Oct 122023
 


Pablo Picasso Self portrait with palette 1906

 

Israeli Assault on Gaza is Doomed to Fail (Scott Ritter)
Western Virtue Signaling Goes Hypersonic Over Israel (Marsden)
The Silence Of The Bears – Russia Is Reorienting Towards The Arabs (Helmer)
Russia Always Supported Establishment Of Palestinian State – Putin (TASS)
How A US ‘Peace Plan’ Brought War To Israel’s Doorstep (Fomenko)
Source of Dubious ‘Beheaded Babies’ Claim Is Israeli Settler Leader (GZ)
Extensive Gas Reserves Off The Gaza Coastline (Monotti)
Scott Ritter: Untracked US Arms to Client Regimes Land in Terrorist Hands (Sp.)
Western Political System Doesn’t Bring Smartest People To The Top – Putin (RT)
Zelensky ‘Starting To Annoy’ Everyone In US, Europe – Peskov (TASS)
Elon Musk Predicts ‘Civil War’ In Europe (RT)
Biden Classified Doc Scandal Deepens (ZH)
VP Biden Emailed About Son’s Business 29,000+ Times (Fed.)
The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) May Undermine Fundamental Rights (BR)

 

 

 

 

Nap/Ritter

 

 

Assad

 

 

 

 

Rand Paul
https://twitter.com/i/status/1712108710909091959

 

 

RFK

 

 

 

 

“The Israeli military today is more comfortable making TikTok videos and posting Instagram photographs..”

Israeli Assault on Gaza is Doomed to Fail (Scott Ritter)

Israel has amassed some 300,000 troops, armed with tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and artillery, and supported by helicopters and fixed wing aircraft. Their mission is to secure the perimeter around Gaza to make sure that Hamas fighters are not able to sortie forth and commit atrocities against the citizens of Israel like those that occurred on October 7 and 8. At some point it is estimated that these troops will be ordered into Gaza for the purpose of destroying Hamas as an organization. But the sad fact is that the Israeli Army today is not up to such a mission. It lacks the training and fortitude for a task like that, regardless of outcome, and will cost Israel thousands of lives if seen to fruition. Any Israeli assault on Gaza is doomed to fail before it even begins.

A short look back at the preparedness and training of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) helps underscore the reasoning behind such a bleak assessment. Earlier this year, over the course of two weeks, stretching from late May through early June, the IDF carried out a massive exercise, code named “Firm Hand,” which tested the Israeli capability to wage war on multiple fronts. Like a similar exercise held the year before, code named “Chariots of Fire,” the “Firm Hand” event focused on a major air campaign being waged against Iran, and a major ground war being waged against Hezbollah, in northern Israel/southern Lebanon. Both exercises envisioned that there would be outbreaks of localized violence in the West Bank and along the Gaza Strip that would need to be contained by forces allocated to the Central and Southern military commands, respectively.

The focus of effort for both exercises was the Northern Command, and more specifically, the border with Lebanon. There, beyond the border, were located the forces of Hezbollah, a Lebanese political party which maintained a militia larger, better trained, and better equipped than most armies. Israel fought a 34-day war with Hezbollah in August 2006, pitting a force that had grown to over 30,000 troops, backed by tanks, artillery, helicopters, and fixed wing aircraft, against a lightly armed unit of around 3,000 fighters. The war was an unmitigated disaster for the IDF. Hezbollah commanders found that Israeli troops were by and large poorly organized and disciplined, with very little training that was relevant to the rigors of modern war. Israeli tank operators were unfamiliar with tactics relevant to the terrain they were operating in, leaving themselves open to Hezbollah attacks that ended up destroying 20 of Israel’s vaunted Merkava tanks.

Israel has been struggling to overcome the stain of its 2006 defeat at the hands of Hezbollah. In 2016, the IDF embarked on Project Gideon, a five-year plan designed to reconfigure and retrain the Israeli Army so that it would not repeat the mistakes of 2006. When Project Gideon was completed, Israel then embarked on what it called the “Tnufa” (“Momentum”) plan, intended to build on the changes effected under Project Gideon. Part of the Tnufa plan is something called Ground Horizon, a series of technical innovations designed to make Israeli ground forces more effective. The IDF forces participating in both the Chariots of Fire and Firm Hand exercises had been at the receiving end of the Project Gideon/Tnufa/Ground Horizon changes. Two of the IDF’s premier units, the 91st “Galilee” Division, responsible for defending against Hezbollah from Lebanon, and the 36th Ga’ash (“Golan”) Armored Division, which is responsible for the Syrian border, took the lead in the exercises.

They carried out a multidivisional exercise where they conducted combined arms training against a Hezbollah-like foe. The Central Command and Southern Command practiced several counterterrorism exercises which emphasized the security of residents in Judea and Samaria. When the Firm Hand exercise was completed, the IDF high command declared it a success. They had not exercised against an event like the Hamas attacks of October 7-8 of this year. Urban combat is extraordinarily difficult. It is made even more so when a defender can settle in amongst the rubble of a destroyed city. Ask the Germans at Stalingrad. Ask the French, British, Indians, and Poles who fought at Monte Casino. Ask either the Ukrainians or Russians about Mariupol and Artemovsk (Bakhmut).

The Israeli military today is more comfortable making TikTok videos and posting Instagram photographs than they are in perfecting the skillsets needed to close with and destroy your enemy through firepower and maneuver. This is a military that, with a few exceptions found in the elite reconnaissance units of the IDF, has grown accustomed to a peacetime ritual more akin to the life of a corrections officer than soldier. The IDF has become experts at arresting children, beating up women, and murdering unarmed men. Digging a competent enemy out of the rubble of a destroyed city, especially when they have prepared and organized for such a battle, is deadly work. The Israeli troops who have been assembled outside of Gaza are not ready for this fight. They are not trained or equipped for this fight. They are not psychologically prepared for this fight.

Read more …

“..some egghead in Brussels is watching coverage of all the gas guzzling pickup trucks used by Hamas to raid villages and kidnap people and asking, “What’s the carbon footprint on those?”

Western Virtue Signaling Goes Hypersonic Over Israel (Marsden)

“Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel,” tweeted European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, effectively blessing a carte blanche response by the notoriously measured and restrained Israeli leadership in response to the Hamas attacks. “Who do you think you are? You’re unelected, and have no authority to determine EU foreign policy, which is set by @EUCouncil,” replied Irish MEP Clare Daly. “Europe does NOT ‘stand with Israel’. We stand for peace. You do not speak for us. If you’ve nothing constructive to say, and you clearly don’t, shut up.” In a single tweet, von der Leyen managed to position all of Europe as more militant than even the editorial staff of one of Israel’s main national newspapers, Haaretz, which placed blame for the attacks squarely on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of “annexation and dispossession” which “openly ignored the existence and rights of Palestinians.”

The implication is that no action occurs in a vacuum absent the risk of sparking a reaction. The danger of Europe’s unelected Queen Ursula unilaterally launching hypersonic virtue signaling missiles in a knee-jerk emotional response is that it can’t possibly substitute for foreign policy decided in more sobering moments. Yet these days, more often than not, it’s the only kind of foreign policy we get, on everything from Israel to Ukraine. In yet another example of symbolism getting ahead of policy pragmatism, the EU announced withdrawal of its support for Palestine … before walking back the move just hours later. On Monday, Israel’s defense minister announced that the IDF was going to blockade Gaza even more than usual by preventing any entry of water, food, fuel, and electricity.

And just a couple hours later, EU Neighborhood and Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi said the bloc was joining the cause – by withholding its humanitarian funding for the Palestinian people. Germany and Austria were the first to get the ball rolling on funding withdrawal. However, a few hours later, the EU aid freeze was reversed by the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, after an apparent epiphany that it would only end up “punishing all the Palestinian people” and would have “only further emboldened terrorists.” There’s no way Brussels may have been inadvertently funding those terrorists in the first place, is there? [..] Or maybe, given all the climate-conscious verbiage attached to the aid, the EU just got angry that Hamas’ hang gliders were motorized. You just know that some egghead in Brussels is watching coverage of all the gas guzzling pickup trucks used by Hamas to raid villages and kidnap people and asking, “What’s the carbon footprint on those?”

All the virtue signaling in the world can’t now compensate for a lack of due diligence that the schizophrenic withdrawal and subsequent reinstatement of Palestinian funding suggests. It wouldn’t be the first time that innocent people suffered because of Brussels’ incompetence. Just ask the people of the entire European bloc currently facing seemingly endless economic hardship so their leaders can keep patting themselves on the back for supporting Ukraine. And just like in Ukraine, Brussels doesn’t seem too interested in availing itself of an opportunity to play any kind of a mitigating or thoughtful role amid this conflict, but is rather taking its usual seat in riding shotgun to the US neocons on whatever the current thing happens to be.

While even Secretary of State Antony Blinken says that there’s no “smoking gun” tying Iran to the latest Hamas attacks, that hasn’t stopped the usual neocon warmongers on the American side of the Transatlantic alliance from substituting sloganeering for actual policy, either – in favor of Iranian regime change, of course. “This is one of history’s best cases for regime change,” said former US National Security Advisor John Bolton. Because, when it comes to drumming up Iranian regime change, neocons are suddenly willing to take Hamas’ word to the bank as their trustworthy source for Iran’s involvement. “The Biden Administration should get a spine and pin the blame on Tehran where it belongs,” Bolton later added. It “belongs,” facts and policy be damned, because it fits the radical neocon narrative, even if it ends up being to the detriment of American lives and interests.

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“..Erdogan and Putin are contemplating a Turkish ship convoy of aid to Gaza, protected from Israeli attack by the Russian Navy from its Tartous base on the Syrian coast, and by the Russian Air Force from Hmeimim..”

The Silence Of The Bears – Russia Is Reorienting Towards The Arabs (Helmer)

From a policy of equivalence and equivocation between Israel and the Arabs, Russia has reached the policy of engagement on the Arab side. The driver has been the US war to defeat and destroy Russia through the Ukraine. The longer the new Palestinian war lasts, the more clearly Russian military and political strategy in the Middle East will pursue a new anti-American line. The consequences are as great as the defeat of the US and NATO which Russia is now inflicting in Europe, and of the western sanctions war in the global commodity markets and the trading lanes at sea. “We are witnessing a sharp deterioration of the situation in the Middle East,” Putin said in his public welcome for Iraq’s prime minister, Muhammed Shia al-Sudani, at the Kremlin on Tuesday morning.

“I think that many will agree with me that this is a clear example of the United States’ failed policy in the Middle East, which tried to monopolise the settlement process, but, unfortunately, was not concerned with finding compromises acceptable to both sides, but, on the contrary, put forward its own ideas about how this should be done and put pressure on both sides, truly both — first on one, then on the other. But each time without considering the fundamental interests of the Palestinian people, bearing in mind, first of all, the need to implement the decision of the UN Security Council on the creation of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state.” The Foreign Ministry followed Putin later in the afternoon, when the regular weekly briefing by Maria Zakharova was advanced several days early in order to report there have been direct negotiations with the leaders of Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the Arab League, Iran, and Turkey – not with Israel.”*

“The US bet on the ‘freezing’ of the status quo and the promotion of ‘economic peace’, as well as the use of collective formats tailored for crisis response, has not justified itself,” Zakharova said. “Everyone sees the result…The statements of American politicians and public figures calling for ethnic cleansing in the region look monstrous. They openly call for one group of people [to be] near-doomed to complete destruction. Once again, aggression, violation of the rule of law, and the caveman’s hatred have emerged on the surface of the American declarations of good looks and human rights dogmas.” In the first direct Russian warning to the US Navy force in the Eastern Mediterranean, Zakharova added: “So far we see that the situation is developing along the path of escalation. There is a great risk of involving third forces in this conflict. And this is fraught with long-term consequences for the region and for the world.”

Putin followed in the evening on the telephone with the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “The need for an immediate ceasefire by both sides and the resumption of the negotiation process was emphasised,” according to the Kremlin’s communiqué. “Mutual readiness to actively contribute to this was expressed…Separate issues of Russian-Turkish cooperation in various fields were also touched upon.” Erdogan’s press release was more revealing. He and Putin had “touched upon what initiatives can be taken to meet humanitarian needs in the region, as the Turkish president told Putin that targeting civilian settlements is worrying and Türkiye does not welcome such move.” Erdogan’s twitter announcement adds: “President Erdogan and President Putin of Russia also exchanged views on potential initiatives to meet humanitarian needs in the region.”

This is a hint that Erdogan and Putin are contemplating a Turkish ship convoy of aid to Gaza, protected from Israeli attack by the Russian Navy from its Tartous base on the Syrian coast, and by the Russian Air Force from Hmeimim. This humanitarian operation by sea would aim at breaking the blockade of the coast by the Israelis, and running the gauntlet of the USS Gerald Ford and its squadron further offshore. If this operation, a reminder of the Gaza Flotilla of 2010, is in planning now – the open signals are warning Washington and the US Navy to expect it – then the confrontation, and the risk to the US and Israel of strategic defeat at sea, are unprecedented.

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“..those who have been trying for decades to solve this problem by force have the upper hand. Unfortunately, this leads to such tragic events as we are witnessing now..”

Russia Always Supported Establishment Of Palestinian State – Putin (TASS)

Russia has always advocated the implementation of the UN Security Council’s decision on the creation of an independent Palestinian state, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the plenary session of the Russian Energy Week. “We have always supported the implementation of the decisions of the UN Security Council, I mean, first of all, the creation of an independent Palestinian state. This is the root of all problems,” Putin pointed out. He also said that Russia’s position on the settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict did not emerge as a result of the recent tragic events, but was formed over the past decades. “And this position is well known both to the Israeli side and to our friends in Palestine,” the Russian president added.

He noted that the Palestinian-Israeli issue has been accompanied and aggravated by “mediation activities” of a number of countries in recent years. According to the Russian president, there are still political figures and experts in these countries today who believe that it is necessary to follow the path of creating an independent state. “And there are such people in Israel. But those who have been trying for decades to solve this problem by force have the upper hand. Unfortunately, this leads to such tragic events as we are witnessing now,” Putin said.

Read more …

Abraham Accords. Trump, Kushner, Pompeo.

How A US ‘Peace Plan’ Brought War To Israel’s Doorstep (Fomenko)

Conflict between Israel and Palestine is about as common as the sun rising in the East, but this time it is different, not only because of the frightening number of victims on both sides over just a few days, but because such conflicts have not constituted a formal war since 1973, and the legally recognized territory of Israel has not been invaded by an enemy since 1948. The stakes are huge, but one might question, how exactly did it come to this? Why is this happening now? And how does it relate to the broader context of not only the Middle East, but the world? Two words: Abraham Accords. The United States’ push to create a one-sided, unbalanced and effective appeasement of Israel’s actions, coupled with an attempt to use such to isolate Iran, has led to the calculation by Hamas that the only way to salvage its cause is to unleash a full-scale armed struggle.

In doing so, the militants’ goal is not to destroy Israel head on, because we must acknowledge that such an outcome is not possible. Rather, it is to turn the diplomatic and political tide in the region against Israel and the US in the name of a new Jihad. The Abraham Accords are a peace initiative started in 2020 by the Trump administration that seeks to get Arab countries to unilaterally recognize the State of Israel, without West Jerusalem itself making any concessions regarding the issue of Palestinian statehood. Through the accords, driven by the pro-Israel fanaticism of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the US was successful in getting the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Morocco, and Bahrain to open up diplomatic relations with Israel. The US typically incentivized this by making unilateral concessions to these countries as part of a deal, such as removing Sudan from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list or recognizing Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara.

The Abraham Accords were not a serious peace initiative because all they did was bribe countries to effectively side with Israel and abandon Palestine, instead of seeking peace in one of the most prominent simmering conflicts in the region. Moreover, the accords’ true geopolitical intention was to facilitate the diplomatic isolation of Iran by weakening and splitting the anti-Zionist cause. The grander strategy, by extension, was to facilitate American hegemony over the Middle East, given Israel’s very close relations with the US. Opposition to the US in the region has always gone hand-in-hand with opposition to Israel, be it through Arab nationalism (Syria, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and, historically, Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt) or Islamic fundamentalism (Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas).

In line with this, the US hoped that, by diplomatically isolating Iran, imposing tough sanctions on it and attempting to force it to capitulate on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, Washington could sustain its order over the Middle East and maintain its favourable security relationships in the region. The Abraham Accords, to this end, encouraged appeasement of Israel, rather than making a mutually acceptable compromise which sought to move towards a two-state solution. In promoting this, the US was happy to allow Israel under Netanyahu to continually move the goalposts towards a “one-state solution” and to effectively ignore Palestinian resistance, which it now describes as “unprovoked.”

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”..who incited riots to ‘wipe out’ Palestinian village..”

Source of Dubious ‘Beheaded Babies’ Claim Is Israeli Settler Leader (GZ)

After an Israeli reserve soldier named David Ben Zion told a reporter Palestinian militants “cut [off] heads of babies,” Biden, Netanyahu, and the international media amplified the dubious claim. The Grayzone has identified Ben Zion as a fanatical settler leader who incited riots by demanding a Palestinian town be “wiped out.” An international outcry erupted when Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced that Palestinian militants from the besieged Gaza Strip had killed 40 “babies,” and beheaded several of them during an incursion into Kfar Aza, a kibbutz on the Gaza border. President Joseph Biden repeated the inflammatory claim during an October 10 White House Rose Garden address, while networks across the West carried the story without a shred of critical scrutiny.

According to CNN correspondent Nic Robertson, apparently citing Israeli military sources, Palestinian militants carried out, “ISIS-style executions,” in which they were “cutting the heads off of people,” including babies and pets. The Grayzone has now identified a key source of the claim that Palestinian militants beheaded Israeli babies. He is David Ben Zion, a Deputy Commander of Unit 71 of the Israeli army who also happens to be an extremist settler leader who incited violent riots against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank earlier this year. In an October 10 interview with reporter Nicole Zedek of the Israeli state-sponsored i24 network, Ben Zion stated, “We walked door to door, we killed a lot of terrorists. They are very bad. They cut heads of children, they cut heads of women. But we are stronger than them.” He added, “We know that they are animals,” referring to Palestinians, “but we found that they don’t have any heart.”

Hours after his interview with i24, still in the village of Kfar Aza, a uniformed Ben Zion could be seen repeatedly grinning ear-to-ear in a video posted to his Facebook – an odd disposition for a supposed witness to the methodical butchering of babies. Earlier that day, i24’s Zedek declared during a live report from Kfar Aza, “About 40 babies were taken out on gurneys… Cribs overturned, strollers left behind, doors left wide open.’” Zedek’s report has been viewed tens of millions of times on Twitter and promoted by Israel’s Foreign Ministry – which underwrites her network. Hours later, she qualified her statement, stating, “Soldiers told me they believe 40 babies/children were killed. The exact death toll is still unknown as the military continues to go house to house and find more Israeli casualties.” Yet the unverified tale quickly made its way to the highest levels of leadership, as if by design.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman stated unequivocally that babies and toddlers were found with their “heads decapitated,” while President Joe Biden himself vaguely gestured towards “stomach-churning reports of babies being killed.” Likewise, cable news has flown into a frenzy, breathlessly reporting the story despite the IDF walking back its initial confirmation. Meanwhile, some reporters who initially carried the official Israeli allegations about beheaded babies began issuing qualifications of their own. Oren Ziv, an Israeli reporter who joined the military’s official tour of Kfar Aza, commented on Twitter, “I’m getting a lot of question about the reports of ‘Hamas beheaded babies’ that were published after the media tour in the village. During the tour we didn’t see any evidence of this, and the army spokesperson or commanders also didn’t mention any such incidents.”

Read more …

X thread.

Extensive Gas Reserves Off The Gaza Coastline (Monotti)

Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline: “It should be noted that 60 percent of the gas reserves along the Gaza-Israel coastline belong to Palestine. The BG Group drilled two wells in 2000: Gaza Marine-1 and Gaza Marine-2. Reserves are estimated by British Gas to be of the order of 1.4 trillion cubic feet, valued at approximately 4 billion dollars. These are the figures made public by British Gas. The size of Palestine’s gas reserves could be much larger.

Who Owns the Gas Fields?
The issue of sovereignty over Gaza’s gas fields is crucial. From a legal standpoint, the gas reserves belong to Palestine. The death of Yasser Arafat, the election of the Hamas government and the ruin of the Palestinian Authority have enabled Israel to establish de facto control over Gaza’s offshore gas reserves. British Gas (BG Group) has been dealing with the Tel Aviv government. In turn, the Hamas government has been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields.

In 2006, British Gas “was close to signing a deal to pump the gas to Egypt.” (Times, May, 23, 2007). According to reports, British Prime Minister Tony Blair intervened on behalf of Israel with a view to shunting the agreement with Egypt.

Gaza and Energy Geopolitics. The military occupation of Gaza is intent upon transferring the sovereignty of the gas fields to Israel in violation of international law.”

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“We do that everywhere we go. We just give the weapons away and we walk away…

Scott Ritter: Untracked US Arms to Client Regimes Land in Terrorist Hands (Sp.)

US military aid to its client regimes goes unaccounted for — and often finds its way to terrorist groups, says a former UN weapons inspector. Video emerged this week of a Hamas guerrilla thanking the US for the rifle he carried in the groups incursion into Israel, saying it came from a shipment of weapons to Ukraine that had found its way onto the black market. Scott Ritter told Sputnik that Washington is lackadaisical when it comes to keeping track of arms it gifts to its foreign proxies. “We’ve seen the weapons some of the Hamas assault squads are making use of American-made M4 rifles,” Ritter noted. “So it’s not a question of whether or not they have them. We know they have them. The question is, where did they get them from?” “Historically we tend to flood a client state with weapons as part of our security agreement,” Ritter said.

“The American calculation is never about the quality of the assistance being provided, but the quantity, because the quantification is linked to a dollar figure that the US Congress has established.” “That dollar figure needs to be translated into a deliverable that could be reported back to Congress, saying that we have provided this much money for this and that. And so weapons is the easiest thing we will send in,” he added. He recalled how during the Western occupation of Iraq, advisers to the new police force asked for rifles and handguns from the US — which corrupt officers then sold on the black market. The firearms ultimately ended up in the hands of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)* militants in neighboring Turkiye, where they were captured by police and traced back to the US.

“We do that everywhere we go. We just give the weapons away and we walk away,” Ritter said. Washington’s failure to keep track of its arms handouts to the Kiev regime is also being felt acutely in West Africa.”We see the same thing in Africa, where weaponry that we provided to Ukraine, in particular handheld anti-tank missiles, are showing up in the Lake Chad region in the hands of Boko Haram, the Islamist terrorist group that’s using them against Niger forces, the forces from Chad, forces from Nigeria, forces from Cameroon, many of these forces whom we train,” Ritter said. “Our weapons that we send to Ukraine get in the hands of the people that are fighting the forces that are ostensibly friendly to us. So this is a big problem.”

The former US Marine said government officials seemed unconcerned where the billions of dollars’ worth of military aid ends up. “There’s literally no accounting for these weapons,” Ritter warned. “There’s no quality control in terms of being able to tell Congress or tell anybody, American policymakers, what the status of these weapons is.”

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“Europe could have just said: ‘Open this route now. We need it to support our economy. But no..”

Western Political System Doesn’t Bring Smartest People To The Top – Putin (RT)

Russia sees absolutely no sense in the EU’s current policy of forgoing Russian energy supplies, particularly gas, President Vladimir Putin told the Russian Energy Week forum on Wednesday. He added that “the modern political system in [the West] obviously sometimes brings not the smartest people to the top.” Speaking about the issue of Russian gas exports to Europe, he pointed to what he called a lack of common sense in some European capitals. “There is no sensible explanation to why some European economies, including Germany’s, should behave like this,” the president said, referring to the situation in the European energy market. He called it “surprising” that European nations did not demand that Kiev reopen one of the Russian gas pipelines going through Ukraine after it was shut down.

Ukraine halted Russian gas transit along one of the routes running through its territory back in May, arguing that it had lost control over one of the gas compressor stations. The station in question is located in the Lugansk People’s Republic, which voted to join Russia last year. The Ukrainian pipeline operator claimed that Russian forces controlling the compressor station were somehow “interfering” with its technical processes and shut down its part of the line. Moscow denied the allegations and warned that Russian gas exports could not be effectively re-routed to other pipelines to compensate for the shutdown. In July, Kiev said that it might cut Russian gas supplies to Europe altogether as it does not intend to renew the transit deal with Moscow. “I believe, by the winter of 2024, Europe will not need Russian gas at all,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko told Politico.

The 2019 transit agreement allows Russia to export some 40 billion cubic meters of gas per year via Ukraine until the end of 2024. A third of this volume should have reached Europe via a pipeline that Kiev has already cut off. “Europe could have just said: ‘Open this route now. We need it to support our economy. But no,” Putin said, commenting on Kiev’s actions. A similar approach could have been used when Poland terminated a supply contract with Russia ahead of its end-2022 expiry date. Warsaw rejected Moscow’s demand for ruble payments in May 2022 and started using its leg of the Yamal-Europe Pipeline to pump stored gas from Germany. The Yamal-Europe Pipeline, which links European customers to the natural gas fields in Russia’s north, used to carry nearly half of Gazprom’s westbound gas deliveries.

Moscow repeatedly stated that it was ready to restart supplies of natural gas to the EU via this route, adding that the shipments had been halted in the first place for political reasons. Germany might have pointed to the fact that it was the biggest donor to the EU common budget while Poland was the largest recipient of EU funds, Putin said, adding that Berlin might have told Warsaw “not to bite the hand that feeds you.” The German government could have also approved the use of the Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the Russian leader stated. One of the two pipeline strings remained operable after a series of underwater explosions that destroyed the other three strings of Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2. “Nord Stream 2 is a direct [route] to Germany,” Putin said, adding that it could have “delivered 27.5 billion cubic meters of gas per year.” Instead, Germany “opts to buy [gas] with a 30% premium and not use our energy resource. That’s their choice,” the president added.

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“People are starting to wonder: What is this man spending our money on if Ukraine is a country most famous for, you know, being such an oasis of corruption on Earth?”

Zelensky ‘Starting To Annoy’ Everyone In US, Europe – Peskov (TASS)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has found himself in a rather challenging situation, as he is getting on the nerves of everyone in the United States and Europe, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with the Moscow. The Kremlin. Putin TV program, an excerpt of which was posted on anchor Pavel Zarubin’s Telegram channel. “Zelensky is in a rather tricky position. First of all, he is starting to touch a nerve. He is starting to annoy everyone both in America and Europe,” Peskov said. “People are starting to wonder: What is this man spending our money on if Ukraine is a country most famous for, you know, being such an oasis of corruption on Earth?” the Kremlin spokesman said.

“Certainly, nobody likes it, and this dissatisfaction with Zelensky will grow,” Peskov concluded, pointing out that the Ukrainian president feels this and “is beginning to crack.” Moreover, the Kremlin spokesman continued, “he [Zelensky] still has that professional greed: How could the weapons promised to me be given to Israel?” “That is why things are not so easy for him. Things are not so easy. Traditionally, they are already spoiled and are used to this sort of mentorship. We will wait and see how [the situation] unfolds from here,” the Russian presidential spokesman added.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1712198515244630379

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Immigration.

Elon Musk Predicts ‘Civil War’ In Europe (RT)

US entrepreneur Elon Musk has suggested that European Union may face the prospect of civil war due to its immigrant-welcoming policies. Two weeks ago, he visited the US southern border, wading into the bitter debate over immigration in his home country. “If current trends continue, civil war in Europe is inevitable,” he claimed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday. Musk was responding to a thread by Moscow-born British satirist and political commentator Konstantin Kisin. He denounced what he called “people celebrating rape and murder by a proscribed terrorist organisation as the police stand and watch in major European cities.” Kisin was referring to pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the wake of the deadly incursion by Hamas into southern Israel last week.

Some residents of European nations focused on condemning Israel for mistreatment of people in the West Bank and Gaza rather than condemning the killings and kidnappings of Israelis by the Palestinian militant movement. “We import more people who think this way every day,” Kisin noted, decrying the lack of “a sensible immigration policy” screening for people with “cultural values that match our own.” He was presumably referring to the EU rather than the UK, where Conservative governments have ramped up immigration controls since Brexit. Kisin concluded that British author Douglas Murray was correct when he argued that European civilization was committing suicide in his 2017 book ‘The Strange Death of Europe’. Immigration is a hot-button issue in the US as well, as critics of the administration of President Joe Biden accuse him of turning a blind eye to illegal border crossings for the sake of ideological and political goals.

Musk weighed in on the debate in late September, when he visited the border city of Eagle Pass in Texas. The US should “smooth out legal immigration and stop a flow of people that is of such magnitude that we’re leading to a collapse of social services,” Musk urged at the time. He declared himself “extremely pro-immigrant,” citing his own status as a naturalized citizen. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York attacked her colleague, Tony Gonzales of Texas, who gave Musk a tour of the border area. She said the Republican “decided to skip town to joyride with a billionaire” instead of staying in Washington DC and working on ways to avoid a government shutdown. Congress has since passed a compromise stopgap spending bill, prolonging the fight over budgetary priorities. Musk has previously branded Ocasio-Cortez “not very smart” on immigration issues.

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“There is no reasonable explanation as to why this many White House employees and lawyers were so concerned with retrieving boxes they believed only contained personal documents and materials..”

1/ He was not allowed at any time to have any of the -highly classified- docs. Period.
2/ He now says (paraphrased) that he didn’t know they were there.
3/ That only makes it worse.

Biden Classified Doc Scandal Deepens (ZH)

More than a year before White House lawyers claim to have ‘discovered’ classified documents at the Penn Biden Center in November of 2022, evidence has emerged that White House employees ‘inspected’ or ‘took inventory’ of them, while another official removed “a few” boxes containing Biden materials that October, according to the House Oversight Committee. According to a letter to White House counsel Edward Siskel from Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), the official timeline of events provided by the Biden team “omitted months of communications, planning, and coordinating.” Comer says that a Penn Biden Center employee told the committee that on March 18, 2021, senior White House aide Annie Tomasini “[took] inventory of President Biden’s documents and materials” stored at the center, where he established a private office after his vice presidency.

The same witness also said that on Oct. 13, 2022, Oval Office deputy director of operations, Ashley Williams, removed “a few” of Biden’s boxes. The White House has previously claimed that all relevant documents were either moved to the National Archives or the DOJ, while Biden’s personal attorney, Bob Bauer, said that the documents were discovered on November 2, 2022 – a total lie. The committee, which has conducted three witness interviews, says on five occasions, White House employees, including former White House Counsel Dana Remus, and the president’s former assistant Kathy Chung, a current Department of Defense employee, went to the Penn Biden Center to take inventory, pack up or remove materials. These visits occurred between March 2021 and mid-October 2022. -CBS News

“There is no reasonable explanation as to why this many White House employees and lawyers were so concerned with retrieving boxes they believed only contained personal documents and materials,” said Comer in his letter. The letter requests transcribed interviews with Remus, Williams, Tomasini, Anthony Bernal, a top adviser to the first lady, and Katie Reilly, a West Wing aide, according to CBS News. It is also asking for documentation and communication related to the documents. The committee has already interviewed Chung, who was then-Vice President Biden’s assistant. Democrats, of course, have resorted to whataboutism…

“Former President Trump’s willful retention of hundreds of highly classified documents, his defiance of court-ordered subpoenas, his reported disclosure of our country’s most sensitive national security information, and false statements to law enforcement should worry the Chair of a congressional committee with jurisdiction over government records,” said a spokesman for Democrats on the House Oversight Committee. “Instead Chairman Comer is using the Committee to focus on President Biden whose complete cooperation with the Special Counsel’s investigation stands in stark contrast, including voluntarily participating in a two-day interview with the Special Counsel, and opening the doors to his Penn Biden Center office and private residence to investigators.”

As Jonathan Turley noted earlier, the ‘ultimate punchline’ here could be that Special Counsel Robert Hur may be in a sticky situation if he actually finds evidence of a crime. On its face, the President claims that he had no knowledge of these documents appears dubious at best. Some classified material reportedly goes back to Biden’s time as a senator — material that he would have had to remove from a sensitive compartmented information facility or secure room on Capitol Hill. More importantly, the documents from the Obama Administration were removed when Biden left as vice president. They were then divided and repeatedly moved to different locations. That suggests not just knowledge but a purpose. Why were they divided and some documents were found in his garage and possibly his library?

If Hur found fingerprints that contradict Biden’s statements, he could face not just some of the same charges brought against Trump but also possible false statement or obstruction charges. Notably, Biden used counsel to conduct searches and (as in the Trump case) additional classified materials were found after the Biden team said that they had finished their searches. There are serious questions over whether, in allowing uncleared counsel to search through these documents, evidence may have been lost in how they were stored or appeared in locations like the garage. Hur can bring charges against third parties, who would not be barred from indictment under the DOJ policy. But what does Hur then do if he has evidence against the President himself?

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4 years as VP is some 1450 days. That’s 20 mails per day, every single day. That’s a lot. Doesn’t mention the pseudonym accounts.

VP Biden Emailed About Son’s Business 29,000+ Times (Fed.)

President Joe Biden denied long before he was inaugurated that he ever discussed business with his son. A new FOIA obtained by America First Legal via lawsuit, however, revealed that Joe emailed his son Hunter Biden, his brother James “Jim” Biden, and their respective firms tens of thousands of times over the course of his vice presidency. In a joint status report published by the Washington D.C. District Court on Friday, the National Archives and Records Administration reluctantly admitted that it knew of 4,243 emails between then-Vice President Joe and Hunter Biden, another 1,751 emails between Joe and Jim, 19,335 emails between Joe and Hunter’s private equity firm Rosemont Seneca, and 3,738 emails between Joe and Jim’s Chinese-communist party connected consulting firm Lion Hall Group.

Joe, Hunter, Jim, and the firms listed in the court documents are at the center of the GOP investigation into the Biden family influence-peddling operation. “These damning numbers further confirm that there was never a wall separating the Office of the Vice President and Hunter Biden’s business endeavors. In fact, there was extensive commingling between them,” AFL wrote in a statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter. It’s unclear what exactly the emails said since NARA claimed it would take more than 15 months to sort through the data requested by AFL. The existence of the emails, however, is proof alone that Biden has lied about his involvement in his family’s scheme to sell political favors to foreign oligarchs.

Biden insisted in 2019 that “there will be an absolute wall between personal and private [business interests] and the government.” “I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses. Period,” Biden said. From the October 2020 debate stage, the then-presidential candidate specifically denied that Hunter “made money” on China. At the time, the New York Post had already reported on emails from Hunter’s abandoned laptop detailing how the younger Biden pursued business deals with one of China’s largest energy companies with hopes of cashing in “for me and my family.” Since then, receipts, White House visitor logs, testimonies from Biden business partners, text messages, and documents eviscerating Joe’s lies have surfaced.

Hunter’s text messages, obtained by the House Ways and Means Committee, indicate the Bidens saw Joe as the one and “only asset” of the Biden family “brand” that they sold to foreign businessmen in exchange for cash. This pay-to-play racket, receipts suggest, enriched members of the Biden family, including Hunter and Jim, by at least $20 million. Despite corporate media trying to cover for his flip-flop by claiming that his relationship with Hunter’s business partners has “long been known,” Joe’s involvement as the “big guy,” who would receive a cut from a deal with Chinese energy company CEFC and other foreign players, was apparent from the start.

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“Trusted Flaggers..”

The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) May Undermine Fundamental Rights (BR)

The Digital Services Act (DSA) aims to provide a European solution to an important societal challenge: illegal content and misinformation online. These are real and significant problems, for which new legislation was needed indeed. The DSA was developed and approved during the pandemic. It is a lengthy and complex text, and I believe it has received insufficient political and public scrutiny. The DSA does contain highly valuable provisions, e.g. providing mechanisms for fighting child abuse and for enforcing transparency requirements in online advertising and recommendation systems. However, there are also concerning parts, which may undermine fundamental rights, especially freedom of expression and information, a cornerstone of European democracies and enshrined as Article 11 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Hereunder, I summarize my understanding of some key points in the DSA, omitting technical details and nuances, and emphasizing those potential risks.

• The DSA requires that online platforms make it easy for anyone to report allegedly illegal content. Online platforms (and providers of so-called ‘hosting services’ more generally), such as social media platforms, must provide user-friendly mechanisms that allow anyone to ‘notify’ (i.e. flag or report) content on the platform (e.g., a message on X) that they believe to be illegal (Art 16).

• Online platforms become liable for reported content. Once notified, platforms (e.g., X) become liable for the notified content, if it is indeed illegal (Art 6, and Art 16 paragraph 3). They then must quickly take appropriate action against it (suppression, removal of the content, suspension or blocking of the author…) (Art 16).

• Notices submitted by so-called Trusted Flaggers must be handled with priority. Trusted Flaggers are organizations that will be certified as such by the so-called national Digital Service Coordinators (DSCs) (see below and Art 49-51). Platforms must handle notices submitted by Trusted Flaggers as a matter of priority (Art 22). Trusted Flaggers that notify content too often inaccurately can lose their privileged status, but they risk nothing more than that (Art 22, par 6-7).

• Complaint and redress procedures must be established, but they will take time. Complaint and redress procedures must be established and clearly communicated (see e.g. Art 16 par 5, and Art 17 par 3(f)). Such procedures must include an internal complaint-handling system (Art 20), out-of-court dispute settlement bodies (Art 21), and judicial redress. However, these procedures can drag on for months, during which time the measure (suppression, removal, etc.) remains in force.

• Terms & Conditions (T&Cs) are used as a means against undesirable (but not illegal) content. Notifications can compel a platform to take measures for two possible reasons (e.g., Art 17 par 1):
1/ because the platform also deems the content to be illegal (or, perhaps more often, because it does not have the time or resources to investigate, and thus prefers to err on the side of caution), or
2/ because the content violates the platform’s T&Cs (but is not necessarily illegal).

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Vampire squid

 

 

Cuttlefish

 

 

Dogs
https://twitter.com/i/status/1712336414795334018

 

 

Turtle
https://twitter.com/i/status/1712120874944598105

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 272023
 
 April 27, 2023  Posted by at 9:11 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  52 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Woman sitting in a armchair 1910

 

Pentagon Top Brass Pleased With Carlson Exit – Politico (RT)
Tucker Carlson Reappears In 8PM Time Slot, But Not With Fox (ZH)
Poland Seizes Russian Embassy And Trade Mission Funds (RT)
Russia Understands Western Sanctions Aren’t ‘Temporary’ – PM (RT)
Moscow Reacts To Xi-Zelensky Call (RT)
Kiev Could ‘Capture Small Russian Towns’ For Leverage – WaPo (RT)
Ukraine Conflict Helps Prepare For Potential China Clash – Pentagon (RT)
Zelensky’s Right-Hand Man Contradicts US General (RT)
Biden Threatens North Korea With Annihilation (RT)
The Historic US-Saudi Relationship Cannot Bounce Back (Sweidan)
Twitter, Tiktok And Instagram To Face Much Stricter Content Rules In EU (Az.)
Ex-CIA Boss Intervened On Russia Collusion In 2016, Benghazi In 2012 (JTN)
The RFK Jr. Tapes (David Samuels)
Musk’s Lawyer Invokes ‘Deepfake’ Defense (RT)
EU Countries Sinking In Debt – Bloomberg (RT)
Gold Leading ‘Revolt Against Dollar’ – Economist (RT)

 

 

 

 

Macgregor It’s over and Ukraine is doomed

 

 

 

 

RFK Tucker

RFK – Unavoidably unsafe

RFK pharma ads
https://twitter.com/i/status/1651222441715281921

 

 

Digital trap

 

 

“Alexander Dugin, a prominent Russian thinker, in a conversation with Al-Mayadin: The global structure is between two possible scenarios; The first scenario belongs to the year 2050, in which the complete and irreversible victory for globalization and the unipolar era and the emergence of the post-human era and the destruction of all types of humanity have been achieved. The second possible future is that we will win and everything will change and a multipolar world will emerge.

Russia is currently fighting the real devil, Joe Biden, George Soros, and Western crazies; We need to create a new network outside of Western control. We need the continuation of international relations in a successful global trade system, without Western domination. The world is not limited to the West and globalism does not necessarily have a Western meaning. I believe that we are on the verge of the global collapse of liberalism. Its main cause is the growth of internal contradictions in the world system; A new global network should be created based on justice and equality. Globalization is nearing its collapse and end.”

 

 

 

 

“What we absolutely won’t do is take personnel advice from a talk show host or the Chinese military.”

Pentagon Top Brass Pleased With Carlson Exit – Politico (RT)

Senior Pentagon officials have welcomed the departure of Tucker Carlson from Fox News, Politico has claimed. The popular host regularly criticized the US military’s diversity and inclusivity policies, claiming they were imposed at the expense of battle readiness. “We’re a better country without him bagging on our military every night in front of hundreds of thousands of people,” a senior Defense Department official told the news outlet on condition of anonymity. The source claimed Carlson had “made a mockery” of the free press and “repeatedly cherry-picked department policies and used them to destroy DoD [Defense Department] as an institution.” Commenting on Carlson’s exit from the conservative network, another official reportedly said: “Good riddance.”

The popular former prime-time host regularly accused the Pentagon of undermining US fighting capabilities for the sake of ideologically-motivated inclusivity, imposed under pressure from President Joe Biden’s administration. In a March 2021 segment, Carlson blasted the introduction of flight suits for pregnant aviators, suggesting that Washington was heading in entirely the wrong direction – unlike its rival Beijing. “While China’s military becomes more masculine as it assembles the world’s largest navy, our military needs to become, as Joe Biden says, more feminine,” Carlson said. “This is a mockery of the US military and its core mission, which is winning wars.”


The remarks triggered a rare direct rebuke by the Pentagon, with then-spokesman John Kirby responding: “What we absolutely won’t do is take personnel advice from a talk show host or the Chinese military.” “We know we’re the greatest military in the world today and even for all the things we need to improve, we know exactly why that’s so,” Kirby insisted. When asked by Politico what he thought about the reported glee at his departure among senior Pentagon officials, Carlson replied in a text message: “Ha! I’m sure.” The news that Carlson and Fox News were parting ways broke on Monday, shortly before his prime-time show was due to be broadcast. Neither party has offered an explanation for the split.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1651421792936894467

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“Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren’t many places left, but there are some – and that’s enough..”

Tucker Carlson Reappears In 8PM Time Slot, But Not With Fox (ZH)

After Tucker Carlson’s surprise split from Fox News, the #1 rated cable news host in history re-emerged from his home office on Wednesday to offer a stunning 8PM monologue covering his thoughts on the media landscape, and his future. According to Carlson, one of the things one notices when one takes a little ‘time off’ is “how unbelievably stupid most of the debates you see on television are. They’re completely irrelevant. They mean nothing. “In five years we won’t even remember that we had them… and yet, at the same time, the undeniably big topics – the ones that will define our future – get virtually no discussion at all. War, civil liberties, emerging science, demographic change, corporate power, natural resources. When was the last time you heard a legitimate debate about any of those issues?”

“Debates like that are not permitted in American media,” Carlson continued, adding “Both political parties, and their donors, have reached consensus on what benefits them – and they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it. “Suddenly the United States looks like a one-party state,” Carlson said. Carlson doesn’t think this will last, however, noting that while the above is a “depressing realization,” he doesn’t think this is permanent. “Our current orthodoxies won’t last. They’re brain-dead. Nobody actually believes them. Hardly anyone’s life is improved by them. This moment is too inherently ridiculous to continue, and so it won’t.


The people in charge know this, that’s why they’re hysterical and aggressive. They’re afraid. They’ve given up persuasion – they’re resorting to force. But it won’t work. When honest people say what’s true, calmly and without embarrassment, they become powerful. At the same time, the liars who’ve been trying to silence them shrink – and they become weaker. That’s the iron-law of the universe; true things prevail.” Tucker rhetorically asked “Where can you still find Americans saying true things? There aren’t many places left, but there are some – and that’s enough. As long as you can hear the words, there is hope. See you soon.”

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Wild West.

Poland Seizes Russian Embassy And Trade Mission Funds (RT)

All the money in the accounts of the Russian embassy and trade office in Warsaw has been seized by the Polish prosecutor’s office, Ambassador Sergey Andreyev revealed on Wednesday. “We received a notification from the prosecutor’s office that the funds from the Santander Bank accounts of the embassy and the trade representation were transferred to the accounts of the prosecutor’s office,” Andreyev told RIA Novosti. Santander Bank then informed the embassy that it had “ceased cooperation” with the Russian government and closed the accounts, Andreyev added. There were “significant amounts” of both US dollars and Polish zlotys in both accounts, according to the diplomat. Andreyev called the incident “a flagrant violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” the 1961 treaty governing the rights and responsibilities of diplomats.

The Polish authorities had previously frozen the embassy account, citing suspicions that it might be involved in “money laundering or terrorism.” When this prevented the embassy from paying the lease on a recreational facility near Warsaw, the Polish authorities terminated the lease and seized the property in November 2022. Another property, a residence on 100 Sobieski Street, was seized last spring. Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski said at the time it should be handed to refugees from Ukraine. The Polish foreign ministry said the building was “illegally owned” by the embassy as it was not being used for diplomatic or consular purposes. The embassy’s explanation, that the building was unfit for occupancy as it needed repairs, was ignored.

Poland has also sought to confiscate the embassy-operated school in Warsaw, citing the same pretext. The Russian Foreign Ministry has protested both seizures as a flagrant violation of international law. Many EU and NATO countries have expelled dozens of Russian diplomats after the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, but most did not go so far as to sever relations with Moscow. The US and its allies have insisted they are not actually involved in the conflict, even while they sent Kiev over $100 billion worth of weapons and financial aid.

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“..slapping Russia with restrictions to “disrupt the economy, hurt the people and hit their standard of living, ‘cancel’ Russia and strip it of the ability to choose its own path based on its peoples’ interests.”

Russia Understands Western Sanctions Aren’t ‘Temporary’ – PM (RT)

Russia’s leadership is well aware the nation is likely to live under Western sanctions for a long time, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Wednesday. The government is calculating all the risks associated with the existing and potential future restrictions and is ready for any scenario, he added. “We understand that sanctions are not a temporary phenomenon. They will not be lifted in an instant. Our former partners have gone too far to just turn around and retreat,” he told the ‘Znanie’ (‘Knowledge’) forum in Moscow. According to the prime minister, the US and its allies have been slapping Russia with restrictions to “disrupt the economy, hurt the people and hit their standard of living, ‘cancel’ Russia and strip it of the ability to choose its own path based on its peoples’ interests.”

The Russian economy has been weathering the sanctions push well so far and demonstrated its resilience, Mishustin said, adding that some industries still need to fully restore their production chains. The prime minister earlier told the State Duma that the downturn the Russian economy experienced in 2022 was not as drastic as had been predicted, adding that the nation is going back to economic growth now. The Russian government’s head also warned that the “sanctions war” ultimately led nowhere and only impeded global economic development. The world is now dominated by developments affecting every aspect of life, the prime minister said, naming the rapid development of information technologies used in various fields as one of such processes. “They [IT technologies] are now an important condition of long-term quality economic growth,” he said.

Last week, the head of the Russian Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, said that the Western sanctions Russia had to face last year were worse than “even the most pessimistic scenario.” Although no one could have predicted anything like that, both the Russian people and the country’s businesses demonstrated remarkable adaptability in the face of this new reality, she added. The US and EU have introduced a total of ten rounds of sanctions over the conflict. In December, the EU, along with the G7 countries and Australia, introduced a price cap on Russian seaborne oil, set at $60 per barrel.

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“She said Russian and Chinese visions for a path to peace were “broadly in tune” with one another. “The problem lies not with the lack of good plans,” Zakharova said.”

Moscow Reacts To Xi-Zelensky Call (RT)

Ukraine’s “unrealistic” demands are standing in the way of peace negotiations, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has stated. She made her comments in response to a question about the phone call between Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The leaders spoke on Wednesday for the first time since Russia launched its military operation in the neighboring state in February 2022. Zakharova praised Beijing for its efforts to help restart meaningful negotiations. She said Russian and Chinese visions for a path to peace were “broadly in tune” with one another. “The problem lies not with the lack of good plans,” Zakharova said.

“The Kiev regime has so far not been receptive to any reasonable initiative aimed at a political and diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian crisis. Its occasional agreement to hold negotiations is being tied to ultimatums with obviously unrealistic demands.” The spokeswoman blamed Kiev for the eventual breakdown of negotiations last spring when Russian and Ukrainian teams held several rounds of meetings. Kiev, meanwhile, has repeatedly said that negotiations can resume only after Russia surrenders its recently incorporated territories. Moscow has called such demands unacceptable. Crimea voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia in the wake of the 2014 coup in Kiev. The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, did the same after holding referendums on the matter in September.

In October, Zelensky signed a decree that declared the “impossibility” of conducting negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Beijing, which unveiled a 12-point roadmap for peace in Ukraine in February, has maintained that the conflict can only end through dialogue. China, unlike many Western countries, has also refused to condemn Russia for its actions. China named diplomat Li Hui its special envoy to Ukraine and “other countries” on Wednesday. Xi said that the envoy would be tasked with conducting “in-depth communication with all parties on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.” Li was China’s ambassador to Moscow from 2009 to 2019. Zelensky, meanwhile, has appointed former strategic industries minister Pavel Ryabkin as the country’s new ambassador to China.

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“The profile of the unit published by the Post claims that Azov has “evolved” away from its neo-Nazi origins..”

Kiev Could ‘Capture Small Russian Towns’ For Leverage – WaPo (RT)

The interim commander of Ukraine’s Azov Brigade (the current incarnation of a former volunteer unit known for its neo-Nazi ideology) has said that Kiev’s forces could capture Russian towns and use them to put pressure on Moscow. In an interview with the Washington Post, Bogdan Krotevich was asked about Ukraine’s much-anticipated planned offensive against Russia. He was referring to the experience of Chechen militants in the mid-1990s who “adopted a strategy of capturing small Russian towns to use as leverage to recover Russian-held areas” during the military conflict in the southern Russian republic. The Ukrainian fighter said his country “may do the same,” the newspaper reported on Wednesday. It was not clear which episodes of the conflict in Chechnya Krotevich was referring to.

One of the most tragic examples of violence spilling outside of the Chechen Republic at the time came in June 1995, when a militant force led by Shamil Basayev raided the city of Budyonnovsk, taking over 1,000 civilians hostage at a local hospital. Another raid targeted the city of Kizlyar in Dagestan the next year, in which Chechen militants led by terrorist Salman Raduyev likewise resorted to hostage-taking. Dozens of people were killed in both cases. The Post’s article noted the desire of Krotevich and other Azov leaders to have more prisoner exchanges between Russia and Ukraine so that captured members of the unit can be returned. The man himself spent several months in Russian custody after he and other Azov fighters surrendered in the Donbass city of Mariupol. Krotevich was freed in a Türkiye-mediated swap last September.

“I came to the conclusion that the fastest way to release our prisoners is to take more Russian soldiers prisoner, and to end this war with our victory,” Krotevich stated. The profile of the unit published by the Post claims that Azov has “evolved” away from its neo-Nazi origins. Moscow regards the original Azov Battalion, which was created in 2014, and its successor organizations as a terrorist group. The unit was incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard early in its history and has now become one of nine ‘Attack Guard’ volunteer brigades. The Interior Ministry revealed them in February, touting service in the units as “an opportunity to dispose of enemies” of the country.

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Dress rehearsal.

Ukraine Conflict Helps Prepare For Potential China Clash – Pentagon (RT)

The Pentagon will use the lessons learned from supplying military aid to Ukraine to help Taiwan in a potential conflict with China, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks has said. “There are many advantages we’ve gained for a potential Pacific challenge from the Ukraine conflict,” Hicks told Bloomberg in an interview published on Wednesday. “We’re learning now to grow our industrial base and to study that industrial base, which has been for the last 60 years in a bit of a feast and famine cycle.” The conflict highlighted the difficulties of quickly procuring enough weapons and equipment for Kiev, Hicks explained. The US repeatedly used the Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) to speed up the transfer of stockpiles to Ukraine and plans to do the same with Taiwan.

“We’re thinking about how we use those authorities right now to generate faster and higher-capacity delivery of munitions to provide to our forces in the Pacific,” Hicks said, adding that the Pentagon has “a clear strategy that’s focused on China.” Although the deputy secretary admitted that the US did not believe Beijing was planning an “imminent attack” on Taiwan, she maintained that the Pentagon was committed to “making sure that the (Chinese) leadership wakes up every day and says today is not the day to undertake aggression that threatens US interests.” In December, US President Joe Biden signed the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes $2 billion in military loans to Taipei. The law also allows Washington to muster an emergency stockpile of ammunition worth up to $100 million on or near the island.

Taiwanese Premier Chen Chien-jen said on Monday that negotiations of assembling “regional contingency stockpiles” were still ongoing. Beijing held large-scale military exercises around the island this month in response to a visit by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to the US. Beijing considers Taiwan – which has been ruled by a separate government since the late 1940s – its territory and views contact between local and foreign officials as meddling into its domestic affairs. China has also accused Washington of backing “secessionist forces” on the island. Chinese President Xi Jinping said last year that Beijing favored peaceful “reunification” with Taiwan but reserved the right to use force if necessary. The US supports the ‘One China’ policy by refraining from establishing formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan. At the same time, Washington has been selling arms to the local authorities and promised to defend the island in case of an invasion.

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“..98% of promised combat vehicles had already been delivered..”

Zelensky’s Right-Hand Man Contradicts US General (RT)

Ukraine still needs more weapons and equipment for the much-hyped spring “counteroffensive,” especially artillery ammunition, President Vladimir Zelensky’s adviser Mikhail Podoliak said on Wednesday. He disagreed with the US general commanding NATO forces in Europe, who told Congress earlier in the day that 98% of promised combat vehicles had already been delivered. General Christopher Cavoli gave that statistic to the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday morning. “I am very confident that we have delivered the materiel that they need and we’ll continue a pipeline to sustain their operations as well,” Cavoli added, responding to questions about the expected Ukrainian attack.

Podoliak challenged that assessment later in the day, speaking during a telethon hosted by Ukrainian television. He said only the Ukrainian General Staff can offer accurate numbers, and that Cavoli’s statistics weren’t up to date. “In my opinion, 98% is too much, too large a number. He proceeds from certain mathematical data, things he knows today,” the adviser said, referring to Cavoli. “There should be much more equipment, there is a real shortage of shells, especially of heavy calibers. We are trying to solve this problem.”

The current rate of supply allows the Ukrainian military to take “certain actions” at the frontline, Podoliak said, adding that there is “never enough” weapons and equipment when facing an enemy such as Russia. The much-anticipated counteroffensive may have already begun, he suggested, urging the public not to regard it as a single event but a large number of engagements on various fronts Multiple US outlets have sought to temper expectations about the Ukrainian attack over the past week, citing anonymous government officials worried about the political fallout from its possible failure. Last Friday, the White House even warned of a possible Russian offensive taking place instead.

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Biden=Trump.

Biden Threatens North Korea With Annihilation (RT)

US President Joe Biden declared on Wednesday that a North Korean nuclear attack on his country or South Korea would spell doom for Pyongyang. Under a new agreement between Washington and Seoul, the US would respond to such an attack with nuclear weapons, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol added. “A nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies or partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of whatever regime were to take such an action,” Biden told reporters at the White House. Speaking alongside Biden, Yoon declared that “sustainable peace on the Korean peninsula does not happen automatically.”

“We can achieve peace through the superiority of overwhelming forces and not a false peace based on the goodwill of the other side,” Yoon said, adding that in the event of a nuclear attack from the north, the US and South Korea would “respond swiftly, overwhelmingly and decisively using the full force of the alliance, including US nuclear weapons.” Biden’s words echo those of his predecessor, Donald Trump, who in 2017 warned North Korea that he would respond with “fire and fury like the world has never seen” if the country threatened the US with nuclear weapons. Although the north tested a nuclear bomb a month later, Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed to a detente and went on to meet several times, and the north’s missile tests came to a halt for most of Trump’s remaining time in office.

These tests have since restarted and ramped up. Pyongyang has test-fired more than 100 missiles since the beginning of 2022, and this month tested its first solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile and a nuclear-capable underwater attack drone. Officials in Washington and Seoul have claimed since last year that the north is gearing up for its seventh underground test of a nuclear weapon. Yoon’s predecessor, Moon Jae-in, largely went along with Trump’s policy of diplomatic outreach to Kim. Yoon, however, has taken a much more hardline stance on his neighbor to the north. In a speech in January, Yoon raised the possibility of his administration acquiring “our own nuclear weapons,” something that more than two thirds of South Koreans want, according to recent polls.

The agreement signed on Wednesday has brought an end to that idea, as it stipulates that Seoul will not pursue its own nuclear armament. Known as the ‘Washington Declaration’, the agreement boosts nuclear information-sharing between the US and Korea, and provides for more joint military drills and the deployment of nuclear-armed US submarines and bombers to South Korea on a rotating basis.

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“..all US efforts to persuade Riyadh to flood global oil markets have failed, and the Russians have managed to maintain both their exports and their economy..”

The Historic US-Saudi Relationship Cannot Bounce Back (Sweidan)

Since the Cold War era began, oil has been a key pillar of the Russian (and former Soviet) economy. It has long been a US priority to be able to influence prices as a pressure tool against Moscow. Since Saudi Arabia is considered an oil superpower, Washington’s cooperation with Riyadh – despite its own dramatically reduced Saudi oil imports – is at the heart of US economic strategies to counter Russia. For example, in the mid-eighties, during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the US asked the Saudis to flood oil markets in order to lower prices and undermine the oil revenue-reliant USSR. In 1986, oil prices dropped by two-thirds, from $30 per barrel to nearly $10 per barrel, ultimately crippling the Soviet economy and its geopolitical reach. But attitudes have sharply altered during the intervening 37 years.

Saudi Arabia now views the US as an energy market competitor due to Washington’s increased shale oil production and disinterest in boosting oil imports. Between 2010 and 2021, US shale oil production grew from approximately 0.59 million bpd to 9.06 million bpd. Riyadh’s response to this new geo-economic development was to raise oil production in 2016, with the aim of lowering prices to undercut the US shale industry, which operates at significantly higher costs. The Saudis indeed fear a declining role as a strategic supplier of global oil, in large part due to expanded US shale production and energy self-sufficiency. This has driven the Saudis to try and reimpose their oil superiority by lowering prices to undercut competitors with higher production costs – despite the short-term domestic damage caused by increased Saudi oil production.

To this day, Saudi Arabia continues to present an obstacle to US energy interests, and has instead found most common ground with Washington’s main adversaries – Russia, China, Iran – with whom Riyadh’s energy interests intersect. Contrary to expectations since the outbreak of the Ukraine war in February 2022, all US efforts to persuade Riyadh to flood global oil markets have failed, and the Russians have managed to maintain both their exports and their economy. It has become manifestly clear to Washington’s decision-makers that Saudi Arabia today is not the Saudi Arabia of 1985, willing to undermine its own revenues and energy interests in order to serve a US geopolitical agenda. Discussions in Washington today have likewise turned to the feasibility of maintaining the US commitment to Saudi Arabia’s security, particularly since Riyadh neither provides Americans with energy nor follows its political diktats.

Some believe that the US’ role of acting as a security guarantor in the Persian Gulf merely serves Beijing’s interests by securing China’s main energy sources. Yet others argue that a US military withdrawal from the Persian Gulf will create a vacuum filled by Beijing, which will keenly seek to ensure its own energy security. The one point of clarity, however, is that US-Saudi energy interests are no longer synergistic and that Riyadh’s interests line up far more closely with those of Beijing and Moscow. This remains a key factor driving Saudi Arabia’s foreign policy and economic diversification today. What remains to be seen is how far the Saudis – deeply and historically bound to western interests – will be willing to challenge the US’ regional hegemony as their goals diverge and Riyadh finds common cause with Washington’s rivals.

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“..a “Very Large Online Platform” (VLOP) or a “Very Large Online Search Engine” (VLOSE)..”

Twitter, Tiktok And Instagram To Face Much Stricter Content Rules In EU (Az.)

The list features platforms with more than 45 million monthly active users, which also includes certain services from Amazon, Google, Meta, Instagram and Microsoft. The volume of users puts the platforms under a new EU law, known as the Digital Services Act (DSA), imposing measures from August such as annual audits and a duty to effectively counter disinformation and hate content. In four months’ time, “these platforms and search engines will not be able to act as if they were ‘too big to care’,” Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner, said in a statement. “This new supervision system will cast a wide and tight net and catch all points of failure in a platform’s compliance,” he added.

Platforms meeting the 45-million-plus threshold include Twitter, owned by US billionaire Elon Musk; Alphabet’s Google Search, Google Maps, Google Shopping and Google Play units as well as its YouTube subsidiary; and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram. Microsoft’s LinkedIn, Apple’s iOS App Store, online encyclopedia Wikipedia, messaging app Snapchat and creative image website Pinterest are also covered under the legislation. Under the DSA, they are categorised as a “Very Large Online Platform” (VLOP) or a “Very Large Online Search Engine” (VLOSE). Most of the companies on the list are US-based but Chinese-owned platforms TikTok and e-commerce site AliExpress also feature. The commission also listed German online fashion retailer Zalando. Breton told journalists today that his team will hold “stress tests” to check Twitter’s compliance readiness at the end of June.

He added that TikTok had also expressed an interest in cooperating to ensure compliance. The announcement follows a deadline in February for online companies to publish user figures in Europe. The DSA has a wide range of objectives, including forcing platforms to better protect children, strengthen transparency around digital services, prohibit the sale online of unsafe goods and allow users to have greater choice when online in the EU. The rules allow the EU to impose fines of up to six percent of the platforms’ annual global sales for repeated infringements. By 25 August, the 19 platforms must have an independent compliance system in place and give their first annual risk assessment to the European Commission, including how they plan to handle content on mental health and gender-based violence.

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Lying and cheating. Working for Hillary, Obama and Biden. For years. It’s a sad picture.

Ex-CIA Boss Intervened On Russia Collusion In 2016, Benghazi In 2012 (JTN)

Morell, a 33-year veteran of the CIA who retired shortly after Brennan took over in 2013, has now stirred controversies in three straight elections with actions that relied in part on his intelligence community ties. In September 2012, as Obama was seeking reelection in a close race against Republican Mitt Romney, Morell edited intelligence talking points to delete references to al Qaeda’s role in the deadly attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi. The edits ended up sending National Security Advisor Susan Rice onto the Sunday talk shows to make a false insinuation that an anti-Muslim video spurred the attack on Benghazi when in fact the CIA had strong evidence an al Qaeda-related arm had instigated it.

Republicans accused the former CIA chief of a cover-up. Morell defended his actions in testimony two years later, insisting his edits were not designed to be political but instead were well-meaning actions taken in the heat of a dramatic intelligence drama. “These allegations accuse me of taking these actions for the political benefit of President Obama and then secretary of state Clinton,” Morell testified. “These allegations are false.” But by that time, the talking points had become a major controversy in the 2012 election.

In 2016, Morell’s insertion into the Russia collusion narrative came as Brennan, his successor, was warning Obama the Clinton campaign was crafting a dirty trick. In declassified notes, Brennan recounted how during a July 28, 2016 meeting with Obama he relayed a warning that there was intelligence that Clinton was trying to conjure up a Trump-Russia scandal to distract from Mrs. Clinton’s email controversies. The Clinton campaign had helped fund the Steele dossier, it was later learned. “We’re getting additional insight into Russian activities from [REDACTED],” Brennan’s notes read. “Cite alleged approval by Hillary Clinton of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services.”

Two months later, Brennan’s CIA would send a similar warning to the FBI, which was investigating Russian collusion based in part on the now-discredited Steele dossier. CIA is aware of an intercept “discussing US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server,” the agency wrote in a teletype to the bureau. Brennan’s warning to Obama was significant because just four days earlier the Clinton campaign — where current Biden National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan served at the time as a security adviser — put out a statement saying Russia hacked the Democrat Party documents to help Trump. Mueller’s probe found no proof Trump or his team played a role in the hack.

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Long read.

The RFK Jr. Tapes (David Samuels)

The heir to the family’s political mantle in the third generation of Kennedys was always Bobby. It was Bobby who became the leader of his tribe of orphaned brothers and sisters after their father’s death, trying and failing to make up for the absence of a charismatic father and the near-total absence of adult supervision. A friend who was close to the family in those years recalls visits to their home in Hickory Hill, Virginia, as like visiting a zoo—quite literally, with live sea mammals in the swimming pool, and animals of all shapes and sizes, frequently untamed, roaming freely throughout the house. Bobby’s hawks nested in the eaves and children climbed in and out of windows. Eventually, the friend’s mother forbade further visits, on account of it being too physically dangerous.

If the Kennedys were a kind of American royalty, then Bobby was their Prince Hal—charismatic and beloved, yet also dangerous and frequently out of control, a fatherless child who was trying to emulate the adult father figures who had been taken from him before he could truly understand who they were or what their brand of world-shaping masculinity meant. In 1983, Bobby was found nodding off in an airplane bathroom, and then pleaded guilty to heroin possession. The death of his brother David, who worshipped Bobby, a year later from a heroin overdose, made an uphill climb back to respectability seem even more unlikely, even after he got clean, and his decades of hard work as an environmental lawyer for Riverkeeper and the NRDC established him as one of the most effective environmental activists in the country.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, Bobby kept his name alive in political circles through a familiar striptease dance with the New York press, which was no doubt orchestrated in part by his best friend from college, Peter Kaplan, the sharp-eyed editor of The New York Observer: A dutiful accounting of his environmental good works ridding New York’s waterways of deadly toxins, a dash of Kennedy fairy dust, a tour of his falcons—falconry being a lifelong hobby, pursued with characteristic dedication—and a tantalizing hint of a possible future race for some political office that would re-up his star power and help promote his advocacy. Of course, he never ran—which prevented the publication of the inevitable attack articles ripping him to pieces.

Running would have been messy. His sister Kerry was married to the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo—heir to another political dynasty whose name meant more in New York state than the name Kennedy did. Then it all came apart. In 2005, Kerry and Andrew Cuomo divorced. In 2010, Bobby separated from his wife, Mary Richardson, who had been Kerry’s college roommate at Brown and appeared to be suffering from substance abuse issues; a judge awarded temporary full custody of their four children to Bobby. In 2012, Mary Richardson hung herself. In 2013, Peter Kaplan died of cancer.

Meanwhile, Bobby Kennedy Jr. found success as an environmentally friendly venture capitalist along with a new cause: vaccines. In 2005, Kennedy wrote a blockbuster Rolling Stone magazine article titled “Deadly Immunity,” which presented compelling evidence of an ongoing vaccine safety cover-up led by U.S. national health bureaucrats, including transcripts of a 2000 CDC conference in Norcross, Georgia, where researchers presented information linking the mercury compound thimerosol with neurological problems in children. At its root, the case Kennedy made in his article was no more or less plausible and empirically grounded than the cases that he and dozens of other environmental advocates had been making for decades against large chemical companies for spewing toxins into America’s air, water, and soil, and then lying about it.

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“..the company’s defense could make all of Musk’s public statements “immune” from legal scrutiny simply because he is “famous.”

Musk’s Lawyer Invokes ‘Deepfake’ Defense (RT)

A judge has ordered Elon Musk to testify under oath about whether he made certain claims about his company’s electric cars, after Tesla lawyers said statements attributed to him by plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit could have been fabricated with ‘deepfake’ software. The ruling from California Judge Evette Pennypacker was handed down on Wednesday, part of a lawsuit against Tesla over the death of Walter Huang, who was killed in a car wreck involving one of the company’s vehicles in 2018. Musk was ordered to provide a three-hour interview under oath regarding some of his past comments about Tesla cars and their ‘Autopilot’ capabilities, as the CEO is alleged to have claimed that some models could “drive autonomously with greater safety than a person” at a conference in 2016.

The plaintiffs in the suit say the claims were misleading and that the self-driving features on Huang’s Tesla had failed, resulting in his death. The carmaker, however, maintains that Huang was on his cell phone before the crash and had disregarded warnings from the vehicle, denying any liability. Company lawyers also dispute the comments pinned on Musk, saying that he, “like many public figures, is the subject of many ‘deepfake’ videos and audio recordings that purport to show him saying and doing things he never actually said or did.” Though Huang’s family cited a 2016 YouTube video which appears to show Musk making the statement in question, Tesla’s legal team has opposed the CEO’s deposition, also stating that he cannot remember his past comments.

Judge Pennypacker said Tesla’s claims are “deeply troubling,” suggesting the company’s defense could make all of Musk’s public statements “immune” from legal scrutiny simply because he is “famous.” She warned similar arguments could allow celebrities and public figures to “avoid taking ownership of what they did actually say and do.” However, the judge’s order was tentative, meaning that another hearing will be held on Thursday to determine whether Musk will be deposed under oath. Such rulings are not uncommon in California courts, which frequently allow parties to offer additional arguments to dispute motions before they are finalized.

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Join the crowd.

EU Countries Sinking In Debt – Bloomberg (RT)

Countries in Eastern Europe have borrowed some $32 billion so far this year, three times more than during the same period a year ago, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Poland has tapped overseas markets for nearly $9 billion, putting it second among emerging-market economies in terms of overseas borrowing, trailing only Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Romania and Hungary, which have borrowed a respective $6 billion and $5 billion, are the fourth and fifth largest emerging-market borrowers. This marks the first time in a dozen years that three Eastern European countries are among the top five overseas emerging-market borrowers.

The surge in borrowing is attributable to an increasing need to dole out subsidies due to the still-raging energy crisis, as well as soaring spending related to the military conflict in Ukraine, according to Bloomberg. Eastern European countries have had to build up their military capabilities and help refugees from the neighboring state. Meanwhile, hawkish policies pursued by key central banks have made it much more expensive to borrow in bond markets, even for highly rated nations. Poland is paying 5.5% in annual interest on a new 30-year bond, significantly above the less than 4% the same bond would have sold for back in 2021.

Rising interest rates are projected to add to the suddenly swelling budget deficits across Eastern Europe, inevitably putting more pressure on finances in the region. According to analyst estimates on Bloomberg, Eastern Europe’s budget deficit will surge to 4.3% of the region’s gross domestic product in 2023, up from the 1.3% recorded two years ago. The conflict in Ukraine “hits fiscal deficits from both sides,” Daniel Wood, a fixed income portfolio manager at William Blair International, told Bloomberg. “It lowers growth, which reduces revenue collection for the government, and on the expenditure side it has been necessary for governments to help those that have been hit hard by the cost of living.”

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“Some countries began to seek alternatives after seeing Russian assets frozen abroad and the country cut off from the SWIFT global financial messaging system. “Suddenly, it was clear that any nation could be a target..”

Gold Leading ‘Revolt Against Dollar’ – Economist (RT)

Central banks around the world are shifting away from the US dollar and turning their attention to gold as a safe haven asset, the chairman of Rockefeller International, Ruchir Sharma, has said. Prices for the commodity have surged 20% in the past six months, with demand coming not from “the usual suspects” such as large and small investors “seeking a hedge against inflation and low real interest rates,” but from “heavy buyers” like central banks, Sharma wrote in the Financial Times on Sunday. According to the investment expert, regulators are sharply reducing their dollar holdings and seeking a safe alternative. Central banks now account for a record 33% of monthly global demand for gold and are ramping up gold-buying more than at any time since data began in 1950, Sharma added.

“This buying boom has helped push the price of gold to near-record levels and more than 50% higher than what models based on real interest rates would suggest,” he explained, adding that “clearly, something new is driving gold prices.” Sharma pointed out that nine of the top ten central bank buyers are in the “developing world,” including Russia, India, and China. “Not coincidentally, these three countries are in talks with Brazil and South Africa about creating a new currency to challenge the dollar,” Sharma noted. He attributed the rush for the precious metal to increasing sanctions pressure exerted by the US and its allies, with as many as 30% of nations facing international penalties – up from 10% in the early 1990s.

“Thus, the oldest and most traditional of assets, gold, is now a vehicle of central bank revolt against the dollar,” Sharma argued. Some countries began to seek alternatives after seeing Russian assets frozen abroad and the country cut off from the SWIFT global financial messaging system. “Suddenly, it was clear that any nation could be a target,” Sharma wrote. According to the expert, the US saw sanctions as a “cost-free way to fight Russia,” but in reality the weaponization of the dollar has come at a cost for Washington as even allies such as Thailand and the Philippines have started to look for alternatives.

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CO2

 

 

 

 

Progress

 

 

 

9/11

 

 


Biologists found a marine green algae during a trip to the island in 2019. It took two years to identify it and give it a name: acetabularia jalakanyakae. The main feature of the species is that the plant is made up of one gigantic cell with a nucleus

 

 

Tippy taps

 

 

 

 

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