Good article Nicholas and I am sure you are right regarding the gas deal, especially if Russia is prepared to negotiate over price. As for the longer term relationship between Russia and the People's Republic it should be remembered that China puts its own interests first, second and last. Putin may find Beijing a far harder partner to deal with than Europe and the US were in the pre-Crimea period.

India is aligned with Russia as well, so that's 2.5 billion potential customers in the fastest growing economies in the World. Any pipeline to China could easily be extended to India

A good centrist article based on an economic prism.

Far more useful than the Left vs Conservative political morality debate that dominates most articles on Russia-Crimea-Ukraine .

Ukraine Crisis: What You’re Not Being Told

A concise primer on what the corporate media’s not telling you.

http://www.infowars.com/ukraine-crisis-what-youre-not-being-told/

http://wakeupfromyourslumber.com/video/tom-sullivan/kiev-leaders-took-power-right-sectors-help-now-afraid-them

http://rinf.com/alt-news/editorials/natos-rape-of-yugoslavia/
http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/LIE/lie.html

http://intellihub.com/world-mobilizing-war-ukraine-eastern-europe/
http://wakeupfromyourslumber.com/news/tens-thousands-sign-petition-reunite-alaska-russia

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/03/much-nsa-spying-costing-lost-productivity.html

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/03/25/355941/brics-rejects-sanction-against-russia/

http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2014/03/25/404358-how-crimea-plays-in-beijing/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfdKqT13Sjw

http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2014/03/24/triangle-fire-104-years-and-counting/
where is thE 25 TON OF GOLD?

turned into debt
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ukraine-in-talks-with-imf-for-15-20b-loan-package-1.2585362

lets go back to iraq
http://investmentwatchblog.com/iraq-buys-massive-36-tonnes-of-gold-in-march/

are they idiots..or following orders?
http://intellihub.com/leaked-recording-ukraine-leader-8-million-russians-ukraine-must-killed-nuclear-weapons/

http://investmentwatchblog.com/whats-the-primary-cause-of-wealth-inequality-financialization/

http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2014/03/24/michael-rivero-all-wars-are-bankers-wars/
http://investmentwatchblog.com/whats-the-primary-cause-of-wealth-inequality-financialization/
http://www.michael-colhaze.biz/MC69UkraineUpdate4.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lefFz81BCo

http://rinf.com/alt-news/latest-news/government-outsources-private-companies-inequality-gets-worse/
http://rinf.com/alt-news/latest-news/ukraine-next-corporate-cash-cow/
http://investmentwatchblog.com/the-big-red-alliance-china-and-russia-show-unity-over-ukraine-crisis/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHVRE0QzwIA
http://larouchepac.com/node/30248
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2014/03/25/peace-process-what-then/

Graham Cooke. Yes; but the likely longer term geo-political consequences are much more significant , and I mean in global terms. Russia is in desperate need of reform ( not in the short term to oust Putin, but the corruption and power of oligarchs), and fostering closer affinity, cultural, with the West. But the totally irrational drive East of NATO to encircle Russia forces it East to China; and that is fraught with bad consequences for the West.

China can align herself with whosoever she chooses! However, Chinese pragmatists, may consider the price would be too high, to choose an economic alliance with Russia?
Rhrosty.

The banking military industrial complex of the West have stuffed up big time. They moved all the manufacturing from the West to China and India hoping to destroy the Western middle class and bring in their " New World Order." However the BRICS nations have out foxed them.

The Western Central Banksters have always enslaved poor countries via debt. If you want to trade or have new technology, you have to eliminate all your Govt banks and borrow only from their central private ones. Guess what? China and Russia did not eliminate all their Govt banks and in fact create 80% of their new money free of the private counterfeiters. This is why our BMIC ( Banking Military Industrial Complex) wants to have a war with Russia and China.

Now what did Australia do with all its Govt Banks ?

An alliance between Russia and China ? What have some of you been smoking ?

There was a time when Russia supported a separate 'People's Republic of Turkestan', just after the War. Do you really think that China, so sensitive to any hint of bits of it being broken off, will tolerate Russia getting too close ?

Keep your eye on relations between China and Kazakhstan, which stands between Russia and all the central Asian republics, and Afghanistan.

Joe
www.firstsources.info

ITS SO SAD ITS FRIGHTENING
AT LEAST WE GOT TWO FRIGHTENED..at the lets stealrussion gas thread
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=16188&page=0

gee ..comE IN Spinners
damm 13 hours till i CAN..POST,,OH WELL LUCKEY the lobby attacks the same issues by multiple attacks..so lets reply the topic/where comes their bluster/but from their day job

few recall the root of the problems go right back..to when usa stole the Russian hemp fiber monopoly[USA been using the drug wars ever since to pay for war

http://news.antiwar.com/2014/04/04/hagel-us-may-add-brigade-in-europe-to-counter-russia/

THE ACT OF A FRIEND?
http://rt.com/business/moody-ukraine-downgrade-default-545/
http://www.blacklistednews.com/How_Europe_is_incubating_an_even_bigger_debt_crisis_by_letting_deflation_take_root/34285/0/38/38/Y/M.html

http://investmentwatchblog.com/is-it-imaginable-that-governments-would-confiscate-your-bank-account/

The European nations constitute a separate division of the globe; their localities make them part of a distinct system; they have a set of interests of their own in which it is our business never to engage ourselves. America has a hemisphere to itself. It must have its separate system of interest, which must not be subordinated to those of Europe.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/popular-discontent-grows-with-german-media-lies-in-ukraine-crisis-2/5376623

The insulated state in which nature has placed the American continent should so far avail it that no spark of war kindled in the other quarters of the globe should be wafted across the wide oceans which separate us from them." -- Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1813.
http://en.ria.ru/world/20140403/189021258/Ukraines-Economy-Would-Have-Collapsed-Without-Russian-Aid--IMF.html
http://tribune.com.pk/story/688588/turn-down-pakistan-refuses-to-sell-gold-worth-2-7b-reveals-imf-report/
http://investmentwatchblog.com/fraud-is-the-only-path-for-us-business/
http://investmentwatchblog.com/calm-before-the-qe-storm/
http://investmentwatchblog.com/another-banker-former-abn-amro-ceo-wife-daughter-found-dead/
http://www.hangthebankers.com/european-central-bank-models-e1-trillion-in-money-printing/

ITS ALL POT KETTLE STUFF
http://www.globalresearch.ca/presidential-rule-by-deception-obama-the-master-con-man-2/5376627
http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/role-fascism-oligarchs-ukraine/

[FOLLOW THE MONEY]
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/cia-official-dies-in-apparent-suicide/
http://www.blacklistednews.com/US_Threatens_Russia_Over_Petrodollar-Busting_Deal/34281/0/38/38/Y/M.html
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=16188

I was just checking to see which countries voted with Tsarist Russia over Crimea: lo and behold, the usual suspects - Armenia, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, North Korea, Nicaragua, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan abstained and other central Asian countries did not vote. "Did not vote" - what does that mean ? China abstained. Ukraine said it would maintain good relations with Armenia in spite of its vote. Moldova voted against the aggression.

So I suspect Russia can look East as long as it likes, it won't get much joy there. Except from North Korea. Oh well, that's a start.

Now for Round 2.

Cheers,

Joe