Tens of thousands rally for Argentina's biggest protest in years

Thousands of pot-banging, flag-waving, banner-hoisting demonstrators massed in Buenos Aires for Argentina’s largest anti-government protest in years. Common themes at the protest included the nation's high levels of crime, corruption and inflation.

The demonstration, which lasted nearly four hours, was aimed at the government of President Cristina Fernandez de Kircher. Police officials said at least 30,000 people participated, while local media reported that hundreds of thousands turned out.

Protesters angry at the nation’s current state banged pots and pans as Argentinians young and old rallied until almost midnight.

A column of demonstrators carried a 200-meter-long flag. As they marched through the city, they were greeted with noisy pans, tambourines, and honking car horns.

Protesters chanted, “We’re not afraiid!" as they swarmed into the Plaza de Mayo and surrounding area, right in front of the presidential palace.

They shouted, whistled, and held banners that read "Constitution is written with C, not K," referring to the ‘K dictatorship’ of Fernandez de Kircher’s government.

Another sign read, “Stop the wave of Argentines killed by crime, enough with corruption and say no to the constitutional reform.”

The sign referred to a widely held fear that President Fernandez will attempt to stay in office for a third term through a constitutional reform ending presidential term limits.

The protesters rattled off a long list of complaints about the current government: The country’s soaring inflation, violent crime rates and high-profile corruption.

"I came to protest everything that I don't like about this government and I don't like a single thing starting with [the president's] arrogance…they're killing policemen like dogs, and the president doesn't even open her mouth. This government is just a bunch of hooligans and corrupters,” 74-year-old retiree Marta Morosini told AP.

Protests took place in other cities throughout Argentina, including the major cities of Cordoba, Mendoza and La Plata.

In countries elsewhere around the world, demonstrators gathered in front of Argentinean embassies and consulates.

Around 50 angry demonstrators gathered in front of the consulate in Rome shouting,“Cristina, go away.”

In Madrid, another group of about 200 protesters braved the rain to bang pots outside the Argentinean consulate.

"In Argentina, there's no separation of power and it cannot be considered a democracy…Cristina is not respecting the constitution. The presidency is not a blank check and she must govern for those who are for her and against her,” Marcelo Gimenez, a 40-year-old Argentinean who currently resides in Spain said.

During a speech on Thursday, Fernandez did not directly address the protests, but instead defended her government’s policies and affirmed her dedication to the job.

"Never let go, not even in the worst moments," she said."Because it's in the worst moments when the true colors of a leader of a country comes out."

Fernandez won a second term last year with 54 percent of the vote.

Her administration has been accused of alienating large sections of the middle class, and has drawn criticism for limiting imports and imposing controls on foreign currency exchanges, making it difficult for Argentines to travel abroad.

China to cripple Japan with financial war over isles row?

China may introduce economic measures to cripple Japan in order to gain the upper hand in a territorial row. Following violent anti-Japanese protests and increasingly bellicose rhetoric, Beijing could employ sanctions to subdue its neighbor.

State newspaper China Daily wrote that China should take “strong countermeasures” in light of the “ridiculous” Japanese nationalization of the isles, called the Diaoyu by the Chinese.

The paper suggests that while open war should a last resort the country should be pursuing sanctions to respond to what it sees as Japanese “provocation.”

Citing the freeze on banana imports when the Philippines contested the Huangyan Islands in April, the publication said “it is important for China to devise a sanction plan against Japan that would cause minimum loss to Chinese enterprises.”

“Japanese companies earn huge profits from their exports to China. That means China is in a lot better position to afford a loss in exports,” wrote Jin Baisong from the Chinese Academy of International Trade. In this way he stipulated that China could deal a heavy blow to the Japanese economy without doing significant damage to its own.

“Japan should reconsider its financial health. In other words, with Japan's national debt at stake… And China can use it to find ways to impose sanctions on Japan in the most effective manner,” said the article.

Tensions have reached boiling point over the territorial disputes that triggered the outbreak of mass anti-Japanese riots throughout China over the last week. Japan provoked Chinese ire when it announced a plan to buy the contested islands from their private Japanese owner last Tuesday.

"The farce of buying the Diaoyu Islands seriously violates China's territorial sovereignty and severely hurts the feelings of the Chinese people, which have aroused strong indignation and opposition across the nation," said a spokesman from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.

Japan has already felt some financial backlash from the riots that have gripped China over the last few days. Attacks on Japanese brands like Panasonic and Toyota have caused some companies to cease operations until further notice.

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is currently in China to discuss the escalating dispute between the Asian nations. He met with China’s leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping, agreeing to strengthen military ties between the two countries.

Following the meeting Panetta emphasized the fact the US military’s planned shift into the Pacific was not a threat to China.

"Our rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region is not an attempt to contain China. It is an attempt to engage China and expand its role in the Pacific," Panetta said in a speech at the Engineering Academy of PLA.

Broaching the subject of the US-Japanese missile signed on Monday, Panetta said that the new defense radar to be built on Japanese territory was aimed specifically at North Korea and is “designed to foster peace and stability in the region."

In spite of the US’s claim to neutrality in the conflict between China and Japan, the Japanese government said it had been “mutually agreed” that the islands came under the US-Japanese security pact.

But Professor Shujie Yao, an economics professor at Nottingham University in the UK, told RT that most Chinese people will not trust the US promise that the Japanese missile deal is of no threat to China.

“I think the Americans have lost the trust of the Chinese mind, most Chinese people consider that America might be a fairly good economic ally, but not a political or diplomatic one, and the ideological differences between China and the United States make the Chinese believe that all America is trying to do is make trouble for China,” he said.

Author and analyst Ryan Dawson told RT the conflict was unlikely to resolve itself soon given that China “have a lot of other reasons to flog this issue and draw it out.”

Addressing the claims made on the islands by both nations, he said they “have nothing to do with land or ancient maps, it’s because oil and natural gas have been discovered under the islands.”

“They are not going to go to war; there is no other result than Senkaku [the Japanese name for the islands] is going to be Japanese and people in China are going to be really angry,” concluded Dawson.

Iranian oil embargo could calm global oil market - expert

Sanctions on Iranian oil that came into force on July 1 might become a balancing factor for the oil market due to declining global demand, experts argue. While Iran's threats to close the Hormuz Straits and looming military action point to other scenarios

­Oil prices stroke $99 Tuesday after several weeks of downtrend as Iran has drafted a bill that would close the key shipping route – the Strait of Hormuz.

The bill is designed to shut the waterway to countries which support the new embargo on Iranian oil, particularly the EU.  “The Iranian factor comes into force again as the country threatens to close the Strait of Hormuz,” explains Sergey Alin, analyst at Nord capital investment company. “It could cut global oil supplies by up to 30%”. The new phase of Iran tension and looming military action would bring oil prices up, he added.

About a third of global oil supplies or as much as 17 million barrels a day from the top Middle East producers are delivered through the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile some experts say that oil prices are unlikely to hit record due to the declining global demand. “Currently production exceeds the OPEC quota by about 1-2 million barrels a day,” said Grigory Birg from Investcafe. “As supply from Iran decreases about 1 million barrel a day due to the sanctions, the oil market would become more balanced”.

Besides that, an ongoing strike by offshore oil and gas workers in Norway has already cut crude exports by 250,000 barrels a day, according to Mr Birg.

Meanwhile, poor economic statistics from the EU shows that the region is unlikely to increase imports any time soon, he added. “Moreover the US could press the International Energy Agency to bring some oil to the market if Iran sanctions lead to significant supply drop, as it was with Libya last year,” Birg said.

Meanwhile Iran also called for an OPEC meeting to discuss the increased production of crude by Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait.

The Mad Mullah’s Republic of Iran ready to battle 'dastardly' EU sanctions

Enough imports and hard currency has been amassed to fight “dastardly” EU sanctions, Iran says. The announcement comes on the same day that an EU ban against Iranian crude and insuring its oil tankers comes into full force.

­The Persian country has stockpiled enough imported goods to meet the nation’s daily needs and soften the blow of the embargo on the economy, Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi maintains.

“Today, we are facing the heaviest of sanctions and we ask people to help officials in this battle,” state TV quotes Rahimi as saying. The “dastardly sanctions,” whose enforcement starts this Sunday, might cause “occasional confusion” in the market, but would not stop Iran, the Vice President added.

The EU sanctions, which ban oil purchases from Iran and prohibit insuring Iranian oil tankers, are meant to pressure Tehran over its alleged nuclear weapons ambitions. The effort is being coordinated by Washington, whose unilateral sanctions against Iran and its oil customers came in full force on Thursday.

“We have not remained passive. To confront the sanctions, we have plans in progress,” Central Bank governor Mahmoud Bahmani told Mehr news agency, though he provided no details on what specific measures would be taken. Iran's Central Bank is reported to have accumulated some $150 billion in foreign reserves.

Tehran insists it can “easily” go on selling its oil thanks to waivers Washington granted to its major customers in Asia, such as China, India, Japan and South Korea.

But it remains to be seen how the EU ban on insuring Iranian oil would play out in this context. South Korea has already voiced its concerns that Brussels’ actions might reduce their oil trade with Tehran to nothing. India, however, has allowed crude delivery by Iranian oil tankers insured by Tehran itself, thus bypassing the EU scheme altogether.

Though reluctant to confirm their trade with Asia has receded, Iran admits its oil exports have dropped 20-30 per cent this year. Saudi Arabia and several other nations have boosted their crude production to fill gaps in the market, driving oil prices below $100 per barrel while hitting Iran’s domestic economy in the process. Official inflation in Iran has already reached 20 per cent.

Despite the blows to its economy, the tone of the upbeat rhetoric emanating from Tehran has not changed:

"I do not see it as a problem that enemies have imposed an embargo today," said Iran's Oil Minister Rostam Ghasemi. "Simply, because they imposed similar sanctions years ago, and nothing happened."

Iran has already stopped selling oil to many EU members, who accounted for one-fifth of its total crude trade, and found replacement countries in the process, Ghasemi continued.

"Developing countries and countries with fast economic growth have no alternative to oil,” he pointed out. “Fortunately, because of the quality of our country's oil, all are interest in using it."

Ghasemi ordered his staff to "mobilize" against "illegal sanctions," reports the semiofficial Mehr news agency. But once again, the minister gave no details concerning the exact measures that would be taken. 

The EU sanctions would mainly backfire on the bloc and its weaker economies such as Greece, says author and journalist Afshin Rattansi.

“This certainly is not going to have any impact on Iran,” Rattansi told RT. “Iran says it has $150 billion in foreign reserves – they can withstand any sanction. Chinese crude imports from Iran have risen 35 per cent as compared to 2011 levels. The US exemptions for China, South Korea and Singapore also play into Tehran’s hand.”

In international talks over its disputed uranium enrichment program, Iran has demanded that all sanctions be lifted before it even considers scaling down its nuclear activities. Tehran says uranium is enriched for energy production and medical purposes. But Western countries in tandem with Israel fear Iran is seeking to build nuclear warheads. While the US and EU have targeted Iran’s economy with sanctions, Israel has repeatedly threatened airstrikes against the country’s nuclear facilities.

China and Japan secure Iran oil supply, bypassing EU sanctions

Japan is one of the major buyers of Iranian crude oil, and says it is going to provide insurance coverage for Iranian tankers, while China is offering to use its own vessels for delivery in bid to circumvent EU crude sanctions.

The Japanese parliament has approved government insurance cover of up to $7.6 billion for each tanker which carries Iranian crude to the country. Meanwhile China offered Iran use of its tankers for delivery in order to secure at least a part of its oil supply.

Japan and China have announced loading of about 620,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian oil next month, according to Reuters.

The EU sanctions not only ban member countries importing Iranian oil comes, but also includes a ban on EU insurance firms from covering Iran's exports. It comes into force on July 1. The measure affects Japan, South Korea, China and India, which used to buy around two-thirds of Iranian crude exports, or roughly 1.45 million bpd per year, as they rely on EU companies to insure them.

Both EU and U.S. sanctions are aimed at cutting Iran’s oil revenues to force Tehran to give up its nuclear program.

India which won an exemption to U.S. sanctions this week, is also considering providing sovereign guarantees to bypass the EU ban. "We are struggling to find solutions," Oil Minister S. Jaipal Reddy told reporters in Vienna at the OPEC meeting last week.

However, South Korea failed to get an exemption from EU sanctions and plans to quit importing crude from Iran.