Apr 282023
 
 April 28, 2023  Posted by at 8:47 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  54 Responses »


Edgar Degas Danseuse au Tutu Vert 1887

 

Ukraine Peace Talks – A Grown Up Is Taking Charge (MoA)
Complicated Ukraine Crisis Must End By Negotiations – China (TASS)
Kremlin Explains Which Contact With Kiev Is ‘Welcome’ (RT)
China Shifting Away From Dollar In Cross-Border Transactions (RT)
FBI Claims China Has 50x More Hackers (RT)
De-Dollarization Kicks Into High Gear (Pepe Escobar)
Mr. Lavrov’s New York Shuffle (Pepe Escobar)
West No Longer Hides Planning Of Kiev’s Counteroffensive – Zakharova (TASS)
NATO Gives 1,550 Armored Vehicles, 230 Tanks To Ukraine – Stoltenberg (TASS)
Ukrainian Air Defense ‘Depleting’ – Minister (RT)
The EU Has Spilled Ukrainian Grain Meant For Africa All Over Itself (Marsden)
Zakharova: Why US and EU Fear Russian Media (RT)
In The Seeds War Who Is Burying Whom? (Helmer)
Pfizer & FDA Knew About Safety Concerns For Pregnant And Nursing Women (CR)
Biden Energy Secretary Wants All US Military Vehicles To Be Electric By 2030

 

 

 

 

RFK vaccines

 

 

 

 

Tucker ESG

 

 

Zelensky sells Ukraine

 

 

 

 

China sends their top diplomat. Everyone better take him seriously. Nothing else will be accepted.

Ukraine Peace Talks – A Grown Up Is Taking Charge (MoA)

The U.S. is unwilling to yet give up in its proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Russia can not stop the war without securing its legitimate interest to keep NATO and/or the U.S. out of its neighbor state. A loss of the war would create an existential danger for Russia. With the two major powers engaged in a war a third party is needed to solve the conflict. In the spring of last year Turkey and Israel successfully helped to find a peace agreement. A good solution was found and Russia as well as Ukraine agreed to it. But the U.S. needed the war to continue. It sent the British prime minister Boris Johnson to Kiev to sabotage the deal. The Ukrainian president was told that the country would lose all ‘western’ support should it sign an agreement with Russia. As the somewhat neutral middle powers were unable to push any agreement through it became obvious that a third party with more heft was needed to seal a deal.

The time of moving towards a deal also needed to be right. On February 24, exactly a year after the war had started, China announced its Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis. This was not a peace plan but a lay out of things that will need to be understood and done to come to a sustainable solution of the crisis. A months later China took the next step that will be needed in the process. It introduced a high ranking diplomat who will hold the preliminary talks in Ukraine and Russia to find the potential ways to proceed. The announcement was made after a phone call between the presidents Xi and Zelensky:

“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he held a “long and meaningful call” with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday, a long-anticipated first contact between the leaders since Russia’s invasion 14 months ago. Xi appealed for negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv to begin, according to a Chinese government readout of the call, which Beijing said Zelenskyy requested. Xi pledged to send a “special representative” to Ukraine for talks about a “political settlement” — warning that “there is no winner in a nuclear war.” China hopes to become a neutral peace broker in the conflict, although the U.S. and others have questioned its impartiality given a “no limits” partnership in which it has lent Moscow rhetorical and financial support.”

[..] The Chinese special representative for Eurasian affairs is Lu Hui, a very senior diplomat. He has held several positions in China’s embassies in Moscow and Astana as well as within China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs: In 2008-2009 Mr. Liu Hui served as a deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the PRC. From August 2009 to August 2019 he served as an Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China to the Russian Federation. Ukraine’s readout of the call does not mention the envoy. The U.S. response to the announcement of an envoy was designed to put China’s efforts into doubt: “John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, said the U.S. welcomed the call as a “good thing.”

“We’ve been saying for quite some time that we believe it’s important for President Xi and PRC officials to avail themselves of the Ukrainian perspective on this illegal and unprovoked invasion by Russia,” Kirby told reporters, referring to China by the initials for its formal name, the People’s Republic of China. Earlier, Kirby, told NBC News, “We will let these two leaders speak to the details of their conversation.” A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was “way too soon after just getting word of this conversation to speculate about” whether the call should foster optimism about China’s peace plan. “Thus far, China has not shown itself to be unbiased when it comes to supporting Russia,” the official said.

Read more …

China starts to impose itself step by step.

Complicated Ukraine Crisis Must End By Negotiations – China (TASS)

No matter how complicated the conflict in Ukraine may be, it must be resolved at a negotiation table, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said during the meeting with foreign ministers of Central Asian countries in Xi An in northwestern China. “No matter how complicated the crisis may be, it must be resolved by negotiations; no matter how complicated a conflict may be, it must be resolved only by politics,” Qin Gang said, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry website. He added that “the significant historic background and complex real reasons have caused the Ukrainian crisis to develop to the current stage.”


“China and Central Asian countries have similar views and positions on the Ukrainian crisis,” Qin Gang noted. He added that Beijing is ready to work with the international community, including Central Asian states, in order to reach a “common denominator” for resolution of the conflict in Ukraine. On April 26-27, Qin Gang took part in the 4th meeting of foreign ministers of China and five Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan). According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, the top diplomats exchanged opinions on pressing international and regional issues.

Read more …

“We are ready to welcome anything that can bring the conflict in Ukraine closer to an end and, naturally, the accomplishment of all Russia’s goals..”

Kremlin Explains Which Contact With Kiev Is ‘Welcome’ (RT)

Moscow backs any foreign contact with Kiev that seeks a political settlement to the Ukraine conflict and as long as Russia’s interests are respected, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday. His comments came a day after Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke with his Ukrainian counterpart, Vladimir Zelensky, for the first time since Moscow launched its military operation in the neighboring state more than a year ago. “We are ready to welcome anything that can bring the conflict in Ukraine closer to an end and, naturally, the accomplishment of all Russia’s goals,” Peskov told journalists. The spokesman added that conversations between leaders are the “sovereign [right]” of each country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin cited the need to protect the people of Donbass and Kiev’s failure to implement the 2014-2015 Minsk peace accords as reasons for Russia’s attack on Ukrainian forces in February 2022. He also said Russia was seeking the “demilitarization” and “denazification” of Ukraine. Peskov pointed out that the Kremlin is aware of the 12-point roadmap for peace publicly unveiled by China in February. According to the proposal, the conflict must be resolved through negotiations and in accordance with international law, while the “independence and territorial integrity of all countries must be effectively upheld.” Moscow, however, has accused Ukraine of effectively rendering potential negotiations useless by demanding that Russia surrender newly acquired territories.

In 2014, Crimea voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia in the wake of the coup in Kiev that year. The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, did the same after holding referendums in September. Kiev considers these territories to be illegally occupied by Russia. Unlike many Western countries, China has refused to condemn Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Xi praised strategic partnership with Russia during a trip to Moscow last month. During his call with Zelensky, the Chinese leader reiterated that dialogue was “the only viable way forward.”

Read more …

First gradually, then all at once.

China Shifting Away From Dollar In Cross-Border Transactions (RT)

The yuan surpassed the US dollar to become the most-used currency in China’s cross-border transactions last month, Reuters reported on Wednesday citing official data. Cross-border payments and receipts in yuan surged from $434.5 billion in February to a record $549.9 billion in March, according to calculations by the outlet, based on data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. The Chinese currency was used in 48.4% of all cross-border transactions, reflecting a trend of shifting away from the dollar, as well as Beijing’s efforts to promote the use of the yuan. The share of the greenback in China’s international settlements dropped from 48.6% in February to 46.7% last month. The volume of cross-border transactions covers both current and capital accounts, the outlet said.


Although the share of the yuan in global settlements is still relatively low, it has been steadily on the rise over the past several years. China’s attempts to move away from the dollar in international trade have sped up against the backdrop of sweeping sanctions imposed by Western nations against Russia, a major global energy producer and exporter. Indian policymakers have also taken steps towards shifting away from the greenback to rubles and rupees in mutual trade with Moscow. Russia has been boosting its use of alternative currencies in transactions since last year. President Vladimir Putin has suggested that the Chinese yuan should be used more widely, not only in trade with China, but also in Russia’s transactions with countries in Africa and Latin America. The latest data from the Bank of Russia shows that the yuan has become a major player in Russia’s foreign trade.

Read more …

“..Chinese hackers outnumber US cybersecurity agents by at least “50 to 1..”

FBI Claims China Has 50x More Hackers (RT)

FBI Director Christopher Wray has claimed that Chinese hackers outnumber US cybersecurity agents by at least “50 to 1,” saying the People’s Republic operates a larger cyber program than all other world powers combined. Addressing lawmakers during a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday, Wray outlined the bureau’s recent cybersecurity efforts and its funding needs, stating the hackers are capable of inflicting “greater damage than ever before” while placing special emphasis on the “China threat.” “The scale of the Chinese cyber threat is unparalleled. They’ve got a bigger hacking program than every other major nation combined, and have stolen more of our personal and corporate data than all other nations, big or small, combined,” he said, adding that Washington is struggling to keep up with Beijing in the cyber realm.

“To give you a sense of what we’re up against, if each one of the FBI’s cyber agents and intel analysts focused exclusively on the China threat, on nothing but China, Chinese hackers would still outnumber FBI cyber personnel by at least 50 to 1.” The bureau head went on to warn of cyber attacks conducted by other foreign states, including Russia, Iran and North Korea, but said China posed the greatest danger to US privacy and security, pointing to its alleged “multi-pronged strategy” to surpass the United States as “the global superpower.” In addition to “nation-state actors,” Wray also noted the FBI’s concerns about private cyber criminals, saying the agency is now investigating “over 100 different ransomware variants,” referring to a common form of malware which seeks to hold user data hostage in exchange for payment.

The FBI has requested funding to create around 200 additional cyber positions at the bureau to address the purported threat from China, seeking just over $63 million, in addition to the $10.8 billion budget already proposed for the 2023 fiscal year. “There’s no country that presents a more significant threat to our innovation, our ideas, our economic security, our national security than the Chinese government,” Wray continued. “And that’s why we’ve grown the number of investigations into threats from China about 1,300%.” Chinese officials have denied US allegations of hacking and data theft, and instead leveled similar charges at Washington. Earlier this month, the Chinese Foreign Ministry claimed the United States is now the “biggest threat to global cybersecurity” which seeks to “maintain its hegemony in cyberspace,” urging the US to cease its “global hacking operations.”

Read more …

“Cue to Beijing linking crude futures in Shanghai to converting yuan into gold. And all that without touching China’s massive gold reserves..”

De-Dollarization Kicks Into High Gear (Pepe Escobar)

The collective west is reaching Desperation Row – now timed with the astonishing announcement of a Biden-Harris US presidential ticket running again in 2024. This means that the US administration’s neo-con handlers will double down on their plan to unleash an industrial war against both Russia and China by 2025. And that brings us back to de-dollarization and what will replace the hegemonic reserve currency of the world. Today, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) represents more than 25 percent of global oil exports (Saudi Arabia stands at 17 percent). More than 25 percent of China’s oil imports come from Riyadh. And China, predictably, is the GCC’s top trading partner. The Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange went into business in March 2018.

Any oil producer, from anywhere, can sell in Shanghai in yuan today. This means that the balance of power in the oil markets is already shifting from the US dollar to the yuan. The catch is that most oil producers prefer not to keep large stashes of yuan; after all, everyone is still used to the petrodollar. Cue to Beijing linking crude futures in Shanghai to converting yuan into gold. And all that without touching China’s massive gold reserves. This simple process happens via gold exchanges set up in Shanghai and Hong Kong. And not by accident, it lies at the heart of a new currency to bypass the dollar being discussed by the EAEU. Dumping the dollar already has a mechanism: making full use of the Shanghai Energy Exchange’s future oil contracts in yuan.

That’s the preferred path for the end of the petrodollar. US global power projection is fundamentally based on controlling the global currency. Economic control underlies the Pentagon’s ‘Full Spectrum Dominance’ doctrine. Yet now, even military projection is in shambles, with Russia maintaining an unreachable advance on hypersonic missiles and Russia-China-Iran able to deploy an array of carrier-killers. The Hegemon – clinging to a toxic cocktail of neoliberalism, sanction dementia, and widespread threats – is bleeding from within. De-dollarization is an inevitable response to system collapse. In a Sun Tzu 2.0 environment, it is no wonder the Russia-China strategic partnership exhibits no intention of interrupting the enemy when he is so busy defeating himself

Read more …

“Let’s take a walk with him across the current wasteland. Mr. Lavrov, you’re the star of the show.”

Mr. Lavrov’s New York Shuffle (Pepe Escobar)

Now picture a true gentleman, the foremost diplomat of these troubled times, in total command of the facts and endowed with a delightful sense of humor, taking a perilous walk on the wild side, to quote iconic Lou Reed, and emerging unscathed. In fact, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s New York moment – as in his two interventions before the UN Security Council on April 24 and 25 – performed the diplomatic equivalent of bringing the house down. At least the sections of the house inhabited by the Global South – or Global Majority. April 24, during the 9308th meeting of the UNSC under the agenda “Maintenance of international peace and security, effective multilateralism through the protection of the principles of the UN Charter”, was particularly relevant. Lavrov stressed the symbolism of the meeting happening on the International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace, deemed quite significant by a 2018 UN General Assembly resolution.


In his preamble, Lavrov noted how “in two weeks, we will celebrate the 78th anniversary of Victory in World War II. The defeat of Nazi Germany, to which my country made a decisive contribution with the support of the Allies, laid the foundation for the post-war international order. The UN Charter has become its legal basis, and our organization itself, embodying true multilateralism, has acquired a central, coordinating role in world politics.” Well, not really. And that brings us to Lavrov’s true walk on the wild side, pinpointing how multilateralism has been trampled. Way beyond torrents of denigration by the usual suspects, and their attempt to submit him to an ice cold shower in New York, or even confine him to the – geopolitical – freezer, he prevailed. Let’s take a walk with him across the current wasteland. Mr. Lavrov, you’re the star of the show.

Read more …

“..once again are loudly confirming their direct involvement in the conflict.”

West No Longer Hides Planning Of Kiev’s Counteroffensive – Zakharova (TASS)

The West is no longer hiding that it is really behind the planning for Ukraine’s much-vaunted counteroffensive, and will pull out all the stops to ensure its success, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing on Thursday. “The West openly states that it will do everything possible to make the counteroffensive of the Ukrainian armed forces, which is planned for the near future, a success. That is to say, as you can imagine, they do not even hide that they are behind all this military planning, not only tactical guidance, which we have repeatedly talked about, but also the ongoing disposition [of forces] according to their strategic plan,” she said.


Zakharova also stressed that representatives of Western countries, by openly demanding that the Russian side suffer the maximum possible losses, “once again are loudly confirming their direct involvement in the conflict.” On Tuesday, the New York Times, citing classified Pentagon and US intelligence documents that surfaced on the Internet, reported that the Ukrainian armed forces planned to launch a counteroffensive in the south next month. According to the newspaper, by the end of April, Ukraine is expected to have prepared 12 combat brigades with a complement of 4,000 servicemen each.

Read more …

“..providing as many weapons as possible to Kiev is the best way to facilitate peace in Ukraine..”

NATO Gives 1,550 Armored Vehicles, 230 Tanks To Ukraine – Stoltenberg (TASS)

More than 98% of the combat vehicles that NATO promised to Ukraine have already been delivered, the bloc’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday. “Overall, through the Contact Group led by the United States, NATO Allies and partners have provided unprecedented support to Ukraine. More than 98% of the combat vehicles promised to Ukraine have already been delivered. That means over 1,550 armored vehicles, 230 tanks and other equipment, including vast amounts of ammunition. In total we have trained and equipped more than nine new Ukrainian armored brigades,” he pointed out at a meeting with Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel in Brussels.


According to Stoltenberg, NATO believes that providing as many weapons as possible to Kiev is the best way to facilitate peace in Ukraine because it will allow President Vladimir Zelensky’s regime to be in a strong negotiating position. However, the NATO chief warned against underestimating the Russian army, and claimed that Russia was sending thousands of troops to attack the city of Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut in Ukraine). Bettel, in turn, noted that Luxembourg did not have weapons to send to Ukraine, which was why it was making a financial contribution, paying for what Kiev was asking for.

Read more …

“..the importance of showcasing foreign weapons on the battlefield..”

Ukrainian Air Defense ‘Depleting’ – Minister (RT)

Kiev is running out of Soviet-made anti-aircraft missiles and needs the US and its allies to provide more weapons, including fighter jets, to close the gap with Russia, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov has said. “We have a Soviet [air defense] system, and its missile reserves are depleting. If we don’t produce them and only nations, from which we can’t get them, have more, we need to replenish them with something else,” Reznikov stated in an interview with national media on Thursday. The minister said Western-made anti-aircraft systems and an increasing number of missiles compatible with them are Kiev’s goals, as was acquiring fighter jets from NATO. “A modern generation 4++ plane is a fully-fledged part of air defense. Once we have them, they will close the gaps left by our soviet systems,” Reznikov said, expressing certainty that his nation will be able to work through Western resistance.

The US and its allies have been reluctant to send these types of weapons to Ukraine. Kiev needs sponsors to pledge to provide not only the fighter jets, but also all the munitions and maintenance services they require, the minister explained. “Some nations signed off on tanks, and what we see is them giving four or six, not 200 or 300.” Kiev’s problems with air defense were exposed by purported classified Pentagon assessments leaked online. A late February estimate predicted that most types of Soviet missiles would be gone by May, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month. The US military proposed covering the shortfall with supplies of German Iris-T and American NASAMS and Patriot systems, according to the leak.

In the interview, Reznikov stressed the importance of showcasing foreign weapons on the battlefield for Kiev’s effort to maintain the flow of arms into the country. He recalled how he used a photo of an Australian-provided Bushmaster armored vehicle for that purpose. “I said: ‘I urgently need a video with a thank you to the Australian people.’ The guys recorded a message of gratitude in English, and I sent [it] through our ambassador to Australia,” he stated. “We said we needed more Bushmasters.” Kiev has long promised to use Western arms and training to launch a major counteroffensive against Russia sometime this spring and reclaim territory, but so far it has failed to materialize. Reznikov said the expectations for the operation have been overblown. Several Western media outlets have also warned that Kiev’s military achievements during the future push against Russia may prove to be lackluster and undermine requests for more military assistance.

Read more …

“Apparently Brussels has an endless supply of taxpayer cash to toss at the problems that it creates for itself..”

The EU Has Spilled Ukrainian Grain Meant For Africa All Over Itself (Marsden)

Leave it to the EU to manage parlaying food hogging into a disaster. Well, for everyone except perhaps Spain, the recipient of 16% of all grain shipments under the deal, which is reportedly using it to increase its production and export of pork by feeding the food destined for humans to Spanish pigs. Other EU farmers now need bailouts. “This is support for the farmers affected by the increase of imports from Ukraine, not for the consequences of the war,” said EU Agriculture Commissioner Janus Wojciechowski. “We have a ‘reserve’ for the crisis and we used only €56 million for the specific situation.” What a bargain! Only a few tens of billions of euros to fix an entirely self-made problem. Yet another resounding demonstration of competence by the big-brained Brussels bureaucrats.

There have been blatant indications for months that the plan was veering towards disaster. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pointed out in January that 44% of Ukrainian grain was ending up in the EU. And with their own grains devalued as a result of their flooded markets, European farmers don’t seem happy about being made unwitting martyrs for Ukraine. They have been pushed out of their own markets in order to keep cash from grain sales flowing to Kiev. “In effect, prices in local/regional markets have dropped causing a significant impact on farmers’ income. The Commission is not reacting swiftly enough. Our members had already flagged the concerns about market disruptions last year,” said Paulo Gouveia, chief policy advisor for the European farmers cooperative, Copa-Cogeca. Apparently, the farmers just don’t have much of an appreciation for the amount of time it took for Brussels to amass the massive pile of cash required to cushion its policy disaster as it circled back and crash-landed on the EU’s own citizens and economy.

Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Slovakia have all sounded the alarm over the impact of the grain glut. “We have proven through statistical data and figures that Hungarian farmers are indeed incurring huge losses because of the grain going through the solidarity lane staying in Hungary instead of reaching its intended destination,” said Hungarian Agriculture Minister Istvan Nagy. Nagy says that Hungarian farmers have lost up to 37% of their income over the Ukrainian grain, driving down the price of local supply. But the EU initially denied Hungary’s and Slovakia’s requests for assistance and has only more recently considered another round of compensation that includes them. Nagy described the initial choice to exclude them as political, even though Slovakia has since evoked health concerns related to findings of unauthorized pesticides on Ukrainian wheat. And now Brussels is paying lip service to their concerns with another €100 million, which is couch cushion cash for the EU compared to the billions it regularly tosses around.

All this flooding of the EU with Ukrainian grain could have been avoided if it had simply ensured that the grain was used for its stated purpose. Russian President Vlaidmir Putin has been warning all along that the food was being misdirected. “From August 1, 2022, to March 20, 2023, 827 ships left Ukraine, of which only 3 million tonnes of grain were sent to Africa and 1.3 million to the poorest countries in Africa. As I said, almost 45% went to well-fed European countries, despite the fact that this whole deal was presented under the pretext of ensuring the interests of African countries,” Putin underscored at the Russia-Africa Parliamentary Conference in Moscow earlier this year.

[..] Apparently Brussels has an endless supply of taxpayer cash to toss at the problems that it creates for itself, bailing out everyone from farmers to businesses over its own backfiring efforts to stick it to Russia amid the crisis in Ukraine. It’s becoming increasingly clear that what the EU desperately needs is some adult supervision, but the available candidates seem few and far between.

Read more …

“Those who like these rules of the game have the right to play by them. We don’t. This is what we rebelled against.”

Zakharova: Why US and EU Fear Russian Media (RT)

The European Parliament’s insistence that Serbia censor RT Balkans and Sputnik in order to “harmonize” with the EU is absurd, evil, and a manifestation of imperialism and colonialism, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. On Wednesday, the parliament’s foreign affairs committee adopted the report by Slovakian MEP Vladimir Bilcik, criticizing Serbia for not joining the EU sanctions against Russia and demanding Belgrade shut down Russian “disinformation” outlets just as the bloc has done. The US State Department has also called for a ban on RT Balkans. “It’s an absurd situation,” Zakharova told reporters at the daily briefing in Moscow on Thursday. “These statements speak for themselves. The West isn’t even hiding, but saying the quiet part out loud.”

The US and the EU are now openly saying that Russia, Russian culture and language, or Russian media and journalists, simply shouldn’t exist, Zakharova noted. She compared the European Parliament’s demands to calls by Ukrainian officials to “exterminate” the Russian population in Crimea and Donbass, saying they can only be described as “evil.” “The only possible thing to say is that this is an imperialist point of view, a manifestation of neo-colonialism. Some countries, without any moral grounds, illegally arrogate to themselves the right to model the world and its development at their own discretion: who can live, speak, trade, produce, have children, and who cannot,” Zakharova told reporters. “This is a modern version of slavery, in which the colonial powers claim the right to be considered masters, and others – their slaves.”

“Those who like these rules of the game have the right to play by them. We don’t. This is what we rebelled against.” The US and its allies, Zakharova argued, want Russia to have no opportunity to speak, because the very existence of Russian media threatens the Western plans for narrative manipulation. “Our media, journalists and outlets report from the epicenters of world events, based on facts, encourage people to critically evaluate reality (as they should),” the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said. “Apparently, this goes against the plans that the American rulers have to ‘zombify’ their own population.”

American television, Zakharova noted, presents a “a one-sided, practically sterilized, filtered and adjusted picture of the world,” having reached an “ideological dead end.” Any airing of alternative viewpoints threatens to expose this media ecosystem as biased and contradictory. RT Balkans began operations in November 2022. The EU reportedly plans to blacklist the outlet as part of its 11th package of sanctions against Russia. The bloc had banned all broadcasting activities by RT and Sputnik in March 2022, calling them “Russian propaganda” that endangered Ukraine. Major social media platforms have blocked RT accounts in the bloc, while YouTube extended the ban globally.

Read more …

“Today we are buying seeds abroad, because during Yeltsin’s time all the seed banks were destroyed, and the seed breeding stations were closed..”

In The Seeds War Who Is Burying Whom? (Helmer)

This week Russian grain and berry producers went public with a warning that new regulations proposed by the federal Ministry of Agriculture to implement new legislation on seed production, due to come into effect in September, will lessen competition in the domestic market, raise seed and farm product prices, reduce crop yields, and lower production volumes. “The draft regulation, On the approval of the rules for the localization of the production of seeds of agricultural plants on the territory of the Russian Federation — allows foreign companies to do business on the territory of our country only if they work jointly with Russia’s scientific institutes. The share of the latter in joint ventures must be at least 51%, otherwise the foreign seed producers will not be able to work on the Russian market and supply products.”


This statement was authored by the Russian Grain Union and the Berry Union, and leaked to Vedomosti, a Moscow business newspaper. With imported seeds accounting for 97% of commercial beet plantings, 72% for sunflowers, 69% for potatoes, 56% for corn, and between 75% and 100% for berries, forcing the exit of foreign companies from the Russian market will cause scarcity, price inflation, and consumer protest.

[..] “The fact is that our seed production in Russia was destroyed back in the 90s,” tomato breeder Tatiana Tereshkova told an industry publication a year ago. “Once we had specialized farms with special equipment and people. But since they completely switched to import, the farms were overturned, and the specialists went to other areas. Now all this needs to be revived from scratch. If the state considers that this is really necessary, then everything can be resuscitated. There are the people; there is also the will. The main thing is that there should be no indulgence towards foreign manufacturers. It seems to me that in two to three years we will cope if necessary.”

After President Yeltsin and his US proxies, acting prime minister Yegor Gaidar and Kremlin chief of staff Anatoly Chubais had destroyed the Soviet seed research and development centres, Russian agriculture lagged far behind other countries. The commercial incentives were also transformed in favour of imports of foreign seeds, plant stock, and insecticides and herbicides. According to Vitaly Barakhtenko, founder of the Museum of Seeds and Plant Protection Products in St. Petersburg, “across the world seeds are usually harvested from the equatorial zone, because there are the most favourable conditions on the planet: constant sun, stable temperature. Imagine, in winter and summer about 28 degrees! Under these conditions, the seeds develop much better. Plus, you can grow three to four crops. No greenhouse in Russia will give such a result. But you can approach it.”

“Today we are buying seeds abroad, because during Yeltsin’s time all the seed banks were destroyed, and the seed breeding stations were closed,” Arkady Dudov, a Leningrad region farmer told an agro-industry website. “It takes decades to revive all this. Here in Leningrad we kept the seed bank for the country safely underground . Above, during the Great Patriotic War, the city population under the blockade were dying of hunger, but they did not eat the seeds. And then Yeltsin blew it all. As a result, all the seeds we have now are Dutch and American. They sell us the hybrids that we grow. But we cannot immediately cultivate a clean line from these fruits, it takes five years to do this. I took care of this problem for myself seven years ago, got the first seeds, the first results. But at the local level, this is not supported in any way; on the contrary, they are strangling the farmers by all sorts of checks.”

Read more …

Pure horror.

Pfizer & FDA Knew About Safety Concerns For Pregnant And Nursing Women (CR)

No wonder Pfizer and the FDA sought to hide these documents from the public for 75 years. To this day, the medical field is pressuring pregnant women to get these terrible shots, but now we know that Pfizer was tracking safety concerns for these women from day one. As we observe plummeting birth rates and skyrocketing fetal losses throughout the world, it is now clear that Pfizer and the FDA were aware that the vaccine could spread through the placenta and breast milk, as later studies seemed to confirm. Where is the action from Congress? This affects all of humanity, including a generation yet to be born. The eight-page confidential document was dated April 20, 2021, but tracked 458 pregnant women and 215 lactating women from the time the shots were released until February 28, 2021. That was the same date that Pfizer already recorded over 1,200 deaths and over 1,000 categories of serious adverse events. Here are the gory details, courtesy of Trial Site’s Sonia Elijah.


Pregnancy
• 54% of the 458 pregnant women reported adverse events. These included symptoms in line with AEs experienced by others who took the shots.
• 53 of the women (11.6%) experienced miscarriages, which is definitely on the high end of what we should expect.
• Most notably, six of the babies experienced serious AEs that Pfizer admitted were caused by the vaccine transferring “transplacentally.” This likely caused them to be born prematurely. So Pfizer knew from day one not only that the shots do not remain in the shoulder muscle and do indeed spread throughout the body, but that the spike protein could spread to the placenta.

• Two of the babies died after suffering from known respiratory ailments associated with the spike protein (severe respiratory distress and pneumothorax) after their mothers received the vaccine during the second semester.
• One of the infants was born at 24 weeks, which is extremely precarious, yet Pfizer never followed up on the outcome, even though the company seemed to think the baby was exposed “via transplacental route.”
• Another premature baby developed fetal tachycardia (rapid heart rate) just one week after the mother received her second dose. The baby was hospitalized, but the company never followed up on the outcome. Surveys have shown 8%-13% of people suffered rapid heartbeat after getting the shots.

Read more …

Are these people for real?

Biden Energy Secretary Wants All US Military Vehicles To Be Electric By 2030

As if the US military was not already crippled by woke activism at the highest levels of the Department of Defense, the latest news suggests that the nation’s military vehicle fleet will be hobbled as well. Biden Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, a Canadian born lawyer with no military background, testified Wednesday to the Senate Armed Services Committee that she supported requiring the United States military to move to an all-electric vehicle fleet by 2030. That’s less than seven years. She added: “And I do think that reducing our reliance on the volatility of globally-traded fossil fuels where we know that global events, such as the war in Ukraine, can jack up prices for people back home – it does not contribute to energy security.” “I think energy security is achieved when we have homegrown, clean energy that is abundant, like you see in Iowa. We think we can be a leader globally in how we have become energy-independent…”

Her assertions rest on a number of fallacies. First, Granholm does not address where the energy would come from to power the lithium based batteries that an EV fleet would rely on. Generally, green energy options are highly inefficient and carbon based fuels are the primary source of electricity for much of the nation. They seem to think electricity is magic, but every time a climate activist charges up their EV they are most likely using “fossil fuels” to do it. Iowa is held up as a golden idol among climate activists for its large windmill farms that produce up to 40% of the state’s power, but such systems tend to fail under harsh conditions and are in no way portable, which makes one wonder why Granholm cited Iowa as a reference for justifying military EVs? The advantage of gas based vehicles over EVs is obvious – There is no long wait time for recharging, refueling is instant and access to a large energy producing source is not required.

In a war zone, there are few places to plug in your Tesla Humvee. Shifting to EVs would essentially bottleneck operations, making vehicles less independent with less range and easier to disrupt. Second, as a side note, gas prices were rising well before the war in Ukraine due to inflation caused by government mismanagement and central bank fiat money creation. Let’s stop trying to perpetuate the lie that Russia is somehow responsible for our economic troubles. Third, a few years ago the US was a net exporter of crude oil, and after Biden’s entry into the White House this advantage suddenly disappeared. This increased production along with the completion of the Keystone XL pipeline would have ensured US energy security for many years to come. That was until the government interfered with oil output and Biden blocked Keystone. He then began selling off US strategic oil reserves in order to artificially manipulate market prices down while depleting military resources.

It’s also important to realize that the lithium needed to create the batteries for EVs is primarily mined overseas in countries like China (often with child slave labor). How does switching to EVs reliant on lithium make US energy secure, let alone the military more capable? Fourth, there is no evidence of a “climate crisis.” It doesn’t exist. So why are we talking about this at all? There is no telling how much damage the climate agenda will ultimately do to US defensive capabilities, but the overall trend in energy is more and more centralization. Centralization, as opposed to redundancy, leads to weakness. The reduction of US carbon based energy and the over-reliance on a green electrical grid is expected to trigger skyrocketing consumer prices over the next several years. Transfer this dynamic of high cost and logistical uncertainty over to the military and you have a recipe for disaster.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Giraffe
https://twitter.com/i/status/1651518468955467780

 

 

Parrot pump

 

 

Sea butterfly
https://twitter.com/i/status/1651570161965514752

 

 

DogCat
https://twitter.com/i/status/1651676706862690330

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 112023
 


Paul Cézanne River Bend (Coin de rivière) 1865

 

The Pentagon Leaks Charade (Pepe Escobar)
Explosive Pentagon Leak May Be An Insider Job – Reuters (RT)
Secret Pentagon Documents First Surfaced On Internet In January – WSJ (TASS)
Leaked Documents A ‘Serious Risk’ – Pentagon (RT)
What’s Known So Far From The Leaked Intelligence Files (ZH)
US Military Pilots Apparently Told To Fly Farther From Crimea – WaPo (RT)
US Spying On Zelensky – CNN (RT)
Leaked Pentagon Documents: Scenarios For Israeli Arms Pipeline To Kiev (TASS)
Ukrainian Air Defense Missiles To Run Out By May – WSJ (RT)
Zelensky Losing Control Of Intelligence Agents – Media (RT)
The Future of US Nuclear Strategy (Scott Ritter)
London Wants To ‘Scorch’ Ukraine Earth With Uranium Shells – Zakharova (TASS)
The Tik Tok President (SN)
India and China To Drive Half Of World’s Economic Growth – IMF (RT)
Musk Responds To Criticism Over Medvedev Tweet (RT)
Lawmaker Proposes To Unblock Twitter In Russia (TASS)
A Nervous Hiatus (Jim Kunstler)
The Three Most Important Lessons from Three Years of Hell (Kory)

 

 

 

 

We must win

 

 

 

 

WEF

 

 

 

 

Zelenko

 

 

Lacalle

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lots about the leaked files today, inevitably. Are they real? Who leaked them? What does it mean that they were first leaked 3 months ago? Why didn’t anyone say something then? Let’s start with Pepe.

“It oozes the impression it was redacted based on open data, and not actual intel. And all that packaged by some quite shoddy work.”

The Pentagon Leaks Charade (Pepe Escobar)

The script reads like a spoof straight out of legendary Mad magazine 1960’s cartoon “Spy vs. Spy”: Secret Pentagon Documents Fall in the Hands of Malign Russia. Well, actually in the hands of millions accessing Twitter and Telegram. So here, at face value, we have a major leak essentially detailing Pentagon planning for the next stage of the NATO vs. Russia proxy war in Ukraine: the interminably debated Spring “counter-offensive” that may, or may not, start in mid-April, as well as war plans shared with FVEY – the Five Eyes. The leaked intel might – and the operative word is “might” – be advantageous to Russia were this not to be misdirection: and the possibility is quite real.

The inestimable Ray McGovern, who knows one or two things about the CIA, noted whether the Pentagon is “falsifying kill-ratio to gild Easter lilies in Kyiv? Recent leak of an apparently official NATO document shows 71,500 Ukrainians KIA and only 16,000 to 17,500 Russians, a far cry from earlier Pentagon ‘estimates’. All sounds so Vietnam-déjà vu!” So this may be Vietnam all over again – never count on the Pentagon learning from their mistakes – but could be something way more alarming, according to a top Beltway intel source, retired: “Our interpretation of this breach is that intel sources in the United States have released critical intel data in order to avoid a nuclear war with Russia.”

As it stands, the only certainty is that the spin war has gone berserk. So the leaker may have been a – disgruntled – U.S. insider. No, wait: the whole thing may be fake, as the Pentagon insists. In spin speak, that would be an attempt to “spread false information that could harm the U.S.”. Tweaked or not, the “secret” Pentagon comparative war dead ratio between Russians and Ukrainians still does not make sense. The numbers appear to reflect Bakhmut/Artemovsk casualties, where Russian casualty ratios were highest. Yet reliable on the ground Russian military correspondents assure the ratio is really 10 to 1, with the Russians employing the snail technique combined with a formidable artillery mincing machine.

[..] From the point of view of valuable military information, the indispensable Andrei Martyanov summed it all up: these “documents” contain none, apart from confirming that the Pentagon is absolutely clueless on the SMO: why is it happening, what is the modus operandi and what it plans to achieve. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov did cut to the chase: “We don’t have the slightest doubt about direct or indirect involvement of the U.S. and NATO (…) it cannot influence the final outcome of the special operation.” As Martyanov stresses, Russia maneuvers an extremely advanced ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) complex, including human intel on the ground, electronic warfare and satellite constellations: “In terms of war correlates and combat statistics – I wouldn’t touch anything coming from Pentagon with a long stick.”


There are indeed several serious issues with the Pentagon “top secret” intel. It oozes the impression it was redacted based on open data, and not actual intel. And all that packaged by some quite shoddy work. For instance, the insistence to “re-equip” Ukrainian air defense with missiles is not supported by data on where such missiles will be coming from. The name of the NASAMS – the middle range, ground based air defense system co-developed by Raytheon – is misspelled. In official NATO documents, weapons from the USSR and from Russia are indicated in NATO codification. There is no style uniformity: it’s a messy mix of official code designations and transliterations from Russian into English.

Read more …

They range from a “disgruntled employee to an insider threat who actively wanted to undermine US national security interests..”

Couldn’t have been someone who doesn’t like the risk of a nuclear war…

Explosive Pentagon Leak May Be An Insider Job – Reuters (RT)

The Pentagon suspects that a US citizen rather than a foreigner may have been responsible for the apparent leak of classified information containing several bombshell revelations, Reuters has reported. Officials offered several explanations of what may have motivated the leaker. Photos of documents appearing to originate from the Pentagon, with many marked as highly classified, were posted online in March. However, Western media reported that they may be authentic only last week. There are four of five theories on why the person or the group behind the leak did it, one of the US officials interviewed by Reuters said on condition of anonymity. They range from a “disgruntled employee to an insider threat who actively wanted to undermine US national security interests,” the news agency said on Sunday. Part of the ongoing investigation focuses on looking into how widely intelligence is shared internally to limit the sample of possible culprits, according to the sources.


Reuters stressed that it could not independently authenticate the leaked materials. US investigators claimed they could not rule out that some of the documents could have been doctored to mislead the inquiry or to disseminate false information. Media outlets produced a number of explosive reports based on the leak, some of which indicate that the US is spying on its closest allies, such as South Korea or Israel. One story asserted that the Israeli spy agency Mossad was fueling protests against Benjamin Netanyahu, a claim that the serving prime minister rejected as false. Several of the documents purportedly show the Pentagon’s perception of and actions regarding the conflict in Ukraine. The Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, was one of the targets of US espionage, CNN has reported. Another story by The Washington Post claimed that in late September 2022 Russia “almost shot down” a British spy plane.

Read more …

Wait. They’re 3 months old?! What happened in the meantime?

Secret Pentagon Documents First Surfaced On Internet In January – WSJ (TASS)

The classified Pentagon and US intelligence documents that recently appeared on the Internet first surfaced online in January, weeks before setting off alarms in the international community, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. According to the newspaper, the documents were posted “to a small group on a messaging channel that trafficked in memes, jokes and racist talk.” In January, an anonymous member of the chat posted files containing info on the Ukrainian conflict and intercepted messages on US allies, including Israel and South Korea, most of which were marked as classified. Hundreds of documents remained available to a narrow group of users of the Discord platform until early last month, when one of them posted some files to platforms with a wider audience. As soon as the leaked files attracted wider attention, the users rushed to delete their accounts and wipe the servers, fearing prosecution by US authorities or scrutiny from foreign intelligence agencies, the WSJ added.


US media reported earlier that the departments of Defense and Justice were investigating a leak of secret documents revealing American and NATO plans to build up Ukrainian forces before a counteroffensive. Numerous tranches of documents disclosing sensitive information about weapons delivery timeframes and troop strengths were posted on Twitter and Telegram. On Friday, the New York Times reported that another batch of classified US documents on Ukraine had been leaked on the Internet. The materials include sensitive briefing slides on the Middle East and China, the newspaper said. Those documents that appeared on the Internet may have been doctored, Reuters said. According to the news agency, the leak is seen as one of the biggest breaches of secret data since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables were released through WikiLeaks in 2013.

Read more …

“..the photos circulating on various social media platforms “appear to show documents similar in format to those used to provide daily updates to our senior leaders..”

Leaked Documents A ‘Serious Risk’ – Pentagon (RT)

In the first official comment on the online publication of classified military intelligence documents, a spokesman for the US Department of Defense said on Monday that this represented a “very serious risk” to Washington. The documents pose “a very serious risk to national security and have the potential to spread disinformation,” Chris Meagher told reporters. A Pentagon team is working to assess whether the documents are genuine, but the photos circulating on various social media platforms “appear to show documents similar in format to those used to provide daily updates to our senior leaders on Ukraine and Russia-related operations, as well as other intelligence updates,” Meagher added, while insisting that some “appear to have been altered.”

While the initial revelations concerned the Ukraine conflict, the latest batch of files that appeared on Friday contained information about China, South Korea, the “Indo-Pacific military theater,” the Middle East, counter-terrorism operations, and Israel. “We’re still investigating how this happened, as well as the scope of the issue,” Meagher said, adding that “there have been steps to take a closer look at how this type of information is distributed and to whom.” The crackdown has restricted the flow of intelligence at the Pentagon and indicates “a high level of panic” at the military, the Washington Post reported over the weekend, citing anonymous sources inside the DoD. One official told Reuters there were four or five theories as to who could have been a source, ranging from a “disgruntled employee to an insider threat.”

Both Russia and Ukraine have brushed off the documents’ significance. According to the Kremlin, Moscow has long known about Washington’s direct involvement in the conflict. Meanwhile, Russian military analysts speculated the information in the Pentagon briefings may have been falsified to mislead Russia about the upcoming Ukrainian “spring counteroffensive.” Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s adviser, Mikhail Podoliak, had initially dismissed the documents as fake and accused Russia of spreading disinformation. By Sunday, however, CNN was reporting that Kiev had already changed some of its military plans in response to the revelations. Aleksey Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, tweeted on Monday that there was no “magic date” for the Ukrainian attack, and that it was actually taking place “every day” on the battlefield.

Read more …

More on the way.

What’s Known So Far From The Leaked Intelligence Files (ZH)

Here are 14 more major revelations contained within the leaked intel document trove based on various media sources:


• Locations of CIA recruitment efforts focused on human agents which have access to closed-door conversations of world leaders
• Russia’s Wagner Group tried to obtain weapons from a NATO member: Turkey. Also, some of the internal future plans of Wagner are apparently known to US intelligence
• Details of sensitive satellite technology used to track Russian forces, namely the “LAPIS time-series video” – described as an advanced satellite system, which up until now has been a closely guarded secret
• Ukraine battlefield assessments prepared by the Pentagon
• The Guardian: “One slide suggested that a small contingent of less than a hundred special operations personnel from NATO members France, America, Britain, and Latvia were already active in Ukraine.”
• Descriptions of intelligence collection activities by the CIA, NSA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, law enforcement agencies and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO)
• One Feb. 23 review of the battlefield situation in Ukraine’s Donbas forecasts a “grinding campaign of attrition” by Russia that “is likely heading toward a stalemate, thwarting Moscow’s goal to capture the entire region in 2023.”
• WaPo: “The U.S. intelligence community has penetrated the Russian military and its commanders so deeply that it can warn Ukraine in advance of attacks and reliably assess the strengths and weaknesses of Russian forces.”
• WaPo: “A single page in the leaked trove reveals that the U.S. intelligence community knew the Russian Ministry of Defense had transmitted plans to strike Ukrainian troop positions in two locations on a certain date in February and that Russian military planners were preparing strikes on a dozen energy facilities and an equal number of bridges in Ukraine.”
• WaPo: A summary of analysis from the CIA’s World Intelligence Review, a daily publication for senior policymakers, says that Beijing is likely to view attacks by Ukraine deep inside Russian territory as “an opportunity to cast NATO as the aggressor,” and that China could increase its support to Russia if it felt the attacks were “significant.”
• Ukraine’s robust Soviet-era air defenses — which have thus far minimized the participation of Russian aircraft – could run out of ammunition in next several weeks.
• A purported CIA intelligence update — claims Israel’s Mossad supported protests against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Supreme Court reform scheme.
• One report says internal discussions show that South Korean officials are wary of requests to hand over artillery shells to the United States to replenish American stockpiles, out of concern they’d end up in Ukraine.
• Another report says that Ukrainian Air Defense is in peril if it’s not reinforced by Western allies

Read more …

“The MOD stated that the MQ-9 crashed on its own after going “into uncontrolled flight.”

US Military Pilots Apparently Told To Fly Farther From Crimea – WaPo (RT)

The US has apparently instructed its military to fly surveillance aircraft much farther from Crimea, Russia than they are allowed by international law, the Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing a leaked Pentagon document. The report comes after a trove of US classified files on the Ukraine conflict was dumped online last week. According to the newspaper, one document contains a map of an area where US spy planes may fly. It reportedly shows a boundary that starts around 12 miles (19.3 km) off the coast of Crimea, which is in accordance with international law, and a second line about 50 miles (80.4 km) from the shore marked as ‘SECDEF Direct Standoff’.

The map indicates that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “may have ordered US pilots to keep aircraft farther from the peninsula,” the Post wrote. On March 14, the US European Command (EUCOM) said Russian fighter jets forced it to bring down its own MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drone that was flying in international airspace above the Black Sea. According to EUCOM, Su-27s dumped fuel on the UAV and one of the Russian planes struck its propeller. The Russian Defense Ministry said the drone had entered a restricted area outlined by Moscow for its military operation in Ukraine.

The MOD stated that the MQ-9 crashed on its own after going “into uncontrolled flight.” Moscow also denied that there was physical contact between the drone and the planes dispatched to intercept it. Last week, the Pentagon and the Department of Justice launched separate probes into the leaks of top-secret files. One document circulating on social media appears to be a daily dispatch from the battlefield and shows the disposition of Ukrainian forces, as well as their training schedule. Another document seen by the Post claims that Russian jets nearly shot down a British reconnaissance aircraft over the Black Sea in September 2022.

Read more …

Duh…

US Spying On Zelensky – CNN (RT)

The US has been spying on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, CNN reported on Sunday, citing alleged intelligence reports that were leaked online last week. The supposed classified files are related to the Ukraine-Russia conflict, including a daily dispatch from the battlefield. The US allegedly surveilled the Ukrainian leader using signals intelligence, which the National Security Agency defines as communication intercepted from electronic devices. A source close to Zelensky was quoted as saying that the news is “unsurprising,” adding that officials in Kiev are “deeply frustrated” about the leak. According to CNN, a US intelligence report said that in late February, Zelensky “suggested striking Russian deployment locations in Russia’s Rostov Oblast” with drones because Kiev does not have long-range weapons that can hit targets that far.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last year that Kiev promised not to use American-made HIMARS multiple rocket launchers to strike targets deep inside Russia. Several newspapers reported at the time that, in order to avoid additional escalation with Moscow, Washington modified the launchers delivered to Ukraine so they could not fire longer-range projectiles. Drones have been used to attack airfields, oil depots, and other targets inside Russia after Moscow launched its military operation in the neighboring state in February 2022. The Russian Defense Ministry said last month that a Ukrainian modification of a Soviet-made Tu-141 Strizh (Swift) UAV was downed in Tula Region, 250km from the border with Ukraine.

Moscow claims that Kiev has used HIMARS and Western-supplied howitzers to kill civilians in Russia’s newly incorporated territories, which most countries still consider parts of Ukraine. The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, joined Russia after holding referendums in September. Other leaked documents show that the US has also been spying on state officials in South Korea and Israel, two key allies of Washington. South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s office said Seoul plans to discuss the “issues raised” as a result of the leak with the US. The Israeli government, meanwhile, rejected the “mendacious” claim from a leaked Pentagon document that the country’s intelligence agency, Mossad, was encouraging its staff and citizens to participate in street protests against the planned judicial reform.

Read more …

Trying to draw in israel… as China and Russia are uniting the Arab world…

Leaked Pentagon Documents: Scenarios For Israeli Arms Pipeline To Kiev (TASS)

The classified Pentagon and US intelligence documents that were recently leaked and appeared on the Internet sketch out potential scenarios in which Israel would supply Ukraine with lethal weapons, CNN reported. According to the media outlet, one of the documents, titled “Israel: Pathways to Providing Lethal Aid to Ukraine,” says that the Jewish state “likely will consider providing lethal aid under increased US pressure or a perceived degradation” in its relationship with Russia. NBC News, in turn, specified that a February 28 document assessed hypothetical situations that might drive Israel to provide military aid to Ukraine, as well as the types of weapons that could make up such deliveries to Kiev.

The so-called Turkish model is regarded as the most likely scenario, wherein Israel “sells lethal defense systems or provides them through third-party entities,” while openly advocating for peace and “offering to host mediation efforts.” Under an alternative scenario, Moscow’s support for Iran and Syria may prompt Israel to provide Ukraine with lethal aid. Earlier, Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh stated that the US Department of Defense “continues to review and assess the validity of the photographed documents that are circulating on social media sites.” According to her, “an interagency effort has been stood up, focused on assessing the impact these photographed documents could have on US national security and on our Allies and partners.”

According to Reuters, the leaked documents may have been doctored. They concern plans by the US and NATO to prepare the Ukrainian armed forces for a counteroffensive. Numerous files revealing information about weapons supply schedules and the number of troops were posted, particularly to Twitter and Telegram. The news agency points out that this could be the biggest leak since over 700,000 files, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the Wikileaks website in 2013.

Read more …

“..Ukraine needs 16 Iris-T or NASAMS batteries and 12 Patriot or SAMP-T batteries. US President Joe Biden has authorized the deployment of one Patriot battery, while Germany has pledged another..”

Ukrainian Air Defense Missiles To Run Out By May – WSJ (RT)

Ukraine will run out of most of its anti-air missiles by May, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing classified Pentagon documents leaked on social media. Facing the prospect of Russian air superiority, Kiev has been asking for more air defense systems from the West for months. According to a purported Pentagon presentation dated February 28, Ukraine is expending around 69 Buk missiles and 200 S-300 missiles per month, the newspaper reported. At this rate of fire, Kiev’s forces will be out of Buk ammunition by the end of this week, and will deplete its S-300 stockpile by May 3, it said. Sourcing missiles for these Soviet-built platforms is proving difficult for Kiev and its Western backers.

In their place, Ukraine has received three German Iris-T and eight American NASAMS anti-air systems. However, these systems consume around 64 missiles per month, and their limited number cannot cover as much territory as Ukraine’s S-300s, according to the document. To cover the shortfall, American military planners reportedly estimate that Ukraine needs 16 Iris-T or NASAMS batteries and 12 Patriot or SAMP-T batteries. US President Joe Biden has authorized the deployment of one Patriot battery, while Germany has pledged another and France and Italy have promised one SAMP-T system. None of these have reached Ukraine yet, a Ukrainian military spokesman told the Wall Street Journal.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has been asking the US and its allies for more air defense systems since last year, calling this equipment his “number one priority.” Zelensky and his aides have also pleaded for Western-made fighter jets like the American F-16, and while some European countries have said they are open to the idea, the US has thus far refused. The Pentagon has not yet confirmed the authenticity of the presentation, which is part of a trove of secret documents leaked and posted on social media over the last week. Other files in the leak detail the US’ war plans in Ukraine, its surveillance of its allies, and other “sensitive” material related to Ukraine, China, the Middle East, and terrorism.

Read more …

“..a bunch of rogue elements inside the [Ukrainian] government that are basically doing whatever they want..”

Zelensky Losing Control Of Intelligence Agents – Media (RT)

The US believes that elements of Ukraine’s intelligence service carried out a cross-border attack on a Russian spy plane in Belarus without approval from the Ukrainian government, Breaking Points journalist Saagar Enjeti reported on Monday, citing leaked documents. The attack saw a drone inflict minor damage to a Russian A-50 early warning and control aircraft stationed at the Machulishchy air base in Belarus last month. Belarusian authorities arrested a number of suspects, one allegedly linked to the Ukrainian secret police organization, the SBU, which Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko accused of orchestrating the attack with help from the CIA. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry “categorically” denied any involvement by Kiev, while Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhail Podoliak blamed the attack solely on “local partisans.”

The Pentagon, however, assessed that the SBU carried out the attack without seeking the approval of President Vladimir Zelensky or his officials, Enjeti said in a video report on Tuesday. The alleged Pentagon documents containing the assessment were leaked on social media last week, and have since received considerable media attention. The report on the plane attack raises the question of “how much control does Zelensky actually have” over his own intelligence apparatus, Enjeti said. “Perhaps this lends credence to the idea that there are a bunch of rogue elements inside the [Ukrainian] government that are basically doing whatever they want,” he continued, citing a string of terrorist attacks within Russia as potential SBU operations. The Kremlin has repeatedly blamed Ukraine and its intelligence services for these attacks, which include the bombing of the Crimean Bridge and the assassinations of journalist Daria Dugina and military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.

“Whenever Ukraine does something, who is doing it?” Enjeti asked. “Zelensky presents himself as the leader … but obviously there are elements of the government there that don’t listen to him. Who knows what they’re going to drag us into.” The US Department of Defense has not confirmed the authenticity of the leaked documents, although a department spokesman told reporters on Monday that the files posted on social media were “similar in format” to those used in Pentagon briefings and intelligence updates. The leak presents “a very serious risk” to Washington, he added. Other files in the leak detail the US’ war plans in Ukraine, its surveillance of its allies, Kiev’s rapidly depleting ammunition situation, and other “sensitive” material related to Ukraine, China, the Middle East, and terrorism.

Read more …

“Any man who draws upon the wisdom and patience displayed by President Kennedy to defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis would be on the right track when it comes to arms control.”

The Future of US Nuclear Strategy (Scott Ritter)

The harsh reality today is that neither of the two potential sources of viable presidential candidates for the 2024 election — Democratic National Committee or MAGA Republicans — are positioned to effect meaningful, positive change regarding either U.S. nuclear posture or underlying arms control policy. That leaves the American people, and the world as a whole, with the inevitability of a massive nuclear arms race between the U.S. and Russia, which will unfold unconstrained by meaningful arms control treaty-mandated limitations. This is nothing short of a recipe for disaster, a witch’s brew of ignorance-based fear magnified by the lack of inspections designed to mollify concerns over the respective nuclear threats posed by two nations no longer willing to engage in meaningful dialogue and, as a result, perched on the precipice of an apocalyptic abyss.


In short, a vote for either Biden/the Democratic establishment or Trump/MAGA Republicans is a vote in favor of continuous nuclear-armed Russian roulette, where there exists only one certainty — eventually the pistol will go off. But in this case, it’s not a pistol, but a nuclear weapon that leads to general nuclear war and the termination of life on planet earth as we currently know and understand it. The rally held in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 19 provided a platform for some voices of sanity who have presidential potential, either as independent candidates, or rogue outliers within their respective party establishments. Tulsi Gabbard, Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, and Jimmy Dore all addressed the threat posed by nuclear weapons and the need to control them through meaningful arms control.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1645331162687053824

But none who spoke have put anything in writing that would remotely constitute an arms control “standard” that could compete with either Biden or Trump — or their proxies — on the public stage. Moreover, other than Dore, a comedian, none of these individuals has announced an intention to run, making moot, for the moment at least, the notion of a third option on arms control and American nuclear posture. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, has announced his intention to challenge Biden for the Democratic nomination. While Kennedy, at this juncture, appears to be a long-shot, the likely mental and physical deterioration and possible incapacitation of Biden between now and November 2024, combined with the inadequacy of Vice President Kamala Harris as a presidential candidate, means the Democratic field could be thrown open.


Kennedy’s announcement puts him in position to be either the candidate himself, or to challenge whatever establishment figure the Democratic Party selects for the job. The question is whether Kennedy is willing or able to articulate a new American standard on arms control, one that embraces the best of the Trump Standard without the pugilistic arrogance Trump brings with it. Kennedy has not published a detailed position on arms control and the U.S. nuclear posture. But in a recent conversation with me, he spoke about the legacy of his uncle, Jack Kennedy, and how he took guidance from that legacy. Any man who draws upon the wisdom and patience displayed by President Kennedy to defuse the Cuban Missile Crisis would be on the right track when it comes to arms control.

Ritter US Army

Read more …

“The Serbs were the first victims and the Italians second in line, studying how depleted uranium affects the personnel using it..”

London Wants To ‘Scorch’ Ukraine Earth With Uranium Shells – Zakharova (TASS)

The United Kingdom wants to turn the territory of Ukraine into a “scorched earth” by supplying Kiev with depleted uranium munitions, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. The diplomat drew attention to statements from the UK Ministry of Defense, which said the day before that the impact of depleted uranium munitions on the health of military personnel and the environment would likely be “small.” “The UK, by supplying depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine, wants to turn its territory into a scorched and desolate land. No Russian will be spoken there, no Ukrainian will be spoken there, there will only be silence. Like in Pripyat and Chernobyl,” she wrote on her Telegram channel on Monday.

Zakharova recalled that depleted uranium munitions were mass-produced and used in NATO operations. “To a large extent, operations with such munitions in the NATO contingent were carried out by Italian servicemen. <…> Italian soldiers’ area of responsibility in Yugoslavia included territories where more than half of all the depleted uranium munitions were fired,” she added. “The Serbs were the first victims and the Italians second in line, studying how depleted uranium affects the personnel using it,” Zakharova said. She pointed to the growing number of lawsuits filed by Italians against the country’s defense ministry. “The underlying reason is the same – cancer. Cancer from handling depleted uranium munitions,” she said.

British Parliamentary Secretary of State Baroness Annabel Goldie said in a written response to a question by a member of the House of Lords in March that the United Kingdom would supply Ukraine with shells containing depleted uranium and having increased efficiency in destroying armored vehicles. The British Defense Ministry described depleted uranium as a standard component of armor-piercing ammunition, which has been used for decades. Commenting on the decision of the British authorities, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would be forced to respond accordingly to the fact that “the West is already starting to use weapons with a nuclear component.” The Russian embassy in the UK warned London against transferring depleted uranium ammunition to Kiev. The diplomatic mission’s commentary stressed that the move was fraught with an escalation of the conflict, while the use of such munitions in Ukraine would affect the health of the local population.

Read more …

“The White Host brought more than a dozen influencers to a State of Union watch party and was asked by one “when are we going to get press briefing passes?”

The Tik Tok President (SN)

According to an Axios report, Joe Biden’s campaign team is readying an “Army” of social media influencers and intends to station them within a briefing room at the White House. Biden’s handlers have apparently decided that the only way he’s going to win another election against Donald Trump is by securing the youth vote, a tough task given that he’s the oldest President ever. Deputy chief of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon said, “We’re trying to reach young people, but also moms who use different platforms to get information and climate activists and people whose main way of getting information is digital.” Going after the brainwashed Tik Tok obsessed woke crowd then, essentially. The report further notes that in February The White Host brought more than a dozen influencers to a State of Union watch party and was asked by one “when are we going to get press briefing passes?” prompting the administration to become “actually very responsive to it.” It’s like something out of Idiocracy:

Biden’s handlers have done this before, back in March last year they hosted around 30 TikTok stars and gave them a briefing on events in Ukraine. White House director of digital strategy, Rob Flaherty decried that the influencers should be getting information from “an authoritative source.” The news also comes amid revelations that George Soros’ son is a regular visitor to the White House, having been invited 14 times since Biden took office. Why? As we highlighted last week, Biden is drowning with voters on every issue, and only one third want to see him win another term. When it comes to Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents, a majority, 54 percent, said they would prefer a different candidate, with only 44 percent giving approval of Biden as the nominee. Among voters under the age of 35, Biden is favoured as a candidate by just 26 percent

Read more …

It won’t come from the EU. Or the US.

India and China To Drive Half Of World’s Economic Growth – IMF (RT)

The global economic slowdown will continue this year, but Asia will remain “a bright spot,” says the International Monetary Fund (IMF). India and China will account for half of the global growth, with “some momentum” expected to come from emerging economies, according to IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. The IMF chief forecast the world’s economy to grow at less than 3% in 2023, in line with the fund’s January estimate of 2.9%. Georgieva said the pattern would remain over the next five years, since the period of slower economic activity should be prolonged. She stated that the projections represent the IMF’s “lowest medium-term growth forecast since 1990, and [are] well below the average of 3.8% from the past two decades.”


Some 90% of advanced economies are expected to witness a decline in their growth rates in 2023, Georgieva said. She also said that low-income nations were being handicapped by sluggish demand for their exports, with their per-capita income growth remaining below that of emerging economies. According to IMF projections, poverty and hunger, which measurably increased during the Covid-19 pandemic, could still grow further. Georgieva’s comments come ahead of this week’s spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank, where policy-makers will convene to discuss the global economy’s most pressing issues.

Read more …

“All news is to some degree propaganda. Let people decide for themselves..”

Musk Responds To Criticism Over Medvedev Tweet (RT)

Twitter CEO Elon Musk has rejected calls to crack down on the account of former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev after the latter posted that Ukraine would eventually vanish from the world map. One user asked the billionaire why he allowed “Russian leaders back on the platform” and why he did not abide by the Western sanctions while attaching Medvedev’s tweet. In a post, the ex-Russian president claimed that Ukraine would sooner or later disappear because neither the global community nor its own citizens have a need for it. “All news is to some degree propaganda. Let people decide for themselves,” Musk replied on Sunday. Later, he also tweeted that the social media platform “will neither promote nor limit their [Russian officials’] accounts, but we will rapidly address any attempts at gaming the system.”


“It is a weak move to engage in censorship just because others do so. Letting our press be free when theirs is not demonstrates strength,” he added. In April 2022, after Moscow started its military campaign against Ukraine, Twitter slapped restrictions on Russian state-affiliated accounts, including the Kremlin official account. At the time, the social media platform said it would “not amplify or recommend government accounts belonging to states that limit access to free information and are engaged in armed interstate conflict.” Russia blocked Twitter in early March 2022 after the nation’s media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, accused the platform of spreading misinformation about the Ukraine conflict.

Read more …

“I think it’s time to review this measure, given the new policies of the new leadership..”

Lawmaker Proposes To Unblock Twitter In Russia (TASS)

Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, suggested looking into the possibility of unblocking Twitter in Russia after the social network reinstated the accounts of a number of Russian state agencies. On Friday, Twitter once again restored the accounts of the Kremlin, the Russian Foreign Ministry, the Defense Ministry and other ministries, as well as Russian embassies abroad. “As for lifting restrictions on government agencies, many of them are in no hurry to reactivate their accounts, especially since Twitter is officially blocked in Russia. But I think it’s time to review this measure, given the new policies of the new leadership,” the lawmaker wrote on his Telegram channel on Monday.


According to him, if the social network is now aimed at neutrality, it is necessary to resume dialogue with it and continue working within the framework of the legislation of the Russian Federation. “For our government departments, Twitter can once again become a convenient platform to explain Russia’s position to Western audiences,” Gorelkin added. Access to twitter.com was restricted in Russia by order of the Prosecutor General’s Office dated February 24 [2022] .

Read more …

“..they are carrying out plans that were made years ago when conditions and assumptions were different. Those plans have implacable momentum. You can see how all this is going to end badly.”

A Nervous Hiatus (Jim Kunstler)

[..] my more pertinent point du jour is about the journey from where I live in upstate New York to Washington DC and back. I made the trip by car because the affordable airplane routes all involved absurd hours-long connecting layovers in far-flung cities at fantastic prices, and there were no seats left on the soviet-grade Amtrak train service at any times that worked. It’s been a while since I traveled the New York to Washington corridor on-the-ground in a car, and the experience was maximally horrifying. The various Departments of Transportation of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland are working out there at heroic scale to upgrade their stretches of the interstate highways involved. The amount of concrete, steel, and asphalt getting laid down now boggles the mind, considering the essential bankruptcy at all levels of government. But more to point, they are doing this at the very time when the age of mass-motoring is drawing to close.

Government itself is now militating against it, with its poorly thought-out crusade against the internal combustion engine and its promotion of electric cars that Americans can’t afford to buy, while the electric grid can’t possibly support all that proposed battery-charging at the mass scale. (Let’s leave aside for now whatever nefarious influence the World Economic Forum exerts on all this). In any case, the standard of living is crashing in Western Civ now. Incomes are down, or lost altogether, inflation is up, and with it the price of cars. The car industry has reached its limit for trick loan schemes that enable the tapped-out middle-class to regularly replace their vehicles. Not to put too fine a point on it, the system is fucked.And yet, here we are, building ever more motoring infrastructure as if none of this is happening. The reason, naturally, is that immense bureaucracies like the DOTs have minds of their own. They are not responding to conditions as they are; they are carrying out plans that were made years ago when conditions and assumptions were different. Those plans have implacable momentum. You can see how all this is going to end badly.

Now, I planned my return trip with a layover night outside Philadelphia, so I could leave before the crack-of-dawn Easter Sunday, when few other cars would be on the road. That proved to be the case. But even nearly alone on the highway, and with pretty good navigational skills of my own, plus the help of GPS, I made several wrong turns. This was mostly because the signage contradicted the lady robot’s voice issuing instructions, as well as my own geographical heuristics, especially in the long stretch north up the whole length of New Jersey. There were a few times I felt I barely escaped getting killed making last-second turns. There were extended moments when I thought: I’m in Hell.

Anyway, I made it home alive and undamaged. I’d never want to do that trip again, and the way things are going, I may not have to. The Easter holiday was a strange hiatus in a year that promises fantastic turbulence in public affairs, including especially American politics and our wobbling economy. Financial markets and banks managed to levitate through the first weeks of springtime, but there is a bad odor of imminent failure in the air, at the same time that government’s war against its own citizens shows signs of hardening into the threat of digital currency, renewed efforts at censorship, persecution of political opponents, and a growing awareness of “vaccine” caused death. The natives are restless, the animals are stirring. Events creep toward criticality.

Read more …

“This risk of a treatment is unprecedented in the history of modern medicine.”

The Three Most Important Lessons from Three Years of Hell (Kory)

Three years after COVID-19 hijacked the world, Hollywood celebrities are mocking the vaccine on “Saturday Night Live,” Bernie Sanders is hauling Moderna’s CEO before Congress, and a member of the Kennedy family is launching a primary challenge to President Joe Biden by railing on the vaccines that the White House continues to promote. How times have changed. In 3 short years, many perspectives dismissed as “fringe” or “anti-science” in 2020 have become obvious and even mainstream. As a doctor whose livelihood has been threatened for challenging some of these points of view, these developments give me no pleasure. Wherever else we may disagree, we must look to the future and prepare for the next public health emergency. Here are three places to start.


First, when a crisis hits, public health leaders should prioritize transparency and promote open debate. Throughout the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) restricted the flow of information and only published data that supported its narrow political objectives. But as we’ve seen, facts will eventually come to light, and the cover-up is always worse than the crime. Nowhere is this principle clearer than the origins of the COVID virus. Dr. Anthony Fauci is still saying it’s “very tough to tell” if the FBI and Energy Department are correct about the lab-leak theory. He is standing by his claims of “natural occurrence,” and lashing out at those who disagree as “insane.” Fortunately, his days of running amok with no accountability are over. The House of Representatives voted 419-0 to force the Biden administration to declassify all information about COVID’s origins. Former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield has called for a moratorium on gain-of-function research. These are two important places to start.

24,000 pages
https://twitter.com/i/status/1645578142923345925

Second, don’t pretend there is a silver bullet. Complex public health problems demand complex solutions — every time. Biden, Fauci, and crew hung their entire COVID strategy on lockdowns followed by vaccines. In doing so, they made promises they could not keep and used absurd claims — like CDC Director Dr. Walensky insisting that vaccinated people couldn’t spread COVID or even get sick — to force an agenda that only set Americans against one another. Of course, Walensky was forced to admit she was wrong on this (and plenty more). Yet the US still requires international visitors to be vaccinated against COVID-19, and the world number one tennis player (Novak Djokovic), my favorite athlete, cannot enter our country to participate in upcoming tournaments. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis deserves credit for suggesting he could “run a boat from the Bahamas” for Djokovic to compete in the Miami Open tennis tournament that took place month, but it should not come to that. There are other options to treat COVID, including repurposing existing generic drugs. This is no longer a fringe cause. Russell Brand generated national headlines for taking the mainstream media to task for dismissing drugs like ivermectin, which have been promoted by the likes of Joe Rogan and Aaron Rodgers.


Third, policymakers must recognize that snap crisis decisions can leave people hurt. No one expects a perfect public response, but there must be safety net for those who get caught up in the single-minded approach. Consider vaccine associated enhanced disease (VAED), the ghastly scenario where a vaccine not only fails to prevent transmission but creates a more serious illness in a vaccinated person than one who is unvaccinated. According to the CDC’s “V-safe” safety monitoring system, 33 percent of people who received a COVID vaccine experienced severe adverse effects, and 7.7 percent have required hospitalization. I have never in my career prescribed any medicine or administered any therapy which even came close to a 1 percent risk of requiring medical attention as a result of that therapy. This risk of a treatment is unprecedented in the history of modern medicine.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

BBee

 

 

SNL

 

 


This is a 200 kilogram preserved blue whale heart

 

 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1645666609141538816

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Photographer Wu Yung-sen has been deep sea diving and photographing marine life for four years. On a recent blackwater dive—unable to see the bottom and surrounded by impenetrable space—he chanced upon a rare larval Wunderpus octopus, totally transparent

 

 

Monkey tree frog

 

 

 

 

Support the Automatic Earth in virustime with Paypal, Bitcoin and Patreon.