Last week I read that China is no longer America’s leading lender and that Japan now is the new creditor-in-chief. China sold about $34 billion of Treasuries in December, taking its holdings to $755 billion, while Japan increased its purchases and now is on top with $768 billion.
Besides that US companies might face sanctions because of US arms sales to Taiwan, if we can believe the statement of Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang.

The United States is spending approximately $1 billion a day overseas on oil, depending on oil imports from foreign countries.
A recent report on the November 2009 U.S. trade deficit found that rising oil imports widened the deficit, increasing the gap between imports and exports. Link

Then I read that Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal – a nephew of the Saudi king – owns the fourth largest stake in News Corp – the parent company of Fox News – making him the largest shareholder outside the family of Rupert Murdoch.
According to the Financial Times, News Corp announced Monday that it is purchasing a $70 million dollar stake in Prince Alwaleed’s Rotana Media.

Here you can read more about the “Saudi’s global agenda”

Saudi prince al-Waleed bin Talal has been described by Forbes as the worlds fifth richest man and is known for his financial ties to the Bush family and the Carlyle Group and for owning a fair-sized stake in Disney and in Citigroup ($4.3 billion dollar). Link 1 Link 2

Prince Alwaleed has publicly acknowledged that he has forced Fox News to edit the coverage he disliked. In September 2005, he acquired 5.46% of voting shares in News Corp., and just a few months later, when Fox reported about riots in Paris and was using the term “Muslim Riots” to describe rioting by Muslims, Prince bin Talal claims that just a call had Fox change the title of the story to “Youth Riots”.  (source)

It seems this partnership is growing even closer, since News Corp was able to aquire a 10% stake in al-Waleed’s “Rotana”, along with an option for another 10%. Rotana already broadcasts Fox programming in the Middle East (producing films, television, recordings, and magazines) and it is believed that Murdoch is hoping to get a toehold in the growing Arab market through the deal.

Conservative activists have attacked the business partnership as “really dangerous for America.”

Like I mentioned above, Prince Alwaleed owns a $4.3 billion dollar stake in Citigroup, and has openly announced that he opposes President Obama’s financial reforms like the banker speculation tax. On Fox News, the bank tax and other financial reforms have been smeared with misinformation and lies.
In an interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto last month, Prince Alwaleed spoke about the importance of the “strategic alliance” of America’s reliance on Saudi oil. Other Saudi officials have called efforts to build a clean energy economy in America Saudi Arabia’s “biggest threat.” Saudi Arabia’s economy depends on oil exports and would be the biggest losers in any pact that curbs oil demand by penalizing carbon emissions.

Although little is known about the influence Prince Alwaleed has on Fox content, Fox News dedicates much of its coverage to attacking clean energy legislation that could lead to American energy independence. They do not mention new analysis and facts that (to name just one specific example) the US has three times more wind electricity potential than previously thought… (source)

And then there is this 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision. This ruling for example allows Saudi Arabian-owned subsidiaries (or any other foreign owned subsidaries) operating in the United States to spend unlimited amounts in elections advocating their own interests…

“Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one.” A. J. Liebling

But then, it is not really new. The corporate influences are already known… Corporations themselves are not the problem , lack of regulation (ethics) and their intrusion into the democratic process is . This is the single biggest flaw in American democracy .

Corporations and their boards can actually be sued if they behave in any fashion other than to create as much profit as possible for the stock holder… this leaves all ethical questions, war, hunger, pollution, worker rights, an impending climate disaster, health care, entirely outside their abilities to address.

Which makes them very dangerous and anti democratic by nature.

For the first time, the EU is envisaging a program that targets the entire Iranian economy. In order to maximize the impact, these sanctions are supposed to hit the energy and financial sectors…
Spiegel Online has obtained a 13 page catalogue on political and economic context of sanctions against Iran.

Meanwhile Western Countries including Israel trying to seek China’s support in regard to UN sanctions against Iran. “China Daily” has published an article about that.

Besides that, relations between Beijing and Washington are far away from healing.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang confirmed this week that sanctions against American companies would go ahead, because of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
In addition, China is angry over U.S. positions on a number of different issues. Qin, however, refused to say when sanctions would come into effect but he did not speculate on whether Beijing’s stance toward North Korea will be affected by the rift, saying China will continue to seek peace and stability in the region.

He urged further negotiations in regard to Iran’s nuclear program – calling on Tehran, the U.S., Britain, France, Germany and Russia to “show flexibility” but he also mentioned that Beijing had “taken note” of the International Atomic Energy Agency report that says Tehran could be working on a nuclear warhead.

The airline, Europe’s biggest by sales, said yesterday that despite the strike organized by the Cockpit pilots union, it was maintaining many domestic flights and short-haul routes across Europe though many of its long-haul flights to the U.S., including New York and Denver, were canceled.

Other flights to Africa, South America and Asia were still scheduled to operate.

“Usually we have 1,800 flights a day,” Deutsche Lufthansa AG said early Monday. 800 flights are expected to be cancelled per day. (A list of flights Lufthansa plans to operate can be found on the firm’s website (www.lufthansa.com).

Lufthansa owns or holds significant stakes in airlines including Swiss International Airlines, Austrian Airlines, JetBlue of the U.S. and Britain’s BMI.

Those are not affected.

The pilots are seeking increased job security and want German labor conditions to apply to Lufthansa pilots hired abroad, in an effort to prevent their jobs from migrating to neighboring countries with cheaper conditions.
Many of Lufthansa’s pilots have been working without a contract since March and more than 90 percent of the union’s members voted to strike, said Jorg Handwerg, a pilot and representative for the union.

Germany’s economic recovery stalled at the end of 2009, and workers are becoming increasingly concerned that they could lose their jobs.
Fears of unemployment are spreading to other sectors of the German economy and workers are looking to employers for job security in exchange for pay concessions like carmaker Volkswagen has done.
Engineering sector workers have also accepted moderate wage increases to help secure jobs.

The action by Lufthansa pilots signaled growing labor unrest across Europe. The industrial action by the pilots started the same day that British Airways cabin staff were expected to announce the outcome of its strike vote. On Wednesday in Greece, a mass public and private sector strike is being planned to protest the government’s austerity plan.

European airlines have been fighting for survival for several years as they battle with the triple whammy of budget airlines poaching customers with low prices, soaring high fuel costs and the worst global recession in decades.

In response, they have sought to consolidate, as seen in Air France’s mega-merger with Dutch KLM and BA’s tie-up with Iberia, and by attempting to cut costs wherever they can, including by slashing jobs and levels of service.

BA is currently slashing almost 5000 jobs and has scrapped all free meals except breakfast on short-haul flights, Air France-KLM is cutting 2700 staff and Lufthansa is cutting overheads by a billion euros.

However… they will find a compromise.

In the end it is not only about job security of pilots. It is about my security (as customer) as well.

And if you want to know what it can mean to “fly cheap”, then go to PBS and watch this video… “Flying Cheap”