Chancellor Merkel announces today that russia is kicked from the G8

Chancellor Merkel said today in her speech at parliament, that the G8 don´t exist anymore and that the summit in Sochi will not take place. Meanwhile the Euro-Russian Summit was also suspended and the german-russian government consultations which were planned to take place in Leipzig are also cancelled. I think thats good news and i also believe it is good, that russia is completly isolated out of europe.

Former german defense minister Rühe said, Putin lost on full scale. The defeat is total. Russia can´t compete with China, Russia is isolated from Europe. Russia offers no own concept which would make other nations want to follow it. Putin had the chance to create a bigger, better russia. He lost this chance.

 

was it viable at all to start with?

there's never been a competition between these two.

as if Europe and America can offer anything but raising taxes ever higher...

 

I would love to see Russia make another failed attempt at trying to destabilize the dollar and in the end just end up collapsing their economy for the 2ND time. Their natural gas is great but it ain't worth a damn if no one is going to buy it anymore. USA just needs to build the infrastructure to replace Russia natural gas and they are DONE.

 

We are the world. The entire world culture is ours. The G7 are the face of the world. The identity of humanity.

 

and 63% of world economy

 

....and most of the world's debt.

 

debt is imaginary and not a real thing. Its based on nothing and just works as puffer zone for economies.

 

Has there ever been a gas pipeline built across the Atlantic Ocean? I think the US has never bought gas from the Russians because we have fairly big reserves (at least Boone Pickens said so) but the problem is the EU.

There ARE ships that can carry it, but those, and the terminals they require, are as dangerous as atom bombs to my understanding

This whole thing is silly as (*)(*)(*)(*), but it's as much on Putin as anyone else. As I understand it even the Crimean Tatar nationalists were being very careful to keep the dispute entirely friendly and were actually inviting the Russians to join their demonstrations. Nobody was threatening any kind of payback for Stalin's deportations, nor were they asking the Russian Navy to leave Sevastopol, which they were making lots of money off. I always thought Putin was kind of a smart fellow but this just seems stupid to me.

 

as long as the world allows this, but what has been done to Iraq and Libya and Syria gives the world a hint that it is time to put an end to West supremacy.

 

Well, it did get a little bigger.

 

bigger isn't always better bloated and less responsive..mean and lean is more business like
russia and china can start there own asia block and up call the R8 or asia8

 

G8 just a club.
Nothing more. It solves nothing and does not give.
Just the opportunity to talk to politicians without a middleman.
Do not forget that there is a G20

 

Heh. I don't see the advantage in a territorial grab when your population is declining.

On the other hand, I'm glad Russia is kicked out of the G8. It didn't really deserve to be part of it in the first place. Now maybe we can cancel the START treaty.

 

Well Markus, if it makes you feel good to believe it, then be my guest.

 

But in this case, this particular plot is the prized real-estate so it is worth the extra space.

They already have. In addition to Russia and China, it includes Brazil, India and South Africa. "BRICS"

Incidentally, here's for what it's worth:
http://www.currencytrading.net/features/how-china-could-crash-the-us-dollar-on-a-whim/

 

As I can see, we did not do anything good to the world after WWII. War in Iraq was a fiasco and we are lagging behind in many social areas in our country.

 

Believe. Russia is indifferent. No consequences. ))

 

Its not like they can do anything. They love our culture. Beside that, they live a very primitive way of life and will always be destroyed.

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russia is a pathetic weakling compared to Chinas economy. Russia was misplaced in the G8 already but at least G8 showed Kindness. China wont show kindness.

 

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Spoken like one of the (self) "chosen".

.

 

Im not self chosen. I simply know reality. The entire world is american/european with some colorful spashs of japanese and chinese dots. the G 7 simply is the world

 

Good. The country and the world were better off when we had an honest to goodness Cold War goin' on.

 

china will have no interest in leaving the g7 to join russia, the other g7 members are China's market, russia is an impoverished sideshow...

 

I think our arrogance is what set Putin off in the first place. He saw the the inhumanity of the U.S., and how it was led by whoever had the money and power to put in an American President, and by doing so were able to impose their values on the American people and by extension the world. I guess Putin felt it was time the U.S. began to rethink its actions.

If I recall correctly, this happened when Clinton had his CNN media blitz over a falsified genocide in Kosovo, probably for personal reasons as well as to please certain constituents, and then proceeded to bomb Serbia for seventy two days. Well Putin redeemed the lives lost, as well as the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from their Kosovo heartland, when Russia helped Abhazia and S. Ossetia free themselves from a Western allied Georgia.

It was also the time when Moscow decided to change course and put Russia's energy wealth into rearming rather than industrializing. It was not a choice Putin wanted to make, it was a choice the West forced upon him through the arrogance and inhumanity of our actions.

The loss of Crimea is another payback, since the U.S. actions in Kosovo made Crimea's action in declaring its independence completely legal. The Hague decided at the hearings on Kosovo, that people had the right to self determination and to declare their independence.

 

China isn't in the G7 as it's only developed nations who are members. Developing nations are included in the G8+5 and they also have their own group that goes by the acronym BRICS.

 

don't forget about India and China