not fond of his private plannings. They charged him for unruly leaving the country and thereby avoiding obligatory military service for the King of Bavaria.

So he was called to leave his homeland as an American citizen which he had already become. Among the documents recently discovered is a petition Frederick Trump wrote in an obsequious manner to the Bavarian prince regent in order to avoid an official expatriation. Prince Luitpold, however, confirmed his administration's decision, and Frederick had to leave Europe a second time and together with his new wife Elizabeth in 1905.

At the time of his death in 1918 he left a small fortune to his eldest son Fred who much later became the father of Donald Trump. That Fred Trump founded what is nowadays known as the "Trump Empire" and he left to his son probably more money than Donald Trump might ever be able to loose in any of his past and future bankruptcies.



..............................




Reminders of World War II.





Further international visitors on November 22, 2016.


Thursday, November 17, 2016

China's Navy - Latest News




中国海军抵达巴基斯坦参加联演

China's navy arrives in Pakistan
to participate in joint exercises.


On November 15, the frigate "Handan" of China's 24th navy fleet arrived in the Pakistani port of Karachi to participate in joint naval exercises of both countries planned for November 15-21.

A spokesman of Pakistan's navy expressed his appreciation at the role that the Chinese frigate has already played in the Gulf of Aden when it was deployed to fight piracy in the frame of an international operation on behalf of the United Nations.



China navy frigate "Handan" No. 579


The Handan had left Qingdao harbour in Shandong province on August 10 and had started anti-piracy operation near the coast of Somalia together with two other Chinese vessels as soon as September 2, 2016.

[Source: SOHU 搜狐 on November 17, 2016.]


In another article, the same Chinese source quoted above is reporting about China's aircraft carrier "Liaoning":



俄媒:辽宁舰已有实战能力

Russian media are saying: The "Liaoning"
has already reached battlefield capabilities.


中国第一艘航母辽宁舰已经具备“实际作战能力”,而俄罗斯的“库兹涅佐夫”号航母像巡洋舰一样,只装备了“舰对地”巡航导弹。

China's first aircraft carrier "Liaoning" already provides "real combat ability" while the Russian "Kuznetsov" carrier is rather resembling a cruiser equipped with cruise missiles.


[Source: SOHU 搜狐 on November 16, 2016.]


Editor's Note:

As the Liaoning's primary structure was originally bought from Russia and, much later, finished and equipped in China, it can be seen as a sister ship of the "Kuznetsov". The Kuznetsov class being developed during the last years of the former Soviet Union, has become of interest for, both, China and Russia. While China was able to gather experience with aircraft carriers in general and which led to a Chinese program of building its own vessels, Russia only recently deployed the Kuznesov in the Mediterranean for another more specific reason. It should be noted that the Kuznetsov class is rather resembling the U.S. Nimitz class of supercarriers according to its basic functions than Russia's traditional carriers intended for the launch of helicopters and other vertically operating planes.

Some experts even say that Russia's deployment of the Kuznetsov near the Syrian coast as a launching pad for cruise missiles should be seen as some kind of training exercise for Russia's navy rather than a special provocation of the West, let alone an escalation of the Syrian war with the option of a Third World War scenario.

However, a future deployment of Kuznetsov class carriers like China's Liaoning and two similar vessels already in construction on behalf of China's navy could be most probably expected in the South China Sea. - Ulysses -

Friday, November 11, 2016

President Trump - Who are His Voters ?


The Mad and the Furious




Jim Bakker, former televangelist, praising
the outcome of the presidential election.


James Orsen "Jim" Bakker is an American televangelist, a former Assemblies of God minister and a former host of an evangelical Christian television program.

Some sex scandal led to his resignation from the ministry. Subsequent revelations of accounting fraud brought about his imprisonment and divorce.

On November 10, 2016, Bakker's election night watch was mentioned in a blog of the American "Right Wing Watch", an organization that backed the "Operation American Spring" in May 2014 when important members of America's right-wing scene called for a march on Washington to overthrow the Obama administration and send the President to Guantanamo detention camp.

The protesters intended to reach their goal by simply flooding the capital with millions of unarmed supporters and which would then block any government activity and finally break Obama's power. Afterwards a jury should be formed for charging the President with alleged crimes against his country. - However, Operation American Spring and its organizer Harry Riley failed in 2014.



Colonel Harry Riley


Colonel Harry Riley served in the U.S. Army until 1992 when he retired, highly decorated, as a Deputy Office Chief of the National Security Agency NSA in Fort Meade. He planned Operation American Spring as a constitutional effort to rally patriots around the country to Washington D.C. in a massive show of American people power to shut down the capital with civil disobediance. Think of similar events in Cairo 2011: "They will go to the capital to stay until their demands are met". In a word, what he planned was something like the Arabic Spring only with Americans.




[ "Operation American Spring" (Source: Right Wing Watch) ]


Some influential right-wing activists involved might be better known abroad as members of the so-called Tea Party, the name of which is referring to the "Boston Tea Party" of 1776 that was directed against British colonial authorities in order to avoid royal taxes on imported goods. The newly founded Tea Party is comprising members of the Republican Party (or GOP) like Senator Ted Cruz, once a rival now supporter of Donald Trump, and Allen West, a former congressman and retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel.

By the way, I remember an interview I unintentionally came upon on the English service of RT (Russia Today). There was a U.S. general whose name I didn't get at once and who discussed U.S.-Russian relations with his Russian TV host. It took me by surprise when I suddenly heard a phrase from that U.S. military leader and which sounded like: "But as soon as we have president Trump, things will be different." That was only some weeks ago.

In addition to Bakker's election night watch, "Right Wing Watch" has added further subjects related to the 2016 presidential election to its bloglist. That bloglist can be seen as an authentic listing of ideas and thoughts which could be used to characterize at least part of Donald Trump voters in recent elections.




[ Recent Bloglist for Right Wing Watch ]




President-elect Donald Trump meeting with President Barack Obama
Or: Body talk sounds louder than words !

..............................



Visitor from Russia.



Some U.S. visitors living near the border to Mexico and
which is marked by a white line from Tijuana to El Paso.



Australian visitor interested in China's increasing maritime power.



Localized visitors to "blueprint news" on November 15-16, 2016.


Saturday, November 05, 2016

U.S. - Last Chance to Avoid Trump


Breaking News:

US election: FBI director says latest Hillary Clinton
email investigation is over, no charges warranted.
[Source: ABC, November 6 (22:30 MEZ), 2016]


The following blogspot contains pictures composed on behalf of "blueprint news". The intention behind is nothing more than to visualize the climate of a presidential election in the U.S.A. which has already taken a turn to the embarrassing from its very beginning. So this is no advice who to vote, but rather an urgent call who not to vote.


1) What you are voting for with Donald Trump
- What you see is what you get ! -






Michael Moore in Trumpland - Published on October 26, 2016.
(You can find the whole show elsewhere on YouTube.)




Celebrities and Hollywood Stars Against Donald Trump
(Please note: There's a second part too !)




Grabber King at Trump Tower Chicago




Know All about Trump in One Minute !




Back to the Future !




Trump for President - With best compliments from ISIL
Trump - A birthday present to all enemies of America




"I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody,
and I wouldn't loose any voters."

..............................

Visitors to "blueprint news":




Recent visitor from Jordan and who is interested in ISIL.



London visitor interested in China's increasing power
and, by the way, a reminder of Britain's Brexit - Exit.



One of the regions in Europe that underwent drastic changes
in the frame of World War I and II.

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2) History - How Adolf Hitler took over Germany
- An exemplary case of modern fascism -



In the early 1930ies, the German "Republic of Weimar" could be characterized by a rare kind of economic and political chaos where lots of political parties underwent questionable alliances to share the power of changing governments. As a rule, national elections were held twice a year during the last years of the republic and which only resulted in a sequence of weak governments that would not exist for long.

This doesn't mean there were no political powers at all: Communists and Social Democrats would have easily formed a stable majority in parliament if they had ever succeeded to overcome their hostilities directed against each other. On the other side, the National Socialist Party of Adolf Hitler in an alliance with established conservative parties was too weak to get a sufficient majority of votes during all those elections. Finally in 1933, German president Paul von Hindenburg, once an important military leader of the imperial army during World War I and therefore responsible for the war's disastrous ending in 1918, found himself one time again unable to name a chancellor to form the next government among all those ambitious, however unreliable politicians that characterized the late years of the Weimar Republic.

It is not really known what Hindenburg thought of Hitler when he asked him to form a government that would last longer than some months. As a conservative monarchist at heart he might have even despised the little man with his funny toothbrush moustache and the theatrical gestures applied in his public speeches. The president, however, did not object being instrumentalised in some kind of staged companionship between "the field marshal and his lance corporal" hinting at Hitler's participation in World War I.

At Hitler's inauguration as a chancellor of the German Empire in 1933, his own political party was already on the decline as people came to believe after such many parliamentary elections that "Nazis" weren't much better than the rest of the bunch who promised what no political party had been able to deliver up to then.

But Hitler's strength lay in his ability to stage a coup, as he had long ago formed some kind of paramilitary units for "self-protection".

Even more important were the preparations he had taken in the vast administrative area of Prussia that comprised Germany's capital of Berlin. During the lucky days when his party won a maximum of votes in Prussia, he succeeded to implant there Hermann Göring, one of his old companions, as a minister of the interior and chief of state police.

As soon as Hitler was entrusted with the power of a chancellor on January 30, 1933, it took not longer than some weeks to make his party's paramilitary groups arrest all of his opponents and drag them into internment camps that were erected in a hurry all over the country. This was especially easy in the area of Berlin where regular police was already under control of the Nazis, and some policemen openly supported Hitler's "security" branch. Same happened in other parts of Germany while in most places police simply disappeared from the streets "waiting for orders". Calls for help were not answered.

A political justification for the internment and beating up of Communist and Social Democrate activists as well as members of parliament was based on emergency decrees of the new Nazi alliance in power. When at the end of February 1933 the building of the Imperial Parliament was ruined by a devastating fire, probably laid on behalf of the Nazis, a presidential decree by Paul von Hindenburg served as an official legitimation for such Nazi terror. The corruption of the last parliamentary election results from February 1 added to a development that finally consolidated Nazi power in Germany.

History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
(Quotation attributed to Mark Twain)




The low character guys are always the same brand !


An important aspect of fascism is the manifestation of feelings related to superiority and growing importance when weaklings are backed by the power of a group. When facing a single 'enemy' or an 'enemy group' smaller in size, such fascist group of nobodies will therefore deny any human rights to their 'victims', sometimes even jointly accepting their victims' possible death. As this kind of mechanism is considered to be based on individual deficits in education and basic human values, the familiar background and progress of both, demagogues and their henchmen has been thoroughly researched in the aftermath of World War II.

One remarkable aspect detected in the frame of analyzing biographies was the presence of some personality shaping elements in certain family histories that finally led to sexual deviations like homosexuality and sexual abuse as well as sexual aggression, often due to some strongly dominant father or the missing of a conciliatory mother. Children, both girls and boys, that have been abused by their father, might pay it back to the society they live in, however much later and by diverting their own aggression into the humiliation of others and possibly into murder.

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

China's Space Mission - First Pictures




First picture of the ShenZhou 11 module, manned with two astronauts, after docking to China's Tiangong 2 space station. The picture was taken from a nearby infrared satellite camera on October 23 and published today, October 25, by People's Network.

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Recent U.S. visitor from Los Angeles and who is interested in Chinese carrier rockets.


Monday, October 24, 2016

ISIL - Different Heads of the Hydra




Picture: Assassination carried out by ISIL fighters [YOUM7 on October 24, 2016]


During the last days, different Arabic sources have been steadily covering a major attack of Iraqui forces on the ISIL stronghold of Mosul and which already succeeded in approaching the center of Mosul up to a distance of some five km. Evaluations of the military situation predict Mosul to fall to Peshmerga units and Iraqui government forces within the next few days.

On Friday, October 21, Arabic sources reported about ISIL counterattacks in different places of Kirkuk township where Kurdish Peshmerga forces cornered a rather small number of ISIL fighters who seemed to have suddenly appeared out of nowhere. During the proceedings an ISIL official had been captured who leaded the attack. According to Iraqui sources (October 24) he should have revealed that the ISIS group is planning to attack the province of Kirkuk again with some 300 suicide bombers.

Today, latest news are about the assassination by ISIL of five security members in Rutbah town which is the westernmost outpost of Anbar province and a strategic point linking Iraq to Jordan (Youm7). The massing of ISIL units near the border between both countries has caused fears of ISIL trying to carry the conflict into neigboring Jordan.


Related News:



Iran warns Turkey against its military presence in Iraq.
[Al-Arabiya on October 24, 2016]


On Monday, October 24, the spokesman of Iran's foreign ministry, Bahram Qasem, warned Turkish authorities against the consequences of Turkey's military presence in Iraq and a participation in the process of a restoration of Mosul. While speaking to the Iranian press, Qasem said that the participation of any country in the fight against terrorists in Iraq, should take place in coordination with the Iraqi authorities to obtain its approval (Al-Arabiya).

Monday, October 17, 2016

The BRICS Block of Nations




The prime minister of India (middle) and the presidents of Brazil, Russia, China and
South Africa (left to right) on the summit of BRICS nations, 15th Oct. 2016. Xin Hua


At a summit this weekend in Goa, India, the BRICS nations - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - were looking for ways to boost trade between their developing economies, representing nearly half of the world's population.

As all BRICS nations are facing similar challenges in lifting large populations of poor and protecting their environments, national economies have been slowing.

Brazil is Latin America's largest economy ($1.35 trillion) and which is predicted to contract about 3 percent this year after a similar development in 2015. Unemployment and inflation are both hovering around 10 percent. Some states including Rio de Janeiro are so broke they haven't paid public workers in months.

Brazil's recovery is crucial to South America's economic future. But the country of 206 million people relies heavily on prices of oil, soy and other commodities, which have plunged.

A disastrous political development and unpopular reforms announced by the new government of Brazil have added to create a difficult situation.

As tensions with the U.S.A. have escalated over the bombing of civilians in Aleppo, Syria, Russia is strengthening its links with China and officially supports Beijing's South China Sea policy.

Western sanctions and an oil price slump have hit Russia's $1.13 trillion economy hard. Shrinking of Russia's GDP in 2015, a weak recovery in 2016 and predictions of only modest growth in 2017 are describing the current situation.

Putin is due to meet with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the BRICS summit on Saturday, where they are expected to discuss Syria and Afghanistan. The two also aim to expand nuclear ties, with Russia building several reactors in India. After decades of close Cold War-era relations between New Delhi and Moscow, Russia has been annoyed by Modi's effort to build closer economic and defense ties with Washington.

Bilateral trade between Russia and India fell more than 14 percent from $10 billion in 2014, a decline Russia has blamed on the global oil market turmoil.

India's prime minister Narendra Modi chose climate change, infrastructure and sustainable development as the BRICS summit's main goals. India's $2.38 trillion economy is growing 7.5 percent annually, fastest of the five countries. But it also has the world's highest number of people in poverty, with more than half of its 1.3 billion population living on less than $3.10 a day.

China's economy is growing at its slowest pace in 25 years, but it is still the world's second largest after the U.S.A. and amounting to $11.4 trillion.

In a speech just held at the BRICS summit, China's president Xi Jin Ping already warned of a further economic slow-down.

That's why Xi Jinping is looking to expand access for Chinese goods to foreign markets. Last week, Chinese state media argued strongly for the BRICS to adopt a free-trade agreement. While the Chinese government has made no such proposal formally, its Commerce Ministry has said it is keen on the idea.

The other BRICS nations, already burdened by cheap Chinese imports and huge trade deficits with Beijing, are likely to oppose.

China, a nation of 1.38 billion people, will also likely be seeking support in Goa for a proposed trade route through Central Asia and Russia to Europe, and for a sea route traversing the Indian Ocean. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Baodong this week called that "One Belt, One Road" initiative a national priority.

South Africa's economy, the smallest of all BRICS nations, was estimated at $327 billion in 2015. With an unemployment of 23% among its 55 million population and a credit ranking near junk status, that country is no real match for other major developing nations like China and India.

Furthermore, the country's finance minister is facing corruption charges which makes South Africa's economic situation even more difficult.

South Africa, however, remains an interesting partner when it comes to its vast mineral wealth that could meet the increasing needs of China and India.

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The Last Caliph