Jun 082023
 


Piet Mondriaan Still Life with Gingerpot I 1911/12

 

NATO States May Send Troops To Ukraine – Ex-Chief (RT)
Russia Seeks To Replace ‘Nazi Regime’ In Ukraine – Patrushev (RT)
Russia Wants US To Answer About How Its Weapons Used In Ukraine (TASS)
Russia Calls For International Investigation Into Kakhovka HPP’s Dam Collapse (TASS)
US Media Wages Disinformation Campaign Regarding Kakhovka Dam – Envoy (TASS)
How Does This End Well? (Jim Rickards)
Saudi-Russian Concord Is The Secret Behind OPEC+ (Bhadrakumar)
Trump May Face More Criminal Charges Soon (RT)
RFK Jr.’s Rising Profile Sparks Democratic Jitters (Hill)
Tucker Carlson’s Twitter Debut Goes Mega-Viral (ZH)
Fox Claims Tucker Carlson Violated Contract With Independent Twitter Show (Sp.)
Hunter Biden Could Face Jail for Contempt of Court, Judge Says (ET)
The Emergency State’s Plot to Override the Constitution (Whitehead)
Two Tiers of Justice (Kash Patel)
Snowden Reveals Why He Chose To Stay In Russia (RT)

 

 

 

 

Roger Waters

 

 

 

 

O’Looney

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I think the Poles would seriously consider going in and assemble a coalition of the willing if Ukraine doesn’t get anything in Vilnius.”

NATO States May Send Troops To Ukraine – Ex-Chief (RT)

Former NATO secretary general-turned-Ukrainian presidential adviser, Anders Rasmussen, has claimed that some member states may volunteer to send their soldiers to Ukraine, if the country is not offered security assurances on a wide range of issues at an upcoming summit. Rasmussen, who has served as an adviser to Ukrainian presidents Vladimir Zelensky and Petro Poroshenko, said Kiev should be given written guarantees before NATO leaders meet in Vilnius, Lithuania next month, including for Western intelligence-sharing, weapons transfers and joint military training. “If NATO cannot agree on a clear path forward for Ukraine, there is a clear possibility that some countries individually might take action,” he said on Wednesday, according to the Guardian. “I think the Poles would seriously consider going in and assemble a coalition of the willing if Ukraine doesn’t get anything in Vilnius.”

After touring Europe and the United States in recent weeks to help gin up military support for Ukraine, Rasmussen argued that foreign troop deployments would be legal under international law if requested by Kiev. While NATO’s current secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, recently confirmed that some security assurances would be discussed at the summit, he stressed that full guarantees could only be offered to member states. The bloc first pledged to grant Ukraine membership back in 2008, and Kiev formally applied to join last September, but little progress has been made on the issue since. Several NATO members have become increasingly vocal about Ukraine’s future in the bloc, urging other Western countries to outline a clear path to membership. Earlier this week, sub-grouping of Eastern European NATO states known as the ‘Bucharest Nine’ issued a statement urging the bloc to “launch a new political track that will lead to Ukraine’s membership in NATO” at the Vilnius event, as well as a “more robust, multi–year, and comprehensive support package.”


Though Washington has also repeatedly affirmed that Ukraine will someday join the military collective, it has placed greater focus on the current conflict with Russia, hoping to resolve the issue of membership later on. However, US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith told the Guardian on Wednesday that officials are now “looking at an array of options to signal that Ukraine is advancing in its relationship with NATO,” though did not specify what that might entail. Zelensky rejected any “substitute for NATO” and reportedly told Western partners that he would not attend the summit in Lithuania in July unless the bloc offers Ukraine “concrete” guarantees or a roadmap to full membership. Russia views NATO’s continued eastward expansion as a threat to its security and has cited member states’ aid to Ukraine as one of the reasons it launched the military operation in the neighboring state in February 2022. Moscow repeatedly said that Ukraine’s neutrality would be one of key conditions for a lasting peace.

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“..Lukashenko stated that Minsk and Moscow’s “only mistake” was failing to resolve the Ukrainian crisis much sooner..”

Russia Seeks To Replace ‘Nazi Regime’ In Ukraine – Patrushev (RT)

There is no war between the peoples of Russia and Ukraine, claimed Russian Security Council chief Nikolay Patrushev, stating that the only “outright aggression” is coming from the US, which is using Ukraine as a tool to wage an undeclared war against Russia. During a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Volfovich, on Wednesday, Patrushev insisted that “Kiev’s Nazi regime,” which was invented by Washington and London, “must be replaced.” He also said Ukraine must be made into a neutral state, noting that the ongoing crisis in the country is not beneficial to anyone except Washington. The security official declared that the US had already “brought the whole of Europe to its knees,” seeking only to maximize benefits for the American economy by weakening the EU, which could have become one of the centers of a multipolar world.

He also noted that the US does not want Russia to be powerful and seeks to either dismember it or liquidate it “in order to have complete reign over the Eurasian territory and pump out resources.” To solve this problem, Patrushev stated that Washington and London have been using the capabilities of NATO and the EU, Ukrainian neo-Nazis and NGOs, and the government in Kiev, which they control. The official added that similar plans were held by the West for Belarus, especially after they unsuccessfully tried to carry out a color revolution in the country in 2020 and failed to install their own puppet government in Minsk via a coup d’etat. Patrushev insisted that Belarus was Russia’s closest ally and strategic partner and that it was vital for the two countries to further deepen their defense cooperation and jointly resist external sanctions and attempts to interfere in internal affairs.


Last week, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko stated that Minsk and Moscow’s “only mistake” was failing to resolve the Ukrainian crisis much sooner. He suggested that the two countries took too long trying to find a diplomatic solution and should have acted long ago, even before the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev, which ousted the country’s democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovich. Lukashenko claimed that hostilities were bound to break out sooner or later and that Moscow should have launched its military operation back in 2014-2015 when Ukraine “had neither an army nor resolve.”

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No answer will come.

Russia Wants US To Answer About How Its Weapons Used In Ukraine (TASS)

The US authorities must give a concrete answer as to whether or not they know how American weapons are being used on the territory of Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing in comments on the attack on the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant. Against the backdrop of the recent attack on the Kakhovka HPP, she pointed to a statement made last December by Ukrainian General Andrey Kovalchuk in an interview with The Washington Post, in which he said that the Ukrainian army had already conducted a test strike from a US HIMARS system on one of the dam’s gates to punch it and see how high the water level of the Dnieper River rises.

“Now, the question for [White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John] Kirby, [White House Press Secretary] Karin Jean-Pierre, all the people who are in charge of communications at the White House. <…> Were you aware of how American weapons, the weapons that are being supplied to Ukraine, are used?” she asked. “That trial tests of a terrorist attack against civilian infrastructure in third countries are being made? These are the questions that we directly pose in the public space before the White House; you must answer them,” she said, adding that the attack on the Kakhovka HPP “is certainly an act of terrorism.”


On Tuesday night, Ukrainian forces delivered a strike on the Kakhovka hydropower plant, presumably from an Olkha multiple launch rocket system (MLRS). The shelling destroyed the hydraulic sluice valves at the HPP’s dam, triggering an uncontrolled discharge of water. In Novaya Kakhovka, the water level exceeded 12 meters at one point, but is now receding. There are currently 15 population centers in the flood zone; residents of nearby towns and villages are being evacuated. The collapse of the hydro plant’s dam has caused serious environmental damage. Farmlands along the Dnieper River have been washed away, and there is a risk that the North Crimean Canal will become shallow.

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Yeah, like the Nord Stream probe.

Russia Calls For International Investigation Into Kakhovka HPP’s Dam Collapse (TASS)

The situation with the collapse of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant’s dam should become the subject of a worldwide study and investigation, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday. “Naturally, this is no longer the topic of the day or the topic of the week, it has already been put into the historical context – I’m talking about what happened yesterday at the Kakhovka HPP. This really should be a subject of worldwide study, research and investigation,” she said. “The reaction of the West in all such situations is 100% predictable. It is an endless desire to blame Russia for everything that happens, regardless of whether it actually happened or is a figment of the imagination,” the diplomat pointed out. Moreover, the reaction of the West “will always be like this,” she added.


The spokeswoman explained that this is part of the information and psychological warfare and “endless linking of all the negative things that happen in the Western countries, outside and on the periphery with our country, in order to maintain the hysterical attitude of their own population towards the situation around Russia, in Russia in general, and so on.” On Tuesday night, the Ukrainian military delivered a strike on the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP), presumably from an Olkha MLRS. The shelling destroyed the hydraulic valves at the dam, triggering an uncontrolled discharge of water. In Novaya Kakhovka, the water level has already exceeded 12 meters. There are currently 14 settlements in the flooded area, and a total of about 80 villages may be inundated. Residents of nearby settlements are being evacuated, though authorities have said no large-scale evacuations are necessary. The collapse of the plant’s dam has caused serious environmental damage. Farmlands along the Dnieper River have been washed away, and there is a risk that the North Crimean Canal will become shallow.

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Latest: whatever Ukraine does, it’s Russia’s fault by definition.

US Media Wages Disinformation Campaign Regarding Kakhovka Dam – Envoy (TASS)

The US media has launched a targeted campaign regarding the destruction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant in an attempt to shift the Ukrainian responsibility on Russia and to ‘whitewash’ the Kiev regime, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov told journalists on Thursday. “There is a targeted disinformation campaign going on in the US media around the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant,” he said. “There are many insinuations about the fact that Russia allegedly has blown up the most important infrastructure facility,” Antonov continued. “Administration officials have framed their rhetoric as if the Russian Federation were in any case responsible for all incidents that occur during the Ukrainian conflict.”

“Such an approach does not stand up to scrutiny. This is another desperate attempt to “whitewash” the Kiev regime, which deliberately shelled the station for many months,” the Russian ambassador stated. According to Antonov, “We have witnessed yet another gross violation of International humanitarian law by Ukraine.””A terrorist attack that led to an ecological disaster, large-scale flooding of settlements and farmland. Endangered the functioning of the North Crimean Canal,” he continued. “Experts have yet to assess the imminent consequences for the cooling circuit of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant as a result of this tragedy.”


“Washington patrons never criticize Kiev. All actions of the regime are approved of, while any strikes, that Russians suffer from, are encouraged,” Antonov noted. “This is a textbook example of an ill-conceived, flawed position that has already caused serious upheavals in the world. However, this is obviously not enough for the United States, and terrorist acts of Ukraine will receive further support.” “According to the American logic, the main idea is not to slow down assistance to Kiev. Ensure its illusory victory. Not only military specialists, but also political technologists are apparently involved in the United States to solve this problem,” the Russian ambassador added.

Dnepro

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“..Biden has created a major drag on world trade on top of the other headwinds already facing the global economy..”

How Does This End Well? (Jim Rickards)

[..] many of the most important countries in the world are maintaining a neutral stance and are not supporting U.S. sanctions. These neutral parties include India, China, South Africa, and Brazil, which collectively include almost 40% of the earth’s population. India, China and Brazil are three of the ten largest economies in the world and collectively produce 24% of global GDP. What’s new about the recent sanctions report quoted above is the U.S. is now getting desperate about the failure of sanctions to damage Russia or change Russian behavior in Ukraine. The U.S. has begun imposing what are called secondary boycotts. This means that the sanctions do not target Russia directly, but target countries that do business with Russia and do not follow U.S. orders.

For example, China is reported to be selling semiconductors to Russia even as Brazil sells aircraft and India sells drones. China and India also purchase oil from Russia. It is also reported that South Africa has begun weapons sales to Russia. All of these sales are in violation of U.S. sanctions. Reportedly, the U.S. will begin imposing separate sanctions on China, Brazil, India, and South Africa for not adhering to U.S. sanctions. These new secondary boycott sanctions will not be well-received. China, Brazil, India, and South Africa will not passively absorb the secondary boycotts. They will retaliate in their own way. The tit-for-tax sanctions will not impede Russia at all, but they will lead to a further contraction of world trade, something last seen during the Great Depression.


Biden claims that the sanctions will not end until Russia withdraws entirely from Ukraine, including Crimea. Not only will Russia not withdraw, it continues to make major military and territorial gains. A Ukrainian offensive won’t fundamentally change that reality, unless it somehow manages to overcome very long odds. This means the sanctions will continue indefinitely. It also means Biden has created a major drag on world trade on top of the other headwinds already facing the global economy. Investors will be well-served by allocating assets toward cash, gold, and other hard assets. These will be the real winners as the war in Ukraine drags on.

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“Their potential to be key players in the emerging multipolar world is giving Washington the jitters. ”

Saudi-Russian Concord Is The Secret Behind OPEC+ (Bhadrakumar)

A curious thing happened in Vienna on Sunday just as the 35th Ministerial Meeting of OPEC+ was about to start at its headquarters. Three princely western news organizations – Bloomberg, Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal – were barred from entering the OPEC premises. When asked about it, pat came the reply: “This is our house.” Indeed, OPEC officials were left with no option other than an unorthodox way of “mood setting,” given their heightened sensitivity about the wild stories disseminated in the western media about disagreements between Saudi Arabia and Russia, the two high flyers in OPEC+. To be sure, OPEC+ touches raw nerves in Washington even seven years after the group took shape as the brainwave of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS).

The two leaders intended that they would have more control over the global crude oil market. The impetus to realism on the part of Moscow and Riyadh has only grown since 2016, and will crystalize further after the US-led G7 inserted itself into rule making in the world oil market last year, threatening to fragment the entire ecosystem. Neither Russia nor Saudi Arabia can afford a break-up of OPEC+. In fact, had there been no OPEC+ today, there would be an urgent need to create one, as both Moscow and Riyadh have, in different ways, come under US pressure on account of their global pre-eminence as energy producers. Their potential to be key players in the emerging multipolar world is giving Washington the jitters.


Saudi Arabia has formally applied for BRICS membership and sought to join the New Development Bank, the multilateral development bank established by the BRICS states and headquartered in Shanghai, China. In fact, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud was present in Cape Town last week for the BRICS ministerial meeting. On the sidelines, Bin Farhan met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The Russian readout underscored the depth and profundity of the current level of relations between the two counties. Saudi Arabia is tiptoeing toward BRICS at a historic juncture when the group is reportedly all set to create its own currency at its forthcoming summit in Durban, South Africa. This, of course, will be a calamitous development for the petrodollar the pillar of the western banking system – and holds the potential to create a new global oil market.

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“Federal prosecutors have notified former President Donald Trump in a letter that he is the target of a criminal investigation..”

Trump May Face More Criminal Charges Soon (RT)

The US Department of Justice has informed ex-President Donald Trump that he is under criminal investigation linked to alleged mishandling of classified material, multiple news outlets reported on Wednesday. Trump’s legal team received a letter from prosecutors this week stating that the former leader is the target of a grand jury probe into whether he illegally retained secret files at his private residence after leaving office in 2021, unnamed sources told CNN, Fox News, Politico and other outlets. The move could indicate that special counsel Jack Smith is preparing to make a charging decision on the case. He was tapped for the role not long after federal agents raided Trump’s Florida estate in August 2022, ultimately turning up thousands of pages of government records, including over 100 classified documents. Around 200 other files were voluntarily handed over by Trump’s attorneys prior to the raid.


Smith has reportedly called in several Trump associates in recent weeks to testify before the grand jury, including one of his lawyers, Evan Corcoran, as well as Taylor Budowich, a former spokesperson, and ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. In an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday, Trump declined to confirm whether he had been notified of the investigation, but said he had not been told that he would be charged. The ex-president has denied all wrongdoing in his handling of documents, and even filed a lawsuit in Florida to contest the materials seized from his Mar-a-Lago residence last year. While the DOJ’s access to the documents was briefly suspended, the government was later authorized to use the files for its investigation following an appeal. DOJ procedures state that “target letters” can be sent to those for whom there is “substantial evidence linking him or her to the commission of a crime,” allowing them to testify in their own defense ahead of an indictment. They are often sent not long before charges are handed down.

Trump lawyer


DC_Draino: Signed letter from President Trump on Jan 19, 2021, the day before he left office, declassifying “Crossfire Hurricane” docs showing Obama, Biden, the CIA, DOJ, and FBI spied on him. Now you know why they raided Mar a Lago. To steal back evidence of their crimes.

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How RFK helps the Republicans..

RFK Jr.’s Rising Profile Sparks Democratic Jitters (Hill)

Democrats are growing concerned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s profile is rising just as President Biden embarks on a challenging campaign to keep the White House out of Republican control. Kennedy, an anti-vaccine proponent who launched a primary bid against Biden this spring, is doing unexpectedly well in some polls and receiving increasing media attention as a result. He has also been on a press tour this week that included a Twitter Spaces discussion with Elon Musk and digital town hall with journalist Michael Smerconish. Democrats widely consider Kennedy to be a problematic fringe candidate who freely spreads conspiracy theories. But his relatively decent poll numbers, as well as his media-ready image as an heir to the famous political dynasty, have caused some to worry he could gain steam and potentially distract from the task of reelecting Biden in 2024.

“Democrats would be foolish to mock or belittle RFK Jr. Every time we make fun of those who hold fringe positions, we lose,” said Michael Ceraso, a Democratic strategist and former campaign aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. “The Democratic Party acting smug never works.” Kennedy has indeed stirred up some untapped anger within his own party; Democrats have seen him rise to double digits in several recent polls, leading some establishment figures to acknowledge the parts of his message that may be resonating with voters. A recent Fox News survey placed Kennedy at 16 percent support among registered voters. And a CNN poll released Friday shows him with 20 percent of support among Democratic and Democratic-leaning respondents.


“Take RFK seriously, Biden,” Ceraso said. “If you don’t, we can create a stronger Republican Party that beats us in 2024. Like Bernie did in 2016, RFK has the potential to activate fringe anger if we mock them.” On Monday, the environmental lawyer made a series of unconventional campaign moves that caught the media’s attention. He participated in a SiriusXM-streamed interview with Smerconish, where he called himself an “an evidenced-based person” and doubled down on his nonconformist views on vaccines while defending his candidacy. “It’s not like the Soviet system where the party would, you know, pick the candidates,” he said about his challenge to Biden, arguing that Americans need to see democracy in action.

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“..Twitter as a platform is not in direct competition with Fox..”

Fox Claims Tucker Carlson Violated Contract With Independent Twitter Show (Sp.)

Fox News notified former show host Tucker Carlson that his new independent program published via Twitter violates his contract with the network, US media reported, citing a copy of a letter from Fox to Carlson’s attorneys. On Tuesday, Carlson posted the first episode of an independent program on Twitter, following his departure from Fox News earlier this year. Shortly after posting the premiere, Fox News general counsel Bernard Gugar sent Carlson’s lawyers a letter claiming Carlson is in breach of his contractual agreement with his former employer, the report said. “In connection with such breach and pursuant to the Agreement, Fox expressly reserves all rights and remedies which are available to it at law or equity,” the letter said, as quoted in the report.

Carlson’s legal team objects to Fox’s efforts to block the new program, arguing that Twitter as a platform is not in direct competition with Fox, the report said, citing a source familiar with their thinking. Another source familiar with the matter reportedly said that Fox executives told Carlson that the network intends to keep him sidelined until 2025. Any legal action by Fox would violate Carlson’s First Amendment rights to freedom of speech under the US Constitution, his lawyers reportedly said. “Fox defends its very existence on freedom of speech grounds. Now they want to take Tucker Carlson’s right to speak freely away from him because he took to social media to share his thoughts on current events,” the report quotes Carlson attorney Bryan Freedman as saying in a statement.


Fox News believes it has been working in good faith to reach an amicable agreement with Carlson, another source reportedly said. Carlson has previously claimed that Fox News first violated their contract with him by breaking promises made “intentionally and with reckless disregard for the truth,” according to a letter sent by Carlson’s attorneys. Carlson was reportedly removed from the Fox News lineup as part of a settlement agreement with Dominion Voting Systems.

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“71.6 million views in less than 24 hours..”

Tucker Carlson’s Twitter Debut Goes Mega-Viral (ZH)

Tucker Carlson’s first Twitter broadcast went mega-viral Tuesday night, racking up 71.6 million views in less than 24 hours. During the 10 minute monologue, Carlson slammed Ukraine war mongers, and took the media to task for ignoring the “bombshell of the millennium” in which a government whistleblower revealed that craft developed by non-human intelligence has been recovered by governments around the world. “Nobody knows what’s happening. A small group of people control accesses to all relevant information. And the rest of us don’t know. We’re allowed to yap all we want about racism, but go ahead and talk about something that really matters and see what happens. If you keep it up, they’ll make you be quiet. Trust us. That’s how they maintain control,” said Carlson.

Needless to say, Tucker’s first broadcast knocked it out of the park, further validating Twitter as a legitimate platform for major media (that isn’t “Brought to you by Pfizer” so to speak). For context, Fox News’ 7pm broadcast of Jesse Watters reached 2 million viewers on June 5th, per Mediaite, while the Fox News rotation which has replaced Carlson’s 8pm time slot hit just 1.5 million viewers Monday night. Tucker also seemingly put Twitter owner Elon Musk on notice, saying towards the end of his monologue; “As of today, we’ve come to Twitter, which we hope will be the short-wave radio under the blankets,” adding “We are told there are no gatekeepers here.” “If that turns out to be false, we’ll leave … But in the meantime, we are grateful to be here.”


Meanwhile, rich kid propagandist Taylor Lorenz made an absolute ass of herself trying to criticize Carlson’s views – tweeting “It’s wild to see what a fish out of water he is on the internet: no jump cuts, no background music, no catchy thumbnail or video title. Not sure how he’s going to stack up against even an average streamer or youtuber.” Oh… The losers at Business Insider picked up on Lorenz’s tweet, casting doubt on Carlson’s future, claiming: “-Tucker Carlson is in trouble, if his first livestream is anything to go by. -The first episode of his Twitter stream debut lacked the shine of his Fox News glory days. -Without the chyron and quick cuts, Carlson must now compete with the likes of Alex Jones — and he’s losing.” We think we know what’s going on here…

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Not as long as Joe is the Big Guy..

Hunter Biden Could Face Jail for Contempt of Court, Judge Says (ET)

Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, has been ordered to appear in person before an Arkansas judge in July to explain why he shouldn’t be held in contempt of court, and if the proceedings don’t go his way, he could face time behind bars. The president’s son is facing a child support case in Arkansas in which he was ordered by the presiding judge in May to hand over information on his finances. Attorneys representing Lunden Alexis Roberts, the mother of Hunter Biden’s child, filed a motion on May 18 to hold the president’s son in contempt of court after alleging he had failed to fully answer questions relating to his ability to pay child support. Judge Holly Lodge Meyer issued an order on June 5 (pdf) that Hunter Biden must appear on July 10 at the Independence County Courthouse in Batesville to explain “why he should not be held in contempt.”

In Arkansas, contempt of court is a Class C misdemeanor punishable by fines and jail time. In her order, Meyer said that she would consider “punishment or sanctions” against Hunter Biden, including “incarceration for civil contempt until such time as the defendant fully answers discovery for a period of up to six months” and “incarceration for criminal contempt for a period of up to six months.” Initially, Biden denied that the child was his, but a DNA test confirmed that he is the father. In 2020, the two agreed that Biden would pay an undisclosed amount of child support. Terms of the agreement are sealed because they contain sensitive personal information, including the amount of monthly support and each party’s source of income.

However, Biden later asked the court to review the child support arrangements because his financial situation had changed, leading to the case now being considered before the court. He appeared before Independence County Circuit Court in Batesville on May 1. During that hearing, his attorney said that Biden had been paying $20,000 per month in child support, for a total of up to $750,000 since the support order was signed. At that hearing, the judge ordered Biden to provide information on his income from his artwork, investments, employment, gifts from friends, and other sources. The judge also said she couldn’t rule on the amount of child support because neither side had provided enough information in the discovery process to move forward.

Roberts’s attorneys have complained that the Biden team was dragging its feet in the discovery process and filed a motion on May 18 for Biden to be held in contempt. Clinton Lancaster, a lawyer for Roberts, argued in the motion for contempt that Biden had been ordered to do something but didn’t and that this “is a habit and a game for Mr. Biden.” Lancaster continued that Biden doesn’t want to disclose his income and “says that he is somewhat financially destitute” despite living in an oceanfront home in Malibu and going on foreign trips. During the hearing in early May, the judge said she would press Biden’s legal team to fulfill their commitments in the discovery process. In the June 5 order, she wrote that she was hereby giving Biden notice to appear in person at the Independence County Circuit Court on July 10 and “show cause, if any exists, why he should not be held in contempt.”

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Create an emergency, use the powers.

The Emergency State’s Plot to Override the Constitution (Whitehead)

The seeds of this ongoing madness were sown several decades ago when George W. Bush stealthily issued two presidential directives that granted the president the power to unilaterally declare a national emergency, which is loosely defined as “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions.“ Comprising the country’s Continuity of Government (COG) plan, these directives (National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20), which do not need congressional approval, provide a skeletal outline of the actions the president will take in the event of a “national emergency.”

Just what sort of actions the president will take once he declares a national emergency can barely be discerned from the barebones directives. However, one thing is clear: in the event of a national emergency, the COG directives give unchecked executive, legislative and judicial power to the president. The country would then be subjected to martial law by default, and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights would be suspended. Essentially, the president would become a dictator for life. It has happened already. As we have witnessed in recent years, that national emergency can take any form, can be manipulated for any purpose and can be used to justify any end goal—all on the say so of the president.The emergency powers that we know about which presidents might claim during such states of emergency are vast, ranging from imposing martial law and suspending habeas corpus to shutting down all forms of communications, including implementing an internet kill switch, and restricting travel.

Yet according to documents obtained by the Brennan Center, there may be many more secret powers that presidents may institute in times of so-called crisis without oversight from Congress, the courts, or the public. Remember, these powers do not expire at the end of a president’s term. They remain on the books, just waiting to be used or abused by the next political demagogue. So, too, every action taken by the current occupant of the White House and his predecessors to weaken the system of checks and balances, sidestep the rule of law, and expand the power of the executive branch of government makes us that much more vulnerable to those who would abuse those powers in the future. Although the Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers, in recent years, American presidents (Biden, Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc.) have claimed the power to completely and almost unilaterally alter the landscape of this country for good or for ill.

The Executive Branch’s willingness to circumvent the Constitution by leaning heavily on the president’s so-called emergency powers constitutes a gross perversion of what limited power the Constitution affords the president. As law professor William P. Marshall explains, “every extraordinary use of power by one President expands the availability of executive branch power for use by future Presidents.” Moreover, it doesn’t even matter whether other presidents have chosen not to take advantage of any particular power, because “it is a President’s action in using power, rather than forsaking its use, that has the precedential significance.”

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“It is government gangsters against everyone else….”

Two Tiers of Justice (Kash Patel)

The elite set of individuals that sit atop our federal agencies have completely weaponized our entire government apparatus. It is no longer a one-off “mistake,” but rather the intentional creation of a two-tier system of justice that has gone unchecked. The resulting impact is a death knell for American faith in all three branches of government. Allow me to preface with one important factor: This is not an indictment of the men and women who are our “boots on the ground.” They remember every day why they signed up to serve. They investigate real crimes, protect the public from acts of terror, and root out rampant corruption. These men and women across the country serving in all agencies remain heroes and are equally as frustrated with the leadership at the top of our federal government.

The two-tier system of justice is not Democrats vs. Republicans. It is anyone who is part of the administrative state and the D.C. beltway versus those who seek to destroy this political demon of the deep state. It is government gangsters against everyone else. When it comes to the U.S. government, there are no coincidences. Anything that masquerades as such is a strategic move to protect the upper echelons from ceding power to the proletariat they once rose from. Whether it’s Russiagate, Impeachment #1, Impeachment #2, Jan. 6 Committee, Hunter’s laptop, classified docs, or an intel letter from 51 of our highest “servants,” they layered this two-tier system of justice by doing the same thing at each level – breaking the law. Illegal surveillance, unlawful congressional overreach, and judicial hustling have joined forces, and the result is a destruction of justice.

Case in point: Christopher Wray, a stunning example when it comes to the dual standard of justice and hypocrisy. Wray violated a congressional subpoena. By doing so, the director of the FBI has continuously broken the law and simultaneously destroyed the leadership reputation of the FBI. The days of justice and accountability within our federal government are fleeting, at best. What if you violated a congressional subpoena, what are the ramifications? No need to wonder, just ask Steven Bannon and Peter Navarro. Don’t count on this DOJ to police its own, especially when the narrative being put forth by the document in question nukes the radical left’s pyramid of Jenga justice.

Yesterday, he had one final out, and showed his true lack of institutional control, or better yet its hijacking. He told Chairman Comer to pound sand, so now Congress must hold the line. Ransack these agencies and departments, and hold those who exploit the two-tier system of justice accountable – every single one of them. For starters, take their money, take their fancy government toys, and take Wray’s government-funded G5 jet. You must produce these critical documents and show them to the world, then do it again and again.

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Chose?!

Snowden Reveals Why He Chose To Stay In Russia (RT)

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has said he had to seek refuge in Russia after exhausting other options for obtaining protection from the US government after his exposure of the spy agency’s illegal mass surveillance program. Other nations either didn’t want to cross Washington or were not confident they could stop Snowden from being kidnapped by a US “blackbag squad,” he said in an interview with journalist Glenn Greenwald on Tuesday. In June 2013, Snowden met with a group of journalists in Hong Kong to disclose the trove of classified materials that he took from the NSA. His plan was then to travel via Moscow to Cuba and later to a Latin American country, which would grant him political asylum. “We had contacts, we had assurances [that] this would probably be our best bet,” he recalled.

Initially he hoped that some European nation, such as Germany or France, would shelter him, but “every diplomat that we talked to in Europe basically said this is not going to work, they’re gonna cave.” By the time Snowden landed in the Russian capital, the US had revoked his passport, effectively trapping him in the airport lounge. While he was there, the US orchestrated the forced landing of a Bolivian government plane carrying then-President Evo Morales, who was returning home from Moscow. The US authorities suspected that Snowden was onboard. “Even the Russians were shocked at the extremity of this conduct,” Greenwald said, referring to a conversation he had with a Russian consul, who recognized his name when the journalist applied for a visa to visit Snowden in Moscow.


The whistleblower came to the conclusion that even if a more powerful nation were to welcome him, “you’ve got to travel over a lot of vassal states on the air path to get there.” “I was out of options. I applied for asylum in Russia. I was granted it and actually I’ve been left alone quite remarkably since then, which is all that I can ask for, given the circumstances,” he suggested. Snowden received Russian citizenship last year. This fact is often brought up by critics, who accuse him of disloyalty to his nation of birth, a notion that Greenwald said he wanted to address. The talk was part of a special ten-year-anniversary reunion, which also featured filmmaker Laura Poitras. She and Greenwald were part of the inner circle that broke the surveillance story.

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Bees

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

May 312023
 


John Singer Sargent Palmettos, Florida 1917

 

NATO Is Creating Another Battlefield On European Continent (GT)
NATO Is ‘Escalation Factor’ In Kosovo – Moscow (RT)
Maidan-Style Coup Attempt Unfolding In Belgrade — Russian Ambassador (TASS)
NATO To Send More Troops To Kosovo Following Clashes (RT)
Another Strike on Vladimir Putin? (GP)
US ‘Encourage’ Ukraine To Attack Russia – Ambassador (RT)
Russia Will Be Appropriately Represented At BRICS Summit – Kremlin (RT)
Oil Flows Can Only Be Redirected, Not Stopped (Slav)
Pfizer, the EU, and Disappearing Ink (Pol.eu)
Growing List of Whistleblowers Reporting Reprisal Under Biden Admin (ET)
New Insight into Hunter Biden and his Collapsing World of Corruption (Turley)
Jim Rogers Is Bracing For The Worst Bear Market Of His Life (BI)
Student Loans Represent 7% of US GDP (ZH)
Greece and Poland Join Forces to Seek German War Reparations (GR)
Donald Trump, Pence’s Taskforce, and DeSantis’s Revisionist Attacks (NP)
‘Swiftboating America’ (Mahncke)

 

 


Former Ukraine PM AZAROV: “Over the years, presidents of Ukraine made promises to turn the country into a new France or a new Switzerland. Zelensky went further than anyone and turned the country into a new Afghanistan, to the delight of the Anglo-Saxons and defense companies.”

 

 

Putin: NOT geopolitics

 

 

 

 

Lavrov genocide

 

 

 

 

RFK Ukraine

 

 

 

 

Kiev supermarket

 

 

Carrey

 

 

Sources in Kiev said that as a result of a strike on a military facility on Rybalsky Island, one of the control centers was hit. With the beginning of the air raid, the personnel of the center descended into the shelter, but the Russian Aerospace starwars Forces used a missile with a penetrating warhead, which pierced through the building, penetrated the foundation and exploded, destroying the shelter, where at that moment there were up to a hundred officers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and civilian personnel, including twenty foreign military from the USA and Great Britain, who interacted between the Center and similar Western headquarters. A rescue operation was immediately launched. Its results are unknown, but, according to the call center of the Kiev “Ambulance”, more than ten cars were immediately pulled there and about thirty flights were made. On the same evening, two helicopters urgently took off from Kiev towards the border with Poland.

 

 

 

 

Two different fronts: Kosovo and Belgrade. This is from China’s Global Times:

NATO Is Creating Another Battlefield On European Continent (GT)

The situation in the Balkans is now at an explosive point. KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo, clashed with Serb protesters on Monday. The tension arose after ethnic Albanian mayors took office in northern Kosovo’s Serb majority area after April elections that the Serbs boycotted. Kosovo and Serbia have long-running tensions. Kosovo was originally an autonomous province of Serbia in the former Yugoslavia. With the support of the US and the West, Kosovo has been seeking to move further on the road of “independent statehood” and adopted a hardline attitude toward Serbia. NATO’s involvement has further exacerbated the rift between Kosovo and Serbia, leading to military conflicts between the two sides and undermining the peace and unity of the Western Balkans.

As the situation escalates, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has called on Kosovo to tone down tensions with Serbia. But it remains doubtful if NATO truly wants to stop the conflict. The NATO-led multinational contingents were deployed to four municipalities in Kosovo to contain “violent demonstrations” as “newly elected mayors in recent days tried to take office,” KFOR said in a statement. NATO calls for easing tensions on one hand, but on the other hand, increases military presence. It seems that NATO is just buying time to arm Kosovo, analysts argued. From its past wars, it’s clear the US is quite good at pretending fairness in stopping a fight while helping one side, buying time for those it supports by calling for a ceasefire. The promises made by NATO and other Western countries to protect the Serbs in Kosovo simply cannot be fulfilled. An article in the Financial Times said that the West’s push to heal the divide between Serbia and Kosovo is ill-fated.

Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times that NATO forces did not truly engage in peacekeeping in Serbia and Kosovo, but rather aimed to maintain the basic fact of “Kosovo’s independence” and helped Kosovo oppress Serbs. Serbia’s sovereignty and national security aren’t NATO’s priority. “The Russia-Ukraine conflict has not yielded any results for peace, and there is a possibility of escalation. The possibility of renewed conflict in the Balkans also exists. Because the Russia-Ukraine conflict has not achieved the desired effect for the US, Washington needs to create a new war on the European continent,” Song said. From the perspective of the US, the country is not concerned about the possibility of more wars breaking out in Europe, as it is not directly involved in the region. Washington can withdraw its military forces at any time.

Washington actually hopes to see chaos in Europe, as well as the mess of the European economy and Europe’s dependence on the US. The US does not want a united and strong Europe to exist. Meanwhile, as the Russia-Ukraine conflict has consumed much of the US energy and resources, the US is likely to view the worsening rift between Serbia and Kosovo as an opportunity that it can take advantage of to weaken Russia’s influence in Serbia and the Balkans. The ultimate goal of the US is to have both Europe and Russia suffer losses, which is more in line with its global strategy and hegemonic interests. Now the US sees Europe as two powder kegs, one in a hot war and one about to explode. In Washington’s eyes, Europe’s crisis is an opportunity for the US to take advantage of.

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“Not only have they shown their incompetence … [they] themselves became a source of unnecessary violence, an escalation factor..”

NATO Is ‘Escalation Factor’ In Kosovo – Moscow (RT)

Instead of defusing hostilities between the local authorities and the Serbian ethnic majority in the northern part of Kosovo, NATO troops have only exacerbated the unrest, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Tuesday. Zakharova pointed out that the situation in the area had reached “a critical red line.” She was referring to violent clashes between local Serbs and NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR) that erupted after the bloc’s soldiers attempted to disperse demonstrators that were protesting against the inauguration of the new mayor of the Albanian ethnicity. The stand-off resulted in dozens of injuries on both sides. The unrest came after local Serbs, who have long sought for more autonomy, boycotted Pristina-backed elections in the northern part of Kosovo.

Despite a turnout of less than 4%, local authorities treated them as legitimate, resulting in the election of four ethnically Albanian mayors. Zakharova argued that the crisis in Kosovo, which could be resolved peacefully, turned out to be “a nut too hard to crack” for NATO service members. “Not only have they shown their incompetence … [they] themselves became a source of unnecessary violence, an escalation factor,” the spokeswoman claimed. As a result, those who were charged with protecting Serbs from this crackdown, “supported Pristina’s xenophobic aspirations, basically turning into terror accomplices” by defending local authorities, she said. The spokeswoman also urged the West to “silence its false propaganda” and stop accusing desperate Serbs of provoking incidents when they were just trying to defend their legitimate rights in a peaceful manner.

“While looking for the guilty, mediators from the US and the EU should muster up some courage and look in the mirror,” the official stated. “To de-escalate, decisive steps are needed, and not half-measures like an idea proposed by the US to temporarily ‘move’ the newly-minted ‘mayors’ from municipal buildings to other facilities,” Zakharova stressed, adding that those steps may include the creation of an association of Serbian municipalities in Kosovo. The region unilaterally declared independence in 2008 with the support of the US and many of its allies. It is not recognized by several countries, including Russia, China, and Serbia itself.

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Promises were made to the Serbs in Kosovo, and not kept. Sound familiar? If you base your far-reaching actions on “elections” with a turnout under 4%, then yes, you will have trouble.

Maidan-Style Coup Attempt Unfolding In Belgrade — Russian Ambassador (TASS)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s opponents are trying to stage a Maidan-style coup (the term “Maidan” was coined after Kiev’s central Independence Square, or Maidan Nezalezhnosti, to refer to anti-government riots) in the capital, Russian Ambassador to Serbia Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said on Tuesday. “This is part of the hybrid war. I would like to stress that anti-Belgrade forces acted almost synchronously; they operate on two fronts – this is the situation in Kosovo and attempts at a Maidan coup here, in Belgrade,” he said. An anti-government rally was held in Belgrade on May 28. The protesters gathered near the building of Serbia’s national broadcaster. It was the fourth protest rally in the past month. Grass-roots demonstrations under the slogan Serbia Against Violence were held in Belgrade on May 8, 12, and 19 following two shootings that occurred on consecutive days in the country on May 3 and 4.


The first was a school shooting in Belgrade where ten people died and seven were wounded, followed up by eight people being killed and 14 wounded by an armed man in Mladenovac the next day. People demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic and chief of the Security Information Agency Aleksandar Vulin. Apart from that, the demonstrators insisted that some pro-government media propagating violence and hatred be shut down. The first rally was quite peaceful, with practically no anti-government slogans. People were simply congregating in silence in front of the parliamentary building. During the second rally, protesters blocked a bridge across the Sava River and chanted anti-government slogans. The third demonstration had an anti-government character too. According to the Serbian interior ministry, more than 11,000 people took part in these rallies.

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Yeah, that will bring peace… Military troops vs civilians.

NATO To Send More Troops To Kosovo Following Clashes (RT)

The NATO bloc will deploy 700 additional peacekeepers to Kosovo, where 30 troops were wounded during clashes with local Serb protesters. Another battalion will be placed on high alert in the event of further escakation. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced the move during a Tuesday press briefing, saying the deployment was a response to recent “attacks” on the peacekeeping force, which he said were “unacceptable.” Stoltenberg urged officials in Pristina and Belgrade to take “concrete steps” to de-escalate the situation, and said the two sides should participate in an EU-brokered dialogue. Violent clashes between local Serbs and NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR) erupted after peacekeepers attempted to disperse demonstrators protesting the inauguration of a an Albanian mayor in a Serb-majority area. The standoff resulted in dozens of injuries on both sides.

The unrest came after local Serbs, who have long sought autonomy in Kosovo, boycotted Pristina-backed elections in several regions of Serbia’s breakaway province. Despite a turnout of less than 4%, local authorities accepted the votes as legitimate, announcing the election of four Albanian mayors. KFOR was first established in 1999 in the wake of NATO’s intervention in the Kosovo conflict on behalf of Kosovar Albanians and the bloc’s months-long bombing campaign in Serbia. The force consisted of around 50,000 troops at its height, but has since declined to about 3,700 soldiers today.

Kosovo has seen several waves of unrest since the 1999 war. In 2008, the Western-backed Albanian authorities unilaterally declared independence from Belgrade. The move was quickly backed by the United States and many other Western countries. Russia and China are among the states that continue to view Kosovo as part of Serbia. Moscow has said NATO is largely responsible for the recent spike in hostilities. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused the alliance of becoming “a source of unnecessary violence” and an “escalation factor” in the region. She urged the bloc to “silence its false propaganda” against local Serbs, who she said had been wrongly blamed for provoking incidents.

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“The early morning assault specifically targeted the wealthiest areas of the city, where Putin and multiple Russian elites have homes.”

Another Strike on Vladimir Putin? (GP)

Did the Ukrainians attempt to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday morning? Did they have assistance? The Daily Mail reported that Moscow was attacked by several suspected Ukrainian drones Tuesday morning ostensibly in revenge for Russian attacks on Kyiv. The early morning assault specifically targeted the wealthiest areas of the city, where Putin and multiple Russian elites have homes. One local resident pointed out the attacks all happened within “an earshot” of Putin’s official residence in Novo-Ogaryovo. Here are the full details from the Daily Mail:

“Several buildings were damaged in wealthy suburbs of Moscow, including the elite district of Rublyovka to the south-west of the capital. One drone exploded into a mushroom cloud near the village of Usovo, which is just down the road from Putin’s official Novo-Ogaryovo residence. Explosive drones also struck blocks of flats in Leninsky Prospekt and Profsoyuznaya Street about six miles from the centre of Moscow, reportedly wounding several residents and damaging the buildings. Tuesday’s early morning raid targeted some of Moscow’s wealthiest areas including a western enclave where Putin and the elite have residences. Two people were injured while some Russians in two damaged apartment blocks were briefly evacuated, according to Moscow’s mayor.”

The New York Times notes that this marked the first time strikes hit civilian areas in the Russia’s capital. Looks like the crazy ukrainian lunatics may be planning on attacking Moscow? What is Biden getting us into? [..] If Ukraine was involved in this attack, the odds of World War III just skyrocketed. A peace deal must be struck quickly.

Maiman
https://twitter.com/i/status/1663467784578412544

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“The Russian Federation has been sentenced to ‘capital punishment’ in the [West] long ago. But simply, they don’t have it in them to achieve this goal..”

US ‘Encourage’ Ukraine To Attack Russia – Ambassador (RT)

The US has been inciting Ukraine to strike Russian territory, despite claiming the opposite, Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov said on Wednesday. Antonov argued that Washington’s statements in response to the recent drone raid on the Russian capital “sound like an encouragement for Ukrainian terrorists.” “Doesn’t the [US] administration understand that no one believes their slogans about non-support of Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory?!” the diplomat said, according to a statement on the embassy’s Telegram channel. Antonov’s remarks came after a White House spokesperson told reporters that “as [a] general matter, we do not support attacks inside of Russia.” The goal of the drone attack was to “sow fear among Russians” and undermine trust in the authorities, he said.


“The Russian Federation has been sentenced to ‘capital punishment’ in the [West] long ago. But simply, they don’t have it in them to achieve this goal,” the ambassador stated. Drones carrying explosives crashed into residential buildings in Moscow on Tuesday morning. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, eight UAVs participated in the attack, and all of them were either destroyed by air defenses, or veered off course due to the use of jamming equipment. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said that no one was killed or seriously injured. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s senior adviser Mikhail Podoliak denied Kiev’s involvement in the attack, but suggested that more similar raids would come.

We’re taking no blood

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Putin will not attend: “the immunities do not override any warrant issued by any international tribunal (like the ICC) against any attendee..”

Russia Will Be Appropriately Represented At BRICS Summit – Kremlin (RT)

Russia plans to take part in the BRICS summit in South Africa at the “proper level,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday in response to a question about whether President Vladimir Putin would attend. Putin has been invited to the gathering. However, by virtue of being a signatory to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has issued a warrant against the Russian leader for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, South Africa would be obliged to arrest him if he attends. The 15th BRICS Summit in August will bring together the leaders of the world’s leading emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Speaking at a news briefing on Tuesday, Peskov emphasized, as cited by the news agency TASS, that “Russia attributes great importance to the development of this integration format.”


Moscow will therefore “take part in this summit at the proper level.” Although he did not give any specifics, he offered assurances that “all the details” on the issue would be provided at a later stage. “We count as a bare minimum on partner countries in such an important format not being guided by such illegal decisions,” he said in reaction to a query about Pretoria implementing the warrant, Reuters reported. South Africa’s Foreign Ministry has granted diplomatic immunity to foreign officials participating in the summit from August 22-24, as well for a meeting of BRICS foreign ministers this week. Clayson Monyela, spokesperson for the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, explained that such immunities are customary for international gatherings. However, “the immunities do not override any warrant issued by any international tribunal (like the ICC) against any attendee,” he clarified in a tweet.

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Oil simply follows the path of least resistance. It doesn’t go away. Too much demand for that.

“India’s fuel exports to Europe over the past 12 months have jumped by over 70% [..] there is precious little the EU could do to change this without plunging the European economy into a deep recession brought on by fuel price inflation.”

Oil Flows Can Only Be Redirected, Not Stopped (Slav)

Asian oil imports were due for a marked rebound this month after the end of the maintenance season. Chances are that a lot of the additional oil would be coming from Russia, which has become one of the largest suppliers of China and India. In fact, Russian oil flows are growing despite claims from Moscow that it has reduced its total oil production. According to Bloomberg, Russian oil exports actually hit the highest since the start of 2022 last month. This is happening in the context of the most severe sanction push by the collective West against the country. And it is the clearest evidence yet of just how essential oil is for the functioning of the global economy. Before the invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s biggest oil clients were European countries. For China and India, it was a minor supplier. Since last year this has changed dramatically.

Now, China and India are the two biggest buyers of Russian crude. The two together took in as much as 80% of Russia’s total oil exports last month, according to the International Energy Agency. And the total, at 8.3 million barrels daily, was markedly higher than the annual average for both last year and the year before that. What’s more, Europe, which placed an embargo on direct Russian oil and fuel imports, has been taking in more fuels made in Asia—notably India. In fact, it seems to be taking in a lot of these fuels if the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell had to call publicly for an end to this practice. Indeed, India’s fuel exports to Europe over the past 12 months have jumped by over 70%, Reuters reported earlier this month. The report also noted that there is precious little the EU could do to change this without plunging the European economy into a deep recession brought on by fuel price inflation.

So, while until a year ago, Russian crude and fuels were going mostly to Europe directly, now almost all crude oil that Russia exports ends up in China and India. From there, processed into fuels, it goes to Europe. The routes have shifted. Oil demand has not. It is because of the resilience of oil demand that Russia’s oil revenues are recovering, too. In a recent report, Finland-based energy think tank Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air said Moscow’s oil export revenues have rebounded to the highest since last November over the past couple of months. The authors noted that total budget revenues were down in April on an annual basis, but added that “Russia was able to export its main crude oil variety, for the first time, at prices that were systematically above the price cap level set by the U.S., EU and allies.”

There has been a lot of reporting about how China and India were benefiting from the discount at which Russian crude sells because of the sanctions. Most of that reporting has had an optimistic spin along the following lines: sanctions and the price cap are working because Russian oil is flowing, keeping global prices in check and bringing in lower revenues for the Kremlin. What the optimistic spin omits is that Russian oil prices remain tied to global prices, and as global prices recover, so do the prices of Russian crude, as stated by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. In other words, global oil demand, and Asian oil demand specifically, is so inelastic that no amount of sanctions can sap it.

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They simply refuse to testify or provide files. Sort of like the FBI in the US. Ursula must be fired, or the EU has a giant credibility problem. The total bill is €21.5 billion..

Pfizer, the EU, and Disappearing Ink (Pol.eu)

It’s as if Pfizer’s massive COVID-19 vaccine deal with the European Commission were written with disappearing ink: the more time passes, the more details seem to vanish. For a while now controversy has raged around the text messages supposedly exchanged between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla in the run-up to the April 2021 deal for 1.1 billion doses of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine. The content and even existence of the messages has been shrouded in secrecy, with requests for clarification met with a fat “no comment.” On Friday, the Commission said it had reached a long sought-after deal with Pfizer to revise the terms of the contract. The new deal cuts down the 450 million doses that were still due to be delivered in 2023, and spreads them out over the next four years.

That’s all the information you get. The Commission isn’t revealing the new number of doses that member countries must buy, nor any of the financial terms of the amended contract. A lack of transparency has been a consistent feature of this deal. The Commission refused a Brussels journalist’s “access to documents” request to see von der Leyen’s alleged messages with Bourla — despite reproach from the European Ombudsman. The EU’s budget watchdog was blocked from looking into the negotiations, with no explanation given. The European Parliament’s committee on COVID-19 didn’t fare any better, with von der Leyen dodging a summons to appear in front of MEPs to answer their questions. It wasn’t always like this. The Commission was initially keen to flaunt the deal, which secured up to 1.8 billion doses of the vaccine that the U.S. pharmaceutical company jointly developed with Germany’s BioNTech.

Back then in April 2021, COVID-19 was still raging and governments were scrambling to secure access to limited supplies of vaccines; a couple of months earlier, the recently Brexited U.K. had secured a preferential supply line from AstraZeneca. Then came the big contract. It was the third deal the Commission had signed with BioNTech/Pfizer, but it dwarfed anything that came before. It locked the bloc into purchasing 900 million doses of vaccine upfront — enough to vaccinate the EU’s adult population three times over. Eventually an option for another 200 million doses was exercised, bringing the total number of doses to 1.1 billion, worth €21.5 billion based on vaccine prices reported by the Financial Times. Von der Leyen even took a victory lap in the New York Times, revealing that she took an unusual personal role in the talks in the run-up to the deal.

In the article, titled “How Europe Sealed a Pfizer Vaccine Deal With Texts and Calls”, the U.S. newspaper cites interviews with both von der Leyen and Bourla, revealing that the two texted and called each other in the run-up to the contract. At the top of the article, von der Leyen is photographed staring, steely-eyed, out of the Berlaymont onto Brussels, lending her face to the deal. More recently, though, the contract has become something of an embarrassment for the EU’s executive. [..] Alexander Fanta, a Brussels reporter at Netzpolitik, put in an “access to documents” request after reading the New York Times story. The Commission said it couldn’t find the texts, earning a rap on the knuckles from the European Ombudsman.

The EU’s budget watchdog, the European Court of Auditors, also came up against a wall of silence. In a report on the EU’s vaccine procurement published September last year, the agency auditors said that unlike with other contract negotiations, the Commission refused to provide records of the discussions with Pfizer, either in the form of minutes, names of experts consulted, agreed terms, or other evidence. Next it was the turn of the European Parliament. The committee on COVID-19, led by Belgian Socialist Kathleen Van Brempt, didn’t fare any better that the auditors. Twice, Pfizer’s CEO refused to appear in front of MEPs. And senior figures in the Parliament blocked a public cross-examination of the Commission president. Even the New York Times, where von der Leyen first trumpeted her success, is now suing the Commission to have the text messages released.

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The investigation into Hunter started in 2018…

Growing List of Whistleblowers Reporting Reprisal Under Biden Admin (ET)

In just under two-and-a-half years of the Biden administration, a growing number of whistleblowers have come forward to allege serious misconduct from officials in the FBI, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and even the White House. By law, whistleblowers are protected from retaliation. However, according to several recent whistleblowers, reprisal has been a common result for individuals who have come forward with allegations of misconduct under the current administration. Below are some of the individuals who have blown the whistle on wrongdoing under the Biden administration and faced or feared punishment for doing so. Last month, an unnamed IRS criminal supervisory agent alleged to Congress that the IRS was mishandling its investigation of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

In an April 19 letter, the whistleblower’s attorney, Mark Lytle, wrote to Congress seeking legal protections for his client to provide further details about disclosures the agent had made internally at the IRS, to the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, and the Justice Department inspector general. The disclosures, Lytle wrote, “contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee” and involved unresolved conflicts of interest and examples of preferential treatment for political reasons. Although the letter did not mention the younger Biden by name, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) revealed in an April 20 interview with Fox News that the allegations were related to the federal probe of potential tax crimes committed by the president’s son—an investigation that has been ongoing since 2018.

Following the letter’s publication in the media, rumors swirled that the referenced political appointee was Attorney General Merrick Garland, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March that the investigation into Hunter Biden would remain free of political influence. However, on May 15, Lytle and Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt—who is also representing the whistleblower—revealed in a subsequent letter to Congress that their client and his entire team had been removed from the investigation, allegedly at the request of the Justice Department. The change, the attorneys said, was “clearly retaliatory” even though such reprisal violates federal law.

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“I cannot find you, believe it or not I have been looking. I [have] driven by Hallie’s, you fathers. Called texted you … I want to help all the deals are still alive.”

New Insight into Hunter Biden and his Collapsing World of Corruption (Turley)

In 2018, Hunter Biden’s world was collapsing. The New York Times had run a story on one of his shady deals with the Chinese and his father, then vice president, was pulled into the vortex. It appears that Hunter was in a free fall and his uncle Jim Biden reached out in newly discovered messages to offer him a “safe harbor.” The exchange is an insight into a train wreck of a life of the scion of one of the most powerful families in the country. However, it is also insight into a world of influence peddling where millions simply evaporated in the coffers of the Biden family. On their face, the messages seem to contradict public statements from President Biden on the foreign-influence peddling that was used to fund Hunter’s drug-infused, self-destructive lifestyle. The Times story caused a panic in the Biden family.

Despite a largely supportive media, the Bidens have long been known for influence peddling. Jim Biden has been repeatedly criticized for marketing his access to his brother in pitches to clients. Hunter knew that the Times story was only the tip of an iceberg. There were deals all over the world with foreign figures worth millions and some of these figures had close ties to foreign intelligence or regimes. As revealed recently by the House Oversight Committee, the Bidens constructed a labyrinth of corporations and accounts to transfer millions from these deals to a variety of Biden family members, including grandchildren. Nevertheless, Joe Biden repeatedly claimed as a presidential candidate and as president that he had no knowledge of any foreign dealings of his son. Those denials now appear patently false.

The laptop includes pictures and appointments of Hunter’s foreign business associates with Joe Biden. It also includes a recording concerning a Times report on Dec. 12, 2018, detailing Hunter’s dealings with Ye Jianming, the head of CEFC China Energy Company. Ye would later be arrested for corruption. As Biden associates pushed the Times to change aspects of the story, Joe Biden called to report on the results. In his message, Biden ends his call to Hunter with the statement “I think you’re clear. And anyway if you get a chance, give me a call, I love you.” The new messages indicate that the Bidens were worried that Hunter was in a free fall as these dealings were becoming known and revenue was declining. Jim Biden appears to be rushing to get Hunter to work the problem with the family.

He assures him that they can find him “a safe harbor” and that “I can work with you[r] father alone!” Hunter previously complained that he was giving as much as half of his proceeds to his father and was now facing towering financial demands. He appears to have cut off the family. That is a dangerous development for a man who had a long struggle with drugs and alcohol. Hunter blew through a fortune on narcotics and women, including allegations that he may have used a shared credit card with his father to pay off prostitutes. Both Joe and Jim Biden were reaching out to Hunter to assure him that he was in the “clear” and that there is a “safe harbor.” However, Jim pushed him to remain in contact and in the fold: “I cannot find you, believe it or not I have been looking. I [have] driven by Hallie’s, you fathers. Called texted you … I want to help all the deals are still alive.”

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“The world has never seen the debt and the spending and the money printing like in the last few years. So something is going to have to be very, very ruinous to solve this problem this time.”

Jim Rogers Is Bracing For The Worst Bear Market Of His Life (BI)

Jim Rogers is bracing for the biggest market downturn in eight decades. The 80-year-old investor issued the grave warning during a recent RealVision interview. He also cautioned the US dollar’s global dominance is under threat, and higher interest rates will be necessary to rein in soaring prices. The cofounder of George Soros’ Quantum Fund also slammed US lawmakers for the current debt-ceiling debacle, touted commodities as the best hedges against inflation, and dismissed the idea that governments will embrace bitcoin. Here are Rogers’ 7 best quotes, lightly edited for length and clarity:
1. “The next bear market will be the worst in my lifetime, because the debt has gone up by such staggering amounts in the past 14 years.” (Rogers said the 2008 crash was caused by excessive amounts of debt, and borrowing has ballooned since then, suggesting a far worse downturn lies ahead.)

2. “We should always be concerned about Washington. They don’t have a clue what they’re doing. And they prove it day in and day out.” (He was discussing the current political gridlock over raising the debt ceiling.)

3. “You should be extremely worried. If you’re not, you don’t know what’s going on. Many countries are starting to look for alternatives to the US dollar, partly because of its horrendous debt problem. I’m looking every day, because I know that something bad is going to happen in the currency markets in the next two or three years.” (Rogers was commenting on de-dollarization fears.)

4. “Interest rates are going to go higher worldwide. I don’t know how high they have to go to kill inflation this time around. The world has never seen the debt and the spending and the money printing like in the last few years. So something is going to have to be very, very ruinous to solve this problem this time.”

5. “There’ll be trouble in all the markets — property markets, stock markets, bond markets, currency markets, everything. You have to learn about cash or selling short in order to survive what’s coming.”

6. “I don’t think that the world is going to convert to bitcoin. It will be computer money, but it will be government computer money.”

7. “The best place to be when you have inflation is real assets, and real assets are commodities. The cheapest asset that I know is still commodities.” (Rogers said he owns some silver and gold currently.)

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“..the average student loan payment is $393 per month..” For 25 million Americans. That adds up to $9.825 billion. And as per September 2023, for the first time in 39 months, that must be repaid again. Which removes it from discretionary spending.

Student Loans Represent 7% of US GDP (ZH)

Here are the details: late last year, Biden extended the repayment pause, which postpones roughly $5bn per month in student loan repayments, until 60 days after the Supreme Court ruled on the separate $400bn loan forgiveness plan the – the Supreme Court is likely to rule on loan forgiveness in June, so this likely would mean a restart of payments after August 2023. And now, the debt limit agreement prohibits further extension of the payment pause, but remains silent on the student loan forgiveness plan which however will be nixed by SCOTUS much to the chagrin of screaming libs and lifelong members of the “free $hit” army. Prior to the announced debt limit deal Goldman had already assumed the repayment pause would end on schedule, though there was clearly a chance the White House might have extended it once again.

The debt limit agreement eliminates that possibility (“except as expressly authorized by an act of Congress”) and should result in a restart of student loan payments in September 2023. What happens then? Well, according to Jefferies, the return of monthly loan payments presents risks similar to the effects of the 2013 fiscal cliff, when tax increases led to reduced consumer spending. And in a note released Monday (available to pro subscribers), JPMorgan’s chief US economist Michael Feroli said that the end of the payment moratorium will reduce annual disposable personal income by $38 billion, which will reduce consumer spending. Separately, a March analysis by FreightWaves found that federal government programs boosted personal income by an estimated $2.3 trillion from March 2020 to December 2022.

According to The Motley Fool, consumers received an average of $3,450 in stimulus during the COVID economy. This included direct payments into bank accounts, an expanded Child Tax Credit and an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit. But one of the biggest COVID-related stimulus programs was not factored into the s numbers: student loan forbearance. As noted above, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said the student loan deferment program will end no later than June 30, 2023, and payments are expected to resume by Sept. 1, 2023: “The amount of money we are talking about, in excess of a trillion dollars, is staggering. Student loans represent 7% of U.S. GDP” according to FrightWaves.

Putting these numbers in context, 64% of the $1.7 trillion in student loan debt have been in forbearance for the past three years, amounting to $1.1 trillion. Many of the 25 million Americans who have deferred payments for student debt are aged 18-44 years old, one of the most important demographic groups that drive consumer spending. Some more math: according to a New York Fed study, the average student loan payment is $393 per month. For consumers taking advantage of the program, they have deferred 39 months worth of payments, resulting in more than $15,327 in additional discretionary income during the period, much larger than the amount most consumers received from other COVID stimulus programs.

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Good luck.

Greece and Poland Join Forces to Seek German War Reparations (GR)

Poland is seeking the help of Greece to demand World War II reparations from Germany, according to press reports in Poland. Polish state television TVP, reported that a major international conference on German war reparations will be held in Greece in June with the participation of Polish, Italian, Greek, and Serbian lawyers. Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Arkadiusz Mularczyk told Polish Radio 24 on Tuesday that “We are launching an international discussion.” Mularczyk stressed that in the background of Poland’s political actions in regard to obtaining war reparations from Germany, there is a kind of battle for historical memory. He added that besides striving to obtain reparation funds, Poland is also trying to educate and inform people about WWII history.


“5.4 million people died in Poland as a result of acts of aggression by the German Nazi occupying power, while 330,000 died in Greece.” “This quantitative difference is visible in other areas too. Both Poland and Greece share a similar fate of so-called ‘small allies’. In terms of reparations, they have been marginalized. Right up to today,” Muarczyk pointed out according to TVP. Earlier, Polish Ambassador to Greece Artur Lompart said in an interview with the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that the issue of reparations from Germany for damages suffered during World War II has never been closed in Greece. He noted that it is a field for cooperation between Poland and Greece. During her recent visit to Berlin, President of Greece Katerina Sakellaropoulou raised the issue of war reparations once again. At her meeting with her German counterpart, Frank-Walter Steinmeier in January, she stressed “the utmost importance of the issue of war reparations and the occupation loan.”

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“The swamp runs deep.”

Donald Trump, Pence’s Taskforce, and DeSantis’s Revisionist Attacks (NP)

There’s plenty of things we can say we would have done differently at the onset of COVID-19. I was originally supportive of Mike Pence’s taskforce, and the 14 days to slow the spread. I regret that. Though I don’t regret calling it out as a lab-leaked virus from day one. Donald Trump surely has his own regrets, expressed through his repeated disowning of Antony Fauci, Deborah Birx, and many of the bureaucrats who we now know colluded to provide him with incorrect information. Perhaps you don’t recall the anger from the corporate media when Trump called out the falsification of data, and attempted to stop it informing policy. But there’s more that keeps niggling at me about the way Trump’s opponents – mostly DeSantis surrogates – now deal with that issue.

They point to DeSantis’s (scarcely better) record. It’s true to say the Florida governor course corrected faster than Democrat leaders across the country. But it’s ludicrous to argue that Florida was operating “as normal” throughout COVID. As a reminder, DeSantis declared a public health emergency in March; limited beach gatherings and restaurant occupancy; issued an executive order closing down businesses; imposed quarantine orders; set up highway checkpoints; issued stay-at-home orders. He was even far behind Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and both North and South Dakota in defying Tony Fauci. When he did re-open his state, he admitted he was “following President Trump’s recommendations to reopen.” But the campaign talking points from Team DeSantis aside, there’s something everyone seems to ignore: the origins of the COVID-19 taskforce, and the beginning of Operation Warp Speed.

Trump’s first Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price made Big Pharma very uncomfortable. Which is why they briefed his “unorthodox” views on mandatory vaccination to the Washington Post’s health reporter Amy Goldstein. The article quotes someone from Avalere Health – a D.C. health policy consultancy firm – who said: “I’ve seen people with extreme views come into government and take the position very seriously, and I’ve seen people with extreme views come into government and pursue their specific interests.” The “extreme” position at the time? That Price used to be a member of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) which at the time opposed mandatory vaccination as “human to human experimentation.” Avalere Health, for what it’s worth, is led by a woman called Elizabeth Carpenter, who previously worked at the globalist New American Foundation, which receives most of its funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and even the United States Department of State. The swamp runs deep.

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”The Epoch Times presents the second part of an exclusive edited extract from the forthcoming book “Swiftboating America” by Hans Mahncke, co-host of “Truth over News” on EpochTV. Sign up at SwiftboatingAmerica.com to get a notification once the book is out.”

“In her failed attempt to become president, Hillary Clinton had swiftboated America herself.”

‘Swiftboating America’ (Mahncke)

On May 20, 2022, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, finally admitted that it was Clinton herself who had greenlighted her presidential campaign’s scheme to smear Donald Trump with Russia collusion claims. Mook’s admission, made during his testimony in Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann’s trial for lying to the FBI about Clinton’s scheme, marked the final chapter in a six-year saga that ruined a presidency and turned the world order on its head. It all began in early 2016 when Jennifer Palmieri, director of communications for the Clinton presidential campaign, received an email from Joel Johnson, a senior adviser to Bill Clinton. Johnson wrote: “Who is in charge of the Trump swift boat project? Needs to be ready, funded and unleashed when we decide—but not a half assed scramble.”

Palmieri sarcastically replied: “Gee. Thanks, Joel. We thought we could half-ass it. Let’s discuss.” The exchange was buried in a huge trove of emails from Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta that were released by whistleblower group WikiLeaks in October 2016. The significance of the two emails was largely overlooked at the time. It was only with hindsight—and the progressive unraveling of Clinton’s scheme to vilify Trump—that their importance has become apparent. We now know that the two emails marked the inception of the dirtiest political trick of all time: Clinton’s Russiagate scam, a multi-pronged and multi-layered campaign to paint Trump as an asset of the Kremlin. Her scheme was completely unheard of and beyond the bounds of anything that had previously happened in the dirty world of American politics.

In 1972, Republican operatives broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Office Building in Washington. The ostensible purpose of the break-in was to eavesdrop on a political opponent, but even that act pales in comparison to what Clinton did. Clinton’s intention was to execute an elaborate scheme that painted her opponent as an agent of a foreign power. It was a devious plan, and it came at a heavy price for all Americans. Russiagate not only consumed Trump’s presidency, but it also altered the geopolitical balance of power for generations yet to come. In her failed attempt to become president, Hillary Clinton had swiftboated America herself.

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Gervais

 

 


A typical steak is 8 ounces. 28.35 grams in one ounce. So you can have approx 1/20th of a steak per day which is like 1 bite. Maybe 2 bites.

 

 

Goat gravity

 

 

 

 

Girl, dog

 

 

The best life

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

May 082023
 


Paul Cézanne Village derrière des arbres, Île-de-France 1879

 

The Prighozin File: Twilight of the Gods or Maskirovka? (Pepe Escobar)
Wagner Promised ‘As Much Ammo As We Need’ – Prigozhin (RT)
China, The Peacemaker? – McCoy (IC)
Kiev Counteroffensive To ‘Pave The Way’ For Dialogue With Russia – WSJ (TASS)
Kissinger Makes Ukraine Peace Prediction (RT)
EU Defenseless Against China – Berlusconi (RT)
US Anti-Russia Actions Push Humanity Towards World War, Malaysia ex-PM (TASS)
Kamala Harris To Run AI Taskforce (RT)
Fauci’s Never-Ending Victory Tour (Pierre Kory)
Tucker Carlson Squaring Off Against Fox – Axios (RT)
Rep. Comer Urges DOJ To Hold Possible Hunter Biden Indictment (Fox)
Close to 190 US Banks Could Collapse, According To Study (USAT)
A Credit Crunch Is Inevitable (Lacalle)
China And Its Trading Allies Are Well Placed To Topple The Dollar (Münchau)
MSM Doesn’t Care That the CIA May Have Helped Cause 9/11 (Marcetic)
Ex-Russian Space Boss Questions US Moon Landing (RT)

 

 

 

 

VDB

 

 

 

 

Assange

 

 

 

 

JFK Vietnam

 

 

Bowie Lennon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pepe on Twitter: “written on Thursday, BEFORE Prighozin’s deal with Kadyrov to wrap up Artemyovsk. Confirmed to me by top Donbass politico: fierce competition Wagner-MoD.”

The Prighozin File: Twilight of the Gods or Maskirovka? (Pepe Escobar)

There’s no question: if Prighozin is essentially telling the truth, this is – literally – nuclear. Either Prighozin knows everything nearly everyone doesn’t, or this is a spectacular maskirovka. Yet facts on the ground since February 2002 seem to support his main accusation: the Russian army can’t properly fight because of a completely corrupt bureaucratic gang right at the very top of the MoD, all the way to Shoigu, all of them only interested in making a financial killing. And it gets worse: under a rigidly bureaucratized environment, commanders at the frontlines have no autonomy to take decisions and quickly adapt, and need to wait for orders from far away. That should be the main reason for the Kiev counter-offensive standing a chance of imposing dramatic upsets.

Prighozin is definitely not alone among Russian patriots in voicing his analysis. In fact there’s nothing new: he was just more forceful this time. Strelkov has been saying the exact same thing since the start of the war. That even coalesced into an “Angry Patriots Club” releasing an explosive video on April 19. So here we have a small but very vocal group bearing impeccable patriotic credentials sounding a serious alarm bell: Russia runs the risk of losing this proxy war entirely unless dramatic changes take place right away. Or, once again, this could be brilliant maskirovka – leaving the enemy totally misdirected. If that’s the case, it’s working like a charm. Kiev propaganda outlets triumphantly adopted Strelkov’s accusations with headlines such as “Russia is on the brink of defeat, Strelkov threatens the Kremlin with a coup.”

Strelkov keeps doubling down, insisting that the Russian state really does not take this war seriously and is planning to make a deal without really fighting, even ceding territory in Ukraine. His evidence: the “corrupt” (Prighozin) Russian army did not make any serious effort to prepare the economy, or public opinion, for an offensive – in terms of training and logistics. And that’s because the elites in the Kremlin and the army do not rally believe in this war, nor want it; they’d rather go back to the pre-war status quo. So here we go again. Maskirovka? Or a sort of Revenge of the MoD against Wagner? It’s a fact that at the start of the SMO the Russian army didn’t exactly get its act together, they really needed Wagner on the ground. But now it’s a different ball game, and the MoD may be engaged in gradually reducing Wagner’s role so Prighozin’s men do not capture all the blazes of glory when Russia starts going for the jugular.

And then right in the middle of this incandescent confrontation, we have the irruption in the dead of night of a couple of puny kamikaze drones over the Kremlin. This was no attempt to assassinate Putin: rather a cheap PR stunt. Russian intel must have pieced the whole story by now: the drones were probably launched from inside Moscow or its suburbs, by Ukrainian strike cells dressed in civilian clothing and sporting fake IDs. There will be more such PR stunts – anything from car bombs and booby traps to improvised landmines. Russia will have to step up internal security towards a real war footing. But what about the “response” to – in Kremlin terminology – a “terrorist attack”? Elena Panini from Russtrat.ru has offered a priceless, non-hysterical appraisal: “The purpose of the night strike, judging by the video footage, was not the Kremlin itself and not even the dome of the Senate Palace, but the flagpole on the dome with a duplicate of the standard of the President of the Russian Federation.

The game of symbolism is already purely British stuff. A kind of ‘reminder’ from London on the eve of the coronation of Charles III that the conflict in Ukraine is still developing according to the Anglo-Saxon scenario and within the framework set by them.” So yes: those neo-Nazi mutts in Kiev are just tools. The orders that matter always come from Washington and London – especially when it comes to breaching red lines. Panini argues it’s time for the Kremlin to seize the definitive strategic initiative. That should include upgrading the SMO to the status of a real war; declare Ukraine as a terrorist state; and implement what is already being discussed in the Duma: the transition to the use of “weapons that are capable of stopping and destroying the Kiev terrorist regime.” The puny double drone attack – a combined Anglo-Saxon neocon provocation – has offered Moscow the perfect gift: an unmistakable casus belli.

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Putin?! No more withdrawal.

Wagner Promised ‘As Much Ammo As We Need’ – Prigozhin (RT)

The Russian private military company Wagner Group, which is fighting Ukrainian troops in the Donbass city of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut), has been promised enough ammunition to continue the battle, the company’s head, Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Sunday.The statement comes after Prigozhin warned that his fighters would be forced to pull out of the city on May 10 unless ammunition shortages are addressed by Russia’s Defense Ministry. In a voice message posted on his Telegram channel, Prigozhin said that Wagner received “a military instruction … in which we were promised as much ammunition and weapons as we need to continue our activities.” “We were told that we can carry out activities in Artyomovsk as we deem necessary,” Prigozhin added.


He also said that Army General Sergey Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, was tasked with “making all decisions related to the military activities of Wagner PMC in coordination with the Defense Ministry.” On Friday, Prigozhin said that Wagner personnel were suffering heavy losses because of what he described as a 70% shortage of ammunition. He later announced that the positions held by Wagner would be handed over to Akhmat, an elite unit from Russia’s Chechnya. The fierce and bloody battle for the mining city of Artyomovsk, known to Ukrainians as Bakhmut, has been raging for several months. Prigozhin claims his forces have taken control of nearly all of the city, while the Ukrainians are holding out in a small area in the western part. Capturing Artyomovsk, an important logistical hub, would allow Russian forces to make further advances in Donbass.

Bakhmut

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“..China the dominant economic presence of the Eurasian landmass..”

China, The Peacemaker? – McCoy (IC)

China has, in the last ten years, according to latest figures, expended a little over a trillion dollars in massive development loans. And they’ve done two things: They’ve laid a steel grid across the Eurasian landmass, for the first time actually overcoming that distance, and unifying Europe and Asia. So that, really, we shouldn’t speak of them as separate continents anymore; they were only divided by that great distance in the center. China has filled that distance with a steel grid of pipelines and rail links. And then, they’ve also ringed the whole world-island — that tricontinental world island of Europe, Asia, and Africa — with 40 ports, stretching from Sri Lanka, around the coast of Africa, and then ringing Europe, all the way from Piraeus in Greece to Hamburg in Germany.

And then, here we have to get almost metaphysical, a little bit mystical, OK? Because everybody talks about geopolitics. You know, you can pick up The Washington Post and New York Times and, probably, in every issue find the word “geopolitics” popping up all over the place. What is geopolitics? What might geopolitics mean? How might geopolitics actually make a difference? What’s the relationship between geographical formations and political events? And here’s what I think is happening, OK? That geopolitics is kind of like a substrate beneath the visible, tangible surface of events. Now, China has changed the Eurasian politics by investing this trillion dollars and laying down this infrastructure, so that China has an infrastructure for dominance of Eurasia. And then what happens? It’s kind of like the grinding of the tectonic plates beneath the earth’s surface that periodically manifests themselves in earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. When the liquid rock breaks through the earth’s surface and you get an enormous eruption, and then, suddenly, you realize that the tectonic plates are shifting.

Well, that’s what’s happened. China has changed the substrate of Eurasia’s geopolitics. And now, just now, after — It’s only been ten years that China’s been doing this. They started this in 2013, we’re in 2023. It’s [been] ten years. That’s not a long time. But they’ve done it fast, and they’ve done it, actually, pretty well, despite what you might read in the U.S. press about white elephant investments and all the rest. And so, there are all these manifestations. One was the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. I mean, what China did was, they ran a geopolitical squeeze play around the U.S. position in Afghanistan. They signed very lucrative development deals with the six countries ringing Afghanistan, particularly Pakistan. And mind you, how does the U.S. military fight? We have troops on the ground and we have air support. And it’s that combination that’s absolutely central to all U.S. warfighting strategy. No planes, then no soldiers on the ground.

And where’d those planes come from? The nearest air base that they could fly from after this geopolitical squeeze play was the Persian Gulf. They had to fly 2,000 miles, which means their ability to loiter over the battlefield and provide close air support was very limited. They could refuel, of course, but it was impossibly inefficient, and it was dangerous for the troops on the ground. And that meant, bang, we had to get out of there as fast as we could. The next manifestation we saw which, you know, seemed to be absolutely unrelated — But, again, think of that substrate and the periodic eruption. The next eruption was this sectarian division, as deep as the history of Islam, over a thousand years between Sunni and Shia —Shia, Iran, Sunni, Saudi Arabia — locked in the confrontation. But China signed a $480 billion development deal with Iran, and China’s top source of oil — and it’s the world’s leading oil importer — was Saudi Arabia. And so, China suddenly was in a position, because of this change in the geopolitical substrate that makes China the dominant economic presence of the Eurasian landmass. They could mediate between them.

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“.. the US Department of State and the CIA are skeptical of the idea and would like to see the result of the potential Ukrainian counteroffensive before taking any diplomatic steps..”

Kiev Counteroffensive To ‘Pave The Way’ For Dialogue With Russia – WSJ (TASS)

The Kiev regime’s ostensibly possible counteroffensive may “pave the way” for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine by the end of the year with China being one of the mediators, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday citing European officials. According to the newspaper, key representatives from the US National Security Council support the idea of holding the negotiations between Kiev and Moscow. That said, the US Department of State and the CIA are skeptical of the idea and would like to see the result of the potential Ukrainian counteroffensive before taking any diplomatic steps. The Wall Street Journal also points out that this “shift in Western thinking” is occurring amid Western countries’ serious concern that they won’t be able to maintain the necessary level of military aid to the Kiev regime in the future.


That said, some Western states want to see whether China is capable of defusing the conflict which also indicates a change in the way the West sees Beijing’s role. Media conjecture about a potential counteroffensive by Ukrainian troops has been rife for several months running, with various potential trigger dates being publicly mooted. Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry highlighted that such open speculation within Western countries about expectations for an upcoming Ukrainian counteroffensive only serves to confirm these countries’ direct involvement in the conflict. On April 23, Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council Secretary Alexey Danilov rejected calls for dialogue on settling the conflict with Russia demanding more weapons from the West. Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow always supported holding negotiations but dialogue on the situation around Ukraine is possible only if Russia’s legitimate interests and concerns are taken into account.

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“Now that China has entered the negotiation, it will come to a head, I think by the end of the year..”

Kissinger Makes Ukraine Peace Prediction (RT)

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has told CBS News that the conflict in Ukraine may be approaching a turning point, and that Chinese-brokered peace talks could begin by the end of 2023. “Now that China has entered the negotiation, it will come to a head, I think by the end of the year,” the 99-year-old diplomat told CBS in an interview broadcast on Sunday. By that time, he continued, “we will be talking about negotiating processes and even actual negotiations. With the release of its ‘Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis’ in February, China put itself forward as a potential mediator between Moscow and Kiev. The Chinese plan was rejected outright by the US and EU, while Russian President Vladimir Putin described some of its 12 points as “in tune” with Moscow’s position, and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky welcomed only a handful of its points, but maintains that Kiev will not compromise with Russia in any way.

Zelensky’s refusal to negotiate with Putin’s government – the Ukrainian leader banned contact with the Kremlin in a decree last October – is just one stumbling block faced by China or any other potential middleman. Russia considers the conflict in Ukraine a proxy war between itself and NATO, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday that any negotiations would not be held “with Zelensky, who is a puppet in the hands of the West, but directly with his masters.” In Washington, the administration of President Joe Biden publicly claims that it is up to Ukraine to decide when to seek peace. Zelensky has been offered no incentives by the US to do so, with Biden offering to continue supplying him with weapons “for as long as it takes” to achieve his war aims.


Among these aims is the capture of Crimea, a Russian territory since 2014. American military leaders have publicly admitted that the chances of this happening are slim to none. Kissinger drew the ire of Kiev last year when he suggested that Ukraine should accept a return to the “status quo ante,” or relinquish its territorial claims to Crimea and grant autonomy to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, in the name of peace. He has since suggested that these territories become the basis of negotiations after a ceasefire and Russian withdrawal. Moscow has repeatedly said that it is open to talks with Kiev but only if Ukraine “recognizes the reality on the ground,” including the new status of the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye as parts of Russia. Otherwise, the Kremlin has stated, Russia will settle the conflict by military means.

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“The best thing we could do would be to go to school to study Chinese..”

EU Defenseless Against China – Berlusconi (RT)

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi warns that the EU would be unable to defend itself if China decided to attack one of its member states. The veteran politician urged Brussels to adopt a robust military strategy and invest heavily in defense. Berlusconi made the remarks in a video interview recorded on Friday by Sky TG24 news channel. He is currently in the San Raffaele hospital in Milan and is being treated for leukemia, which was diagnosed in early April. The former prime minister said the EU is hardly a force to be reckoned with in the international arena, and should China decide to “occupy Italy, and maybe some other European country, we would absolutely not be able to counter it.” “The best thing we could do would be to go to school to study Chinese,” he added.

To improve its standing, Berlusconi said, the EU needs to adopt a “single military policy, with strong cooperation between the armed forces of all European countries.” He also advocated an increase in defense spending and the establishment of a 300,000-strong “emergency corps.” Politically, Berlusconi said he would like to see a “truly united continent” – something which would be more achievable if the bloc dropped its ‘unanimity principle’ in voting in favor of an 80-85% majority, he argued. He went on to stress that the EU can and must play a greater role in the world, including standing up to what Berlusconi described as “Chinese imperialism. Last month, Bloomberg reported that the current prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, was considering withdrawing from China’s Belt and Road infrastructure project.


According to sources cited in the article, however, there is a lack of consensus on the matter within the ruling coalition. Speaking in late March ahead of her visit to China, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that while “decoupling” from Beijing is not in the EU’s interests, Brussels should become “bolder” in its relations with China – which is growing “more repressive at home and more assertive abroad,” she added. Commenting on Von der Leyen’s remarks, the Chinese ambassador to the EU, Fu Cong, said her message was incoherent and contradictory, while calling out the “misrepresentation and misinterpretation of Chinese policies and Chinese positions,” and advising the European Commission chief to find better speechwriters.

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”..if Ukraine doesn’t join NATO, I think Russia will feel less threatened, and there will be no confrontation. But once the process is started, Russia will take preemptive action,..

US Anti-Russia Actions Push Humanity Towards World War, Malaysia ex-PM (TASS)

The US authorities push humanity towards a world war by contributing to emergence of two hostile blocs, says Former Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad. “The US will try to get other countries to join in the action against Russia, and Russia will also have to find friendly countries which will support it,” Mahathir, 97, said in an interview for the Global Times. “There will be confrontation between the Eastern bloc and Western bloc. And this will escalate and become a world war.” The expert noted that the conflict in Ukraine, provoked by the West, has already affected the entire world. He noted that the complicated situation has led to increased spending for essential goods around the world, negatively affecting grain shipments.


“The invitation to Ukraine to join NATO is a provocation. In fact, if Ukraine doesn’t join NATO, I think Russia will feel less threatened, and there will be no confrontation. But once the process is started, Russia will take preemptive action,” Mahathir said. He pointed out that NATO states are not directly involved in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict et, because Ukraine is not a member of the alliance. However, according to the ex-Prime Minister, the standoff with Russia harms NATO member states greatly. “In the end, they [Russia and Ukraine] will have to find some settlement. It is better for them to talk to each other, to discuss, to negotiate,” Mahathir said.

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Feel safer?

Kamala Harris To Run AI Taskforce (RT)

US Vice President Kamala Harris has been appointed to head a new artificial intelligence initiative in partnership with leading companies in the field, the White House announced in a press release on Thursday. Harris and other senior officials in the administration of President Joe Biden will meet with the CEOs of Alphabet, Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI to remind them of their “responsibility to make sure their products are safe before they are deployed or made public.” The meeting is intended to keep the companies on track toward “driving responsible, trustworthy and ethical innovation with safeguards that mitigate risks and potential harms to individuals and our society,” according to the White House, which referenced recent executive orders and official statements reminding tech companies that their products were subject to civil rights law and other protections against unlawful discrimination.

The four companies, along with Hugging Face, NVIDIA, and Stability AI, will also submit to a public evaluation of their capabilities by thousands of industry experts and other curious members of the public at DEFCON 31, the Las Vegas hacking convention that has repeatedly put the insecurity of the US’ voting machines on display by giving children a chance to hack them. The White House also announced the creation of seven new National AI Research Institutes focusing on climate, agriculture, energy, public health, education, and cybersecurity, explaining the new institutes would “support the development of a diverse AI workforce” with $140 million in funding from the National Science Foundation. The administration is also giving the public the chance to weigh in on government AI policy starting this summer, according to the press release.


Tasked with stemming the flow of migrants over the US’ southern border upon taking office in 2021, Harris instead presided over a record amount of illegal immigration, earning her the lowest approval rating of any modern US vice president. Last year, she was assigned with developing a blueprint for fighting “disinformation,” harassment and abuse online despite having no experience in the technology sector. While hundreds of experts in the AI field have called for a moratorium on, or at least a dramatic slowdown of, AI development until internationally agreed-upon safety measures can be put in place, the US has thus far shied away from issuing any strong statements about the technology. Last month, Biden met with his Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to discuss the “risks and opportunities” in the field but declined to address the experts’ warnings while admitting AI “could be” dangerous.

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“For all his faults, Fauci is no fool. One does not spend 54 years ensconced in the federal government without learning how to play politics.”

Fauci’s Never-Ending Victory Tour (Pierre Kory)

What a dystopian nightmare watching “America’s Doctor” try to continue his Covid victory tour. It is both shocking and unsurprising that he would do this despite leaving a generation of children with lower IQ scores, a US life expectancy which dropped three years in the span of two, hundreds of thousands of deaths from the vaccines amongst working-age Americans (threatening the life insurance industry), millions of vaccine injured, skyrocketing disability rates, an explosion of cancers, and suddenly plummeting birth rates. So I went after him. Again. Maybe he will get the memo this time, particularly in light of the frosty receptions he has received of late from normally kid-gloved, obsequious interviewers. Enjoy. Dr. Anthony Fauci left government in December, but his media tour is going strong, albeit with a different tone and tenor.

The fawning adulation and questions about his exercise regimes and bobbleheads have been replaced by skepticism and outright doubt from outlets who never dared question the all-knowing man once dubbed “America’s doctor” by the New Yorker. Fauci recently appeared on CNN to complain about, “a personification of me as a person who essentially closed everything down.” He was responding to a lengthy sitdown with the New York Times where he declared, “Show me a school that I shut down and show me a factory that I shut down. Never. I never did. I gave a public-health recommendation that echoed the C.D.C.’s recommendation, and people made a decision based on that.” For all his faults, Fauci is no fool. One does not spend 54 years ensconced in the federal government without learning how to play politics.

Three years removed from the worst of the COVID pandemic, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases knows the policy decisions guided by his medical recommendations are looking worse by the day. Herein lies his problem. When his ideas were in vogue, Fauci had no problem claiming responsibility. Now that the ugly consequences are coming due, he is eager to wash his hands. In the face of plummeting math and reading scores between 2020 and 2022, Fauci is especially quick to deny his role in the school shutdowns. Last fall, Fauci raised eyebrows for denying that school lockdowns, “forever irreparably damaged anyone.” Yet as late as September 2020, Fauci recommended that schools only open back up once the virus is “under control.”

Earlier in the year, he had chastised Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, warning that premature reopening “likely” led to widespread student infection. Today, even left-leaning sources concede that, “kids are safe. They always have been.” Then came the vaccines. From the outset, Fauci’s entire COVID mitigation strategy was based on an experimental vaccine rushed to market under the branding “warp speed.” There had never been an mRNA-approved vaccine before, and now it was being pushed non-stop from the White House podium with the full support of the pharmaceutical industry. It was always highly illogical to deploy a static vaccine toward a mutagenic and constantly changing coronavirus. Then came the checks the vaccines couldn’t write. Fauci told us they would stop transmission. He implored us to “follow the science.”

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“..knows where a lot of bodies are buried, and is ready to start drawing a map..”

Tucker Carlson Squaring Off Against Fox – Axios (RT)

Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson is ready to go on the attack against Fox News if the network does not release him from his contract, Axios reported on Sunday, citing sources close to the pundit. Fox fired its number-one host last month just hours before he was scheduled to go on air, but has not released Carlson from his $20 million annual contract, which forbids him to work elsewhere in the industry until January 2025. While Carlson has made no public statement on his departure or his future plans, aside from a two-minute Twitter video promising his viewers that he would see them “soon,” he has retained entertainment lawyer Bryan Freedman to negotiate an exit to the contract. Sources claiming to be close to the newsman say he is losing patience with the network.

“His team is preparing for war. He wants his freedom,” a “close Carlson friend” told Axios, noting that Carlson had previously said he wanted to “get this done quiet and clean” but his team was now “going from peacetime to Defcon 1.” The conservative icon “knows where a lot of bodies are buried, and is ready to start drawing a map,” another insider source agreed. Carlson’s allies in the media are supposedly prepared to go on the offensive against Fox, and outlets including video platform Rumble and cable network Newsmax have reportedly offered to pay him even more than his previous employer. Even billionaire Twitter CEO Elon Musk is reportedly interested, though the two have not discussed the details of any arrangement. “The idea that anyone is going to silence Tucker and prevent him from speaking to his audience is beyond preposterous,” Freedman told Axios.


The network lost almost half of its audience in Carlson’s 8pm time slot in the week following his firing, and ratings for the network’s other shows have also declined precipitously – especially in the 25-54 age demographic desirable to advertisers. Carlson’s show drew over 3 million viewers per night, far more than the next most popular show. The exact reason for Carlson’s ouster has not been made public. Media critics including the New York Times point to leaked text messages from the anchor, specifically one in which Carlson admitted enjoying watching footage of an antifa protester being beaten by a group despite this not being “how white men fight,” then acknowledging the protester’s humanity. Other leaked texts revealed Carlson did not believe the claim that Dominion Voting Systems was flipping votes for Democrat Joe Biden. Fox settled Dominion’s defamation lawsuit for $787 million just days before firing the anchor.

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“We’re going to disclose many of the different LLCs, many of the different transactions that all these different Biden family members have gotten from our adversaries around the world..”

Rep. Comer Urges DOJ To Hold Possible Hunter Biden Indictment (Fox)

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., urged the Justice Department to hold on a potential Hunter Biden indictment until after Republicans hold a press conference unveiling additional details surrounding the Biden family’s business dealings. Comer warned officials to wait to charge the first son until they hear from congressional leaders, arguing that the possible indictment could be just a “slap on the wrist” compared to their upcoming revelations. “My message to the Department of Justice is very loud and clear. Do not indict Hunter Biden before Wednesday,” Comer said during “Sunday Morning Futures.” “When you have the opportunity to see the evidence that the House Oversight Committee will produce with respect to the web of LLCs, with respect to the number of adversarial countries that this family influence peddled in, and this is not just about the president’s son.

This is about the entire Biden family, including the President of the United States. So we believe there are a whole lot of tips that the IRS and the DOJ don’t know about because we don’t believe they’ve done a whole lot of digging in this, and we have.” “By all accounts from the media reports that we’re getting, what they’re looking at charging Hunter Biden on is a slap on the wrist. It’s a drop in the bucket,” he continued. “So Wednesday will be a very big day for the American people in getting the facts presented to them so that they can know the truth, and then the Department of Justice can finally do what they should have done years ago.” Federal prosecutors are reportedly nearing a decision on a potential Hunter Biden indictment stemming from a years-long probe into possible tax and gun-related violations.


But Republicans are set to hold a press conference on Wednesday presenting the American people with additional information on the Biden family’s bank records, a briefing that Comer argued will provide additional information into the investigation led by U.S. Attorney David Weiss. Comer warned the evidence they have further implicates the Biden family in a broader, criminal “pay-for-play” bribery scheme. “We’re going to present to the American people all the information that we’ve received thus far pertaining to bank records. We’re going to disclose many of the different LLCs, many of the different transactions that all these different Biden family members have gotten from our adversaries around the world,” he said. “We don’t believe this was just a coincidence that all these Biden family members were receiving money from these this Web of LLC into their personal bag.”

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“uninsured depositor runs”

Close to 190 US Banks Could Collapse, According To Study (USAT)

With the failure of three regional banks since March, and another one teetering on the brink, will America soon see a cascade of bank failures? Bloomberg reported Wednesday that San Francisco-based PacWest Bancorp is mulling a sale. Last week, First Republic Bank became the third bank to collapse, the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history after Washington Mutual, which collapsed in 2008 amid the financial crisis. After the demise of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in March, a study on the fragility of the U.S. banking system found that 186 more banks are at risk of failure even if only half of their uninsured depositors (uninsured depositors stand to lose a part of their deposits if the bank fails, potentially giving them incentives to run) decide to withdraw their funds.

Uninsured deposits are customer deposits greater than the $250,000 FDIC deposit insurance limit. Regional banks are failing because the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes to tamp down inflation have eroded the value of bank assets such as government bonds and mortgage-backed securities. Most bonds pay a fixed interest rate that becomes attractive when interest rates fall, driving up demand and the price of the bond. On the other hand, if interest rates rise, investors will no longer prefer the lower fixed interest rate paid by a bond, thus driving down its price. Many banks increased their holdings of bonds during the pandemic, when deposits were plentiful but loan demand and yields were weak. For many banks, these unrealized losses will stay on paper.


But others may face actual losses if they have to sell securities for liquidity or other reasons, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “The recent declines in bank asset values very significantly increased the fragility of the U.S. banking system to uninsured depositor runs,” economists wrote in a recent paper published on the Social Science Research Network Of course, this scenario would play out only if the government did nothing. “So, our calculations suggest these banks are certainly at a potential risk of a run, absent other government intervention or recapitalization,” the economists wrote.

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“What will generate a credit crunch is the destruction of capital in the asset base of most lenders.”

A Credit Crunch Is Inevitable (Lacalle)

Federal Reserve data shows $98 billion of deposits left the banking system in the week after the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. Most of the money went to money-market funds, as the Bloomberg data shows that assets in this class rose by $121 billion in the same period. The data shows the challenges of the banking system in the middle of a confidence crisis. However, as many analysts point out, this is not necessarily the main factor that dictates the risk of a credit crunch. Deposit flight is certainly an important risk. Many regional banks will have to cut lending to families and businesses as deposits shrink, but in the United States bank loans are less than 19 percent of corporate credit according to the IMF, while in the euro area it is more than 80 percent. What will generate a credit crunch is the destruction of capital in the asset base of most lenders.

The slump in mark-to-market valuations of all asset classes from loans to investments is what will ultimately drive an inevitable credit contraction. Credit standards have tightened significantly already, and the credit impulse of the economy, both in the US and euro area, has deteriorated rapidly, according to the respective Bloomberg indices. Both are below the March 2021 low. We must remember that credit standards’ tightening was already a reality before the Silicon Valley Bank demise. But the reality check of capital destruction in the financial system’s asset base is far from done. Start-ups will most likely see the most severe crunch in financing as the tech bubble burst adds to the asset base capital destruction in private equity and venture capital firms, who have delayed all they could the required write-downs and face a sobering reality check.


Our internal estimate of capital destruction in the asset base of banks and private equity firms is between a 15 to 25 percent wipeout, which is consistent with the average decline in market value over the October 2021–March 2023 period. Real estate investments all over the US and Europe require a significant reevaluation now that real estate has underperformed the market for eighteen months, according to Morgan Stanley. The optimistic valuations of real estate and corporate investments in banks’ balance sheets will require a significant analysis and subsequent write-off that leads to much tighter credit standards and stringent investment conditions.

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“..shifting at least part of its $3.2trn worth of foreign reserves held in dollars into other currencies. All of this would take a long time – one or two decades, perhaps.”

China And Its Trading Allies Are Well Placed To Topple The Dollar (Münchau)

The dollar is the foundation of US global leadership, and the future of the dollar is therefore intricately linked to the debate about geopolitical fragmentation. Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, asked during his recent visit to China: “Why should every country have to be tied to the dollar for trade?… Who decided the dollar would be the [world’s] currency?” These are good questions. The perhaps surprising answer is that he himself made that decision, together with the former leaders of the other “Brics” group of nations: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Their economic-development models have succeeded but have also critically depended on the US dollar. During the period of hyperglobalisation – which I date from 1990 to 2020 – the US became the global importer of last resort, and let its trade deficit against the rest of the world increase.

China and many other fast-developing economies built up savings in the currency they were paid in – the US dollar. They invested those savings into US bonds and other assets. The willingness of the US to absorb the world’s savings surpluses was the engine of globalisation. It ensured that the dollar would maintain its status as the world’s leading currency. This mechanism explains what happened in the last 20 years, but it won’t tell us what will happen in the next 20. Yet the dollar fans assume that the geopolitical and geo-economic environment will stay broadly the same. f the five Brics countries wanted to end their dependence on the dollar, they would have to do more than just choose another currency to trade in. It is not a menu choice, as Lula suggested during the same speech. He and his fellow Brics leaders would have to change how they interact with the rest of the world, and with one another.

China is key. In 2021, the country derived 43 per cent of its GDP from investment. This is approximately twice the level of the US and other Western countries. If China managed to shift some of its GDP to consumption, it would reduce its external trade surplus, as consumers tend to buy more imported goods. If you wanted to be less reliant on the US dollar, this is where you would have to start. As a second step, China and the other Brics countries could start trading more with each other, become more self-reliant in their supply chains, and set up their own financial infrastructure. hanging economic models is hard. Three years after Brexit, the UK is still struggling to move away from a model that depended on close integration with the EU.

Germany is finding it hard to maintain competitiveness without cheap Russian gas and with impaired global supply. It takes decades to build industrial production lines and supply chains. In China, there are an awful lot of vested political interests at the regional level, which rely on the investment boom continuing. If President Xi Jinping was really keen to extricate China from the US dollar, he would need to impose policies that would meet with resistance from regional leaders. In parallel, China would also have to start a long process of shifting at least part of its $3.2trn worth of foreign reserves held in dollars into other currencies. All of this would take a long time – one or two decades, perhaps.

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“Several former agents recalled being blocked by the agency from sharing intelligence about the hijackers with the rest of the FBI.”

MSM Doesn’t Care That the CIA May Have Helped Cause 9/11 (Marcetic)

For all the ways the September 11 attacks continue to shape US culture and foreign policy, the event is still shrouded in a surprising amount of mystery. A recently unearthed bombshell court filing offers some possible clarity on the questions that continue to surround the attacks and their aftermath — and yet, like similar bombshells in recent years, it’s been studiously ignored by the media and political establishment. First reported by Rolling Stone contributing editor Seth Hettena on the Substack SpyTalk, the media project run by veteran former Newsweek national security reporter Jeff Stein, those potential answers come in the form of a signed affidavit from Guantanamo military commission investigator Don Canestraro. The affidavit outlines the findings of a 2016 investigation by Canestraro, a longtime veteran of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), into Saudi and CIA complicity in the terrorist attacks, findings that are squarely at odds with the story given to the public in their wake.

Relaying the information gathered from dozens of interviews he conducted with former FBI and CIA personnel, members of the 9/11 Commission, and US government officials, Canestraro’s affidavit outlines a sequence of events that, if true, suggest a botched and illegal domestic CIA operation was at the heart of the intelligence failure that enabled the attacks. More than that, it suggests there was a concerted cover-up of the grave blunder after the fact by both the CIA and the George W. Bush administration. The affidavit outlines the overlapping claims of numerous agents that the CIA impeded law enforcement efforts that could have prevented the attacks. Several former agents recalled being blocked by the agency from sharing intelligence about the hijackers with the rest of the FBI.


The CIA knew from wiretaps that two of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Halid al-Mindhar, had multiple entry visas letting them travel to the United States, one former agent said, but didn’t pass it on to the bureau. Two other agents alleged that the CIA withheld information about the two men’s connection to the planner of the October 2000 al-Qaeda bombing of the USS Cole, which, if known, would have turned the case into a criminal investigation for the FBI to pursue. One of those agents recalled a meeting with the CIA in which they were shown photos of three suspected terrorists, two of which would turn out to be future hijackers al-Hazmi and al-Mindhar. When the agent, referred to in the affidavit as CS-12, asked who was placing border crossing alerts on the suspects, which would have notified law enforcement about their entry into the United States, they were told no one was.

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“..he still cannot believe that the US was able to pull off the feat, but is now unable to..”

Ex-Russian Space Boss Questions US Moon Landing (RT)

The former head of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, has expressed doubt that the US Apollo 11 mission really landed on the Moon in 1969, saying he has yet to see conclusive proof. In a post on his Telegram channel on Sunday, Rogozin said he began his personal quest for the truth “about ten years ago” when he was still working in the Russian government, and that he grew skeptical about whether the Americans had actually set foot on the Moon when he compared how exhausted Soviet cosmonauts looked upon returning from their flights, and how seemingly unaffected the Apollo 11 crew was by contrast. Rogozin said he sent requests for evidence to Roscosmos at the time.

All he received in response was a book featuring Soviet Cosmonaut Aleksey Leonov’s account of how he talked to the American astronauts and how they told him they had been on the Moon. The former official wrote that he continued with his efforts when he was appointed head of Roscosmos in 2018. However, according to Rogozin, no evidence was presented to him. Instead, several unnamed academics angrily criticized him for undermining the “sacred cooperation with NASA,” he claimed. The former Roscosmos chief also said he had “received an angry phone call from a top-ranking official” who supposedly accused him of complicating international relations.


Rogozin concluded by saying he still cannot believe that the US was able to pull off the feat, but is now unable to, despite the incredible progress in technology since the late 1960s. What he claims to have found out, however, was that Washington has “its people in [the Russian] establishment.” Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to the Moon, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin going down in history as the first humans to walk on the lunar surface. The flight was preceded by the unmanned Soviet Luna 2 program, which blazed the trail for Moon exploration. Last April, President Vladimir Putin pledged to resume Russia’s lunar program.

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A husky next to a wolf. Although wolf-like in appearance, huskies are no more closely related to wolves than poodles and bulldogs are. And the size says it all.

 

 

Kiss whale

 

 

Aqua puppy

We love little guy

 

 


The rainbow starfrontlet (Coeligena iris) is a species of hummingbird in the “brilliants” tribe Heliantheini. Males have a glittering yellow-green forecrown that transitions through golden yellow to blue on the crown Jorge Luis Cruz Alcivar

 

 

Chick

A video of a giant Squid. This specimen, found in Toyama Bay, measured approximately 3.7 meters in length. However, estimates place their maximum size at about 12-13 meters.

 

 


Secretary bird

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

May 032023
 


Frida Kahlo Self portrait in a Velvet Dress 1926

 

The US Grip On The Middle East Slips, And Peace Breaks Out (Inlakesh)
What China Is Really Playing at in Ukraine (Pepe Escobar)
‘Bad Weather’ Delaying Counteroffensive – Ukraine (RT)
Why Ukraine’s Much-Anticipated ‘Counteroffensive’ Could End In Failure (RT)
‘Ukraine Will Not Stop Until It Liberates All Occupied Territories’ (Az.)
Russian Army Has Enough Ammo And Kiev’s Losses Mounting – Shoigu (TASS)
Kremlin Mocks & Dismisses White House’s High Russian Casualty Count (ZH)
Top US General Milley Predicts Ukraine Conflict Duration (RT)
German Media Shares Details Of NATO-Ukraine Talks (RT)
Half Of Europe’ Wants Better Ties With Russia – Polish Deputy PM (RT)
US Decided ‘Not To Notice’ That Kiev Hid Truth About Odessa Massacre (TASS)
Defeat of the Enemy Lies in His Own Hands (Crooke)
Poland Explains Plan For WWII Reparations From Russia (RT)
US Biden-Trump Generation Clings To An Outdated Political Reality (Lukyanov)
Judge Orders Hunter Biden to Provide Details on Income (ET)

 

 

 

 

Class action

 

 

 

 

America’s grandpa

 

 

 

 

 

 

“In March, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said that he didn’t care if the US President had misunderstood things about him, and later in April it was reported he also told advisors that pleasing the Americans is no longer a priority.”

The US Grip On The Middle East Slips, And Peace Breaks Out (Inlakesh)

As Washington’s influence in the Middle East declines, countries throughout the region are taking to compromise, rapprochement, and peace talks, inflicting a blow to the US narrative that seeks to depict its role as a stabilizer and democracy advocate. Under the leadership of US President Joe Biden, there has been a notable downgrade in the status of the West amongst various long-time Middle East allies. As the US-led West exerts the majority of its efforts on the war in Ukraine, its poor decision making in the Middle East has finally begun to catch up to it. The first major blow to Washington’s influence came in the form of a Chinese-mediated agreement to end a decades-long feud between major regional actors Iran and Saudi Arabia, one which led to the severing of ties in 2016. This has a number of implications for US power in the region.

The first being that this collapsed a strategy that the US was developing, to unite Saudi Arabia with the likes of Egypt, the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain, and Israel, against Iran and its allies in the region; the alliance was speculated to serve as a “Middle East NATO.” The second is that the Iran-Saudi rapprochement appears to have caused Riyadh to scrap its plans for normalizing ties with Israel at this time, something that the Biden administration clearly values as a foreign policy achievement. There is also the additional aspect of this being negotiated by Beijing without any regard for how it would reflect on the White House. Despite attempts in Washington to make the deal seem like something it approves of, and repeated remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about how close normalization with Saudi Arabia is, it was clearly a blow and has major consequences to the US approach to the region. In March, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said that he didn’t care if the US President had misunderstood things about him, and later in April it was reported he also told advisors that pleasing the Americans is no longer a priority.

Immediately after the Saudi-Iran normalization, Riyadh entered into serious negotiations with Yemen’s Ansarallah (the Houthis), in order to end the war that has been raging between the two sides since 2015 and has claimed around 400,000 lives in the country. To make things worse for the US, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister recently made a trip to Damascus to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In addition to Riyadh’s moves and Tunisia re-establishing ties with Syria, it also appears as if Ankara may be on the cusp of rapprochement with Damascus and there is a push for Syria to be re-integrated into the Arab League, which clearly runs contrary to the US agenda. Then we have the fact that Qatar has announced it is restoring ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which is not as significant as the above mentioned moves, yet adds to a list of peacemaking decisions taken without America.

On the level of optics, this makes it seem as if the common denominator is the absence of the US. On the other hand, Washington’s development of ties with the Kingdom of Morocco is egging on tensions with neighboring Algeria. Not only is the Biden administration adding fuel to the fire in the diplomatic feud between both sides, but is helping exacerbate military tensions in a Rabat-Algiers arms race. Earlier this April, the US approved a potential $524.2 million sale of HIMARS artillery rocket systems to Morocco. Furthermore, the top Middle East partner of the United States, Israel, has been severely weakened by an ongoing domestic political crisis over a proposed judicial overhaul by the Israeli government. Problems have also arisen with Israel’s approach to issues like maintaining the status quo at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a holy site where neighboring Jordan maintains custodianship, and it has caused major rows between Amman and Tel Aviv in recent months. This presents another obstacle to the US, which is being forced to mediate between both sides to maintain calm.

Assad

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“..the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is the un-dissociable double of an American direct war against the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)..”

What China Is Really Playing at in Ukraine (Pepe Escobar)

Imagine President Xi Jinping mustering undiluted Taoist patience to suffer through a phone call with that warmongering actor in a sweaty T-shirt in Kiev while attempting to teach him a few facts of life – complete with the promise of sending a high-level Chinese delegation to Ukraine to discuss “peace”. There’s way more than meets the discerning eye obscured by this spun-to-death diplomatic “victory” – at least from the point of view of NATOstan. The question is inevitable: what’s the point of this phone call? Very simple: just business. The Beijing leadership is fully aware the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is the un-dissociable double of an American direct war against the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Until recently, and since 2019, Beijing was the top trade partner for Kiev (14.4% of imports, 15.3% of exports).

China essentially exported machinery, equipment, cars and chemical products, importing food products, metals and also some machinery. Very few in the West know that Ukraine joined BRI way back in 2014, and a BRI trade and investment center was operating in Kiev since 2018. BRI projects include a 2017 drive to build the fourth line of the Kiev metro system as well as 4G installed by Huawei. Everything is stalled since 2022. Noble Agri, a subsidiary of COFCO (China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation), invested in a sunflower seed processing complex in Mariupol and the recently built Mykolaiv grain port terminal. The next step will necessarily feature cooperation between Donbass authorities and the Chinese when it comes to rebuilding their assets that may have been damaged during the war.

Beijing also tried to become heavily involved in the Ukraine defense sector and even buy Motor Sich; that was blocked by Kiev. So what we have in Ukraine, from the Chinese point of view, is a trade/investment cocktail of BRI, railways, military supplies, 4G and construction jobs. And then, the key vector: neon. Roughly half of neon used in the production of semiconductors was supplied, until recently, by two Ukrainian companies; Ingas in Mariupol, and Cryoin, in Odessa. There’s no business going on since the start of the Special Military Operation (SMO). That directly affects the Chinese production of semiconductors. Bets can be made that the Hegemon is not exactly losing sleep over this predicament.

Ukraine does represent value for China as a BRI crossroads. The war is interrupting not only business but, in the bigger picture, one of the trade and connectivity corridors linking Western China to Eastern Europe. BRI conditions all key decisions in Beijing – as it is the overarching concept of Chinese foreign policy way into mid-century. And that explains Xi’s phone call, debunking any NATOstan nonsense on China finally paying attention to the warmongering actor.

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“God’s will, the weather, and a decision of commanders.”

‘Bad Weather’ Delaying Counteroffensive – Ukraine (RT)

Ukraine is holding off on its long-touted counteroffensive against Russia because it currently cannot use Western-provided armor due to bad weather, Kiev’s ambassador to the UK has claimed. “Obviously, the weather is not allowing so far the heavy tanks to move in the Ukrainian usual spring mud,” Vadim Pristayko told Sky News on Tuesday. The comments mirrored those made last week by Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov, who stated that Ukrainian forces were broadly ready for a push against Russia but needed “God’s will, the weather, and a decision of commanders.” The US and its allies have sent dozens of main battle tanks and hundreds of armored vehicles to Ukraine to bolster the expected counteroffensive.

While Western officials have argued that Kiev has all it needs for a successful operation, behind closed doors the American military has reportedly expressed doubts about Ukraine’s ability to break through Russian defensive lines. Multiple Western media reports have suggested that the counteroffensive could be a make-or-break moment for the conflict, and that Kiev may find it difficult to secure further packages of military assistance unless it gains significant ground. Senior Ukrainian officials have criticized that notion, urging continued support regardless of the outcome. Pristayko told Sky that Ukraine is targeting “a breakthrough offensive,” but at the same time cautioned that “too much hope is put on this one.”

The envoy accused Moscow of exaggerating its own military capabilities, citing the latest missile strikes against Ukrainian targets as an example. Russians “are blowing it out of proportion reporting hundreds of rockets. In reality there were just dozens of them sent our way,” he insisted. The claim that up to 100 missiles were launched in a recent attack by Russia appears to have originated from Ukrainian official Sergey Shakhet, police chief in Nikolaev Region. He shared the figure on social media on Monday, with Ukrainian media later disseminating it. The Russian Defense Ministry did not mention the number of weapons used in its own report on the strikes.

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“..As soon as Ukraine’s previously hidden equipment was moved closer to the front line, it became easier to destroy..”

Why Ukraine’s Much-Anticipated ‘Counteroffensive’ Could End In Failure (RT)

Talk about a counteroffensive by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has been doing the rounds for months, but it is still not clear when it might begin or whether it will happen at all. Previously, RT analyzed the readiness of the AFU for such an operation, but this time we will discuss the main challenges that may prevent Kiev’s troops from implementing or developing its political leaderships aims. And, perhaps most importantly, those of its Western sponsors. What is the AFU’s main challenge in mounting this sort of endeavor? We currently do not have any idea of where the AFU’s counteroffensive could take place, although Russian military bosses will be well aware of troop movements. If it involves an attempt to breakthrough the front line, then in addition to preparing reserves for battle, the AFU will need high-precision weapons.

Ukrainian troops will have to use long-range artillery rocket systems, including the US-supplied M142 HIMARS MLRS. Since the start of Moscow’s offensive, Kiev has used these systems only from deep within its own territory. However, to achieve momentum and penetrate the defense line, the systems will have to be moved closer to the front. The current number of HIMARS rocket launchers (about 35 units) may not be enough for a counteroffensive along the entire front line, which stretches for 1,000km. The systems will probably be concentrated in just one or two directions, but this makes them easier to detect and destroy. Moreover, Ukraine only has a finite supply of missiles for most of its Western weapons systems, like the HIMARS, which means the manner in which they can be used is limited. These systems have never been tested in high-intensity conflicts.

There is currently no doctrine or tested recommendations on using HIMARS/M270 MLRS in combined arms warfare or in such a large-scale war against a technologically advanced enemy. Considering the risk of detection in areas with concentrated equipment, and Ukraine’s fear of losing reserves, as we see happening in Artemovsk (Bakhmut), the AFU will likely prepare its most important military formations from 12 to 36 hours before the main strike. In the present conditions, it is nearly impossible to amass enough fuel and ammunition. Not to mention the difficulties in trying to position people secretly. Russia has already used Lancet drones to hit German Gepard anti-aircraft guns and Soviet S-300 missile systems close to the front line. As soon as Ukraine’s previously hidden equipment was moved closer to the front line, it became easier to destroy.

This demonstrates that the routes used for transporting Ukrainian military equipment and the places where it is positioned are under Russian surveillance. If the AFU loses significant amounts of fuel – or transport equipment or engineering units – in the first two or three days, it will have to adjust the counteroffensive’s strategy on the go or implement a backup plan (if it has one). Moreover, Ukraine has no means of transferring reserves by air or conducting amphibious warfare. Its supply and logistics fully depend on roads and railways. In such conditions, the destruction of a bridge or a train line on an important supply route may lead to a disaster at the front.

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“I am confident that our partners will make the necessary decisions and we will receive the F16.”

‘Ukraine Will Not Stop Until It Liberates All Occupied Territories’ (Az.)

Ukraine will not stop until it liberates all the temporarily occupied territories, and is currently preparing for counteroffensive operations, Head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, said during a conversation with journalists of the Dutch national TV channel NOS and the NRC newspaper, Report informs. He said that partner countries should continue and strengthen their support to Ukraine. Andriy Yermak said that the troops of the Russian Federation continue to launch missile attacks on civilian infrastructure and civilians in Ukrainian cities, and this has been going on for more than 14 months. “They want to destroy Ukrainians, the Ukrainian nation. But our people, our military are heroic and brave, and we continue not only to defend our land, but also to liberate the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories,” he said.


The Head of the President’s Office noted that Ukraine is currently preparing for counteroffensive operations and therefore needs more and more weapons. He noted that Ukraine needs long-range missiles and modern aircraft to liberate the temporarily occupied territories: “Everything changes, and Ukraine has changed many things. I am confident that our partners will make the necessary decisions and we will receive the F16.” “The people of Ukraine have made a decision – we want to be in NATO. Now about 80% of our population supports this move,” he added. According to Andriy Yermak, the decision on Ukraine’s accession to NATO is the best way to speed up the end of the war and guarantee peace in Europe.

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“Russia’s Tactical Missiles Corporation that rolls out missile systems, anti-ship, anti-radar and other missiles, has launched the mass production of new weapons..”

Russian Army Has Enough Ammo And Kiev’s Losses Mounting – Shoigu (TASS)

Russian forces have already received sufficient ammunition for effectively inflicting damage on the enemy by firepower and the domestic defense industry generally meets the requirements of the Army and the Navy, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told a conference call with military commanders on Tuesday. In April, Kiev lost over 15,000 troops and 430 armored vehicles in battles. Therefore, the Kiev regime’s manpower losses increased by a third compared to February (the Russian Defense Ministry did not report about the Kiev regime’s military personnel losses in March). TASS has put together the highlights of the Russian defense minister’s speech.

“The Russian Armed Forces are conducting active operations along the entire engagement line. Despite the unprecedented military assistance from Western countries, the enemy is sustaining heavy losses.” According to the data of the Russian Defense Ministry, in the past month alone, the Kiev regime lost over 15,000 troops, eight combat aircraft and 277 unmanned aerial vehicles, 430 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 18 multiple rocket launchers and 225 artillery guns and mortars. As the data indicate, Ukraine’s manpower losses proved to be higher in April than in February while equipment losses exceeded the January figures (the latest information publicly reported by the Russian Defense Ministry), although Ukraine lost more aircraft at that time.

“As a whole, the defense industry meets the requirements of the Army and the Navy.” Compared to early 2022, the amount of purchased basic armaments grew by 170% and “especially needed weapons” by seven times, the defense chief said. “This year, a sufficient amount of ammunition has been delivered to the Armed Forces for inflicting effective damage on the enemy by firepower.” In addition, Russian military specialists have achieved successes in recovering damaged or broken military hardware and preventing equipment breakdowns, the defense minister said. “Presently, the daily amount of repaired armaments exceeds the amount of broken equipment in the proportion of three to two. Thanks to organizational measures taken, the amount of unfit equipment subject to repairs has dwindled by 1.5 times,” he said.

Russia’s Tactical Missiles Corporation that rolls out missile systems, anti-ship, anti-radar and other missiles, has launched the mass production of new weapons. “With regard to some latest weapon systems, the corporation has switched over to serial production, having finished all the R&D stages within the shortest time possible,” Shoigu said. As a whole, “the enterprise fulfils the defense procurement plan within the established timeframe” but today it is necessary to “double the production of precision weapons within the shortest time possible.”

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Remember: Ukraine losses are 7-8x higher than Russia’s.

Kremlin Mocks & Dismisses White House’s High Russian Casualty Count (ZH)

The Kremlin has reacted to a Monday briefing by National Security Council spokesman John Kirby wherein he issued a surprisingly high estimate of Russian casualties which he said took place since December in the contested Donetsk city of Bakhmut. He said Russian forces have suffered over 100,000 total casualties – including about 20,000 soldiers killed in combat and another 80,000 wounded. In response, Dmitry Peskov mocked and dismissed these figures on Tuesday, saying the White House is pulling the numbers out of a hat, and further stressed the US cannot possibly know any of this. “Pulling out figures out of a hat, Washington does not have the opportunity to give any correct figures, they do not have such data, this is how it should be treated” Peskov said, as cited in national media. “It is necessary to focus only on those figures that are published in a timely manner by the Russian Defense Ministry,” he added.

Interestingly, when in the Monday press briefing Kirby was asked the NSC spokesman refused to give casualty numbers for the Ukrainian side. “I’m not ever going to put anything out in the public domain that’s going to make their job harder,” Kirby said. “They are the victims here. Russia is the aggressor.” As we explained previously, while very clearly Bakhmut has for months been in truth a “meat-grinder” for both sides, the US is likely offering this staggering and large Russian casualty count of 100,000 in order to establish a ‘pyrrhic victory’ narrative. Kirby admitted the Russians are winning in Bakhmut, but wants to paint a picture of it losing the overall conflict given the massive cost and sacrifice for Bakhmut. The independent geopolitical analysis site Moon of Alabama wrote days ago:

“Bakhmut/Aryomovsk is to 90% under Russian control and the rest will be captured during the next few days. Ukrainian losses in the city must have been huge. The Ukrainian troops who try to escape from the city immediately come under artillery fire. The latest daily Russian clobber report counts 575 ‘enemy losses’ in Bakhmut over the last 24 hours for a total of 815 along the whole frontline. This is the largest number reported over the last two months.” Meanwhile, a Tuesday briefing by Russia’s defense chief has painted a grim picture for the Ukrainian side. According to his words: “Russian forces have already received sufficient ammunition for effectively inflicting damage on the enemy by firepower and the domestic defense industry generally meets the requirements of the Army and the Navy, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told a conference call with military commanders on Tuesday.”

“In April, Kiev lost over 15,000 troops and 430 armored vehicles in battles,” he said as cited in TASS. “Therefore, the Kiev regime’s manpower losses increased by a third compared to February (the Russian Defense Ministry did not report about the Kiev regime’s military personnel losses in March),” the state publication said.

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“..he argued that “rational folks” in Moscow would be convinced “over either months or a year or two” to negotiate, “because they’re not going to win.”

Top US General Milley Predicts Ukraine Conflict Duration (RT)

The US has helped train and equip the Ukrainian military for the upcoming operations, whether offensive or defensive, but the fighting is unlikely to produce a clear winner in 2023, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has told the outlet Foreign Affairs on a podcast that aired on Tuesday. Asked what he expected of the much-heralded Ukrainian counteroffensive, Milley told Foreign Affairs that the US and its European NATO partners have helped Ukraine train and equip “about nine brigades worth of combined arms, armor, and mech[anized] infantry type forces” over the past several months, as well as some light infantry. Kiev’s forces “right now have the capability to attack, they can conduct offensive operations, and they also have the capability to defend, significantly enhanced from what they were just a year ago for conventional operations,” he said.

“They’ve got a significant amount of planning and coordination and all of that to do, if they were to do an offensive operation.” According to Milley, if the Ukrainians do launch an offensive, anything is possible, from collapsing the Russian front entirely to no success at all. “I do think, though, that the probability of either side achieving their political objectives – war is about politics through the sole use of military means – I think that’s going to be very difficult, very challenging. And frankly, I don’t think the probability of that is likely in this year.” Milley claimed the Russian military had suffered 250,000 casualties and that the army, society and economy have all been severely impacted by the conflict. He would not speculate about Ukrainian casualties. The Kremlin has laughed off US estimates of Russian deaths as fabricated “out of nowhere.”

The US general stuck by those claims, however, and also asserted that Russia had “failed” to achieve any of its objectives in Ukraine. Based on that, he argued that “rational folks” in Moscow would be convinced “over either months or a year or two” to negotiate, “because they’re not going to win.” Congressman Michael McCaul, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Monday that the offensive needed to present a success so the West could keep funding Kiev, “after which we can then maybe have negotiations, to finally resolve this.” The bulk of the podcast was devoted to China, with Milley arguing that the US “should do what it can to make sure” that Russia and China don’t set up a strategic military alliance. He dismissed the present level of military ties between Moscow and Beijing as “very, very modest.” Milley also maintained that both Russia and China were aware of the US military might and did not wish a direct confrontation with Washington.

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“..it’s known that France, Germany, and countries in Western Europe, in general, have always been against Ukraine joining either the EU or NATO.”

German Media Shares Details Of NATO-Ukraine Talks (RT)

Washington and Berlin aren’t ready to make any promises to Kiev regarding Ukraine’s future NATO membership, German news agency dpa has reported. Ukraine’s hopes of joining the US-led military bloc anytime soon are likely to be shattered, the agency claimed on Tuesday. According to dpa’s information, the bloc’s key players such as the US and Germany recently made it clear to Kiev behind closed doors that they currently don’t want to make any further commitments on the issue, beyond the vague NATO declaration of 2008. Back then, the leaders of the NATO member-states said that Ukraine and another former Soviet republic, Georgia, should join the bloc, but didn’t provide any timetable for the accession of either.

During his visit to Kiev last month, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reiterated that “Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO.” He also projected that “over time, our support will help to make this possible,” but refrained from saying when exactly Ukraine’s NATO membership is going to happen. However, a few days later, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius suggested that “this is not the time to decide” about Ukraine’s place in NATO. The bloc’s members should consider this issue “with a cool head and a hot heart. Not the other way around,” Pistorius said. The German minister’s comments have angered Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Piotr Wawrzyk, who claimed that “it’s known that France, Germany, and countries in Western Europe, in general, have always been against Ukraine joining either the EU or NATO.”

Earlier this week Gitanas Nauseda, the president of another NATO member-state, Lithuania, said that it “would be too difficult” to make Ukraine a member of the bloc as long as the conflict with Russia continues. The Kiev government is also well aware of this, he added. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s top adviser, Mikhail Podoliak, has recently reiterated Kiev’s desire to join the alliance, claiming that it would be impossible to restore security in Europe without “the country’s full membership in NATO.” Moscow, which sees NATO’s eastward expansion as a major security threat, had singled out Ukraine’s push to join the bloc among the main reasons for launching its military operation against Kiev more than a year ago.

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“..lamented the fact that there is still a “threat” that relations between Russia and EU countries could return to the way they were before the current rift..”

Half Of Europe’ Wants Better Ties With Russia – Polish Deputy PM (RT)

Polish Deputy Prime Minister Piotr Glinski has lamented the fact that there is still a “threat” that relations between Russia and EU countries could return to the way they were before the current rift. He blasted opposition parties in Poland, as well as “half of Europe,” for harboring hopes of improving ties with Moscow.= Speaking to the Kurier Lubelski news outlet, Glinski was asked if he believed that Warsaw was “in danger” of returning to “naive” politics when, for example, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was invited to meet with Polish ambassadors in Warsaw in 2010 in an effort to improve bilateral relations. “Unfortunately, the threat of a return to these relationships still exists,” he replied.

Glinski claimed that the government’s “political rivals” as well as their voters are “hostage to interest groups that only think about ending the war in Ukraine as soon as possible and continue to be a client of Russia and do business with it,” adding that “half of Europe is like that, waiting for it.” The deputy prime minister’s comments come as Polish Secretary of State Marcin Przydacz also told the Financial Times on Tuesday that Warsaw plans to demand World War II reparations from Russia, just as it has done from Germany, from which it is requesting some €1.3 trillion ($1.43 trillion). “We treat Berlin and Moscow in a different-civilization way,” Przydacz told the outlet, noting that once there is “success” in squeezing cash out of Germany, the next step would be to “launch such a discussion with the other oppressor.”

Brussels, meanwhile, has accused Poland of sliding towards authoritarianism under its current leadership, while Jana Puglierin, the head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, suggested that the right-wing PiS party is prioritizing electoral success rather than focusing on establishing constructive relationships. Moscow has responded to the recent comments from Warsaw by stating that “nothing good” can be expected in Russian-Polish relations in the near future. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov noted on Tuesday that “Russophobia,” which has “gripped” the minds of Polish authorities “absolutely deprives them of sobriety in their approach to everything related to Russia” and prevents them from taking “intelligible or thoughtful steps.”

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“Illusions disappeared, the country by leaps and bounds began to turn into a copy of the Nazi Reich..”

US Decided ‘Not To Notice’ That Kiev Hid Truth About Odessa Massacre (TASS)

The US preferred to “not notice” that Kiev destroyed evidence and hid the truth about the tragedy in the Odessa House of Trade Unions that took place on May 2, 2014, the Russian embassy in Washington said in a statement on Tuesday. The embassy stated that “May 2 marks the nine-year anniversary since the date of the tragic events in Odessa.” “On this day in 2014, a brutal crowd of Ukrainian fanatics committed a merciless murder of several dozen civilians. Like Nazi castigators, these extremists drove defenseless people, among them – women and elderly, into the House of Trade Unions with sticks and steel bars, and then set it on fire with Molotov cocktails. At least 48 people were burned to death, poisoned by carbon monoxide or died after jumping out of windows. Hundreds were seriously injured. Their only ‘fault’ was their disagreement with the aggressive policies of the neo-Nazis who came to power and their desire to remain Russian,” the statement said.


“Contrary to the promises by the Kiev regime to investigate this barbaric crime and punish those responsible, the authorities did everything to hide the truth and destroy the evidence, to allow organizers and effecters to avoid justice. In the United States, they decided not to notice this. And the local so-called human rights activists, in fact, covered up the Odessa executioners and tormentors all these years,” the statement said. “The Odessa tragedy will forever remain one of the most shameful pages in the history of Ukraine. Supporters of the Kiev junta applauded the brutal massacre, glorifying the unbridled radicals as ‘patriots.’ Under the influence of a nationalist frenzy, human life in the country has completely lost its value.”

“It is clear now that the bloody massacre in Odessa is a point of no return. Illusions disappeared, the country by leaps and bounds began to turn into a copy of the Nazi Reich. Bandera’s heirs launched a punitive military operation against the inhabitants of Donbass, with crimes against the civilian population committed en masse. Terror against dissidents, censorship and discrimination has become the basis of state policy on the territory controlled by Kiev,” the Russian diplomats said. “The progressive disease of the Ukrainian state demanded a tough rebuff. A special military operation is aimed at its denazification and demilitarization. It is a guarantee that tragedies like the one in Odessa will never happen again,” the statement said.


Radicals from the Right Sector (banned in Russia) and the Maidan uprising’s so-called self-defense force attacked a tent camp on the Kulikovo Field in Odessa on May 2, 2014, where residents were collecting signatures for a referendum on the federalization of Ukraine and giving the Russian language status as an official language. Supporters of federalization took refuge in the House of Trade Unions, but the radicals surrounded the building and set it on fire. According to official data from the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, 48 people were killed, and more than 240 were injured in those events. The government pinned the blame for the riots solely on the opponents of the uprising. However, the investigation, which lasted several years, could not prove their guilt in court. As a result, all those who were initially detained in the case were later acquitted.

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‘Securing Ourselves Is in Our Hands; and Defeat of the Enemy Lies in His Own Hands’

(Sun Tzu, d. 496 BCE)

Defeat of the Enemy Lies in His Own Hands (Crooke)

Whilst the structural shift to a multipolar world is now well understood in geo-political terms, its other dimensions are little noticed. The media focus is so much centred on the military situation in Ukraine that it is easily overlooked that President Putin has also been fighting a financial war – a war on liberal economic theory; and a diplomatic war for the support of the non-West and from key strategic allies, China and India. On top of that, Putin has to manage the psyche inside Russia. His objective is to restore patriotism and a Russian national culture reconnected to its roots in Orthodox Christianity. To achieve this, he needs to let it evolve in a civil context – To allow the military aspect to become all-encompassing would be to skew the Russian consciousness in a very particular way.

President Putin has spoken on several occasions of the need for ‘civil Russia’ to have the oxygen to evolve in its own way – by re-appropriating its past cultural legacy in new form – and for that process not to be wholly subsumed into military needs and ethos. So, the project is, in fact, wholly multi-faceted – although undoubtedly, the struggle to restore respect for sovereignty and for autonomy in internal affairs represents the project ‘key stone’. Yet, a significant part to re-appropriating sovereignty requires the shift of Russia’s economic structure out from the grip of the ‘Anglo’ neo-liberal model, to one that provides for greater national self-sufficiency. Hence, the simple questioning of the philosophical underpinnings to the ‘Anglo’ system of politics and economics – which underlie the Rules Order – is as important, in its own way, as the Ukrainian battlefield.

Like any system, the World Order rests on philosophical principles believed to be universal, but which, in truth, are specific to a particular moment in European history. Today, the West is not ‘what it was’. It is a fractured ideological battlespace. The Rest of World is not ‘what it was’. And today’s ideological western writhings are no longer viewed as being of primary concern to the World. The point here, however, is about a project designed to bring change to that which has not changed. It is as much a war for global psyche as of attrition on the battlefront (though that, too, is a vital component in shifting the global zeitgeist). If a multi-polar order is to be built based on self-sufficient sovereignty, others should exit the neo-liberal economic system too (if they can). Hence the need for a major diplomatic initiative by Russia and China to build a strategic depth for a new economics.

Where Putin and Xi Jinping come together … is their shared appreciation of China’s astonishing sprint to the ranks of an economic superpower. In Putin’s words, China “managed in the best possible way, in my opinion, to use the levers of central administration (for) the development of a market economy … The Soviet Union did nothing like this, and the results of an ineffective economic policy impacted the political sphere”. Washington and Brussels clearly doesn’t ‘get it’. And Yellen’s speech is the prime ‘exhibit’ of this analytic failure: The West had understood the Soviet implosion and to the financial mayhem of the Yeltsin years in precisely the opposite way to Xi’s analysis, and to Putin’s concurrence with Xi’s harsh verdict. Plainly put, Xi and Putin’s assessment is that the Russian disaster was the result of the turn to western liberalism, whereas Yellen clearly sees China’s ‘error’ – for which she chides it – is in the move away from the ‘liberal’ world system.

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Hard to believe. 26 million dead AND pay war reparations?

Poland Explains Plan For WWII Reparations From Russia (RT)

Poland could demand World War II reparations from Russia but only if it persuades Germany to pay a similar bill first, a senior official in Warsaw has said. Berlin has thus far rejected a €1.3 trillion ($1.43 trillion) claim from Poland over the Nazi occupation, arguing that the issue has long been settled. “We treat Berlin and Moscow in a different-civilization way,” Polish Secretary of State Marcin Przydacz told the Financial Times in an article published on Tuesday. “Once there will be a success with Germany, the next step could be to launch such a discussion with the other oppressor.” Demanding reparations has become a key aspect of Polish foreign policy under the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS). Berlin has said it accepts moral responsibility for Nazi crimes and continues to make direct payments to Holocaust survivors in Poland, but argues that other financial claims were settled in the 1950s.

Warsaw has insisted that it was short-changed due to the USSR’s desire to move on from the conflict. Warsaw sent a formal note to Berlin with reparation demands last October. Polish President Andrzej Duda said at the time that he did not see any reason why his country should not do the same with Russia. Warsaw is locked in a broader dispute with Berlin over what it perceives to be outsized German influence on EU affairs. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of PiS, claimed in 2021 that Berlin was morphing the EU into a “Fourth Reich.” Brussels, meanwhile, has accused Poland of a slide towards authoritarianism under its current leadership, and further angered Warsaw by initially declining to approve Covid-19 funding from the bloc.

Jana Puglierin, head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, told the FT that PiS appeared to prioritize electoral success rather than “having a constructive relationship [with Germany].” “Overall in terms of trust I feel the German-Polish relationship is at its lowest level since 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Michal Baranowski, director of the German Marshall Fund’s office in Warsaw, said of the situation. The FT noted that despite any political tensions, Germany has opted to deploy long-range anti-aircraft systems in Poland amid the conflict in Ukraine. Warsaw has accused Berlin of not doing enough to support Kiev and previously criticized Germany for buying cheap Russian gas. Experts told the newspaper that economic interconnection could alleviate the political standoff between Warsaw and Berlin.

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“Trump may seem to be outside the club, with his “America First” discourse challenging the globalist aspirations of the American ruling class. But his place in history is not in doubt, for he too has not challenged US hegemony..”

US Biden-Trump Generation Clings To An Outdated Political Reality (Lukyanov)

Joe Biden has decided to continue fighting the battle for America’s soul and has announced his intention to run for a second term as President. If he is successful, he will be 82 years old on Inauguration Day, overtaking himself in the rankings of the oldest US leaders to take office. By the end of his presidency, if all goes well, Biden would be 86. Age is no longer a burden in the modern world, and practices and techniques encouraging active longevity are widespread and effective. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad will be 98 in two months, and like a lion he continues to fight for the rights of the opposition against his former associates. Henry Kissinger will celebrate his centenary in a month’s time, but his judgments are often retold and treated as important observations.

By comparison to these figures, Biden is still in his prime. Angry tongues, however, say that the problem is not his age, but the cognitive state of the president, who often greets the void, hears voices and forgets where he is. But let’s face it, Biden’s political line is pretty consistent and logical. And it is not a consequence of dementia, but of a certain ideological and strategic approach. How right it is and what it will lead to is another question, but it is being pursued consciously and not under the influence of apparitions. In any case, there is a good chance of a rematch in 2024. Donald Trump, who is currently in the lead for the Republican nomination, would face an opponent he lost to in 2020. Even if he has never fully acknowledged the defeat. Trump will be 77 on Election Day. The former president is noticeably more active and mentally sharper than his potential rival and appears to still be in possession of all his powers. However, Biden also looked very different, just a few years ago, but eventually broke down.

The elections are still a year and a half away, which in the current circumstances is a very long time, not just for the patriarchs themselves, but for everyone else too. A lot can change suddenly. But if these two candidates make it to the final stage, what form will the eventual long generational transition take? We would venture to guess that behind the political longevity of this age cohort which, excluding Obama, under whom Biden played the role of ‘uncle’, has been running the United States since the early 1990s is a fixed agenda. And this, strangely enough, is international, despite the fact that foreign policy issues play little role in real American politics. The first member of the Trump-Biden generation to hold high office was Bill Clinton, and he was given the opportunity to implement a unipolar, US-centric world order. This framework has remained in place ever since.

Although the structure and state of the international system have changed qualitatively, the consciousness of the American establishment – which aims to preserve and strengthen the old system – has not budged. Trump may seem to be outside the club, with his “America First” discourse challenging the globalist aspirations of the American ruling class. But his place in history is not in doubt, for he too has not challenged US hegemony. The Republican differs from his predecessors or from Biden in that he openly wants to make his country’s central role a profitable affair, discarding conventionality. Nevertheless, by no means would he give it up. American world dominance is now under intense pressure. It is not only the emergence of rivals challenging the hegemon. These shifts are very different, but they have in common a rejection of claims to leadership, especially American dominance. In other words, a global “material resistance” effect has emerged.

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“..If the press comes up with those things, I can’t control that. I can’t gag the world..”

Judge Orders Hunter Biden to Provide Details on Income (ET)

President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden may have paid the mother of his 4-year-old daughter up to $750,000 in child support since March 2020, said one of his attorneys at a hearing. Hunter Biden appeared in Independence County Circuit Court in Batesville, Arkansas, on May 1 as ordered by the judge overseeing the child support dispute between the president’s 53-year-old son and Lunden Roberts. Roberts is the Arkansas woman who, according to court filings, had a relationship with Hunter and gave birth to a baby girl in August 2018. She sued for support in 2019. At first Hunter Biden denied that the child was his, but a DNA test confirmed he is the father. On March 12, 2020, he and Roberts agreed to an undisclosed amount in monthly child support to begin on April 1, 2020.

Terms of the agreement are sealed because they contain sensitive personal information, including the amount of monthly support and each party’s source of income. Hunter Biden asked the court to review the child support arrangement the following September because his financial status had changed. During a discussion of the discovery process, Hunter Biden’s attorney, Abbe David Lowell, said his client has been paying $20,000 monthly, more than $700,000 since the support order was signed. Judge Holly Meyer clarified during the May 1 hearing that any information discussed in open court was a matter of public record. Lowell’s remarks came after he and attorney Brent Langdon of Dallas, Texas, complained that news outlets had published information from sealed court files.

He said news reports referenced tax files, information on Hunter Biden’s cars, and other things that had been redacted. “How is it that things that are redacted in the file are released to the Daily Mail? There are matters that are being redacted that are getting out to the daily news,” Langdon said. Meyer said that, without proof someone was illegally releasing information, there was little she could do. Journalists and the public often speculate on matters and may come close to guessing what is in a sealed file, she added. “If the press comes up with those things, I can’t control that. I can’t gag the world,” Meyer said. The judge ordered Hunter Biden to provide information on his income from his artwork, investments, employment, gifts from friends, and other sources. She also ordered Roberts to provide information on the value of her property and income while working with her father’s business.

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Origami

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

May 012023
 


“Flora” (Roman Goddess of Spring), Villa di Arianna 1st Century A.D.

 

Ukraine Isn’t Ready For Its Big Offensive, But It Has No Choice (Sunday Times)
CNN: Russia Not Ready For Counterattack From Ukraine (Az.)
Russian Defenses Will Be Tough Task For Ukrainians – CNN (RT)
Now Is Not The Time For Ukraine To Join NATO – Lithuania (RT)
Hungary Issues NATO Rebuke To Zelensky (RT)
Xi ‘Personally Intervened’ In Saudi-Iran Talks – Diplomat (RT)
Key Nations Resist US Pressure Regarding Russia – WaPo (RT)
Key Nations Sit Out US Standoff With Russia, China, Leaks Show (Az.)
US Air Force Moves Strategic Air Tankers From Germany To Poland (RMX)
Russian Embassy In Warsaw Ready For Any Decisions After School Seizure (TASS)
You Should Read Tucker Carlson’s Last Speech Before Fox Fired Him (Schwarz)
Blinken Lied Under Oath To Senate About Hunter Biden – Sen. Ron Johnson (RT)
Hunter Forced to Appear in Arkansas Over His Child’s Name and Support (Turley)
US Dollar The “Biggest Financial Terrorist In The World” – Indian Banker (TASS)
Fitch Downgrades France’s Credit Rating (RT)

 

 

 

 

RFK Class Action

 

 

 

 

Elon Maher

 

 

Turkey Japan

 

 

Depopulation

 

 

 

 

The bombings last night appear to make sure they’re now a whole lot less ready. Russia hit a train with 200 tons of ammunition, plus at least one large ammo depot.

Ukraine Isn’t Ready For Its Big Offensive, But It Has No Choice (Sunday Times)

President Zelensky has managed the West with great skill, but to maintain its support he has to show what Washington insiders rather tastelessly call a “return on investment”.He must also balance domestic politics. Hawks such as Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, prevent any meaningful talk about negotiations, even though some in the government think now is the time to put out feelers. One western diplomat in Kyiv described a “surreal parallel experience” as his interlocutors “discuss potential formats for negotiations one evening” and then “shout that there can be no talks with Russia” in public the next day.There are also sharp limits to what the West can do. While there are calls for new and more weapons to be provided, from ATACMS (Army Tactile Missile System) long-range missiles to F-16 jets, it is not just caution or parsimony that holds the West back.

One of the key issues is that of ammunition: sending more weapons systems is of little value without the shells, bullets or missiles that they are consuming at a prodigious rate. At present, for example, the Ukrainians expend more 155mm shells in a month than America produces in a year. The West is investing in new production capacity, but this takes months or years. Ammunition cannot be conjured out of the air and Paris is blocking the EU from buying supplies outside the bloc. Kyiv will have to attack regardless, probably aiming at some ambitious target, such as the southern city of Melitopol, a road and rail hub whose liberation would cut the so-called land bridge between Crimea and Russia. Moscow knows this. Beyond the continued grinding assaults on the cities of Bakhmut and Vuhledar, it is already moving into a defensive mode.

Ukrainian estimates, endorsed by the British Ministry of Defence, suggest that the Russian casualty rate has fallen by almost a third as a result. They are digging in, with satellite photos showing a growing array of trenches and fortifications, especially along the likely lines of Ukrainian attack in the south. It is, of course, possible that Kyiv will strike elsewhere, such as at the city of Donetsk, but while this would be symbolically powerful, it would be a tough fight, and of much less practical value.

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They’ve had 6 months to prepare.

CNN: Russia Not Ready For Counterattack From Ukraine (Az.)

Ukraine’s much-anticipated counteroffensive appears imminent – and the way each side is preparing speaks volumes about their readiness, Repor informs, citing CNN. “Kyiv’s frontlines are abuzz with vehicle movement and artillery strikes, with regular explosions hitting vital Russian targets in occupied areas. “Its defense minister has said preparations are ‘coming to an end’ and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has assured a counteroffensive ‘will happen,’ while demurring on any exact start date. “It may have already started; it may be weeks away. We don’t know – and that fact is a strong measure of Ukraine’s success as this begins,” CNN said. “That has happened, with vast trench defense networks that can be seen from space. That recognition of their enormity is not necessarily a compliment in 2023. They are big, yes, but they are also something anyone can peruse on Google. That’s not great in an era of precise rockets and speedy armored advances.

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“..CNN described the Russian defenses as “elaborate” and spanning “hundreds of miles.”

Russian Defenses Will Be Tough Task For Ukrainians – CNN (RT)

The Ukrainian military will have a hard time breaching Russian defenses built in Zaporozhye Region over the past six months, CNN has predicted. The media outlet cited satellite imagery apparently showing an extensive system of anti-tank ditches, obstacles, minefields and trenches. In its report on Saturday, CNN described the Russian defenses as “elaborate” and spanning “hundreds of miles.” The media outlet claimed that they would likely “present a huge challenge” to Kiev’s forces during the much-anticipated counteroffensive. According to the report, citing images shared by Maxar Technologies and analysis by Reuters, “Russia’s positions are most concentrated near the front lines in the south-eastern Zaporozhye region, in the east and across the narrow strip of land connecting the Crimean Peninsula to the rest of Ukraine.”

The Russian military has dug some 30 kilometers (19 miles) of anti-tank ditches near the town of Pology, with extra fortifications built around strategically important towns such as Tokmak, CNN noted. The media outlet quoted a Maxar employee as saying that similar defensive structures have appeared over large swathes of Crimea and parts of Donetsk Region. The construction work began last November, soon after Russian troops retreated from the city of Kherson, according to CNN. To succeed in their counteroffensive, Ukrainian forces would have to break through these defenses swiftly, which may prove to be challenging, CNN claimed. Ukrainian officials quoted in the article acknowledged that it would likely be more difficult to take the Russians by surprise this time around.

Another factor which, according to CNN, could impede Kiev’s efforts to regain lost territory is Moscow’s continued air superiority. Earlier this week, The New York Times published a report claiming that Ukrainian troops on the frontline are concerned over the Russians’ advantage in terms of artillery, tanks and aircraft. The servicemen quoted by the newspaper said they needed “heavy equipment on the ground and support in the air” to turn the tide. While claiming that the country’s military is all but ready to strike, Ukrainian Defense Minister Aleksey Reznikov has lamented a shortage of missiles for Soviet-designed air defense systems. Meanwhile, Mikhail Podoliak, a top aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, has contradicted claims by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the head of US European Command, Christopher Cavoli, that Kiev’s backers had delivered 98% of the weapons pledged to Ukraine.

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No country can join that is in an active armed conflict.

Now Is Not The Time For Ukraine To Join NATO – Lithuania (RT)

Ukraine’s aspirations of NATO membership should not materialize while the country remains locked in a military conflict with Russia, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has said. He noted, however, that a “definite road map” should be developed by mid-summer for Kiev’s eventual accession. In an interview with Italy’s La Repubblica published on Saturday, Nauseda said letting Ukraine join the US-led military bloc right now “would be too difficult.” The leadership in Kiev is also well aware of this fact, he added. Instead, the alliance needs to “define stages and formulae of how to act after” the conflict is over, Nauseda continued. He expressed hope that this could be done during the NATO summit in Vilnius on July 11 and 12, 2023.

He acknowledged that the issue of Ukraine’s possible accession “will be the most complicated element to deal with” during the event. According to the Lithuanian head of state, some member states are still reluctant to send “strong signals” to Ukraine. Last week, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius asserted that “this is now not the time to decide” on Ukraine’s possible future within NATO. Echoing the Lithuanian president, he said this issue could be “carefully” considered only after Kiev succeeds in “repelling this attack.” The decision should be made “with a cold head and hot heart, and not the other way round,” he stated.Around the same time, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban tweeted “What?!” in response to an article reporting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s remarks in Kiev last Thursday.

During a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, the military bloc’s chief said: “Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family. Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO.” Stoltenberg added that “over time, our support will help to make this possible.” However, he stopped short of offering any timeframe for Ukraine’s possible accession to the alliance. Commenting on Stoltenberg’s remarks, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stressed that preventing Ukraine from joining NATO remains one of the key goals of Russia’s military campaign against its neighbor. Explaining the need for military action against Ukraine last February, President Vladimir Putin cited the country’s possible accession to the alliance as one of the reasons for the move.

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“..Budapest has repeatedly said it will not support Ukraine’s applications to either NATO or the EU..”

Hungary Issues NATO Rebuke To Zelensky (RT)

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has rebuked statements by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who has publicly accused Budapest of behaving “inappropriately” for a NATO member state. It was “fortunately” not for Zelensky to decide on Hungary’s behavior, Szijjarto said in a Facebook post on Sunday, suggesting also that Budapest already provides enough support for Kiev. “Hungarian people have already paid an extremely high price for this war,” Szijjarto wrote, adding that multiple representatives of Ukraine’s Hungarian ethnic minority had persisted in the ongoing hostilities between Kiev and Moscow. “If this statement means ‘I respectfully thank the Hungarians for letting in and taking care of more than a million refugees from Ukraine, and I respectfully thank you for continuously sending aid’ then [the response is] ‘You are welcome and can count on us in the future as well.’”

The sarcastic remarks by Hungary’s top diplomat apparently came in response to statements made by Zelensky in an interview with Nordic media outlets on Friday. The Ukrainian president accused Budapest of siding with Russia in the ongoing conflict and of treating NATO as an “adversary” altogether. “It seems to me that confusion reigns among the Hungarian political elite. This is a very strange situation. Can a NATO country simultaneously be with Russia and against NATO?” Zelensky stated, adding that Budapest has been displaying “inappropriate behavior” for a member of the US-led NATO alliance. Hungary has taken a reserved stance on the ongoing hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, which have been raging since February 2022. The country has opposed EU sanctions against Russia, particularly those harming its own interests, such as restrictions in the nuclear and conventional energy fields.

Apart from that, Budapest has repeatedly said it will not support Ukraine’s applications to either NATO or the EU. Hungary has also refrained from providing military aid to Kiev and has refused to allow such shipments from elsewhere to flow through its territory. Hungary and Ukraine have long been at odds over the fate of the ethnic Hungarian minority in Ukraine. Some 150,000 ethnic Hungarians, living primarily in the Transcarpathian region of the country, have been affected by the Ukrainianization efforts undertaken by the authorities of post-Maidan Ukraine. While the crackdown has primarily focused on Russian speakers, it affected other minorities as well. Kiev, for its part, has long accused Budapest of meddling in the country’s domestic affairs, with its practice of issuing Hungarian passports to Ukraine’s ethnic Hungarians resulting in multiple diplomatic incidents.

Kiev pharma

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Huge.

Xi ‘Personally Intervened’ In Saudi-Iran Talks – Diplomat (RT)

President Xi Jinping played a key role in helping to persuade the leaders of regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore ties and end their seven-year diplomatic rift, a senior Chinese diplomat told newspaper People’s Daily on Saturday. Xi “personally persuaded the leaders of the two countries and supported Saudi and Iran to develop a friendly relationship as neighbors,” the director of the Chinese foreign ministry’s Department of West Asian and North African Affairs, Wang Di, told the government-linked newspaper. Wang added that Beijing’s efforts to promote regional stability in the Middle East come amid “some large countries outside the region causing long-term instability” for what he described as their own “self-interest.”

He also indicated that Beijing will be a “fair mediator” and that it will continue to be a “promoter of peace and stability in the Middle East.” The talks between Tehran and Riyadh were notable for the non-involvement of the United States. For around 75 years, Washington was a key diplomatic player in the region. Last month’s Beijing-brokered accord between Saudi Arabia and Iran was heralded as an important foreign-policy win for China. It also led to the kingdom launching peace talks designed to end the eight-year conflict in Yemen. It also signaled that Beijing’s “diplomatic credibility” in the region is gaining foothold with its economic influence, said Oliver John of Washington-based think tank Middle East Influence, according to Saturday’s South China Morning Post.

On Friday both Saudi Arabia and Iran announced they’ll reopen embassies in each other’s capitals “within days” for the first time in seven years. In 2015 relations between Tehran and Riyadh became increasingly strained following the intervention of Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the Yemen War. Previously, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels had seized control of the Yemeni capital Sanaa from the Saudi-aligned government. These tensions subsequently sparked several conflicts in the region and were among the contributing factors for the Syrian civil war – a conflict, Wang added, to which Beijing is keen to seek a diplomatic remedy.

Saudi Arabia cut diplomatic ties with Syria in February 2012, joining the US in backing the militants that sought to overthrow President Bashar Assad. With the backing of Russia and Iran, the government in Damascus eventually prevailed over the collection of rebel militias that included terrorists affiliated with Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). Beijing has also proposed a two-state solution to Israel and Palestine, Wang said, and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said this month that it could play an “active role” there in mediating peace talks. The country’s efforts to promote stability in the Middle East also serve a dual purpose of anchoring existing energy deals, Oliver John added in SCMP’s report. Saudi Arabia is a key supplier of energy to Beijing, with China accounting for about one-quarter of its oil exports in 2021.

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Two different write-ups over the same leaks.

Key Nations Resist US Pressure Regarding Russia – WaPo (RT)

India, Brazil, South Africa, Pakistan and other major emerging economies have rebuffed the Biden administration’s attempts to make them team up with the US against Russia amid the conflict in Ukraine, the Washington Post has reported, citing leaked Pentagon files. According to classified US intelligence documents, which investigators believe were released online by US Air National Guard serviceman Jack Teixeira, India has no intention of taking sides in the standoff over Ukraine, the paper reported on Saturday. One of the documents seen by the Post suggests that during a meeting in February, Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Kumar Doval told the Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, that New Delhi was resisting pressure to support a Western-backed UN resolution on Ukraine.

India “would not deviate from the principled position it had taken in the past,” Doval reportedly assured the Russian official. Another leaked file suggested that Brazil was more interested in playing a mediation role in the conflict than supporting Washington and its allies. Russia favours the idea of a “world peace bloc” to resolve the crisis over Ukraine, put forward by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during his visit to China earlier this month. Moscow believes it would counteract the West’s “aggressor-victim” narrative about Kiev, according to the document. In late February, Brazil welcomed two warships from America’s arch foe Iran, with one of the files suggesting that Lula likely allowed the port call “to bolster his reputation as a global mediator and burnish Brazil’s image as a neutral power.”

The leaks also revealed that when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited South Africa last year and raised the Ukraine issue, he was told by local officials that Pretoria would not be “bullied” into making decisions that go against its interests, the Washington Post wrote. An intelligence file from February 17 reportedly described discussions between Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his subordinate about an upcoming UN vote on Ukraine. It said the aide pointed out to the premier that support for the Western-sponsored resolution would signal a shift in Islamabad’s position, after its earlier abstention on a similar draft. Such a move would jeopardize important trade and energy deals with Russia, he warned, as cited by the Post. Pakistan was among 23 abstaining nations when the vote at the UN General assembly took place a week later. As for Central Asian countries, their leaders were “eager to work with whoever offers the most immediate deliverables, which for now is China,” another leaked document, seen by the newspaper, suggested.

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“It’s unclear who will end up in a pole position in 10 years’ time, so they need to diversify their risk and hedge their bets..”

Key Nations Sit Out US Standoff With Russia, China, Leaks Show (Az.)

President Biden’s global agenda faces significant challenges as major developing nations seek to evade the intensifying standoff between the United States, Russia and China and, in some cases, exploit that rivalry for their own gain, classified American intelligence assessments show, Report informs via the Washington Post. The documents, among a trove of US secrets leaked online through the Discord messaging platform, provide a rare glimpse into the private calculations by key emerging powers, including India, Brazil, Pakistan and Egypt, as they attempt to straddle allegiances in an era when America is no longer the world’s unchallenged superpower.

The leaked intelligence findings, which have not been previously disclosed, also offer new insights on the obstacles Biden faces in securing global support for his efforts to reject the spread of authoritarianism, contain Russia’s belligerence beyond its borders and counter China’s growing global reach — as influential regional powers try to remain on the sidelines. Matias Spektor, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said developing nations are recalibrating at a moment when America faces potent new competition, as China projects new economic and military clout and Russia, though weakened by President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine, demonstrates its ability to deflect Western pressure. “It’s unclear who will end up in a pole position in 10 years’ time, so they need to diversify their risk and hedge their bets,” Spektor said.

This is apparent in Pakistan, which received billions of dollars in US economic and security aid following 9/11 but now is heavily reliant on Chinese investment and loans. According to one of the leaked documents, Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan’s minister of state for foreign affairs, argued in March that her country can “no longer try to maintain a middle ground between China and the United States.” In an internal memo she titled “Pakistan’s Difficult Choices,” Khar, who previously served as Pakistan’s foreign minister, cautioned that Islamabad should avoid giving the appearance of appeasing the West, and said the instinct to preserve Pakistan’s partnership with the United States would ultimately sacrifice the full benefits of what she deemed the country’s “real strategic” partnership with China.

Another document, dated Feb. 17, describes Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s deliberations with a subordinate about an upcoming UN vote on the Ukraine conflict, and what the government anticipated would be renewed Western pressure to back a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion. The aide advised Sharif that support for the measure would signal a shift in Pakistan’s position following its earlier abstention on a similar resolution, the intelligence document says. Pakistan had the ability to negotiate trade and energy deals with Russia, and backing the Western-backed resolution could jeopardize those ties, the aide noted.

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Poland role-plays the center of Europe.

US Air Force Moves Strategic Air Tankers From Germany To Poland (RMX)

Nineteen American in-flight refueling aircraft will be stationed at the Powidz Air Base in western Poland. According to the U.S. magazine Stars and Stripes, this is the latest sign that U.S. Armed Forces are shifting combat resources to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank. The U.S. Air Force command in Europe confirmed that on March 10 of this year “American air tankers began working in their new main location in Poland.” This was done as part of operation “Copper Arrow,” which demonstrated the efforts of the U.S. military command in Europe to “strengthen security on NATO’s eastern flank through forward deployed and stationed forces.” “The cooperation of American air tankers with our NATO allies clearly shows how much we value our partnerships and how important it is to increase our interoperability,” said Colonel Timothy Foery, advisor to the U.S. Air Force Reserve Commander.

Foery noted that interoperability is evident when looking “at any photo of a KC-135 refueling a Polish F-16 or a KC-46 refueling a Finnish F/A-18.” American air tankers KC-135 Stratotanker, KC-10 Extender and the newest in the U.S. Air Force fleet, KC-46 Pegasus, could all be sent to the Powidz Air Base. The aircraft currently stationed at the Spangdahlem base in Germany, will be transferred to the Powidz air base as Unit 1. As emphasized by the U.S. Air Force leadership, this relocation also demonstrates “the ability of U.S. command to quickly deploy large, credible combat forces and equipment throughout Europe.” The tankers stationed in Powidz can be used for refueling combat aircraft, including the world’s most advanced fighter jet, the F-35A Lightning II, which extends the range of NATO air missions.

Stars and Stripes notes that eight F-35 aircraft of the Dutch Air Force have been stationed in the Malbork air base in Poland for several months. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the presence of U.S. forces in Europe has increased, with the number of U.S. military personnel on the continent growing from 80,000 to 100,000. U.S. Ambassador to Warsaw Mark Brzezinski recently stated that over 10,000 American soldiers are in Poland. “The U.S. military’s shift to the east is another example of the United States’ efforts to create a permanent presence in the former Warsaw Pact country, an important member of NATO, which has over 300 miles of border with Ukraine,” said reporter Jennifer Svan in Stars and Stripes.

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This story’s not finished.

Russian Embassy In Warsaw Ready For Any Decisions After School Seizure (TASS)

Russia’s embassy in Warsaw is ready for any decisions made by Moscow after the seizure of the building of the Russian school by Polish authorities, Russia’s Ambassador to Poland Sergey Andreyev told TASS on Sunday. “The center takes the decisions. Let it be so as our leadership decides,” he said when asked about possible severance of diplomatic relations. “Today the staff of the school and support personnel are involved in moving equipment out. <…> We will officially submit the note after the weekend ends on Tuesday. Today and tomorrow are days off,” Andreyev pointed out. The teaching and learning activities will resume after the May holidays in one of diplomatic buildings, the diplomat said. “I think starting May 10 classes will be held as usual,” he noted.


On Saturday morning, Polish authorities began seizing the building of the Russian embassy school in Warsaw by force. The teaching staff were told to vacate the building by 07:00 p.m. Moscow time of the same day. Russia’s embassy to Poland described the Polish authorities’ steps as illegal. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Moscow deemed the Polish authorities’ intrusion into the Russian embassy school in Warsaw as a blatant violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention and another encroachment on Russian diplomatic property in Poland. The ministry pledged that Warsaw’s steps would not remain without Moscow’s firm response and consequences for Poland.

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“..Carlson is now going to seize an incredible opportunity to be the 1 man in 10 with the courage to defy the herd to their faces!”

You Should Read Tucker Carlson’s Last Speech Before Fox Fired Him (Schwarz)

I’ve found it difficult to choose snippets of Carlson’s words to quote. It’s like trying to explain the perfection of Michelangelo’s David to someone, but being only able to show them its fingers, nipples, and wrinkly foreskin. You need the whole experience, to see how the parts fit together to express a larger truth, to genuinely understand its magnificence. So if you possibly can, I urge you to read the entire transcript. Even better, watch the whole thing. Then we can reconvene below for an in-depth discussion. As you see, Carlson’s speech is about the “two conclusions” to which he’s come during the past, dark decades. The first is that he perceives a dangerous phenomenon in which Americans are “going along with a new, new thing, which is clearly a poisonous thing, a silly thing, saying things they don’t believe because they want to keep their jobs.”

This is because “the herd instinct is maybe the strongest instinct … not to be cast out of the group, not to be shunned. … It’s harnessed, in fact, by bad people in moments like this to produce uniformity.” Huge swaths of Americans, then, have “become quislings, you see them revealed as cowards.” Because of this, says Carlson, America’s institutions are “all run by weak people.” And “weak leaders cause an angry country.” His second conclusion is better news: For every 10 cowards, there is one shining individual who has, in Carlson’s words, stood up to say, “No, I’m not doing that. … It’s a betrayal of what I think is true. It’s a betrayal of my conscience, of my faith, of my sense of myself, of my dignity as a human being, of my autonomy. I am not a slave. I am a free citizen, and I’m not doing that. And there’s nothing you can do to me to make me do it.”

Moreover, Carlson proclaims, “The truth is contagious. Lying is, but the truth is as well. And the second you decide to tell the truth about something, you are filled with this — I don’t want to get supernatural on you — but you are filled with this power from somewhere else.” Here’s what you might assume Carlson would say next, if you’re the kind of dreamer who’s filled with an irrepressible hope that words can have meaning: Carlson would have confessed that he himself is one of these shameful cowards. As everyone in the room surely knew, Carlson collected huge checks from Fox even as it encouraged its audience to believe what Carlson and everyone there knew was false: that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Carlson would have explained that he’d been a quisling to the truth and gone along with a new, new poisonous thing because he wanted to keep his job.

He’d have apologized for being part of the herd trying to punish heretics, since he wanted Fox to fire a reporter who was reporting on the topic accurately. In other words, he is one of the weak leaders creating an angry country. He knows these things because he was personally tested — and failed. And that would have been merely the start of Carlson’s electrifying, manly truth-telling. He was speaking to all the potentates of the Heritage Foundation, one of the most powerful forces in U.S. politics supporting the capitalist depredations and hawkish foreign policy that we know Carlson hates with such passionate sincerity. Scarred by his moral collapse after the 2020 election, Carlson is now going to seize an incredible opportunity to be the 1 man in 10 with the courage to defy the herd to their faces!

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“There’s a lot of truth that has to be uncovered here yet that’s being covered up by the Deep State..”

Blinken Lied Under Oath To Senate About Hunter Biden – Sen. Ron Johnson (RT)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “lied bold-faced” in congressional testimony about his contacts with President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has claimed. Then a campaign aide to President-elect Biden, Blinken agreed to testify voluntarily to a Senate committee investigating the Biden family’s business dealings in December 2020, Johnson said on Sunday in a Fox News interview. At the time, Joe Biden had picked Blinken to become America’s top diplomat, an appointment that would require Senate confirmation. “He wanted to be secretary of state,” said Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican. “And now, because of more information that’s come out, we know that he lied bold-faced to Congress about never emailing Hunter Biden. My guess is he told a bunch of other lies that hopefully we’ll be able to bring him and his wife back in.”

Johnson suggested that Blinken and his wife should preserve their records for legal reasons. “You cannot trust Joe Biden. You cannot trust Hunter Biden. You can’t trust the Biden family. You can’t trust so many of the people that they have surrounded themselves with.” At the time of Blinken’s voluntary testimony, Joe Biden had just won the 2020 presidential election despite controversy surrounding his family’s business dealings in Ukraine and China. The scandal surfaced just three weeks before the election, when the New York Post reported on the contents of a laptop that Hunter Biden had allegedly abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop. Former CIA director Mike Morell testified to Congress earlier this month that shortly after the laptop bombshell came out, Blinken nudged him to organize an open letter claiming that the story was the product of a Russian “disinformation campaign.” Morell, who was among more than 50 former US intelligence officials who signed the letter, admitted to Congress that he was motivated by a desire to help Biden win the election.

Asked by Fox host Maria Bartiromo to clarify whether Blinken lied under oath, perjuring himself, Johnson said, “Yes, he did. He said he did not email Hunter Biden, and now we have those emails. We also know that his wife, using her private email address when she was an employee of the State Department, was basically a conduit between her husband and Hunter Biden as well.” Johnson called for further investigation of the matter, including issuing a subpoena to force Blinken to testify again. However, Biden’s Democratic Party controls the Senate and its subpoena power. “There’s a lot of truth that has to be uncovered here yet that’s being covered up by the Deep State,” Johnson said. “Let’s face it: The Deep State knows what it did. These co-conspirators inside the agency know exactly what they did. They don’t give up their secrets very easily. They know how to hide things, they know how to slow-roll everybody.”

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It’s as much Joe as it is Hunter. Both are shameless,

Hunter Forced to Appear in Arkansas Over His Child’s Name and Support (Turley)

On Monday, Hunter Biden will finally make it to Arkansas. The Natural State is not a Biden family favorite but there is one thing that would ordinarily be an attraction: Biden’s daughter Navy Joan. In the Biden family, the four-year-old girl remains “she who must not be named” literally. Not only has President Biden refused to refer to her as a grandchild or even include a Christmas stocking with the other children, her father Hunter is fighting to prevent her from using the Biden name. Indeed, the only reason that Hunter is coming to the same state with his daughter is to seek to limit his child support. The viciousness of the Biden family in dealing with this little girl is only matched by that of the media. Reporters who profess to support women and denounce deadbeat dads have either ignored this story or belittled her mother, Lunden Roberts.

Roberts is widely dismissed as a “former stripper.” That appears how she met Hunter, but it is often used to paint her in the same way that the media gleefully reported Hillary Clinton denouncing women involved with her husband as mere “bimbo eruptions.” The media ignores Roberts because it wants to ignore what the Bidens have done collectively. This is one single mother’s story that is not considered fit to print. Yes, Roberts was an exotic dancer. She used that job to go to one of the most expensive colleges in the country, George Washington University where I teach. When she became pregnant, she decided to have her child and raise her on her own. She has raised this child without a father and fought one of the most powerful families in the world. When Navy Joan is older, there is every reason for her to be proud of the struggle that her mother went through in seeking a college education and raising her against all odds.

Despite Joe Biden long campaigning against deadbeat dads, his son refused to acknowledge that he was the father of Navy Joan and, after a court forced him to confirm his paternity through DNA testing, he continued to fight support for his child. Hunter’s delay and evasion of filings and depositions led a court to repeatedly threaten sanctions. However, the effort to bar this child from using the Biden name has moved this scandal from the realm of hypocrisy to monstrosity. It is hard to imagine the pain that this child will experience upon learning of how the Bidens erased any reference to her and fought even her ability to claim to be a member of their family. (Even the Biden’s dogs and cats got stockings at Christmas but not their granddaughter who they have never asked to even see, let alone support).

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“..it is high time for India to make the rupee a reserve currency for the whole world..”

US Dollar The “Biggest Financial Terrorist In The World” – Indian Banker (TASS)

Asia’s richest banker and chief executive of Kotak Mahindra Bank Uday Kotak said on Sunday that the US dollar as a reserve currency has disproportionate power. “In a recent discussion on US dollar I inadvertently used words “financial terrorist” which I would like to correct. What I meant was that a reserve currency has disproportionate power, whether it is nostro account, 500 bps rate increase, or emerging countries holding dollars for liquidity,” he wrote on his Twitter page. Uday Kotak who believes that the Indian rupee may become a world reserve currency, named the dollar the “biggest financial terrorist in the world” while speaking at the Economic Times Awards for Corporate Excellence on Friday. The billionaire suggests that the world is searching for an alternative reserve currency now, noting that such changes occur once in a century, and that it is high time for India to make the rupee a reserve currency for the whole world.

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““Political deadlock and (sometimes violent) social movements pose a risk to Macron’s reform agenda..”

Fitch Downgrades France’s Credit Rating (RT)

Rating agency Fitch has downgraded France’s sovereign credit rating, warning that public resistance to a recent pension reform could take a toll on the economy. The agency lowered the rating from “AA” to “AA-,” with a stable outlook. The downgrade means France is considered a more risky venture for investors, which could lead to higher borrowing costs. “Fitch believes that social and political pressures illustrated by the protests against the pension reform will complicate fiscal consolidation,” the agency wrote. It added that the government’s decision to bypass a parliamentary vote to push through the pension reform will “likely further strengthen radical and anti-establishment forces.” “Political deadlock and (sometimes violent) social movements pose a risk to Macron’s reform agenda and could create pressures for a more expansionary fiscal policy or a reversal of previous reforms,” Fitch warned.


French President Emmanuel Macron signed the unpopular pension reform into law in mid-April, despite months of nationwide protests and resistance in parliament. The measure raised the retirement age from 62 to 64. Following its enactment, the political opposition and unions vowed to continue contesting the move. Analysts have warned that as the president’s party does not have a parliamentary majority, it may be difficult for it to deliver on other reforms due to the public unrest. French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire, however, pledged that Paris will continue structural reforms despite Fitch’s warnings. “I believe that the facts invalidate the assessment by the Fitch agency… We are able to implement structural reforms and we will continue to implement structural reforms for the country,” Le Maire told AFP on Saturday. The official vowed to accelerate the country’s debt reduction, to restore the public finances, reduce deficits and make faster cuts to public expenditure.

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Patrick Moore

 

 

Codo

 

 


The 3 smallest bones in the human body–malleus, incus, and stapes–are located in the middle ear. At 3 x 5 mm in size, the stapes is the smallest bone in the human body. All 3 bones are essential for hearing

 

 

Sand tiger shark

 

 

Red wolf

 

 

Orca

 

 

 

 

Gibbon

 

 

Kiwi

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 302023
 
 April 30, 2023  Posted by at 8:55 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , ,  46 Responses »


Mark Chagall I and the village 1911

 

Zelensky’s Top Adviser Threatens China With Economic Ruin (RT)
Poland’s Top General Has Some Unpopular Truths About The Ukraine Proxy War (ZB)
Medvedev Calls For ‘Complete’ Dismantling Of ‘Kiev Regime’ (RT)
Medvedev Sees No Point In Maintaining Diplomatic Relations With Poland (TASS)
Russian Next-Gen T-14 Tank Makes Ukraine Debut (ZH)
Merkel Says She Used Everything To Try To Prevent Conflict In Ukraine (TASS)
Europe Is Buying Record Amounts Of Refined Russian Fuels Through India
Morocco Supplies Spain With Russian Diesel – El Mundo (RT)
US Troops Drill For Taiwan War – Media (RT)
Kiev Decries EU Restrictions On Ukrainian Imports (RT)
EU Reaches Deal On Ukrainian Food Imports (RT)
War Threatens Ukraine Auto Empire of Biden Megadonor (Sperry)
Hunter’s Collapsing World: A Criminal Plea Could Now Be Best Option (Turley)
No Buyer for First Republic Bank at Any Price (Mish)
Irish President Condemns ‘Obsession’ With Economic Growth (Leahy)

 

 

 

 

Lavrov

 

 

 

 

Doctorow

 

 

Net zero

 

 

 

 

“..why China would “help Russia, which is experiencing the collapse of its civilization?”

Zelensky’s Top Adviser Threatens China With Economic Ruin (RT)

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s main adviser, Mikhail Podoliak, has claimed that China must follow the West’s position on Ukraine or “lose its influence, including economic influence.” Beijing has given no indication that it intends to take his advice. “Now China has to make a choice,” Podoliak said on Ukraine’s Rada TV on Friday. “Either it works within the framework defined by international law, and then replaces Russia in the full sense of the word, or China continues to stand aside and then it will gradually lose its influence, including economic influence.” Podoliak’s statement came two days after Zelensky and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone, their first known conversation since Russia’s military operation in Ukraine began last February.

According to the Chinese side, Xi stressed that Beijing’s “core position” on the conflict is that “dialogue and negotiations are the only viable way out.” The US has repeatedly called on China to condemn Russia over the conflict, which Beijing has refused to do. Instead, China and Russia have deepened their diplomatic and trade links, and officials from both countries have repeatedly condemned the US for attempting to impose what it calls a “rules-based international order” upon the world through military force and sanctions. China and Russia have instead called for the construction of a multipolar system based on the rule of international law and respect for the UN charter. “Right now there are changes – the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years – and we are the ones driving these changes together,” Xi told Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow last month.

Podoliak has attempted to drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing before. Late last month he asked the Italian Corriere della Sera newspaper why China would “help Russia, which is experiencing the collapse of its civilization?” “It would be an irreversible investment, and China is too pragmatic to make such mistakes,” he added. However, even if China were to break from Russia, it would still face a United States hostile to its interests. The Pentagon’s most recent National Defense Strategy lists countering the supposed “threat posed by China” as its number one priority, while Washington has blocked the sale of some semiconductor manufacturing hardware to China and rallied its Asian allies to shut Beijing out of this vital industrial sector. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has said on several occasions that he would use the US military to defend Taiwan – which China considers its territory – from a potential Chinese invasion.

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“It’s simply impossible to sustain the pace, scale, and scope of the West’s multidimensional aid to Ukraine if the conflict drags on.”

“..Russia can continue conducting its special operation for 1-2 more years before it begins to feel any structural pressure to curtail its activities.”

“We just don’t have ammunition. The industry is not ready not only to send equipment to Ukraine, but also to replenish our stocks, which are melting.”

Poland’s Top General Has Some Unpopular Truths About The Ukraine Proxy War (ZB)

The last time that Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces General Rajmund Andrzejczak generated media attention was in late January after he elaborated on how formidable Russia remained at the time, but now he’s once again making headlines for building upon this assessment. Poland’s Do Rzecy reported on his recent participation in a strategy session with the National Security Bureau, during which time he shared some unpopular truths about the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine. Andrzejczak said that the situation doesn’t look good for Kiev at all when considering the economic dynamics of this conflict, with him drawing particular attention to finance, infrastructure issues, social issues, technology, and food production, et al. From this vantage point, he predicts that Russia can continue conducting its special operation for 1-2 more years before it begins to feel any structural pressure to curtail its activities.

By contrast, Kiev is burning through tens of billions of dollars’ worth of aid, yet it still remains very far away from achieving its maximum objectives. Andrzejczak candidly said that Poland’s Western partners aren’t properly assessing the challenges that stand in the way of Ukraine’s victory, including those connected to the “race of logistics”/ war of attrition” that the NATO chief declared in mid-February. Another serious problems concerns refugees’ unwillingness to return to their homeland anytime soon. These economic, logistical, and population factors combined to convince him that he must urgently raise the greatest possible awareness of these problems in order to “give Ukraine a chance to build its secure future”, which in the context that he shared this motivation, is a euphemism for even more Western aid. He elaborated by adding that “As a soldier, I am also obliged to present the most unfavorable and difficult to implement variant, giving a field to all those who can and should help Ukraine.”

Nobody should therefore doubt Andrzejczak’s intentions or suspect that he’s a so-called “Russian agent” since he sincerely wants the West to win its proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, but he’s also very worried that it might lose unless his side acknowledges the unpopular truths that he just shared. In his view, their failure to do so could doom Kiev to defeat, though the argument can also compellingly be made that indefinitely perpetuating this conflict like Poland seeks to do might be even more disastrous. After all, none of the three challenges that he drew attention to can be overcome anytime soon. The only exception might be the population one, but that would entail changing EU legislation in order to allow the expulsion of refugees, which is unlikely to happen. The economic and logistical factors are systemic ones, which affect not only Ukraine, but the entire West in general. It’s simply impossible to sustain the pace, scale, and scope of the West’s multidimensional aid to Ukraine if the conflict drags on.

As Andrzejczak himself admitted, “We just don’t have ammunition. The industry is not ready not only to send equipment to Ukraine, but also to replenish our stocks, which are melting.” Considering that Poland is Ukraine’s third most important patron behind the Anglo-American Axis, this strongly suggests that all other NATO members are struggling just as much as it is to keep up the pace, scale, and scope of support, if not more since many are a lot smaller and thus less capable of contributing in this respect. Accordingly, this observation means that Kiev’s upcoming counteroffensive will likely be its “last hurrah” prior to resuming peace talks with Russia since the West won’t be able to keep up its assistance for much longer. Andrzejczak seems keenly aware of this “politically inconvenient” fact, hence why he wants his side to give its proxies as much as possible until the end of that operation in the hopes that they can then be in a comparatively more advantageous position by the time these talks recommence.

Cavoli

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“Otherwise, they will not calm down, and the drug-addled nonsense can turn into reality and the war will drag on for a long time. Our country does not need that..”

Medvedev Calls For ‘Complete’ Dismantling Of ‘Kiev Regime’ (RT)

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has called for the “complete dismantling” of the “Kiev regime,” as well as for inflicting “mass destruction” on the country’s military personnel and hardware. Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chair of Russia’s National Security Council, made the remarks in a Telegram post on Friday, commenting on an interview Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky recently gave to several Nordic media outlets. He summarized Zelensky’s comments as consisting of demands for more weapons from Kiev’s Western backers and promises of a successful counteroffensive, including an attack on Crimea, while also warning that the conflict may drag on for “decades.” While the interview appeared to be “contradictory” and “delusional,” even such statements should not be underestimated, Medvedev warned.

“One should not underestimate even delusional speeches. This is a hysterical manifesto of the Kiev regime, which is seeking to consolidate its Nazi elites, maintain the morale of the troops and receive additional support from its sponsors.” To successfully foil Kiev’s plans, Russia must inflict “mass destruction of personnel and military equipment” during the much-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive and inflict a “maximum military defeat” on Kiev’s military, Medvedev said. Ultimately, the “Nazi regime in Kiev” must be “completely dismantled” and demilitarized throughout the entire territory of “former Ukraine,” he added. Apart from that, Russia must pursue those who manage to flee, and seek “retribution” against the “key figures of the Nazi regime, regardless of their location and without statute of limitations,” Medvedev stressed. Anything short of that would not suffice, the ex-president believes.

“Otherwise, they will not calm down, and the drug-addled nonsense can turn into reality and the war will drag on for a long time. Our country does not need that,” Medvedev said. The ex-president has repeatedly warned Kiev against any attempts to seize the Crimean peninsula, which broke away from Ukraine in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup and joined Russia after locals overwhelmingly supported such a move during a referendum. Last month, Medvedev issued a nuclear warning to Kiev, cautioning that any attempt at a “serious offensive” targeting the peninsula would be “the basis for the use of all means of protection, including those provided for by the fundamentals of the Doctrine of Nuclear Deterrence.”

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“This state must not exist for us while there is no one but Russophobes in power and Ukraine is full of Polish mercenaries..”

Medvedev Sees No Point In Maintaining Diplomatic Relations With Poland (TASS)

Russia sees no sense in maintaining diplomatic relations with Poland as long as anti-Russian forces remain in power, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev wrote on his Twitter page on Saturday. “I see no point in maintaining diplomatic relations with Poland. This state must not exist for us while there is no one but Russophobes in power and Ukraine is full of Polish mercenaries, who should be ruthlessly exterminated like stinky rats,” Medvedev wrote in English and Polish.


Medvedev’s tweet was posted in the wake of the situation with the school at the Russian embassy in Warsaw. Andrey Ordash, Minister-Councilor at the Russian embassy in Poland, told TASS that the Polish authorities had demanded that the staff of the Russian school at the embassy in Warsaw vacate the building by 7 p.m. on Saturday. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that Russia deems the Polish authorities’ intrusion into the Russian embassy school in Warsaw as a blatant violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention and another encroachment on Russian diplomatic property in Poland. The Foreign Ministry said that Warsaw’s steps would not remain without Moscow’s firm response and consequences for Poland.

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It won’t be their last new toy.

Russian Next-Gen T-14 Tank Makes Ukraine Debut (ZH)

While Western nations are working to upgrade Ukraine’s ground game with US M-1 Abrams and German Leopard 2 tanks, Russia has now introduced its latest-generation tank into the war in Ukraine, according to Russia’s state-owned RIA. The new Russian tank is the T-14 Armata, which features an unmanned turret, with a three-man crew operating the vehicle from what RIA describes as an “isolated armored capsule located at the front of the hull.” The tank has a maximum highway speed of 50 miles per hour. It’s equipped with a 125mm smoothbore main gun with a reported range of 8 kilometers. The gun is fed by an automated loader with a 45-round capacity, and can also fire laser-guided missiles.

On defense, it has both reactive armor that explodes outward upon a projectile’s impact, and an “active protection system” (APS), which BBC has described as “essentially an anti-missile system for tanks, with radars capable of tracking the incoming anti-tank missile, and projectiles that are launched to disrupt or destroy it.” The T-14 is additionally distinguished from predecessor T-90 tanks by having higher ground clearance. A developer also claimed the tank would have technology to hide it from radar- and heat-seeking targeting systems: “We essentially made the tank invisible.” RIA reports the deployed T-14s have received “additional side protection from anti-tank ammunition.”

Until now, T-14 appearances have been largely limited to a series of Moscow Victory Day parades stretching all the way back to 2015, though RIA says they have been “tested in Syria.” [..] The initial order called for 2,300 of them to be delivered by 2020. However, the UK claims “production is probably only in the low tens, while commanders are unlikely to trust the vehicle in combat,” and suggested its introduction in Ukraine may largely be for propaganda purposes. Of course, that jab may itself be propaganda.

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Mutti knew exactly what was going on with the Misk agreements. No use denying it.

Merkel Says She Used Everything To Try To Prevent Conflict In Ukraine (TASS)

Former German chancellor Angela Merkel said she used every means at her disposal to try to prevent the current conflict in Ukraine. “I used everything at my disposal to try to prevent this situation,” Merkel said, commenting on the Russian special operation in Ukraine on Saturday in an interview with the German daily Die Zeit. “The fact that it failed is not proof that it was wrong to try,” she stressed. Diplomacy is a “necessity,” as the ex-Chancellor noted.However. Merkel repeatedly defended her policy towards Russia. She called the efforts to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine after the events in Crimea in 2014 as part of the so-called Minsk agreements correct.

“I support these diplomatic efforts,” the former head of the German government said, adding that she was “very worried” about Ukraine. “To my great chagrin, there were quite a few who were not interested in this,” Merkel admitted. According to her, in the European Council Germany and France, made efforts to resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine.= The ex-Chancellor of Germany said that she talked a lot with the former President of Ukraine Pyotr Poroshenko and the current President Vladimir Zelensky. “President Zelensky was very critical of the Minsk agreements. He already said this during his election campaign and noted that he considers it unfeasible,” Merkel stated.

She noted that, according to Ukrainian political leaders, this agreement is not popular in Ukraine, and it was very difficult to implement it politically. In an interview with Die Zeit, published on December 7, 2022, Merkel stated that the 2014 Minsk agreements were an attempt to let Ukraine gain time. She said “it was clear to everyone” that the conflict had been frozen and the problem had not been resolved. Russian President Vladimir Putin later said that he found Merkel’s statement completely unexpected and disappointing.

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“..the Asian country is on track to become Europe’s largest supplier of refined fuels this month..”

Europe Is Buying Record Amounts Of Refined Russian Fuels Through India

Last August, we were the first to show how Russia was bypassing Europe’s so-called commodities embargo: it was selling LNG to China which was then re-selling it to Europe at a substantial mark up. And while we also frequently reported that Russia was using a similar sanctions bypass for oil, this time using India instead of China, few were willing to confirm as much: after all, it would seem very shortsighted if European consumers were paying an extra surcharge to India, while Russia was not suffering any adverse consequences from Europe’s laughable “sanctions.” Not any more: on Friday, Bloomberg reported that for all of Europe’s fire and brimstone about an embargo (which has gotten decidedly quieter in recent months), “Russian oil is still powering Europe just with the help of India.”

As we reported at the time, last December the EU barred almost any seaborne crude oil imports from Russia. It extended the prohibition to refined fuels two months later. However, the rules didn’t stop countries like India from snapping up cheap Russian crude, turning it into fuels like diesel, and shipping it back to Europe at a big markup: as shown in the chart below, just the Brent to Urals price differential, a byproduct of the Russian sanctions, is about $25/bbl, almost a third of the price of a barrel of crude. The markups on Russian product are even greater when dealing with refined products such as gasoline or diesel. In fact, India has become so good at reselling Russian oil to the same Europeans who refuse to buy it directly from Moscow for a much lower price, that the Asian country is on track to become Europe’s largest supplier of refined fuels this month while simultaneously buying record amounts of Russian crude, according to data from analytics firm Kpler.


In other words, Europe is still buying Russian oil, keeping Putin’s military machine well-funded, but because of the virtue signaling exercise of buying Russian oil though a mediator, the transaction ends up costing Europeans billions more than if they simply had purchased the oil directly. “Russian oil is finding its way back into Europe despite all the sanctioning and India ramping up fuel exports to the west is a good example of it,” said Viktor Katona, lead crude analyst at the firm. “With India taking in so much Russian barrels, it’s inevitable.”

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They all do it.

Morocco Supplies Spain With Russian Diesel – El Mundo (RT)

Morocco is purchasing Russian diesel and other refined products at discounted prices and re-exporting the fuel to Spain, El Mundo reported on Friday, citing ship tracking sources. Data from navigation tracking portal Vesselfinder showed that, on April 28, at least three tankers were heading from Russia’s Baltic ports to Morocco carrying approximately 170,000 tons of oil products on board. The North African country, which bought about 600,000 barrels of Russian diesel throughout 2021, ramped up imports of the product to 2 million barrels in January 2023, with another 1.2 million barrels arriving in the country in February, according to tracking sources. Morocco’s fuel exports almost stopped after its only processing plant was shut down in 2015 over unpaid taxes and legal hurdles, leaving the country dependent on refined oil imports.

In the beginning of the year, Rabat resumed fuel supplies and expanded exports of diesel from its Horizon Tanger terminal to Spain, Türkiye, Ghana, and southern Africa, the outlet said. In January, the country sent 280,000 barrels of diesel to the Spanish Canary Islands and another 270,000 barrels to Türkiye. “At the end of 2022, Morocco began to buy diesel fuel from Moscow at an average of more than 7 million liters per day. In parallel, Rabat began to export it to Spain,” the outlet wrote. According to ship tracking data, Moroccan deliveries now account for 10% of monthly Spanish demand for diesel, estimated at $60 million. According to some media reports, in March, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria accounted for 30% of Russia’s diesel exports.

Meanwhile, the Spanish government has pledged to ensure that no Russian fuel enters the kingdom. “Our obligation is to investigate what happens with the fuel [supplies],” Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Teresa Ribera told reporters on Friday. “Initially, it comes with documents confirming its appropriate origin,” she added. Russia has been diversifying its energy supplies in response to Western sanctions after the EU stopped accepting the country’s oil transported by sea. In December, the EU, G7, and allied countries imposed an embargo and a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian crude. Similar restrictions were introduced in February for exports of petroleum products.

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Posturing.

US Troops Drill For Taiwan War – Media (RT)

The US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) has reportedly carried out drills simulating its response to a Chinese seizure of Taiwan for the first time, reflecting rising concern in Washington that Beijing may try to seize control of the self-governing island by force. The Taiwan scenario was played out as part of the USAOC’s annual capabilities exercise, known as CAPEX, at North Carolina’s Fort Bragg, Military.com reported on Saturday. Troops practiced being inserted into Taiwan to help defend against a Chinese offensive, using a concrete mock-up on the base to simulate the environment in which they would fight the People’s Republic of China (PRC). “The PRC, in accordance with our national defense strategy, is our true pacing challenge out there,” Lieutenant General Jonathan Braga, commander of USASOC, said in a speech before the exercise on Thursday. “Ultimately, what we’re trying to do is prevent World War III. That’s our job.”

The drills included firing recoilless rifles, breaching tunnels and operating Switchblade drones, the media outlet said. The special forces used some of the same weaponry and tactics employed during Washington’s so-called War on Terror, along with “other tools reflecting a seismic shift for the command as it prepares for potential conflict against major military rivals.” It’s unusual for USASOC to identify the opposition force so directly during APEX, “given the military’s hesitancy to overtly suggest conflict,” according to Military.com. US-China relations have deteriorated in the past year amid Beijing’s refusal to join in a Western sanctions campaign against Russia over the Ukraine crisis. Chinese officials have accused US leaders of emboldening separatists in Taiwan, such as when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to Taipei last August. China responded by breaking off defense and climate ties with Washington and launching massive military drills in the Taiwan Strait.

The US government recognizes, without endorsing, China’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan. For decades, Washington has maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity,” keeping Beijing and Taipei guessing as to whether, and to what extent, the US military would intervene if China invaded Taiwan. However, President Joe Biden has repeatedly hinted that Washington would come to Taiwan’s aid militarily in the event of a Chinese offensive. Washington think tanks have conducted wargaming exercises in recent months to simulate how a war over Taiwan might play out. One such study was done for a congressional committee by the Center for New American Security, which found earlier this month that US forces would be unable to resupply Taiwan with weapons and equipment once a Chinese offensive began. An exercise done by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that although US and Japanese forces would be able to successfully repel Beijing’s offensive, they would lose dozens of warships, hundreds of planes, and thousands of troops.

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“Such restrictions, for whatever reason, do not comply with the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement and the principles and norms of the EU Single Market..”

Kiev Decries EU Restrictions On Ukrainian Imports (RT)

The Ukrainian authorities have sent notes of protest to the Polish and EU embassies, decrying the restrictions on imports of the country’s agricultural products to the bloc. This was announced on Saturday by Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Oleg Nikolenko in a Facebook post. According to Nikolenko, Ukraine considers the restrictions “utterly unacceptable.” “Such restrictions, for whatever reason, do not comply with the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement and the principles and norms of the EU Single Market,” he wrote. The minister noted that Kiev has “all legal grounds” to immediately resume its exports to Poland, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria and continue uninterrupted transit of all Ukrainian products to other countries both inside and outside of the EU. “The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry urged its [EU] partners to find a balanced solution based on EU legislation, the Association Agreement, and in the spirit of solidarity,” he added.


Earlier this month, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria unilaterally banned the import of agricultural products from Ukraine in a bid to protect their domestic markets, which has been overflowing with cheap Ukrainian products. Romania did not impose an import ban, but joined the other four in calls for Brussels to free the region of Ukrainian goods. After two weeks of discussions, the European Commission and the five member states struck a deal on Friday, which involves replacing the individual bans placed by the countries on Ukrainian imports with “emergency safeguard measures” for four major staples – wheat, maize, rapeseed, and sunflower seeds. Sources claim that imports of these crops into the five Eastern European countries will likely be blocked unless for transit.

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They treat Ukraine like a member. It’s not.

EU Reaches Deal On Ukrainian Food Imports (RT)

The European Commission on Friday struck an agreement with five EU member-states to help clear the supply glut caused by Ukrainian agricultural imports. The announcement was made on Twitter by EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis. “The European Commission has reached an agreement in principle with Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania & Slovakia regarding Ukraine agri-food products. We have acted to address concerns of both farmers in neighboring EU countries and Ukraine,” Dombrovskis wrote on the social media platform. According to the official, the key elements of the new deal include the withdrawal of unilateral import restrictions previously placed by the countries on Ukrainian agricultural produce, a €100 million ($110 million) support package for the member-states’ farmers, and “emergency safeguard measures” for four Ukrainian staples – wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seeds.

Dombrovskis did not elaborate on what these emergency measures would entail, but sources claim that the imports of these crops into the five Eastern European countries will likely be blocked unless for transit. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the deal, saying that it would help guarantee the transit of Ukrainian produce. “This agreement preserves both Ukraine’s export capacity so that it continues to feed the world, and the livelihoods of our farmers,” she tweeted. In June last year, the EU lifted tariffs and quotas for Ukrainian agricultural imports for one year in order to enable grain from Ukraine to be shipped to global markets amid the conflict with Russia. Many of the shipments, however, ended up in Eastern European countries, flooding their markets with cheap produce and sparking protests among local farmers.

Earlier this month, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria unilaterally banned agricultural products imported from Ukraine in bid to protect their markets. While Romania had not imposed its own import ban, it joined the other four in urging Brussels to find a solution to the glut of Ukrainian produce. Import bans were deemed “unacceptable” by Brussels, as they undermined the bloc’s single market rules. The news of a deal on Ukrainian food imports followed a decision by EU ambassadors to extend Ukraine’s tariff-free access to the bloc’s market by another year. However, the extension is still subject to formal approval by the European Parliament and EU countries in the coming weeks.

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“The connection between Joe Biden and Hynansky’s business ventures dates back to 2009, when the then-vice president made his first visit to Ukraine..”

War Threatens Ukraine Auto Empire of Biden Megadonor (Sperry)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky isn’t the only one demanding more military assistance from President Biden to protect Kiev from Russian forces. So too is a close Delaware friend and financial backer of Biden, who owns several luxury car dealerships around the Ukrainian capital. By sending billions of dollars in weapons and other military aid to help defend Ukraine, Biden also is securing the investments of millionaire car magnate John Hynansky, a Ukrainian American and longtime supporter of the president. Over the course of Biden’s political career, Hynansky and his family have contributed more than $100,000 to his campaigns, including $8,000 in 2020, Federal Election Commission records show. Hynansky family members have been guests at the White House, and Hynansky has floated hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans to Biden family members, property records show.

Hynansky’s son, Michael, who helps run his car empire, lent the use of his Lear jet to Biden when he was a senator. Since Russia started shelling the area around Kiev in February 2022, the U.S. government has spent $77 billion to help Ukraine rebuild and repel future attacks. Government ethics watchdogs say the president’s friendship poses a potential conflict of interest that demands a full accounting of how the massive foreign aid, which includes open-ended humanitarian and economic assistance, has been used and who has benefited from it. On the military side, moreover, billions of dollars have gone to unspecified areas, such as “security,” “intelligence,” and “training.” In the past, Hynansky has supplied the police cars and ambulances in several regions of Ukraine.

[..] The connection between Joe Biden and Hynansky’s business ventures dates back to 2009, when the then-vice president made his first visit to Ukraine. In a speech in Kiev to government officials, Biden singled out Hynansky for praise, noting that he had just had breakfast with “my very good friend, John Hynansky.” (The previous year, Hynansky had individually contributed more than $33,000 to the Obama-Biden ticket primarily through the Obama Victory Fund, according to FEC records.) Within months of his hobnobbing with the vice president and local officials in the Ukrainian capital, Hynansky scored his first international development loan from the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation, or OPIC, a federal body whose board was appointed by President Obama.

Hynansky used the $2.5 million to break ground on a new headquarters and massive distribution center outside Kiev that prepares 8,000 cars for sale every year. In 2012, Hynansky landed another $20 million in OPIC funding to expand his dealership facilities, federal records show, helping him corner roughly 25% of the luxury car market in Ukraine. “The proceeds of the loan will be used to construct and operate two new, state-of-the-art dealership facilities for Porsche and Land Rover/Jaguar automobiles, and repay any outstanding balance of an existing OPIC loan,” according to a 2012 OPIC financing document.

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Without implicating the Big Guy?

Hunter’s Collapsing World: A Criminal Plea Could Now Be Best Option (Turley)

This week, Hunter Biden’s defense team traveled to Delaware seeking an update on the federal criminal investigation that has dragged on for almost five years. The reason seems clear: Time is running out on Hunter and the Biden family. After years of delaying disclosures and admissions, Hunter could now be pushing to cap off the criminal side of the scandal before more information is released in Arkansas and Washington. For the White House, even a criminal plea is preferred if they can avoid one particular claim — and they may be succeeding. For years, the Bidens have worked (with the media’s help) to delay any recognition of the influence peddling and corruption that may be revealed on Hunter Biden’s laptop. Even this week, in child support proceedings in Arkansas, Hunter’s counsel continued to refuse to admit ownership of the laptop abandoned at The Mac Shop in Wilmington, Del., in April 2019.

It won’t work any more than his long refusal to acknowledge his fathering of his four-year-old child, Navy. Just as Hunter could not deny DNA, forensic and other evidence will soon make his laptop denials untenable in proceedings in which he and his counsel are required to tell the truth. These proceedings are now colliding for the Bidens. With the laptop being raised in Arkansas and being investigated in Washington by House committees, time is up and the Biden team knows it. An establishment of the laptop’s authenticity in one forum could produce cascading effects in the other forums. There has already been a recent shift to a scorched-earth strategy, including reportedly threatening possible witnesses and calling for the IRS to investigate critics.

New leaks from the Justice Department investigation have indicated that prosecutors are considering four charges: two misdemeanor counts for failure to file taxes, a single felony count of tax evasion related to a business expense for one year of taxes and a potential felony count on falsifying a form linked to a gun permit. Those four charges could well result in jail time, but the situation is likely to get worse for Hunter if the House reveals new evidence of foreign dealings and payments. That is why a capstone plea could control the damage for both Hunter and his father. A capstone is designed to protect against erosion and even help to hold together an arch that might otherwise collapse. This capstone plea could avoid a worst scenario (and charge) that would undermine years of denials by both Bidens.

However, there was one conspicuous omission from the list of potential charges that may also indicate a reason to push toward a plea. There is no mention of a charge as an unregistered foreign agent under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). The Justice Department aggressively used this charge against Trump figures like Paul Manafort and, if the same standard is applied, it is hard to see the basis for discarding the charge in the Hunter Biden case. The laptop shows emails from various foreign sources, including some with close connections to foreign governments and intelligence services. There are also records of visits of clients and business associates to the White House as well as pictures with then-Vice President Joe Biden. Finally, there are emails showing Hunter reached out to high-ranking officials like Antony Blinken for “advice.” Now our secretary of state, Blinken was then deputy secretary of state.

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“..merger accounting rules would require a buyer to immediately mark down FRC’s assets to fair value..”

No Buyer for First Republic Bank at Any Price (Mish)

In one of the biggest bank collapses ever, First Republic Bank is down 96 percent in two months. But look on the bright side. Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) fared even worse. At least FRC is still kicking. It rose 8.79 percent on Thursday. You likely can’t give FRC away. There would be no takers. Its assets are worth less than zero. That’s because merger accounting rules would require a buyer to immediately mark down FRC’s assets to fair value. FRC lost $100 billion in deposits. And unlike SVB, it is stuck with severely underwater mortgage loans. The FRC business model was to give ridiculously cheap mortgage loans to high-wealth clients in return for their business. When that model started blowing up, clients pulled their deposits.


Given all around silliness by banks chasing yield, any buyer would likely have to raise capital which would hammer their own share price. According to the WSJ, Autonomous Research analyst David Smith commented “It might cost you $30 billion of capital to buy the bank for free.” If the run on assets continues, either the Treasury or the Fed is likely to step in. Elizabeth Warren would then moan about the Fed bailing out the wealthy. If the bank went under, she would moan about something else. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen repeated her comment that the U.S. banking system remains sound and the U.S. government will take “any necessary steps” to keep it the strongest and safest financial system in the world.

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“envisage our future utopia”, suggesting that Ireland must “rebalance economy, ecology and ethics..”

Irish President Condemns ‘Obsession’ With Economic Growth (Leahy)

President Michael D Higgins has condemned the “obsession” with achieving economic growth in a speech on Friday that was implicitly critical of the economic policies pursued by successive governments. In a reception at Áras an Uachtaráin for Tasc, a think tank dedicated to social change, the President delivered a typically wide-ranging speech that featured a strong critique of economic policy that seeks to prioritise growth, a condemnation of “neoliberalism” and an evaluation of the shortcomings of the teaching of economics at universities. He also urged those present to “envisage our future utopia”, suggesting that Ireland must “rebalance economy, ecology and ethics”. And he insisted that the current exchequer surplus was not just the product of corporation tax receipts from multinationals, but “has been made possible by an educated and hard-working population”.


“Many economists remain stuck in an inexorable growth narrative, or at best a ‘green growth’ narrative,” he said. “A fixation on a narrowly defined efficiency, productivity, perpetual growth has resulted in a discipline that has become blinkered to the ecological challenge – the ecological catastrophe – we now face. “That narrow focus constitutes an empty economics which has lost touch with everything meaningful, a social science which no longer is connected, or even attempts to be connected, with the social issues and objectives for which it was developed over centuries. It is incapable of offering solutions to glaring inadequacies of provision as to public needs, devoid of vision.” Later he added: “Our obsession with inexorable economic expansion expresses, perhaps, a desire to transcend our material limits and rise above the state of nature. Yet this growth fixation paradoxically increases the potency of those very limits. “A deadly cocktail of exploding inequalities, massive deregulation and a globalisation defined solely by trade densities has precipitated this ecological crisis.”

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Fern

 

 

 

 


Greta oto, also known as glasswinged butterfly, has transparent wings with a span of 5.6 to 6.1 cm

 

 

 

 

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Apr 232023
 


Banksy

 

Western ‘Experts’ Failed To Destroy Russia’s Economy (Strelnikov)
G7 Allies Consider Outright Ban Of All Trade With Russia (ZH)
Feds Have No Data on How Regulations Reduce Emissions: Audit (ET)
German Tanks Pose Logistical Problems For Ukraine – Foreign Policy (RT)
Berlin To Expel Russian Diplomats En Masse, Moscow To Mirror That Decision (TASS)
Vatican Refuses To Commit ‘Grave Sin’ – Media (RT)
Trump Lays Out Timeline To End Ukraine Conflict (RT)
Biden Impeachment? (ZH)
Hunter Biden’s Lawyers To Meet With Feds – CNN (RT)
Bragg Caved. Jim Jordan Won (ET)
Airman’s Leaks Started Just 48 Hours After Russia Invaded Ukraine (ZH)
China Questions Sovereignty Of Ex-Soviet States (RT)
Macron Is ‘Bunkered,’ Le Pen Says (RT)
French Cops Confiscate Cookware (RT)
French Police Cleared To Use Drones For Crowd Monitoring (R.)
US Democrats Threaten Matt Taibbi With Arrest (RT)

 

 

 

 

Funeral director

 

 

 

 

Beck

 

 

RFK jr

 

 

Makis

 

 

 

 

Very good from Kirill Strelnikov at RIA Novosti

“..a petrol station with matryoshka dolls couldn’t possibly stand up to the combined economic might of the enlightened West..”

It’s all about faulty modelling. A bunch of economists looking at nominal GDP only.

Western ‘Experts’ Failed To Destroy Russia’s Economy (Strelnikov)

As is often the case in the Western media, the most embarrassing facts are only covered when they can no longer be hidden, but even then unpleasant admissions are made with numerous caveats and excuses. This week, the International Monetary Fund published a report, which drew the long overdue conclusion that the economic hegemony of the leading Western countries, represented by the G7, is shrinking as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) surge. Its conclusions were, of course, ‘polished’ by all the leading Western media outlets, but one thing became clear: Any triumphant Western predictions about the BRICS in general, and Russia in particular, can be safely tossed into the rubbish bin. In 2007, Western experts published a reassuring report stating that the total contribution of the BRICS to the world economy would not be comparable to that of the G7 until 2032.

But once again Western economic projections have failed, and the fact is that the BRICS countries caught up with the G7 in terms of their contribution to world economic growth as early as 2020, and at the moment the figures, even creatively manipulated by pundits, stubbornly show that by 2028 the BRICS will account for at least 35% (some sources say as much as 40%) of world GDP (compared with 27.8% for the G7). Western analysts, who are in fact echoing the wishes of the global deep state, have fallen into a similar trap in their assessment of Russia’s prospects and impact on the global economy. As we recall, since the beginning of last year, more sanctions have been imposed on Russia than on any other country in history, and the main talking heads in the West have reported with anticipation that the Russian economy will soon be reduced to dust.

Such was their confidence (after all, a petrol station with matryoshka dolls couldn’t possibly stand up to the combined economic might of the enlightened West) that analysts didn’t even bother with figures. The prediction was simple: Russia would be quickly and irrevocably destroyed – first its economy and then its social cohesion. A common trope for a number of years has been a comparison between the economies of Russia and Italy, with spurious claims that the economy of the world’s largest country is no bigger than that of the home of pizza and pasta, all based on simplistic measurements which fail to take into account currency differences, and overvalue the debt-fueled services sector. But something went wrong, and to the astonishment of the prognosticators, not only did Russia not kneel, it did not even bend to their will. The country’s position as a global energy superpower has been reaffirmed, and the title of global food superpower has been added. Other such titles will come in time. The forecasters began to compare their calculations and came to the conclusion that they had been counting wrongly.

As a result, a respected US publication, The National Interest, has published an ashen article whose main conclusion is that the comparison of the economies of Russia and Italy betrays the blatant incompetence of Western experts. In short, the roots of the comparison lie in the methodology of comparing economies by nominal GDP – the total value of all goods and services produced or sold in a country over a given period. Indeed, according to the World Bank, Russia’s nominal GDP in 2013 was about $2.29 trillion and Italy’s was about $2.14 trillion. But according to the authors of the article, the approach itself was fundamentally flawed: neither the exchange rate nor purchasing power parity (PPP) adjusted for living standards and labour productivity, per capita wealth and, most importantly, the availability of crucial material resources and goods, as opposed to nice “paper” assets like the value of global brands, copyrights and so on, were taken into account in the calculations.

With this correction alone, Russia’s real GDP is quite comparable to that of Germany (one of the ten most economically developed countries in the world): $4.81 trillion for Russia versus $4.85 trillion for Germany in 2021. But even such sophisticated calculations do not reflect the real situation. In times of crisis, the production of physical goods comes first, and here the Russian economy is not only stronger than the German economy, but more than twice as strong as France. Add to this Russia’s key role in supplying the world with energy, vital natural resources and food (not to mention its impact on global security) and we don’t need the conclusions of the world’s smartest analysts to understand our country’s real place in the world. Not so long ago, the IMF forecast 0.3% economic growth for Russia in 2023. Perhaps we should thank the “experts” and send this forecast to the same place as the others. Meanwhile, it’s better that we win in the real world, not on paper.

Read more …

Trying to sink Europe…

G7 Allies Consider Outright Ban Of All Trade With Russia (ZH)

Washington is in discussion with several Western partners about outright ending trade with Russia. The debate is occurring as the US-led economic war on Russia has failed to stop Moscow’s war machine in Ukraine. According to Bloomberg News, members of the Group of 7 (G7) are considering banning exports to Russia. The debate is occurring among member states – the US, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the European Union – ahead of an international summit in May. Members of the G7 have maintained significant exports to Russia since Washington declared it would isolate Moscow using sanctions. According to Trade Data Monitor, $66 billion in goods have flowed to Russia from member states. The proposed ban will essentially switch the way Washington outlaws trade with Russia.

Currently, the US and its allies are blacklisting Russian products, companies and individuals. If adopted, the export ban will prohibit all trade with Moscow that is not explicitly exempted from Western sanctions. The Miami Herald reports that food and medicine will likely be on the exemption list. However, international aid organizations argue that exemptions are ineffective and sanctions largely stomp out the trade of civilian goods. The proposed export ban faces serious obstacles to overcome before the May G7 summit. All EU member states will have to agree to the ban for the bloc to sign on. Additionally, the export ban could threaten the grain export deal that Turkey and the UN brokered with Russia and Ukraine last year. According to the EU, since the agreement was implemented, 23 million tonnes of food products have left Kiev’s Black Sea ports.

After Russia invaded Ukraine 14 months ago, the White House unleashed a series of sanctions targeting Moscow that it believed was acting as an economic nuclear weapon. While the Joe Biden administration hoped that the entire globe would join in on the Kremlin’s isolation, after a year, only close Western partners have followed Washington’s lead. This has allowed Moscow to weather the West’s sanctions by turning to other trading partners – including China and India.

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More disaster modelling. Canada commits $200 billion to an empty model.

Feds Have No Data on How Regulations Reduce Emissions: Audit (ET)

The federal government does not know the extent that regulations are reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, despite committing $200 billion towards the issue. An April 20 report released by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Jerry DeMarco, indicates that Environment and Climate Change Canada does not attribute emission results to specific regulations. The federal department does not measure, or report on, the contributions of each regulation toward meeting the set target for 2030. An audit by the commissioner concluded that Environment Canada “used modelling approaches to estimate greenhouse gas emission reductions.” The federal government does not know if regulations to limit methane emissions are achieving their target, said the report. The audit found that large sources of methane emissions were unaccounted for in inventories and not covered by any existing regulations.

The audit considered five regulations with the stated intent to reduce emissions from vehicles on the road, power plants, and oil and gas production. DeMarco concluded, “Without comprehensive impact information, the federal government does not know whether it is using the right tools to sufficiently reduce emissions to meet its target.” The audit suggested some regulations, targeted at reducing emissions from power generation, achieved the targeted level, while regulations intended to reduce vehicle emissions failed to meet their target. “Although greenhouse gas emissions from passenger cars decreased, this was offset by even larger increases in emissions for light trucks and heavy-duty vehicles, such as school and transit buses and freight, delivery, garbage, and dump trucks,” said the report.

The audit also said the government took “too long to develop regulations given the urgency of the climate crisis.” The report was critical that it took more than five years to develop the Clean Fuel Regulations, which was double the initial plan. The Liberals first promised to plant 2 billion trees by 2031 on the campaign trail in 2019, and said the country would cut emissions from 42 to 45 percent lower than 2005 levels. The country only cut 8.4 percent of emissions between 2005 and 2021, according to the most recent national greenhouse gas inventory report.

The audit found the country isn’t on track to plant even one-tenth of the promised trees by the deadline, despite a $3.2 billion allocation in the 2020 fall economic statement. “There is no solution to climate change and terrestrial biodiversity loss that does not include forests,” DeMarco’s report said. “It is unlikely that the two billion trees program will meet its objectives unless significant changes are made.” On the emissions front, the audit indicates the federal government committed to eliminating 2 million tonnes of greenhouse-gas emissions yearly, by 2030. Now the Liberal government said it will not start reducing emissions until 2031, at the earliest.

Read more …

Most of these tanks will never be in action.

German Tanks Pose Logistical Problems For Ukraine – Foreign Policy (RT)

Ukraine will likely have to procure a range of different munitions, rather than a single type, for German-made Leopard tanks, Foreign Policy has reported. In a report on Thursday, the media outlet stated that the vehicles provided to Kiev by eight countries are not uniform in terms of the shells they fire. The article also highlights the supposed inadequacy of air defences that have already been supplied. Foreign Policy wrote that the “Leopard tanks arriving from eight different countries fire different rounds, meaning that Ukrainians can’t buy munitions for their newly tricked-out ground forces in bulk.” As for Abrams tanks which the US has pledged to donate, these will likely take months to actually arrive on the battlefield, the outlet noted.

According to the article, Ukraine is also facing severe shortages of modern air defense systems. The country reportedly has enough to cover just a few cities. To make matters worse, the Hawk missile systems provided by Washington have been shipped without radars, Foreign Policy claimed. The setbacks are supposedly holding up Kiev’s planned spring counteroffensive, and causing discontent among the Ukrainian leadership. The media outlet cited President Vladimir Zelensky’s calls on the West to step up its military support for Ukraine late last month. Echoing that sentiment, Aleksey Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, lamented to the Associated Press earlier this week that some of Ukraine’s backers “promise one thing and do a completely different one.” The official also made it clear that “nobody will start unprepared,” referring to the planned counteroffensive.

A Ukrainian MP quoted by Foreign Policy claimed that the push had originally been planned for April, but had to be postponed indefinitely due to the lack of weapons necessary to pull it off. On Friday, the New York Times published a report saying that as of late February Kiev had only 200 of the 253 tanks that US military officials deemed sufficient for a successful counteroffensive. The paper, citing leaked Pentagon documents, noted that the majority of hardware was of Soviet design. The NYT also claimed that the US and its allies were having difficulty keeping up with Ukraine’s demand for artillery shells.

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Yeah, don’t let’s talk.

Berlin To Expel Russian Diplomats En Masse, Moscow To Mirror That Decision (TASS)

The German authorities have decided to massively expel Russian diplomats, thus Berlin is pursuing a course to destroy the entire range of Russia-Germany relations, the Russian Foreign Ministry told TASS on Saturday. “The authorities of the Federal Republic of Germany have decided on another mass expulsion of members of the Russian diplomatic missions in Germany. We strongly condemn these actions of Berlin, which continues to demonstratively destroy the entire range of Russia-Germany relations, including in their diplomatic dimension,” the ministry pointed out. The diplomats promised to give a mirror response to Berlin’s decision.

“As a response to Berlin’s hostile actions, the Russian side has decided to mirror the decision and expel German diplomats from Russia, as well as to significantly limit the maximum number of employees of German diplomatic missions in our country. On April 5, 2023, the Russian Foreign Ministry officially notified German Ambassador to Russia Geza Andreas von Geyr of this decision,” the diplomats said. They also pointed out that Berlin, in violation of its assurances, has put the media on notice of another mass expulsion of Russian diplomatic staff. “It is indicative that the German side, despite its repeated assurances of unwillingness to make the story public, violated them by making representatives of the media regularly used to organize ‘controlled leaks and information’ issues aware of its plot,” the ministry said.

On March 25, the Focus media outlet said, citing sources in the foreign ministry, that German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock planned to declare more than 30 accredited Russian diplomats personae non gratae. According to the Focus, German security agencies claim that these diplomats use their diplomatic status to illegally obtain political, economic, military, and scientific information for subsequent use in acts of sabotage and dissemination of disinformation. Commenting on these reports, a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Russia would give a tough response to such steps.

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Conveniently hiding behind papal secrecy.

Vatican Refuses To Commit ‘Grave Sin’ – Media (RT)

A representative of the Vatican has said in a court filing that it would be a “grave sin” for the church to be forced to disclose communications between an archbishop and a cardinal in a UK trial related to a disputed real estate deal, according to a report by Bloomberg. “The violation of the pontifical secret is deemed a grave sin,”Carlos Ferando Diaz Paniagua, a Roman Catholic priest and lawyer, declared in documents filed with a London court in March. The pontifical secret, also referred to as papal secrecy, refers to an oath taken by members of the church designed to protect the distribution of sensitive information. It stands, Diaz Paniagua added to the court, “regardless of any grave or urgent considerations or the need to protect the common good.”

The legal request for various emails and text messages stems from a 2018 claim by the Vatican that it was defrauded by financier Raffaele Mincione and his companies in the $383 million sale of a former Harrods warehouse in London’s high-end Chelsea district. Ten people – including an Italian cardinal – have been accused by Vatican prosecutors in relation to various fraud and embezzlement charges amid allegations that the property had been sold at an inflated price. The Vatican has claimed it could lose as much as $186 million in its purchase of the site, which was intended to be developed into luxury apartments, and that it was improperly advised throughout the proceedings. Mincione, who is a defendant in the Vatican case, has in turn sued the church in the aforementioned London civil trial. He claims that his reputation has been damaged by the Vatican’s accusations against him.

In 2020, he petitioned the London court for a declaration that he had acted in good faith throughout his role in the real estate deal – a ruling his legal team believes would assist him in the separate trial brought by the Vatican. As part of the civil case, Mincione’s lawyers sought a trove of digital communications between high-ranking church officials Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra. Diaz Paniagua claimed in response that emails and text messages between the pair are irrelevant to the case, while the Vatican has said messages protected by pontifical secret are akin to state secrets Lawyers representing Mincione have declined to comment. The Vatican has until April 28 to decide if it intends to maintain pontifical secret as its reason for refusal to comply with a court request.

Read more …

“..you don’t need bullets, you don’t need tanks, you don’t need weapons of any kind, you just need some common sense.”

Trump Lays Out Timeline To End Ukraine Conflict (RT)

Former US president Donald Trump has promised to put a swift end to the bloodshed in Ukraine should he be elected again in 2024. The Republican also trashed the incumbent Joe Biden’s foreign policy, claiming it has made the world a more dangerous place. Speaking to his supporters in Fort Myers, Florida, on Friday, Trump said: “Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after we win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled. I’ll get it settled very quickly.” He explained that he “know[s] both” Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. Trump, who served as president from 2017 until 2021, claimed that he “got along” with the Russian head of state, and that Putin would not have launched his military campaign against Ukraine had Trump been in office.

“It’s still pretty easy for me to do,” the Republican insisted, referring to ending the conflict that has gone on for more than a year. He went on to allege that other countries’ leaders have lost respect for the US under Biden’s leadership because of his allegedly poor handling of America’s foreign policy. To regain it, Trump argued, “you don’t need bullets, you don’t need tanks, you don’t need weapons of any kind, you just need some common sense.” The former US president described himself as the “only candidate” who could promise to prevent the US from getting involved in World War III. If “these incompetent people” remain in office, however, there “will be a war like no other” with belligerent parties using nuclear weapons, Trump warned.

Last month, the Republican hopeful publicly asserted on at least two occasions that it would take him 24 hours to get Russia and Ukraine to end the fighting and negotiate if he were to be reelected. Talks between Kiev and Moscow were suspended last April by the Ukrainian leadership. Kiev accused the retreating Russian military of committing atrocities in several Kiev suburbs, a claim Moscow has denied.In October of last year, President Zelensky signed a decree, ruling out talks with his Russian counterpart. That order was given after Russia absorbed four Ukrainian regions following referendums. The Kremlin maintains that it is open to peace negotiations in principle as long as Kiev relinquishes its claim to the territories and agrees to Russia’s terms. Ukraine, in turn, says it is determined to resolve the issue by winning the conflict on the battlefield.

Read more …

“I cannot imagine how the Justice Department allowed this to go on, if not for corruption at the highest level. And they are in some serious trouble right now. I think they know it..”

Biden Impeachment? (ZH)

A Republican member of the House Oversight Committee thinks a flurry of recent corruption scandals could lead to the impeachment of President Joe Biden. Between the revelation that the ‘Hunter laptop letter hoax’ signed by 51 current and former intelligence officials was created at the best of Antony Blinken during the 2020 US election, the obvious implications of CCP leverage over the Biden family, and information presented by an IRS whistleblower regarding the Hunter Biden probe, things may get interesting according to Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN). When asked about China’s influence over the Biden family, Burchett told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Friday: “We know of at least eight Biden family members who have profited from dealings overseas,” adding “I think if you delve into it deep enough, there’s prostitution rings involved in this, human trafficking has been rumored to be part of some of this. These so-called companies that have allowed the Biden family to profit. It is gross, and it is disgusting.”

“If I was those 51 people, I’d be lawyering up right now because they’re going to be asked in public at some point what they knew and if they knew that all this other stuff was going on, because it is very damning Maria. This is just the very tip of the iceberg,” he continued. “This very brave IRS agent coming forward, I think, will just start it,” Burchett said, referring to the senior agent in charge of the Hunter Biden investigation who came forward earlier this week in a letter to lawmakers, accusing the DOJ of ‘mishandling’ the Hunter Biden case, and that his client had information that would contradict sworn testimony from a senior political appointee. When asked if that might lead to an impeachment, Burchett said: “If this coverup shows what’s going on, what we assume is going on, and that the 51 folks were basically lied to and showed false documentation, how can you not…”

“The lawyer for the whistleblower joined “Special Report with Bret Baier” Thursday night claiming his client is “not a political person” and does not have a “political agenda,” but does have documents to support his allegations that he hopes to bring to both congressional Democrats and Republicans. “If you delve into it deep enough, there’s prostitution rings involved in this. Human trafficking has been rumored to be a part of some of these so-called companies that have allowed the Biden family to profit. It is gross and it is disgusting about what has been allowed to go on,” Burchett said.” -Fox News “I cannot imagine how the Justice Department allowed this to go on, if not for corruption at the highest level. And they are in some serious trouble right now. I think they know it,” Burchett continued.

Read more …

“..failure to file taxes, felony tax evasion and falsely stating on a federal form for a gun purchase..”

That is all.

Hunter Biden’s Lawyers To Meet With Feds – CNN (RT)

Lawyers representing Hunter Biden have reportedly set up a meeting with US Department of Justice (DOJ) officials to discuss the status of a criminal investigation into President Joe Biden’s son. The meeting will take place next week and include a senior DOJ official, as well as US Attorney David Weiss, the Delaware prosecutor who has led the probe on Hunter Biden since 2018, CNN reported on Friday, citing unidentified sources familiar with the matter. Fox News, which confirmed the report, said Biden’s lawyers requested the meeting weeks ago, and it’s unrelated to allegations made this week about the investigation by an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) whistleblower.

CNN said prosecutors have narrowed the scope of the probe to include possible charges for failure to file taxes, felony tax evasion and falsely stating on a federal form for a gun purchase that he had not used illegal drugs. Weiss is reportedly also considering related charges involving money laundering and unregistered foreign lobbying. The tax case relates at least partly to Biden’s income from ventures in Ukraine and China. The IRS whistleblower, who has not been identified and has sought permission to give testimony to Congress, supervised the agency’s investigation into the younger Biden’s alleged tax violations. The whistleblower reportedly claims that the probe has been undermined by “political considerations” and that Attorney General Merrick Garland misled Congress about how the case is being handled.

There is no indication that the scheduling of next week’s DOJ meeting with Biden’s lawyer suggests that prosecutors are prepared to make a decision soon on whether to file charges, Fox said, citing a source. There is “growing frustration” in the FBI because the bulk of the investigative work concerning the Biden allegations was completed last year, NBC News reported on Thursday. The IRS finished its part of the investigation more than a year ago, the report adds. A bombshell New York Post report on alleged foreign influence-peddling by the Biden family surfaced in October 2020, just three weeks before the presidential election. The report was based on correspondence contained on a laptop computer that Hunter Biden had abandoned at a Delaware repair shop.

Former CIA Director Mike Morell recently admitted in congressional testimony that Joe Biden’s presidential campaign played a role in the creation of an open letter – signed by 51 former intelligence officials – claiming that the Hunter Biden allegations had “the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Morell, who acknowledged that he wanted to help Joe Biden get elected, said the letter was prompted by Biden campaign staffer Antony Blinken, now US secretary of state. Media outlets and the Biden campaign used the letter to discredit the Post report, which was censored by Facebook based on an FBI misinformation warning.

Read more …

“..Mr. Pomerantz’s deposition will go forward on May 12, and we look forward to his appearance,”

Bragg Caved. Jim Jordan Won (ET)

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has dropped his effort to quash a congressional subpoena to a former prosecutor who worked in his office, a congressional aide told The Epoch Times in a statement on Friday. “This evening, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office withdrew its appeal in Bragg v. Jordan. Mr. Pomerantz’s deposition will go forward on May 12, and we look forward to his appearance,” Russel Dye, spokesperson for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to The Epoch Times in a statement. “Bragg caved. Jim Jordan won,” the House Judiciary Committee wrote in a statement on Twitter Friday.

The development wrapped up a legal clash between Bragg and House Judiciary Republicans, whereby Bragg had attempted to stop the lawmakers from requesting testimony from Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor who investigated former President Donald Trump’s finances. Pomerantz left Bragg’s office in February 2022 in protest of Bragg’s initial unwillingness to bring an indictment against Trump. A grand jury, encouraged by Bragg, brought an indictment against Trump in late March, prompting Jordan to initiate a probe into what he calls a “politically motivated” prosecution against a former president. Jordan subpoenaed Pomerantz to seek his testimony as a part of that probe.

In response, Bragg sued the House Judiciary Committee and Pomerantz to prevent Pomerantz from testifying. That lawsuit led to a hearing on Wednesday in the Southern District Court of New York, and a subsequent decision by District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, a Trump appointee, ordered that the congressional panel has the authority to become involved in the investigation of Trump and declined Bragg’s request for a court injunction on the congressional subpoena.

Read more …

Went on for well over a year…

Airman’s Leaks Started Just 48 Hours After Russia Invaded Ukraine (ZH)

The Pentagon’s humiliation just grew deeper, as it turns out National Guard Airman Jack Teixeira’s leaks of classified documents started far earlier than has previously been reported. Tipped off about a second, 600-member Discord chat group where Teixeira also posted, the New York Times found the Massachusetts Air National Guard information technology specialist started sharing information about the war in Ukraine within 48 hours of Russia’s February 2022 invasion. In contrast to the previously reported chat group, this one was far larger and was publicly listed on a YouTube channel. This development makes the intelligence community’s failure to discover the posts all the more embarrassing: The document used to criminally charge Teixeira says he started posting in December 2022, but it turns out his stream of leaks spanned 13 months.

The Times matched Teixeira to the account in the newly-publicized chat room by a variety of means, including the user name, photos he posted that match known photos of his family home’s interior, a reference to his birthday, and, not least, the user’s declaration that he worked in an Air Force intelligence unit. The posts reviewed by the Times were detailed descriptions of classified documents, with the user believed to have also posted photos of documents that have since been deleted. Teixeira jumped into leak mode just two days after the Russian invasion, posting, “Saw a pentagon report saying that 1/3rd of the force is being used to invade.” When others in the chat room questioned his information, he wrote, “I have a little more than open source info. Perks of being in a USAF intel unit.”

In a March 27, 2022 post in which he said he was citing “an NSA site,” Teixeira told the group Russian forces were about to pull back from Kiev: “Some ‘big’ news. There may be a planned withdrawal of the troops west of Kiev, as in all of them.” Two days later, Russia announced it was doing just that. “The job I have lets me get privilege’s above most intel guys,” he boasted with imperfect punctuation. When another chat participant cautioned him not to abuse those privileges, Teixeira fittingly replied, “Too late.”

Read more …

“There are enduring problems, aren’t there, about their conflict, their problem? It’s so easy to say in one word. If you have any problems, you can talk about it together.”

China Questions Sovereignty Of Ex-Soviet States (RT)

China’s ambassador to France has called into question the sovereignty of Ukraine and other former Soviet republics, suggesting that their hazy status under international law makes it difficult to resolve conflicts over disputed territories such as Crimea. “Even these countries of the former Soviet Union don’t have effective status in international law because there is no international agreement to make their status as a sovereign country concrete,” Ambassador Lu Shaye said on Saturday in an interview with French broadcaster LCI. Asked by Swiss journalist Darius Rochebin whether Crimea is Ukrainian territory, Lu said, “It depends on how you perceive the problem . . . . It’s not that simple.” Rochebin tried to correct his guest, saying, “Sorry, according to international law, you know it’s Ukraine. Under international law, you can argue it, you can dispute it, but this is Ukraine.”

Lu replied, “Crimea was originally part of Russia, wasn’t it? It was [Soviet leader Nikita] Khrushchev who gave Crimea to Ukraine in the Soviet Union.” Pressed again on the peninsula’s status, the Chinese diplomat said, “Now, we must not quarrel about this kind of problem again. Now, the most urgent thing is to stop, to cease fire, to stop.” Chinese officials have tried to maintain a neutral stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, resisting pressure from the US and other Western powers to join in condemning Moscow and imposing sanctions. Beijing, which proposed a 12-point peace plan in February, has emphasized the need to stop the bloodshed in Ukraine and work toward a diplomatic solution that accounts for the security concerns of all parties involved.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has vowed to recapture all of his country’s territory, including Crimea – a goal that most of Kiev’s Western backers don’t see as realistic. Residents of the peninsula voted overwhelmingly for Crimea to become part of Russia in 2014, following a US-backed overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government. Asked about the importance of territorial integrity from Kiev’s point of view, Lu again pointed to the historical complexity of the issue, saying, “There are enduring problems, aren’t there, about their conflict, their problem? It’s so easy to say in one word. If you have any problems, you can talk about it together.”

Read more …

“France’s next presidential election is scheduled for 2027, when Macron won’t be able to run again because of term limits.”

Macron Is ‘Bunkered,’ Le Pen Says (RT)

Emmanuel Macron’s decision to push through pension reforms – in defiance of public opinion on the issue – has created a “total rupture” between the French president and his country’s people, opposition party leader Marine Le Pen has claimed. “The problem is that Emmanuel Macron is completely bunkered,” Le Pen said on Saturday in an interview with France’s BFM TV. “He can no longer leave the Elysée [presidential palace] without arousing the ire of a people he refuses to listen to and whose will he refuses to respect.” Macron was booed by crowds in eastern France on Wednesday, when he made his first public appearances since he signed into law an unpopular pension law earlier this month. Union workers claimed credit for cutting off the electricity at a woodworking factory in Muttersholtz just before the president arrived, leaving him partially in the dark during his visit.

The pension reforms, which included raising France’s retirement age to 64 from 62, sparked mass protests and civil unrest across the country. “He generated anger, and it is he who is at the origin of the disorder, the chaos,” Le Pen said. “I believe that today, there is a total rupture between Emmanuel Macron and the French people.” Le Pen accused the president of refusing to listen to public outcry on the pension law, reflecting a “failing democracy.” She added, “When the people say no, it’s no. We will have to tell him that democracy is doing what we said we were going to do. Democracy is respecting the will of the people.”

An Ifop Group poll released on Wednesday showed that Le Pen has overtaken Macron in public popularity. Asked which of the two personalities they prefer, respondents favored Le Pen over the president by a 47%-42% margin. Macron defeated Le Pen in last year’s presidential election by more than 17 percentage points. He beat her even more handily in 2017, winning 66.1% of the votes. France’s next presidential election is scheduled for 2027, when Macron won’t be able to run again because of term limits. Le Pen, leader of France’s National Rally party, plans to run for president for the fourth time. Even before Macron signed the pension bill last week, a poll showed that he would lose to Le Pen by a 55%-45% margin if they were to face off again.

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Other words for pots and pans… “..a regulation banning “portable sound devices”.. “..the brand-new edict forbidding “entertainment devices.“.. “any sound device that is portable or emanating from a vehicle that has not been duly authorized..”

French Cops Confiscate Cookware (RT)

French police in the village of Ganges confiscated saucepans and other metallic cookware from protesters on Thursday after hurriedly adopting a regulation banning “portable sound devices” ahead of a visit from President Emmanuel Macron. The French leader is currently touring the nation to defend his unpopular pension reforms. Video posted to social media shows police officers opening backpacks and ordering protesters to ditch their cookware. When one complains such restrictions are illegal, the officer retrieves a piece of paper from his car, presumably bearing the brand-new edict forbidding “entertainment devices.” Demonstrators were also reportedly forbidden from bringing small flutes anywhere near the school where Macron was to speak.

The Herault prefecture rushed to impose the ban on “any sound device that is portable or emanating from a vehicle that has not been duly authorized” within the security perimeter of the areas to be visited by Macron just hours before his visit on Thursday, hoping to protect the head of state from the chorus of metallic banging he faced during his first event in Alsace. While authorities insisted the snap edict was a “common police measure” meant to target amplifiers and speakers, experts questioned the legality of confiscating pots and pans, noting that the hastily adopted decree banned the use of the devices, not their possession. Macron’s political opponents seized on the pan ban’s overreach. “Is it possible to get out of a democratic crisis by banning saucepans?” Green Party MP Sandrine Rousseau asked. Communist Party spokesman Ian Brossat said he was “impatiently awaiting the bill which will prohibit the sale of saucepans.”

Asked whether he would face the demonstrators, Macron responded that he would do so only “if people are ready to talk.” “Where I’m from, eggs and pans, these are for cooking,” the president quipped. Macron later attempted to further marginalize the protesters, declaring, “it is not saucepans that will move France forward.” “The person who is preventing France from moving forward is [Macron],” Chloe Bourguignon, the secretary general of regional union UNSA Grand-Est, told FranceInfo. “It shows great contempt to say such a thing, particularly after all the messages of provocation that he has sent in the last few weeks.” After the pension reform package became law this week, Macron ordered his government to “restore peace” over the next 100 days, vowing not to back down on raising the retirement age by two years even though the legislation is opposed by more than two-thirds of the French population.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1649824727542779987

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Get their pots and pans and bring out the high tech…

French Police Cleared To Use Drones For Crowd Monitoring (R.)

French police is allowed from Friday to use drones equipped with cameras for a wide range of tasks including crowd monitoring and border control, following the publication of a decree in the Official Journal on Thursday.
This comes just over a year before the Paris 2024 Olympics and at a time when opposition to President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform has triggered huge protests that at times turned violent. The decree allows police, customs or military to use drones to prevent attacks on people or property, ensure the security of gatherings in public places as well as maintain or restore public order when these gatherings are likely to severely disrupt public order.


The drones can also be used for the prevention of terrorist acts, the regulation of transport flows, border surveillance, and rescuing people, the decree said. The decree details and implements in practice a security law voted by parliament last year. France’s CNIL data privacy watchdog had in March demanded that a detailed policy of use be published, including on the information of the public concerned by the use of drones.

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Taibbi and Elon Musk have had some sort of falling-out I see.

Taibbi: “You people are shockingly dishonest. This is referencing my refusal to leave Substack and move to Twitter subscriptions. The full quote is: “This whole business of me maybe moving to Twitter or using this new subscription service – I was trying to protect Elon in this situation… I was trying to communicate this to him: the Twitter Files wouldn’t be taken seriously if there was even a theoretical financial relationship between the two of us.”

US Democrats Threaten Matt Taibbi With Arrest (RT)

Democratic congresswoman Stacey Plaskett has threatened Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi with prosecution for perjury, journalist Lee Fang revealed on Thursday. Plaskett reportedly accused the independent journalist of deliberately misrepresenting the partnership between the social media giant and various US government agencies during his testimony before Congress last month. Fang, who obtained and published a copy of the letter from the Virgin Islands representative, pointed out that Plaskett based her allegations largely on claims made by MSNBC host Mehdi Hassan during a recent confrontational interview between Hassan and Taibbi – accusations Fang had already debunked in a recent piece published on his Substack blog.

Plaskett’s claim that Taibbi had deliberately mixed up CISA (the Homeland Security subsidiary, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) and CIS (the Center for Internet Security) in order to falsely depict an unconstitutionally cozy relationship between the Department of Homeland Security and Twitter was based on a single tweet, which Taibbi had deleted upon realizing his error and which was unrelated to his March 9 testimony before the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. As Taibbi pointed out to GrayZone journalist Aaron Maté on Friday, that comment referred to just one of many well-documented connections between DHS, its contractors (like CIS and the Election Integrity Partnership), and Twitter, and the Twitter Files ultimately revealed the platform was working with both CIS and CISA in the same manner.


Plaskett, who denounced Taibbi as a “so-called journalist” during the subcommittee hearing and accused him of posing a threat to people who disagreed with him, rounded out her letter with seven questions, demanding answers by this past Friday on the penalty of prosecution for perjury, which carries a five-year prison sentence. However, Taibbi claimed he did not even receive the message until the deadline had already arrived. Analyzing the document, Fang revealed it was co-written by staffers for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and former House Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler. Taibbi was the first journalist hand-picked by Twitter CEO Elon Musk to report on internal communications confirming the depth of the collusion between a dozen US government agencies and the major social media platforms to squelch dissent and promote narratives desirable to Washington. While he was in Washington testifying before Congress, a tax agent visited his home, leaving a note in what Republican lawmakers have denounced as an intimidation tactic from their political foes.

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Macleod

 

 

 

 

Daly

 

 


Photographer Axel Bocker took a glorious damselfly close-up in Germany and earned a spot as a finalist in the 2021 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Mar 012023
 
 March 1, 2023  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  61 Responses »


Paul Gauguin Blue Trees (Your Turn Will Come, My Beauty!) 1888

 

Zelensky Hints At Withdrawing From Russian-Encircled Bakhmut (ZH)
Situation In Bakhmut Much Worse Than Kiev Admits – CNN (TASS)
Most Front-Line Ukrainian Soldiers Killed Within ‘4 Hours’ (LI)
Kiev’s Troops Have Big Nazi Problem – Ex-US Soldier Who Escaped Ukraine (RT)
The Stage Is Set For Hybrid World War III (Escobar)
European Legislators Get Money From US Military Companies (TASS)
Afraid Some EU Countries May Send Troops To Ukraine – Orban (TASS)
Hungary Calls For Justice Over Pipeline Sabotage (RT)
Putin Accuses West Of Using ‘Extremists’ Against Russia (RT)
Berlin Left Unprotected As Air Defense Systems Sent To Ukraine (RT)
Ukraine Threatens Putin After Drone Attack Deep Inside Russia (Celente)
Hunter Biden Associate Arrested, Provided FBI With ‘Damning’ Information (TP)
Hunter Biden Business Partner Flips, Now ‘Cooperating’ With GOP Investigators (ZH)
Tucker Carlson, Staff NOT Allowed To Record or Remove J6 Footage (GP)
The Return of Oracles: Chatbots Are Coming! (Ugo Bardi)

 

 

 

 

Zel US

 

 

 

 

Macgregor Poles
https://twitter.com/i/status/1630603369223012362

 

 

Lula Iran

 

 

Wait until insurance companies have to change their long term mortality assumptions…that’s when the real losses get realized.
– Edward Dowd

 

 

 

 

“West” has been telling Z to withdraw. They portray it as his fight, not theirs, so they can’t lose face. But he can. Maybe the way out for him is attacking Crimea, saying that’s the bigger battle. He also started talking about American kids dying in Ukraine battles.

Zelensky Hints At Withdrawing From Russian-Encircled Bakhmut (ZH)

It was only in late January that Ukraine’s military General Staff emphasized that any potential forces withdrawal from the strategic city of Bakhmut in the east was “out of the question” as the situation was said to be under control. But a month later, the narrative has dramatically shifted amid reports that the Russians are shelling Ukrainian positions around the clock, and as complaints from Ukrainian front lines oersist of not enough ammo supplies to keep pace with the Russians. President Zelensky in fresh remarks on the situation has admitted that besieged Bakhut is running out of options. Within the past days he also said for the first time that he won’t seek to hold the city “at any cost” – strongly suggesting Ukraine has suffered a staggering loss in manpower.

He said Tuesday: “The situation is getting more and more difficult”… “The enemy is gradually destroying everything which can be used to protect our positions,” Zelenskiy said in his address, stopping short of announcing a pullout.” There have been emerging repots of gun battles deep within the city itself, which is a new development, also as Russian forces have it nearly fully encircled, as the NY Times also confirms: “The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, on Tuesday described the situation around the city as “extremely tense” in a post on the Telegram messaging app.” And Reuters too for the first time presented a headline Tuesday which put the situation for the Ukrainian side in stark terms: “Russians tighten noose on Ukraine’s Bakhmut,” the news service reported.

On Monday Zelensky had described that “The enemy is constantly destroying everything that can be used to protect our positions for fortification and defense. Our soldiers defending the area around Bakhmut are true heroes.” Some soldiers cited in local reports are vowing to fight till the end, as military reports get more and more desperate. Meanwhile the Biden administration is still resisting demands to give Kiev F-16 fighter jets… “for now” that is. John Kirby had described in a Monday interview that “At no time have the Russians ever achieved air superiority over Ukraine” – though by many military observer accounts, this is a highly dubious statement.

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CNN pushing Z out of Bakhmut.

Situation In Bakhmut Much Worse Than Kiev Admits – CNN (TASS)

The situation near Artyomovsk, known in Ukraine as Bakhmut, is much worse for Ukrainian forces than Kiev officially admits, CNN reported on Tuesday, citing Ukrainian troops fighting for the town. “The situation in Bakhmut is very difficult now. It is much worse than officially reported,” a soldier who wished to remain anonymous told CNN on Tuesday. “We should add another 100% difficulty to the official reports. In all directions. Especially in the northern direction.” Another soldier said in a video that “the situation around the defense of Bakhmut is quite difficult”. A third soldier described the fighting as “hellish.” Artyomovsk is located in the Kiev-controlled part of the DPR and is an important transportation hub for supplying Ukrainian troops in Donbass. Fierce fighting has been raging for the town. Denis Pushilin, the interim head of the Donetsk People’s Republic said on February 16 that Russian forces had seized control of all key heights near Artyomovsk.

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We knew already.

Most Front-Line Ukrainian Soldiers Killed Within ‘4 Hours’ (LI)

A retired American Marine fighting in Ukraine told ABC News the frontlines are a “meat grinder” where soldiers survive an average of “four hours.” Troy Offenbecker is fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region. Moscow and Kiev have been battling around Bakhmut for several months as Russia’s forces have slowly made gains around the city. In January, Germany estimated Kiev was losing a “three-digit number” of soldiers daily fighting for Bakhmut. At that time, the White House believed President Volodymyr Zelensky was committing too many lives and resources to defend the city. Offenbecker’s commentary suggests that the situation may be getting worse for Ukrainian soldiers. “It’s been pretty bad on the ground. A lot of casualties.” He assessed, “the life expectancy is around four hours on the frontline.”

He said the Russian attack on the city is not letting up and had turned into a “meat grinder.” “[The artillery] is nonstop.” Offenbecker explained the Russian forces are fighting around the clock. “[The Russians] have maybe run into a shortage of shells lately, but the past couple of weeks, it’s been nonstop. All day and night,” he told ABC. Meanwhile, Kiev’s Western backers have expressed to Zelensky in recent weeks that NATO countries are struggling to find artillery shells to send to Ukraine. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the US will train Ukrainian forces on fighting methods that use fewer munitions. The Kremlin ordered a mobilization of 300,000 troops last year. Western leaders have anticipated Moscow will order an offensive this winter.

Ukrainian officials say that the Russian offensive is now underway, and Offenbecker agrees. “With the amount of shelling, the amount of armor that they’ve brought in, I think it’s started,” he explained to ABC. Due to Moscow’s and Kiev’s tight control over their countries’ presses, it is unclear how substantial the death toll is for each country. Since the start of the war, Zelensky has nationalized Ukraine’s media, outlawed his political opposition and jailed citizens who opposed his administration. Commenting on the state of journalism in Ukraine, press-union leader Serhiy Guz explained, “We never know what’s the basis of these accusations, what’s the pro-Russian link…It starts to look like a political accusation rather than a genuine crime.” “A lot of journalists self-censor now,” he added.

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Could be a plant. For either side.

Kiev’s Troops Have Big Nazi Problem – Ex-US Soldier Who Escaped Ukraine (RT)

The Nazi influence in the Ukrainian military is omnipresent, John McIntyre, a former US soldier who served in various Ukrainian military units for a year, has told RT. He defected to Russia after witnessing the actions of the Ukrainian troops amid the ongoing conflict between Kiev and Moscow. “When I came, I was really surprised. Everybody had tattoos and Nazi symbolism,” the former American soldier-turned-mercenary told RT’s Murad Gazdiev in Moscow. McIntyre also admitted he did not believe Nazi ideology was “that big of a problem” for Ukraine until he saw things on the ground himself. The soldier also said he had to conceal his own anti-fascist and communist views to fit in with the Ukrainian troops. Some other Western mercenaries also directly told him: “The Russians aren’t the Nazis, we are the Nazis,” according to McIntyre.

The ex-US soldier served with the Ukrainian forces for a year, although now he claims he had always planned to defect to Russia once he gathered enough intelligence. At a certain point, he was “compromised as a whistleblower” after talking to someone about the war crimes committed by the Ukrainian forces. According to McIntyre, whistleblowers are treated in Ukraine even more harshly than spies. “Anybody who confesses or is known to be about to confess is shot in the back of the head,” he claimed, adding that “a lot of people go missing … including foreigners.” McIntyre himself managed to flee to Russia through Moldova after finding out that Ukraine had snipers hunting down defectors trying to cross the frontlines.

The former soldier, who previously served in Fort Bliss, Texas, for two years, claims the Ukrainian forces actively use civilians as human shields as they station their troops in basements next to residential buildings and then blame Russia if the area gets targeted in a strike. When such attacks happened, news crews covering the incidents “would not show you the houses to the left and right full of soldiers,” he said. The former mercenary also said he had heard about the Ukrainian nationalists, including the members of the infamous Azov battalion and another military formation called Carpathian Sech, who torture and kill Russian POWs by cutting off their genitalia or cutting their stomachs open and slitting their throats. McIntyre, who served with the Carpathian Sech, said he personally knew people who executed POWs, including foreigners from Portugal, France, and Argentina.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1630573543544049664

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“..Russia’s pivot to the East, towards the rising sun, now irreversible, was the only logical path to follow..”

The Stage Is Set For Hybrid World War III (Escobar)

A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you’re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by selected stops and enlightening conversations, crystallizing disparate vectors one year after the start of the accelerated phase of the proxy war between US/NATO and Russia. That’s how Moscow welcomes you: the undisputed capital of the 21st century multipolar world. A long, walking meditation impregnates on us how President Putin’s address – rather, a civilizational speech – last week was a game-changer when it comes to the demarcation of the civilizational red lines we are all now facing. It acted like a powerful drill perforating the less than short, actually zero term memory of the Collective West.

No wonder it exercised a somewhat sobering effect contrasting the non-stop Russophobia binge of the NATOstan space. Alexey Dobrinin, Director of the Foreign Policy Planning Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Russia, has correctly described Putin’s address as “a methodological basis for understanding, describing and constructing multipolarity.” For years some of us have been showing how the emerging multipolar world is defined – but goes way beyond – high speed interconnectivity, physical and geoeconomic. Now, as we reach the next stage, it’s as if Putin and Xi Jinping, each in their own way, are conceptualizing the two key civilizational vectors of multipolarity. That’s the deeper meaning of the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership, invisible to the naked eye.

Metaphorically, it also speaks volumes that Russia’s pivot to the East, towards the rising sun, now irreversible, was the only logical path to follow as, to quote Dylan, darkness dawns at the break of noon across the West. As it stands, with the wobblin’, ragin’ Hegemon lost in its own pre-fabricated daze, the real runners of the show feeding burning flesh to irredeemably mediocre political “elites”, China may have a little more latitude than Russia, as the Middle Kingdom is not – yet – under the same existential pressure Russia has been put under. Whatever happens next geopolitically, Russia is at heart a – giant – obstacle on the warmongering path of the Hegemon: the ultimate target is top “threat” China.

Putin’s ability to size up our extremely delicate geopolitical moment – via a dose of highly concentrated, undiluted realism – is something to behold. And then Foreign Minister Lavrov provided the sweet cherry on top, calling the hapless US ambassador for a hardcore dress down: oh yeah, this is war, hybrid and otherwise, and your NATO mercenaries as well as your junk hardware are legitimate targets. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Security Council, now more than ever relishing his “unplugged” status, made it all very clear: “Russia risks being torn apart if it stops a special military operation (SMO) before victory is achieved.” And the message is even more acute because it represents the – public – cue to the Chinese leadership at the Zhongnahhai to understand: whatever happens next, this is the Kremlin’s unmovable official position.

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“..some MEPs received pensions, for example, from US corporations Raytheon, Honeywell International and Textron Inc – military companies that develop, produce and sell, among other items, cluster munitions..”

European Legislators Get Money From US Military Companies (TASS)

The European parliament’s members receive money from US military companies, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on her Telegram channel on Tuesday. “Corruption in the European Parliament thrives. EUObserver journalists have discovered that some MEPs received pensions, for example, from US corporations Raytheon, Honeywell International and Textron Inc – military companies that develop, produce and sell, among other items, cluster munitions,” she said. “It is noteworthy that the focus is on the US military-industrial complex (not even European), which is the embodiment of the term ‘dealers in death’.


Moreover, as it has turned out, MEPs are sponsored with money from the sale of precisely those types of weapons which EU member-states seek ban. For some reason they do not refuse to take the money,” Zakharova added. She also noted that the MEPs had invested their pension savings in the oil and gas company Royal Dutch Shell after another oil spill from its pipeline. “How about the ‘green transition’ and nature conservation? There is a very special story about this. MEP Jutta Paulus (of Germany) directly lobbies for the interests of Boston’s NGO Clean Air Task Force. In drafting legislative amendments, she obediently and without hesitation used the documents prepared by that organization,” Zakharova said.

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“We need a ceasefire, we need peace talks. That is why Hungary insists on peace at all international forums..”

Afraid Some EU Countries May Send Troops To Ukraine – Orban (TASS)

Hungary’s government is worried to see weapons supplies to Ukraine and is afraid that some of the EU countries may send its troops there, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Monday. He expressed serious concern that “entire Europe is sliding into a war step by step” as EU countries are sending tanks to Ukraine and are looking at supplying it with fighter jets. “If things continue this way, there will be those who may want to send troops to Ukraine,” he said at the opening of the Hungarian parliament’s spring session. He stressed that his government insists on settling the Ukrainian conflict by peaceful means and called on lawmakers to advocate this position. “They want to drag us into this war, but I am calling on you not to yield to provocations,” Orban said.


“We need a ceasefire, we need peace talks. That is why Hungary insists on peace at all international forums,” he said, adding that for these reason Hungary supports China’s peace plan for Ukraine. He reiterated that he continues to be against the European Union’s anti-Russian sanctions, especially in the energy sector. He recalled that restrictions on fuel supplies had provoked a dramatic price rise and Hungary’s spending on energy sources had increased by ten billion euro in 2022. “Brussels has taken this money from the pockets of Hungarians with the use of sanctions,” he added.

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“What we need to know is, if they did it in the north just to stop the Russian gas coming to Europe … then they could do it in the south as well.”

Hungary Calls For Justice Over Pipeline Sabotage (RT)

Hungary needs to watch out for potential sabotage on pipelines that deliver Russian natural gas to the country, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Monday, pointing to the September 2022 blasts on the Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea. “The blowing up of the Nord Stream was a simple act of terrorism,” Orban said in a speech to parliament in Budapest. “What we need to know is, if they did it in the north just to stop the Russian gas coming to Europe … then they could do it in the south as well.” Orban said that Hungary, together with neighboring Serbia, must “make clear that if this were to happen, it would not be easy to get away with, like they are doing now with the Nord Stream explosions.”

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto this week called for the UN to investigate the “scandalous” attack on the pipelines. Budapest wants to know “who committed it and why,” the minister said. Hungary and Serbia, whose economies heavily depend on Russian oil and gas, have opposed sanctions that would have prevented them from receiving supplies from Moscow. Both nations have also refused to impose any restrictions of their own. On Thursday, US state-run news outlet RFE-RL reported that South Stream Transport, which operates the TurkStream gas pipeline, would not be able to repair the infrastructure in the event of damage, as the Dutch government has revoked its license.

The Black Sea pipeline delivers Russia gas to Hungary and Serbia. Veteran US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh claimed earlier this month that the Nord Stream sabotage was orchestrated by Washington with help from Norway. The US has denied any involvement, and rejected the allegations as “complete fiction.” Russia has also called for a thorough investigation into the “terrorist attack.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Western countries last week of trying to bury the issue.

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“Active attempts are currently being made by the Western special services to restore terrorist cells inside Russia, he warned.”

Putin Accuses West Of Using ‘Extremists’ Against Russia (RT)

The West never shied away from using extremists against Russia and is doing so again during the conflict in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has said. He claimed that western intelligence agencies are aiming to restore terrorist cells inside Russia. Countering this terrorist threat remains “an urgent” task for the country, Putin said while chairing a board meeting of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in Moscow on Tuesday. “Over the past year, the number of such crimes has increased, which is obviously connected to the attempts of the Kiev regime to employ terrorist methods. We are well aware of that. They have been using them in Donbass for a long time,” he said.

The West, which is backing Kiev in the conflict against Moscow, has “never shied away from using both radicals and extremists in their interests, despite all their loud statements about fighting international terrorism,” the president said. “They always use whatever’s at hand against us. They use everything that’s possible. It was always like this and it remains so,” he said. Active attempts are currently being made by the Western special services to restore terrorist cells inside Russia, he warned. It’s essential to intensify counter-intelligence work and keep the Russian-Ukrainian border under extra supervision to prevent the smuggling of weapons and ammunition into Russian territory, Putin told the leadership of Russia’s main security agency.

He praised the FSB’s operatives, who have worked at the frontlines and “behind enemy lines” during the conflict in Ukraine, for their “personal courage, professionalism and determination in ensuring the security of Russia.” The agency, he said, has obtained “priceless experience” that will allow it to execute its duties even more effectively. Putin has previously blamed Ukraine for using “terrorist tactics” following the explosion on the Crimean Bridge in early October, which Moscow insists was masterminded by Kiev. That led to a major ramping up of Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure and military targets, causing rolling blackouts across the country and significantly damaging Kiev’s air defense capabilities.

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Germany doesn’t have much defense to speak of. Maybe by 2050?!

Berlin Left Unprotected As Air Defense Systems Sent To Ukraine (RT)

Germany is sending two air defense systems to Kiev in a move that may leave Berlin unprotected, Armin Papperger, CEO of Germany’s leading military contractor Rheinmetall said in an interview with the Pioneer podcast on Tuesday. The two systems in question, Skynex and Skyranger, were commissioned by the German government in order to protect the airspace over Berlin, the arms manufacturer revealed. The two units cost around €200 million ($212 million) and they are to be sent to Kiev within the year. “We had two whole systems that could have certainly defended Berlin,” Papperger said, as quoted by RIA Novosti. According to Papperger, four of the systems would be enough to protect Berlin, but now there will not be enough.

On Saturday, thousands of protesters rallied in the German capital, calling for Chancellor Olaf Scholz to “stop the escalation in weapons deliveries.” Germany also pledged Western-made tanks to Ukraine in late January, promising 14 of their Leopard 2 tanks and pledging to work with partners to create two armored battalions containing 30 tanks each. However, Germany’s EU and NATO allies have been reluctant to deliver. Similarly to Germany sacrificing their own protection for the sake of solidarity with Ukraine, Denmark opted in January to send its 19 French-made Caesar howitzer artillery systems to Kiev, compromising their own defensive capabilities. The artillery systems had been a key component of Denmark’s plan to field a heavy infantry brigade.

Officials in some NATO nations have been cautioning that the constant supply of arms and ammunition to Ukraine on such a massive scale would eventually come at a cost to their own defensive capabilities. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has warned on numerous occasions that providing Kiev with military aid will not change the course of the conflict, and will instead just “prolong the suffering of the Ukrainian people.”

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“..more than 500km away from Russian border with Ukraine..”

Ukraine Threatens Putin After Drone Attack Deep Inside Russia (Celente)

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday that he will increase border security after the Kremlin blamed Ukraine for launching a drone attack deep inside Russia as the U.S. and NATO continue to provide more advanced weapons to escalate the conflict. The Associated Press, citing a nearby governor, reported one drone “fell near the village of Gubastovo, less than 60 miles from Moscow.” Anton Gerashchenko, advisor to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, tweeted a photo of the drone that matches that of the UJ-22 Airborne, a product of Ukrainian manufacturer Ukrjet, the BBC reported. “It is more than 500km away from Russian border with Ukraine. Soon Putin might get very afraid to show himself in public as drones can reach far distances,” he wrote alongside the photo.

Andrei Vorobyov, the governor, noted that the Russian Defense Ministry identified two Ukrainian drones that were downed near the village of Gubastovo, where Gazprom operates a key facility. The BBC said Ukraine does not claim responsibility for attacks inside Russia. The Trends Journal has reported extensively how Ukraine has been accused of expanding the war deeper inside Russia after receiving the green light from the U.S. Dmitry Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister who has been one of the most outspoken advocates of more weapons and war, was caught in a prank Zoom video admitting to being behind attacks on civilian infrastructure in Crimea and Belgorod. Reports said Kuleba was evidently under the impression that he was talking to a former American ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul, who himself has been a major supporter of U.S. intervention.

“Well, if you were to ask me who blows up things in Crimea or Belgorod, then speaking privately, as much privacy we can have in a Zoom call, I’d tell you, yes, that was us,” Kuleba said. The Western media embraced the bridge bombing as though it was another major setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who days later approved airstrikes in about a dozen Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv. Victoria “Fuck the EU” Nuland, who was a major player in the U.S.-led coup in Ukraine back in 2014, continued down her path of destruction last week when she called Crimea a legitimate target for Ukrainian forces. Nuland told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that the U.S. supported Ukrainian strikes on these targets because Washington believes Kyiv is “owed and due all of their territory within their international borders,” which she said included Crimea. “Ukraine is not going to be safe unless Crimea is—at a minimum, at a minimum—demilitarized,” she said.

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“..he had been cooperating with an investigation into Hunter Biden’s business activities when he was apprehended under an Interpol Red Notice..”

Hunter Biden Associate Arrested, Provided FBI With ‘Damning’ Information (TP)

Gal Luft, a former adviser to a Chinese energy conglomerate now claims to have provided the FBI with incriminating information about the Biden family’s foreign business dealings. He is now calling himself a whistleblower and has announced his intention to reveal the names of those involved, after being detained on what he believes are politically motivated charges. According to him, he has given information to the DOJ about the Biden family’s foreign business deals. Luft was arrested on Friday. A defense expert has stated that the recent arrest of Prof. Gal Luft in Cyprus due to charges linked to the illegal exportation of arms to Libya and China is part of an attempt by the Biden administration to silence him. Luft, an Israeli professor, claims that he had been cooperating with an investigation into Hunter Biden’s business activities when he was apprehended under an Interpol Red Notice at the behest of the US.

According to reports, Gal Luft claims to have provided the Justice Department with information about Hunter Biden, his father, and his uncle, Jim Biden in March 2019. Although some may be quick to disregard Luft’s allegations as an empty threat, his association with CEFC China Energy suggests that he may possess pertinent information about the Bidens. Additionally, an attorney representing Luft has indicated that he intends to offer information about Luft’s situation to Congress. According to Luft’s lawyer, Mordechai Tzivin, the arrest of his client was politically motivated and aimed at stifling him for providing compromising information in a corruption case purportedly linked to Hunter Biden, the son of US President Joe Biden. “The arrest came four years after Luft cooperated with FBI and Department of Justice investigators to help them with information about the case,” he claimed.

On Sunday, Tzivin said that Luft could “bury Hunter Biden, that’s why they’re trying to bury him first.” He continued by claiming that “if it were Russia, this would’ve already been a diplomatic collision… it’s not unreasonable to think that the Democrats or some of their peers would like him gone.” “His testimony will be very devastating, it will divert attention to the president himself as well,” Tzivin claimed. On February 18, 2023, Luft tweeted out, “I’ve been arrested in Cyprus on a politically motivated extradition request by the US. The US, claiming I’m an arms dealer. It would be funny if it weren’t tragic. I’ve never been an arms dealer. DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe,Jim&Hunter Biden. Shall I name names?”

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A few days earlier.

Hunter Biden Business Partner Flips, Now ‘Cooperating’ With GOP Investigators (ZH)

Eric Schwerin, a close business associate of Hunter Biden who also dealt with Joe Biden’s business and tax affairs, is now working with House GOP investigators looking into Biden family dealings – particularly in Ukraine and China, where the family collected millions of dollars, Just the News reports. “He is cooperating with us,” House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) told the outlet. “His attorneys and my counsel are communicating on a regular basis. Now, I feel confident that he’s going to work with us, and provide us with the information that we have requested,” Comer continued. “I think that Schwerwin is going to be a very valuable witness for us in this investigation.”

Of note, Schwerin, the former president of Hunter Biden’s now-dissolved investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, visited the White House at least 19 times from 2009 to 2015, according to White House visitor log records reviewed by The Epoch Times and first reported by the New York Post. Emails between Hunter and Eric Schwerin, his business partner at consultancy Rosemont Seneca, show Schwerin was working on Joe’s taxes. The emails were recovered from Hunter’s laptop
Schwerin’s cooperation comes after the committee received word that Hunter and his uncle, James Biden, don’t plan to be forthcoming with all the information Comer’s committee has sought in their wide-ranging probe. According to Comer, subpoenas are imminent for non-cooperating witnesses.

“We know individuals, many are cooperating with us now, but others, not so much,” he said. “We’re going to start subpoenaing people in the private sector, we’re going to start subpoenaing financial institutions to get us the information. And then we’ll go from there.” Comer then suggested that if innocent, Hunter Biden would want to clear his name in front of the committee. “He could come in front of the House Oversight Committee right now and defend his good name,” Comer said. “He would have 20 Democrats that would definitely support him, and he could make 26 Republicans look bad if all this information we have from his laptop, all the emails that were in his own words, all the audio that are in his own voice, if for some reason we’re misinterpreting that, then he could make us look bad.

“But we all know that this family was involved in influence peddling. And this administration is doing everything in its ability to try to block oversight.” Both Joe Biden and Hunter Biden have denied the family did anything wrong, although Hunter Biden has acknowledged he is under federal criminal investigation on tax issues. Comer said while the committee battles the White House and the Biden family for information, Schwerin’s cooperation was a breakthrough that could spur other key witnesses to cooperate. -Just the News According to White House visitor logs, Schwerin met directly with then-Vice President Joe Biden in the West Wing on Nov. 17, 2010, and had several meetings with White House aides during times when Hunter Biden was securing multi-billion dollar deals overseas, including in China.

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There could be legal reasons?!

Tucker must come clean.

Tucker Carlson, Staff NOT Allowed To Record or Remove J6 Footage (GP)

On February 20, 100 Percent Fed Up reported about the newly elected House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s decision to release all of the 44,000 hours of footage from January 6, 2021, to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, giving him exclusive access to Capitol surveillance footage. “I’ve watched what Nancy Pelosi did, where she politicized [Jan. 6],” said McCarthy. “Where for the first time in the history as a speaker, not allowing the minority to appoint to a committee.” “We watched the politicization of this,” McCarthy said. “I think the American public should actually see all that happened instead of a report that’s written for a political basis.” Carlson, who has continuously called for a probe into the actual events of Jan 6., has been granted exclusive access to 41,000 hours of surveillance footage from the Capitol protests.

“[T]here was never any legitimate reason for this footage to remain secret,” Carlson told Axios reporter Mike Allen. “If there was ever a question that’s in the public’s interest to know, it’s what actually happened on January 6. By definition, this video will reveal it. It’s impossible for me to understand why any honest person would be bothered by that.” In January, Carlson slammed the U.S. government for hiding information from the American public. He also pointed out the ridiculous logic of those who warn that releasing the Jan. 6 Capitol footage could threaten national security.

100 Percent FedUp reports- If you’re like most Americans, you were overjoyed to hear that Tucker Carlson, who is not afraid of exposing government corruption in either party, would be allowed to view all 44,000 hours of the Capitol surveillance tapes and were hoping that finally, we would be allowed to discover what really happened on that day. The majority of Americans never trusted the partisan, Trump-hating Jan 6 Witch Hunt Committee to give an accurate picture of what happened on January 6th at our nation’s Capitol. Those who want the truth exposed have been waiting patiently for Tucker to begin showing surveillance footage on his show, believing he would, once and for all, destroy the Left’s narrative that the so-called “insurrection” was pre-planned by Trump and his supporters.

We’re now learning that Tucker Carlson’s staff will NOT be allowed to freely record footage from January 6, but may request particular clips and that his staffers are not allowed to record or remove any videos from a specific screening area. CBS News – “Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s staff was permitted to view but not record portions of some 41,000 hours of police videos documenting the events of Jan. 6, 2021, with the opportunity to request copies of some of the clips under an agreement reached with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s office, according to the high-ranking Republican member of the committee that oversees the U.S. Capitol Police.”

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Do AI chatbots have the same function as the Oracle of Delphi?

The Return of Oracles: Chatbots Are Coming! (Ugo Bardi)

With the second millennium, society became more and more complex, and the state propaganda system started becoming too rigid and oversimplified. The development of the World Wide Web was an existential challenge for the mass media: people didn’t need anymore to be told what they had to know in a one-size-fits-all, form. They could actively search for knowledge using general-purpose search engines. The epistemic battle rapidly moved to the Web, where states tried to crack down on independent thought by using the tools they know best. Demonization, using terms such as “fake news,” “disinformation,” and “Russian trolls,” was extensively and successfully used to censor and eliminate non-standard sources. It was not possible to completely eliminate independent communication, but the search engines could be bent to suit the needs of the state without the need for direct censorship. Those sites that provide independent data could be simply “soft-banned” or “shadowed.” They are still there, but they are nearly impossible to be found.

And now, there came the new oracles. They came with the name of artificial intelligence-based “chatbots.”(**) A new epistemic revolution, they bypass the search engines, seeking for an answer to direct questions, just like the old oracles did. And they are flexible, adaptable, and changing as a function of the questions they receive. In principle, chatbots are the death knell for search engines, which were the earlier death knell for propaganda. We are in the midst of this new epistemic change, and it is unclear what AI chatbots can and cannot do. For the time being, a good chatbot acts like a good (albeit a little dull) librarian and, at the same time, a meticulous editorial assistant (again, a rather dull one). But, in principle, a good chatbot can bypass the shadow-banning of the search engines: they are much more powerful and sophisticated tools for searching information on the Web. They work on the same principle as the old oracles: they pay for information with information. Every time you ask the bot a question, you provide it with a precious element of information.

Eventually, the question is always the same: who controls the flow of information? Can chatbots be controlled by the state? Maybe but, again, they are very sophisticated tools; they are not easily manageable by the brute force that can be used with the old mass media. They have already scared the elites, who may soon crack down on them. Or, on the other hand, they may be used for even stricter control of people. For one thing, be careful with what you say to your chatbot. A general-purpose chatbot such as “chatGPT” does not keep a record of who asked it what. But others, such as “Replika,” do build a database of your questions that may be used to profile you, or much worse. History teaches us that epistemic revolutions cannot be stopped for a long time. And also that their consequences are always unexpected, and not always pleasant. And, as always, we march into the future with blinds on our eyes, in the darkness, not realizing that both sides of the paths are deep chasms. But we keep walking onward.

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A world I don’t recognize.

 

 

Moose

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

Feb 272023
 


Édouard Manet Woman with a jug 1858-60

 

White House Distances Itself From Covid ‘Lab-Leak’ Theory
Covid Lab Leak Is A Scandal Of Media And Government Censorship (Turley)
Elon Musk Accuses Fauci Of Funding Gain-Of-Function Research (TP)
Ukraine Has ‘Total Dominance’ Over US – Trump (RT)
Wall Street Has Its Eyes Set On Ukraine (Charles Gasparino)
Much Of Global South Isn’t Automatically Supporting The West In Ukraine (Mehta)
North African Nations Voracious Buyers Of Russian Oil Products – WSJ (RT)
Hungarian FM Explains What Puzzles Him About EU (RT)
Anti-NATO Protests Hit France (RT)
Thousands Rally For Peace In Italy (RT)
UN To Discuss Investigation Into War Crimes In Ukraine (Az.)
GOP Lawmakers Vow To Unmask Hunter Biden’s Anonymous Art Buyers (NYP)

 

 

 

 

2 Zels

 

 

Putin Oliver Stone
https://twitter.com/i/status/1629705190566776832

 

 

Oliver Stone

 

 

 

 

Tucker Macgregor
https://twitter.com/i/status/1629739970184507392

 

 

Maher Woody

 

 

Jimmy Dore
https://twitter.com/i/status/1630038638661861379

 

 

History also demonstrates something else: any collapsed empire buries half the world under its rubble.”
– Dmitry Medvedev, February 2023

 

 

 

 

US Department of Energy says: lab leak. White House says: we have so many departments… We must study for years more.

White House Distances Itself From Covid ‘Lab-Leak’ Theory

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has dissented against a Wall Street Journal report which stated that a US Department of Energy study concluded that the Covid-19 pandemic was likely the result of a failure of safety practices at a laboratory in China, stating that there is “not a definitive answer” as to the true origins of the virus. The WSJ published a report on Sunday which said that the Department of Energy had viewed “new intelligence” which led them to believe that Covid-19 wasn’t naturally produced in the environment, but rather the result of a so-called ‘lab-leak’ – but it added that it has “low confidence” in its findings.

Responding to the WSJ report, Sullivan said that President Joe Biden has ordered a full investigation into the potential origins of Covid-19 but he stressed the various governmental bodies looking into the matter have yet to reach a unanimous verdict. “President Biden has directed, repeatedly, every element of our intelligence community to put effort and resources behind getting to the bottom of this question,” Sullivan told CNN on Sunday. “If we gain any further insight or information, we will share it with Congress, and we will share it with the American people. But right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question.” The virus was first reported to have been discovered in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province, an area which also features a prominent virology institute which is an active research center for the study of coronaviruses.

The FBI has also backed the lab-leak theory but four other US agencies have determined that natural transmission was the more likely source of the virus. Two other agencies are currently undecided, according to the WSJ. Last year, extensive studies conducted by the peer-reviewed ‘Science’ journal determined that the initial virus was very likely transmitted to a human from an animal at one of Wuhan’s wet markets. Further studies into the lab-leak theory are expected to take place in the US in the coming weeks and months, after several Republican lawmakers included investigations into the pandemic’s origins among the key pledges on the campaign trail ahead of last November’s midterm elections.

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Covid, Trump, Ukraine.

Covid Lab Leak Is A Scandal Of Media And Government Censorship (Turley)

In early 2020, with little available evidence, two op-eds in The Lancet in February and Nature Medicine went all-in on the denial front. The Lancet op-ed stated, “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that Covid-19 does not have a natural origin.” We were also supposed to forget about massive payments from the Chinese government to American universities and grants of some of these writers to both Chinese interests or even the specific Wuhan lab. No reference to the lab theory was to be tolerated. When Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) merely mentioned the possibility in 2020, he was set upon by the usual flash media mob. The Washington Post ridiculed him of repeating a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.”

In September 2020, Dr. Li-Meng Yan, a virologist and former postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hong Kong, dared to repeat the theory on Fox News, saying, “I can present solid scientific evidence . . . [that] it is a man-made virus created in the lab.” The left-leaning PolitiFact slammed her and gave her a “pants on fire rating.” President Joe Biden accused Trump of fanning racism in his criticism of the Chinese government over the pandemic and his Administration reportedly shutdown the State Department investigation into the possible lab origins of the virus. When Biden later revived an investigation into the origins, he was denounced as “sugar-coating Trump’s racism.” The categorical rejection of the lab theory is only the latest media narrative proven to be false.

The Russian collusion scandal, the Hunter Biden “Russian Disinformation,” the Lafayette Park “Photo Op” conspiracy, the Nick Sandmann controversy, the Jussie Smollett case, the Migrant Whipping scandal. On the lab theory, media like the Washington Post piled on senators like Cruz and Cotton for mentioning the lab theory only later to admit that it could be legitimate. All of those experts and writers who were called racists or suspended by social media were simply forgotten in media coverage. That is why this is really about censorship. The media guaranteed that we did not have a full debate over the origins of the virus and attacked those who had the temerity to state the obvious that there was a plausible basis for suspecting the Wuhan lab. None of this has diminished demands for more censorship. Even after Twitter admitted that it wrongly blocked The New York Post story before the 2020 election, Democratic senators responded by warning the company not to cut back on censorship and even demanded more censorship.

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“Musk’s fiery accusation came in response to a tweet that aggregated the multiple occurrences where Fauci denied any gain-of-function research..”

Elon Musk Accuses Fauci Of Funding Gain-Of-Function Research (TP)

Elon Musk accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of funding gain-of-function research at the Wuhan, China lab where COVID-19 is believed to have originated from. Musk said Fauci funded gain-of-function research “via a pass-through organization (EcoHealth)” on Twitter Sunday. Musk’s fiery accusation came in response to a tweet that aggregated the multiple occurrences where Fauci denied any gain-of-function research and counter-signaled the idea that COVID-19 originated from a 2019 Wuhan lab leak. “Dr. Anthony Fauci funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab, lied to Congress about it, and now both the FBI & the Department of Energy have concluded that the coronavirus originated at the Wuhan lab. Does that mean Dr. Anthony Fauci funded the development of COVID-19?” the video’s caption reads.

Hours earlier the Wall Street Journal released a bombshell report which revealed the U.S. Energy Department is now considering it likely COVID originated from a Wuhan, China lab leak. The Energy Department’s update came in a classified intelligence report shared with the WSJ. Previously, the Energy Department was undecided on COVID’s origin and numerous public health officials like Fauci disregarded a lab leak theory. On Feb. 13 House Republicans formally requested Fauci, the former Chief Medical Advisor to President Biden, and the president of EcoHealth Alliance, Dr. Peter Daszak, come before Congress for an interview. Fauci and Daszak were cited by thousands of media outlets as truth-sayers when they claimed “the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus” and “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”

Musk’s tweet referenced Daszak’s company. Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance is a U.S. National Institutes of Health grantee that “passed taxpayer funds to the Wuhan lab to conduct gain of function research on bat coronaviruses – research that may have started the pandemic,” the House Republicans’ request stated. Throughout the 117th Congress, Reps. James Comer (R-KY) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) have “sent numerous letters to the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.”

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“Well, it could have been us, and it could have been Ukraine, and it could have been some third-party country that wants to see trouble. The one group it wasn’t is Russia…”

Ukraine Has ‘Total Dominance’ Over US – Trump (RT)

Ukraine has asserted “total dominance” over the US, former President Donald Trump said Friday during an interview with Glenn Beck. The ex-president also suggested that Kiev might be the real culprit behind the destruction of Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines last October. Commenting on the recent report by veteran American journalist Seymour Hersh, who suggested the pipelines were targeted by Washington in a clandestine operation ordered directly by President Joe Biden, Trump did not rule out US involvement but rubbished allegations that Moscow destroyed the installation itself.

“Well, it could have been us, and it could have been Ukraine, and it could have been some third-party country that wants to see trouble. The one group it wasn’t is Russia… This is a main source of massive income for them. They didn’t blow it up to make a point. That’s the one thing I can tell you for sure,” Trump stated, adding that “everything gets blamed on Russia” by the “sick” people. The US might have been “working in conjunction” with Ukraine to target the pipelines, the ex-president suggested, since Kiev has already asserted “total dominance” over Washington. “We’ve given them probably $150 billion, and Europe has given them almost nothing,” he added.

Earlier this week, Trump, who is seeking to get elected back into the White House in 2024, already vowed to end the Ukraine conflict within hours should he make it to the office again. “I would literally start calling, not from the day I took over, but from the night I won,” he told a campaign rally in Florida this week. The ex-president has also blamed the “warmongers and ‘America Last’ globalists” entrenched at the State Department, the Pentagon, and the “national security industrial complex” for pushing the hostilities forward. “I was the only president who rejected the catastrophic advice of many of Washington’s generals, bureaucrats and so-called diplomats who only knew how to get us into conflicts,” he said in a campaign video released Tuesday.

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Most of it Russia territory.

Wall Street Has Its Eyes Set On Ukraine (Charles Gasparino)

Wall Street really wants to invest in Ukraine, and some of the top players are doing more than sniffing around at the prospects. The world’s largest money-management firm BlackRock continues to hold high-level meetings with the government, including President Volodymyr Zelensky. JPMorgan recently had bankers on the ground scoping the situation as they dodged Russian missiles, I am told. The country is ripe for massive private US investment to rebuild infrastructure destroyed in its conflict with Vladimir Putin. Zelensky is a rock star in the American media; the country is valiantly fighting off a foreign invader. The people are educated and resilient, which means returns could be as good there as any place on the planet. Banker talk has a private investment fund at between $20 billion and $100 billion at some point in the future.

So what s stopping the private money from coming in now? A war that shows no signs of ending anytime soon. Plus, for all of Zelensky’s obvious talents as a leader, he still hasn’t demonstrated an understanding or possibly a willingness to fight corruption on the scale necessary to make investors comfortable, bankers tell me. The meetings between some of Wall Street’s top executives (think Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan and Larry Fink of BlackRock) and Ukraine officials over the past month didn’t garner the same attention as President Biden’s surprise visit last week. The discussions have been going down mostly in private and without much fanfare when they conclude.But they are revealing. The perilous nature of our continued engagement with this country doesn’t just involve a possible nuclear war with Russia but also an economic sinkhole if we’re not careful.

For starters, in these meetings, Zelensky seemed unabashed in his request for billions of dollars in private capital to begin rebuilding his economy immediately. Yet he doesn’t seem to fully grasp what will prevent such an investment. First, money won’t flow to Ukraine (or any country) if it seeds the pockets of a Russian-style oligarchy. In Ukraine, that brand of crony capitalism goes by the names “systema” or “oligarkhiya.” It’s an alliance of government and big business that undermines the free-market forces of competition. Payoffs and graft are part of the systema, and that’s always a dead end for significant private capital. Zelensky said he understood the economic stakes of ending corruption. But deeds go further than words, which is why one banker involved in the process told me: “There are no guarantees here.”

Then there’s the war, and Zelensky’s so-far unyielding determination to keep fighting in order to retake all territory occupied by Putin’s forces. It’s a noble effort, to be sure, but it comes at a steep price. Bankers say private investment money won’t really flow until the war is over. They would love Zelensky to compromise on land to make that happen; maybe give up on retaking Crimea or allow Putin to save face and keep a few parts of the Donbas region in the east, which are nominally controlled by Russian separatists anyway. There was some talk on Wall Street about a Ukrainian spring offensive and, if it’s successful in reclaiming some Russian-held territory, then Zelensky offering a possible deal with Putin so the reconstruction can begin. For now at least, that was described as a likely no-go by Ukrainian officials; Zelensky’s approval rating is at 90%, the bankers were told. It sinks to 40% with a land compromise.

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“It is difficult for them to believe that two-thirds of the world’s population is not siding with the West..”

Much Of Global South Isn’t Automatically Supporting The West In Ukraine (Mehta)

In October 2022, about eight months after the war in Ukraine started, the University of Cambridge in the UK harmonized surveys conducted in 137 countries about their attitudes towards the West and towards Russia and China. The findings in the study, while not free of a margin of error, are robust enough to take seriously. These are: For the 6.3 billion people who live outside of the West, 66 percent feel positively towards Russia and 70 percent feel positively towards China, and, Among the 66 percent who feel positively about Russia the breakdown is 75 percent in South Asia, 68 percent in Francophone Africa, and 62 percent in Southeast Asia. Public opinion of Russia remains positive in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, and Vietnam.

Sentiments of this nature have caused some ire, surprise, and even anger in the West. It is difficult for them to believe that two-thirds of the world’s population is not siding with the West. What are some of the reasons or causes for this? I believe there are five reasons as explained in this brief essay. 1. The Global South does not believe that the West understands or empathizes with their problems. India’s foreign minister, S. Jaishankar, summed it up succinctly in a recent interview: “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems, but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.” He is referring to the many challenges that developing countries face whether they relate to the aftermath of the pandemic, the high cost of debt service, the climate crisis that is ravaging their lives, the pain of poverty, food shortages, droughts, and high energy prices. The West has barely given lip service to the Global South on many of these problems. Yet the West is insisting that the Global South join it in sanctioning Russia.

The Covid pandemic is a perfect example—despite the Global South’s repeated pleas to share intellectual property on the vaccines, with the goal of saving lives, no Western nation was willing to do so. Africa remains to this day the most unvaccinated continent in the world. Africa had the capability to make the vaccines but without the intellectual property they could not do it. But help did come from Russia, China, and India. Algeria launched a vaccination program in January 2021 after it received its first batch of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccines. Egypt started vaccinations after it got China’s Sinopharm vaccine at about the same time. South Africa procured a million doses of AstraZeneca from the Serum Institute of India. In Argentina, Sputnik became the backbone of their vaccine program. All of this was happening while the West was using its financial resources to buy millions of doses in advance, and often destroying them when they became outdated. The message to the Global South was clear—your problems are your problems, they are not our problems.

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“If a cargo is 51% from Morocco, 49% from Russia, how would you referee that?”

North African Nations Voracious Buyers Of Russian Oil Products – WSJ (RT)

North African nations have sharply increased imports of Russian diesel and other refined oil products, while petrochemical exports from the region have seen a significant uptick, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing trading analysts. Industry experts are reportedly raising concerns that Russian sanctioned cargoes are being blended with other oil products and re-sold. The procedure effectively disguises the ultimate origin of the products, undermining Western states’ efforts to oust Russian fossil fuels from their economies. Imports of Russian diesel by Morocco soared to two million barrels in January compared with some 600,000 barrels recorded during the whole of 2021, according to analysts from commodities market data firm Kpler, who stress that a further 1.2 million barrels will be shipped to the country this month.

Tunisia boosted purchases of Russian diesel, gas oil, gasoline and naphtha, which is traditionally used to make chemicals and plastics, to 2.8 million barrels in January and is projected to import another 3.1 million barrels in February. Kpler also recorded an uptick in imports by Algeria, Egypt and Libya. The volumes absorbed by North African countries are too much for them to take on their own, according to Viktor Katona, Kpler senior oil analyst, who predicts that some of the Russian products will make their way to Europe. “Trust me, we are not witnessing some renaissance in Maghrebi refining,” Katona told the Wall Street Journal, referring to the region of North Africa

North African ports are seen as convenient for Russian cargoes sailing from the Baltic Sea, as voyages are not much longer than the pre-sanctions trips to European ports. This allows Russia to keep shipping costs low, and prevents its limited fleet of tankers from getting tied up in lengthy voyages to Asia or elsewhere. “Even if you wanted to regulate that, how would you?” Andreas Economou, head of oil research at The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, was quoted by the paper as saying. “If a cargo is 51% from Morocco, 49% from Russia, how would you referee that?” Some of North Africa’s increased diesel imports from Russia have displaced the region’s typical suppliers in the Middle East and North America, suggesting some of the activity was bargain hunting, Jorge Leon, senior vice president at Rystad Energy, told the newspaper.

Earlier this week, EU sanctions envoy David O’Sullivan told the Financial Times that the bloc and its allies had begun investigating a surge in exports to countries in Russia’s neighbourhood. They suspected sanctioned products were entering Russia via the back door. The EU has introduced 10 rounds of anti-Russia sanctions since the beginning of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. Kremlin has repeatedly said that the measures, supported by the US and its allies, are illegitimate and ineffective, and that the restrictions are causing cause more damage to the initiators. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the penalties “crazy and thoughtless,” saying that no country had previously changed its political course due to sanctions pressure.

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“If you look around in Europe, 98% of media is liberal, and the rest are the others..”

[..] in Hungary, the media is split roughly into two halves, between liberal and conservative outlets, but the West and the liberal media consider that to show a lack of press freedom.”

Hungarian FM Explains What Puzzles Him About EU (RT)

The EU’s declared support for media freedom clashes with its actions in a “confusing” way, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said, commenting on the blacklisting of Russian journalists in the latest round of sanctions. In an interview with RIA Novosti news agency published on Monday, the diplomat also said the Hungarian government is criticized by Brussels for allegedly not protecting the media. “The only reason for this criticism is that unlike in every other part of Europe, in Hungary the media is really colorful. If you look around in Europe, 98% of media is liberal, and the rest are the others,” he claimed, while acknowledging that his words may be “a small exaggeration.” The foreign minister noted that in Hungary, the media is split roughly into two halves, between liberal and conservative outlets, but the West and the liberal media consider that to show a lack of press freedom.


“So those who are judging us for media freedom, those are [the people] putting journalists on a sanctions list. For me it’s a bit confusing,” he concluded. The 10th package of anti-Russian sanctions was adopted by the EU last week. It blacklisted Russian media organizations and individuals, in what the bloc described as targeting “disinformation outlets.” Among other things, Brussels added RT Arabic to the list of channels banned from broadcasting in the EU. In the interview, Szijjarto also reiterated Hungary’s commitment to vetoing any attempts to sanction the Russian nuclear industry, and urged a thorough investigation into last year’s sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, which he called a “terrorist attack” against EU energy infrastructure.

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We need a lot more of this.

Anti-NATO Protests Hit France (RT)

Multiple mass protests against France’s NATO membership and its continued support of Kiev were held on Sunday in the capital Paris and at other locations across the country. The demonstrations, taking place for the second consecutive weekend, were organized by the right-wing Les Patriotes party, led by Florian Philippot, who personally attended the rally in Paris. The politician claimed the event on Sunday, dubbed National March for Peace, attracted even more participants than last week, when some 10,000 showed up for a rally in the French capital. According to Philippot, smaller-scale anti-NATO protests were held at some 30 other locations across France as well.

Protesters marched through the streets of Paris, carrying a large banner reading “For Peace.” The marchers called for the withdrawal of France from both the US-led NATO and from the EU, and urged a halt to supplying Ukraine with weaponry. The protesters also took jabs at the incumbent French President Emmanuel Macron, chanting “Macron get out!” – a slogan commonly used by assorted anti-government protesters throughout his presidency. Following the march, the protesters held a rally led by Philippot, who was filmed defacing NATO and EU flags alongside his supporters. Footage of the event was shared by the politician himself on social media.

The politician has been actively staging protests against French membership in NATO and the EU since last fall, while arguing against the supply of weapons to Ukraine. Between 2012 and 2017, Philippot was the deputy head of the biggest opposition party in France, the National Rally, led until last year by Marine Le Pen. After leaving the National Rally, the 41-year-old politician established his own right-wing party, Les Patriotes. France has been among the top supporters of Kiev in the ongoing conflict with Russia, which broke out a year ago. While Macron has repeatedly called for a diplomatic settlement of the hostilities, Paris has actively supplied assorted weaponry to Ukraine, including armored vehicles and advanced self-propelled howitzers.

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Thousands won’t change a thing. Try millions.

Thousands Rally For Peace In Italy (RT)

Several thousand people turned up for peace demonstrations in the Italian cities of Genoa and Milan on Saturday. Union members and left-wing activists claimed, among other things, that authorities in Rome have breached national law by sending weapons to Ukraine. The rally in Genoa drew nearly 4,000 participants from across the country as well as from Switzerland and France, local media reported. Organized by the Collective Autonomous Port Workers (CALP) group with the support of the Italian communist party, the protest took place under the slogan “Lower weapons, raise wages.” CALP’s Riccardo Rudino was cited in the media as saying that the “conflict in Ukraine did not begin last year” but rather “in 2014, with the massacre of the Russian-speaking population in Donbass.

The demonstrators filed through the port of Genoa, demanding an end to the use of the facility for arms shipments destined for Ukraine. CALP spokesperson Jose Nivoi accused the Italian government of violating law 185 of 1990, which “imposed a ban on the import, export and transit of weapons from Italy to states at war.” The group’s representatives also described how they had been networking with like-minded “associations and activists in various European cities.” The procession went off without serious incidents, marred only by a few acts of vandalism at the hands of anarchists, who smeared and damaged several vehicles and broke windows in a bank.

A protest was also held on Saturday in Milan. Ruptly video news agency filmed several hundred people chanting slogans and waving flags, including those of Russia and the Donetsk People’s Republic. The demonstrations in Italy coincided with one in the German capital, Berlin. There, tens of thousands of people heeded the call of prominent Left Party politician Sahra Wagenknecht and author Alice Schwarzer. Named the ‘Uprising for Peace,’ the protest called for peace talks to end hostilities in Ukraine. The participants also urged the German government to stop shipping weapons to Kiev. Addressing her supporters, Wagenknecht criticized Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government for allegedly trying to “ruin Russia,” and described Saturday’s protest as the start of a new peace movement in Germany.

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Not the UN but the west.

UN To Discuss Investigation Into War Crimes In Ukraine (Az.)

Days after the United Nations General Assembly in New York voted overwhelmingly to demand Russia immediately withdraw from Ukraine, Moscow’s war is expected to dominate the opening of the top UN rights body’s main annual session in Geneva. “We’re looking for this session to show, as the UN General Assembly showed… that the world stands side-by-side with Ukraine,” British ambassador Simon Manley said at an event Friday marking the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion. The meeting, which is due to last a record six weeks, will be the first presided over by new UN rights chief Volker Turk, who kicks the session off early Monday.


UN chief Antonio Guterres will also address the council on the first day, while nearly 150 ministers and heads of state and government will speak, virtually or in person, during the four-day high-level segment. Moscow will send Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov to address the council in person on Thursday. Despite calls from NGOs, observers said it was unlikely there would be a walkout like the one many diplomats took part in when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s video played in the council last year.

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“We’re investigating the Biden crime-family operations. They’ve moved a lot of very suspicious money,” Higgins said. “‘Selling’ Hunter Biden art is just a method they’ve employed.”

GOP Lawmakers Vow To Unmask Hunter Biden’s Anonymous Art Buyers (NYP)

Republican members of the House Oversight Committee have vowed to reveal the identities of the mysterious buyers of Hunter Biden’s art one day after the first son missed a deadline to provide the panel records about his overseas business interests. Biden’s failure to meet the committee’s Wednesday 11:59 p.m. deadline to produce financial documents and other records dating back to January 2009 mirrors his art dealer’s refusal to provide the panel with the names of his clients. In response to a January request by the committee, William Pittard, a lawyer for Biden’s art dealer Georges Berges, wrote a letter to Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) earlier this month raising “concerns” about complying with the committee’s demands to see records about clients who have purchased Biden’s work.

In the Feb. 6 letter, seen by The Post, Pittard argues that complying with the Committee’s request to release the names of the art buyers “would defeat the efforts of Mr. Biden and the White House to avoid the ‘serious ethics concerns’ that you raise.” “If the White House was not aware of those buyers, it would seem impossible for the administration to grant the buyers any favors based on the purchases,” Pittard notes. GOP Oversight Committee members say Berges’ refusal to comply is only adding “fuel to the fire” of the probe. “Hunter Biden’s artwork isn’t worthy of hanging on the walls of a foreclosed motel, so why would anyone buy it?” Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) told Fox News Digital. “The answer is simple, to curry favor with the corrupt son of the president.”

“We need to know who purchased Hunter’s so-called ‘art’, and Georges Berges refusing to provide that information to Congress only adds fuel to the fire for our investigation,” she added. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) echoed McClain, telling the outlet that all “Hunter’s attorney is doing is delaying the inevitable.” “We will receive this evidence, one way or another,” Boebert said. [..] Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), another member of the Oversight Committee, told Fox News Digital that the scope of the panel’s investigation goes beyond Hunter Biden, and that nobody “cares specifically about Hunter.” “We’re investigating the Biden crime-family operations. They’ve moved a lot of very suspicious money,” Higgins said. “‘Selling’ Hunter Biden art is just a method they’ve employed.”

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Assange

 

 


In 2009, Nidhal Selmi combined the Sierpinski triangle with the Penrose triangle to create the M.C. Escher-like Selmi triangle

 

 


Clouded leopards live in forests at elevations of up to 3,000 meters and spend much of their lives in trees. Their strong tails help them to balance while perched on tree branches

 

 


Kyaiktiyo Pagoda, also known as Golden Rock, is a Buddhist pilgrimage site in Mon State, Burma, famous for its balancing rock which seems to defy gravity, as it perpetually appears to be on the verge of rolling down the hill

 

 


The roots of this tree in Hong Kong, photohraphed by Clément Bucco-Lechat in 2010, have grown over the paving stones and seem to follow the patterns that the pavers were laid in

 

 

 

 

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Feb 242023
 
 February 24, 2023  Posted by at 10:10 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , ,  73 Responses »


Constantin Brancusi Portrait of George 1911

 

China Unveils Roadmap To End Ukraine Conflict (RT)
China Publishes Its Proposals On Ukrainian Crisis Settlement (Az.)
Elon Musk Accuses Victoria Nuland Of ‘Pushing War’ In Ukraine (RT)
US Seeks To Discuss New START Implementation With Russia – Nuland (TASS)
19% Of Americans Have Confidence In Biden’s Handling Of Ukraine Conflict (SN)
Russia-EU Relations ‘No Longer Exist’ – Moscow (RT)
Moscow Analyzes Brazil’s Peace Initiatives On Ukraine (TASS)
Seymour Hersh Explains Why US Blew Up Nord Stream (RT)
Why Putin Went to War — One Year Later (Lauria)
Google Accused Of Destroying Evidence In Antitrust Suit (RT)
Hunter Biden’s Latest Rebrand Is Just Smoke And Errors (Turley)
The Immediate Need To Screen Blood For mRNA And Spike Protein (Horowitz)

 

 

 

 

Tedros

 

 

 

 

 

 

Malone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Short version…

China Unveils Roadmap To End Ukraine Conflict (RT)

The international community should encourage all efforts to end the Ukraine conflict peacefully, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a 12-point political roadmap published on Friday. In a statement on its website, the ministry urged each side to “stay rational and exercise restraint.” “All parties should support Russia and Ukraine in working in the same direction and resuming direct dialogue as quickly as possible, so as to gradually deescalate the situation and ultimately reach a comprehensive ceasefire,” the document said. “All efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of the crisis must be encouraged and supported,” the plan stressed, adding that Beijing would “continue to play a constructive role” in the matter.

China called for abandoning “the Cold War mentality,” arguing that “the security of a region should not be achieved by strengthening or expanding military blocs.” There is “no simple solution to a complex issue,” the proposal said, and countries should “prevent bloc confrontation” and work towards building “a balanced, effective and sustainable European security architecture.” Beijing warned against “armed attacks” on nuclear power plants and called on the parties to “resolutely avoid man-made nuclear accidents.” China also said it opposes sanctions that are not approved by the UN Security Council. “Unilateral sanctions and maximum pressure cannot solve the issue; they only create new problems.”

Unlike many Western countries, ChinaA has refused to condemn Russia’s military operation in Ukraine and has not imposed economic restrictions on Moscow. Chinese officials have stressed that Beijing wants to find a peaceful solution rather than fuel the conflict by sending weapons to Kiev. Russia sent troops to Ukraine exactly a year ago, citing the need to protect the people of Donbass and Kiev’s failure to implement the 2014-2015 Minsk peace accords. Ukraine, meanwhile, accused Moscow of unprovoked aggression. Ceasefire negotiations effectively broke down by April 2022. Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi traveled to Moscow this week, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin later said that he was expecting Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Russia sometime in the future.

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… and long version…

Pepe Escobar: “On the Chinese peace proposal. A post-mod epigone of Diogenes, the Cynic would say, with a nod and a wink: The ONLY thing that really matters for Beijing are the New Silk Road corridors across Eurasia. This war is bad for business. Over and out.”

China Publishes Its Proposals On Ukrainian Crisis Settlement (Az.)

The foreign ministry of China published its proposals for a political settlement of the crisis in Ukraine on its website on February 24, Report informs referring to TASS. The 12-point settlement plan, put forward by the Chinese side, includes a call for de-escalation and ceasefire. “All sides should show rationality and restraint, avoid fueling tensions or taking steps to aggravate the conflict, avert further escalation and prevent the situation from spinning out of control, assist contacts between Russia and Ukraine and resumption of direct dialogue, promote gradual de-escalation and detente until the fire and hostilities cease completely,” the document says. “Peace negotiations should begin. Dialogue and negotiations are the only way to settle the crisis in Ukraine. All efforts aimed at resolving the crisis peacefully need to be encouraged and supported.”

Besides, China urges to pay attention to, and ease in a proper way legitimate security interests and concerns of all countries. “Cold War mentality should be abandoned. Security of one country should not be ensured through harming the security of other states, and regional security cannot be maintained through strengthening and expansion of military blocs,” the Chinese foreign ministry said. “Legitimate security interests and concerns of all countries should be taken into account, and properly eased.” Also, Beijing urges to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and prevent it from spreading. “The humanitarian crisis needs to be resolved. All measures that help to mitigate the humanitarian crisis need to be encouraged and supported. Humanitarian missions should be conducted in accordance with the principle of neutrality and impartiality, in order not to politicize humanitarian issues,” the document says, adding that safety of civilians needs to be properly ensured.

“It is necessary to increase humanitarian aid to relevant areas, improve the humanitarian situation, ensure prompt, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and prevent the crisis from spreading,” the Chinese foreign ministry said. Besides, China supports the prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine and calls for creating favorable conditions for that. “The protection of civilians and prisoners of war needs to be ensured,” the ministry said. “China supports a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine, all sides should create more favorable conditions for that.” The document emphasized that all parties to the conflict should adhere to the international humanitarian law, avoid attacks on civilians and civilian facilities, protect women and children and defend the basic rights of prisoners of war.

It also calls for ensuring that grain exports to the global market continue: “All sides must honor the agreement on grain transportation via the Black Sea – signed by Russia, Türkiye, Ukraine and the United Nations – in a balanced, all-encompassing and effective form.” The document also urges to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and avoid a nuclear crisis, and calls to maintain security of nuclear power plants. “Strategic risks need to be reduced. Nuclear weapons must never be used, a nuclear war must never be unleashed. It is necessary to resist the use of nuclear weapons and threats to use it, to prevent nuclear proliferation and to avert a nuclear crisis,” the document says. “China strongly opposes attacks on nuclear power plants and other civilian nuclear facilities. We call upon all sides to respect the international law, including the Convention on nuclear safety.”

On top of that, “China opposes development and use of biological and chemical weapons by any country, under any circumstances.” Also, the foreign ministry of China opposes any unilateral sanctions over the crisis in Ukraine, imposed without a relevant decision of the UN Security Council. “Unilateral sanctions [should be] stopped,” the document says. “We oppose introducing any unilateral sanctions without the UN Security Council’s decision. “Stability of supply and delivery chains needs to be ensured. All sides should duly protect the existing system of the global economy, oppose attempts to politicize, instrumentalize and weaponize it,” the statement continues. It also calls for a joint effort to mitigate the crisis and its effects on global cooperation in the sectors of energy, finance, food trade and transport.

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“.. Trump called Nuland and “others like her” in the Biden administration “warmongers and ‘America Last’ globalists.”

Elon Musk Accuses Victoria Nuland Of ‘Pushing War’ In Ukraine (RT)

“Nobody is pushing” the conflict in Ukraine more than US State Department official Victoria Nuland, Twitter CEO Elon Musk said on Wednesday. Nuland, who largely orchestrated the pro-Western coup in Kiev in 2014, is now backing military strikes on the Russian territory of Crimea. Nuland’s declaration last Thursday that Russian military bases in Crimea are “legitimate targets” for Ukrainian forces was received by the Kremlin as proof of “US involvement in the Ukraine conflict.” In a post on Telegram, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that Moscow would respond to such attacks “using weapons of any kind.” “Nobody is pushing this war more than Nuland,” wrote Musk, who has previously warned that nuclear war could break out unless Ukraine abandons its claims to Crimea and both sides agree to peace talks.

Nuland’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict predates Russia’s military operation, ordered one year ago on Friday by President Vladimir Putin. As assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs in 2014, Nuland helped organize the coup that saw Ukraine’s democratically-elected president, Viktor Yanukovich, replaced with the pro-Western Pyotr Poroshenko, who then began a campaign of military repression against the people of Donetsk and Lugansk.= During the coup, Nuland handed out cookies to protesters in Kiev and promised pro-Western politicians military aid and a billion-dollar loan guarantee program. In an infamous leaked call between Nuland and then-US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, the two discussed which person should replace Yanukovich from a list of opposition politicians.

After leaving the State Department during Donald Trump’s presidency, Nuland is now serving as President Joe Biden’s deputy secretary of state for political affairs. In recent months, she has endorsed regime change in Russia, celebrated the US’ alleged destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, and called for the indefinite flow of arms into Ukraine. sMusk is not the only prominent American to condemn Nuland’s role in instigating the conflict in recent days. In a campaign video released on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump called Nuland and “others like her” in the Biden administration “warmongers and ‘America Last’ globalists.” Nuland was “obsessed with pushing Ukraine towards NATO,” he declared, claiming that the conflict would have “never happened if I was your president.”

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Washing her hands.

US Seeks To Discuss New START Implementation With Russia – Nuland (TASS)

The US authorities would like to get back to inspections as part of the New START nuclear arms control treaty and have a chance to discuss with Russia the implementation of this agreement, US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said in an interview with Washington Post. When asked if Russia’s suspension of the treaty would make any difference for the US in terms of behavior, the top State Department official said: “We will not [do this] and we’ve made that clear to the Russians.”


According to Nuland, Washington has “no intention or need” to resume testing. “We would like to get back into mutual inspections. We would like to get back to a place where we can sit at a table and talk about implementation [of the treaty],” she said. Nuland also assured that the US is not interested in rebuilding its nuclear weapons. The top State Department official said the US is trying to understand what Russia’s decision on suspending its participation in New START would mean in practical terms.

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Can’t enter a war with those numbers.

19% Of Americans Have Confidence In Biden’s Handling Of Ukraine Conflict (SN)

An Associated Press and NORC poll has found that fewer than 20 percent of Americans have a “great deal” of confidence in the way Joe Biden is involving the U.S. in the Ukraine conflict. The survey reveals that only 19 percent of the public have a “great deal” of confidence in Biden’s ability, while 37 percent say they have “only some” confidence,” and 43 percent have “hardly any” confidence.

The poll also found that only 42 percent approve of the way Biden is handling the U.S.’ relationship with Russia, while 54 percent disapprove. The poll also found that a quarter of respondents believe the U.S. shouldn’t be playing any role in the war, with a further 49 percent saying that the U.S. should only have minor role. Just 26 percent believe the U.S. should be playing a major role.

The poll also found that while 59 percent of Democrats said they were in favour of sending government funds directly to Ukraine, just 21 percent of Republicans concur. The figures represent a decrease in support among both groups, as last year 63 percent of Democrats and 28 percent of Republicans said they were in favour. The findings come after Biden’s probable 2024 opponent Donald Trump declared that he would negotiate a peace deal and end the conflict within 24 hours, as well as ousting all the “demented warmongers and globalists” currently occupying the U.S. National Security establishment.

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“..Never in the history of Europe has the continent been so “subservient” to the US..”

Russia-EU Relations ‘No Longer Exist’ – Moscow (RT)

Relations between the European Union and Russia are practically nonexistent, consumed by the abyss of EU subservience to the US, the Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council on Thursday. Moscow had said in June 2022 that the “bottom had fallen out” when it came to relations with Brussels, Nebenzia said in his speech at the UN. “It turns out there was an entire abyss below still, that swallowed up not only our relations – which are basically nonexistent now – but also the EU itself,” he said. “A year after completely severing ties with our country, the GDP growth of the EU has stuck near zero. At the same time, record inflation rates are measured by double-digit indicators. Rejoicing that it jumped off the ‘Russian gas needle,’ the EU got hooked on ‘hard drugs’ – expensive American liquefied natural gas,” the Russian diplomat added.

Nebenzia also accused the EU of openly discussing how to dismember and destroy Russia. Earlier this week, the Estonian prime minister suggested Russian history needs to be rewritten and its population re-educated, to protect Europe from “Russian imperialist dreams.” Never in the history of Europe has the continent been so “subservient” to the US, Nebenzia argued, pointing to last September’s sabotage of Nord Stream. “Things have come to the point where Brussels has silently swallowed that its closest ally blew up the main gas pipeline, which was also paid for by European investors,” he said, adding that EU members are even covering up inconvenient truths in order to shield the US.

The twin pipelines running under the Baltic Sea were built to supply the continent with Russian natural gas via Germany. Denmark, Sweden and Germany have refused Russian requests for information about their investigation into the blasts. In an article published earlier this month, American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh claimed the US and Norway had conspired to destroy the pipelines and described how they carried it out. Russia has called for a UN investigation into the sabotage. The US has denied any responsibility for the Nord Stream bombing.

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BRICS. India next.

Moscow Analyzes Brazil’s Peace Initiatives On Ukraine (TASS)

Moscow is studying Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s peace proposals for Ukraine, but it is taking into account the evolving situation “on the ground”, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin said in an interview with TASS. “We took note of the President of Brazil’s statements on the subject of possible mediation in order to find political ways to prevent escalation in Ukraine, correcting miscalculations in the field of international security on the basis of multilateralism, and considering the interests of all players. We are examining initiatives, mainly from the standpoint of Brazil’s balanced policy, and, of course, taking into consideration the situation ‘on the ground’,” he said. Galuzin emphasized the importance of Brazil’s view, which is Moscow’s strategic partner both bilaterally and globally.


“We are interacting constructively in the BRICS, G20, UN and its Security Council, where this nation is now represented as a non-permanent member,” he added. Russia appreciates Brazil not supplying weapons to Kiev despite US pressure, Deputy Foreign Minister emphasized. “I would like to emphasize that Russia values Brazil’s balanced position in the current international situation, its rejection of unilateral coercive measures taken by the US and its satellites against our country, and the refusal of our Brazilian partners to supply arms, military equipment, and ammunition to the Kiev regime,” he said. “At the same time, we can see how Washington is putting pressure on Brazil. Such sovereign stance deserves respect,” Galuzin added. Earlier, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stated that the country’s officials had no intention of transferring weapons and ammunition to third countries to be used in the Ukrainian conflict.

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“It’s not going to help the war. What he was doing it for, was to prevent Germany and Western Europe, in case the winter came quickly, from opening up the pipeline..”

Seymour Hersh Explains Why US Blew Up Nord Stream (RT)

US President Joe Biden ordered the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines in order to make sure Germany could not change its mind about sanctions against Russia and weapons shipments to Ukraine, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said in an interview with ‘Going Underground’. Earlier this month, Hersh published an article that blamed the US and Norway for the series of explosions that disabled both Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, the pipelines under the Baltic Sea built to supply Western Europe with Russian natural gas. In an interview with Afshin Rattansi this week, Hersh said the US intelligence community hatched the plan “in late 2021,” before the escalation of hostilities in Ukraine.

When Biden and Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland both publicly spoke about “stopping” and “ending” Nord Stream 2, however, Hersh claimed the spies were upset, “because it was supposed to be a covert operation.” “The people who did this thing in the intelligence community, they initially thought it was a great idea,” Hersh told Rattansi. According to his story, the bombs were planted in June, during the scheduled BALTOPS 2022 naval exercise off the Danish island of Bornholm. The bombs went off in late September, as Ukraine was facing “a serious issue” on the battlefield. “It’s not going to help the war. What he was doing it for, was to prevent Germany and Western Europe, in case the winter came quickly, from opening up the pipeline,” Hersh said.

The rationale for the mission was “to make sure that Europe keeps on supporting NATO and keeps funneling arms into what is clearly a proxy war against Russia that’s being fought right now,” he added. Asked whether Moscow had somehow missed the American involvement, and focused on the UK instead, Hersh said he had not spoken to anyone in Russia. One thing he could say is that it would be “absolutely insane” for Russia to blow up its own pipeline. Just about everyone in the pipeline business agrees with that assessment, he added. The White House, the Pentagon and the State Department have all disavowed Hersh’s article as “fiction” and denied all accusations of US involvement in the attack on Nord Stream. Russia has called for an independent UN investigation into what it described as an act of international terrorism.

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“It is the start of the final collapse of Western colonialism.”

Why Putin Went to War — One Year Later (Lauria)

It is instructive to compare Russia’s war aims expressed on Feb. 24, 2022 to the state of the conflict today — a year long war of attrition that Russia is slowing winning on the ground. But what was unleashed a year ago today is far from settled and is fraught with supreme danger for all of humanity. The West’s economic war, intended to spur Russians to overthrow their government, has failed spectacularly. The ruble did not collapse despite sanctions on the Russian central bank. Nor has the economy. Instead an alternative economic, commercial and financial system that excludes the West is rising with China, India and Russia in the lead, and most of Asia, Africa and Latin America taking part. It is the start of the final collapse of Western colonialism.


The sanctions instead backfired on the West, especially in Europe. The West is on the outside looking in. The information war has failed across the world. Only the United States and Europe, which consider itself “the world,” believe their own “information.” Even The New York Times on Thursday recognized this. Washington itself is split between realists who want a diplomatic solution and neoconservatives who keep “doubling down” on supporting Ukraine in the slim hope that it can win on the battlefield, without sparking a direct NATO-Russia war. There will either be a negotiated settlement in which Ukraine loses territory; a total Russian victory; or a third world war, potentially the final war.

Read more …

“Google systematically destroyed an entire category of written communications every 24 hours.”

Google Accused Of Destroying Evidence In Antitrust Suit (RT)

The US Department of Justice has accused Google of “systematically” destroying records linked to ongoing antitrust litigation, saying the company failed to preserve its internal communications despite a previous order to do so. In a legal filing issued in a Washington, DC federal court on Thursday, DOJ officials said Google has refused to change a feature on its company chat which automatically deletes employees’ logs, adding that it “falsely” claimed to have ended the practice back in 2019. “Google’s daily destruction of written records prejudiced the United States by depriving it of a rich source of candid discussions between Google’s executives, including likely trial witnesses,” said DOJ attorney Kenneth Dintzer.

While the government said Google was required to end the auto-delete function under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the company did not “preserve potentially relevant chats,” meaning that for nearly four years since the antitrust case was launched, “Google systematically destroyed an entire category of written communications every 24 hours.” The DOJ has asked the court to rule that the tech giant violated a civil procedure guideline, and requested a hearing to determine how to penalize Google and demand more information about its internal communications.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Google said it “strongly” rejected the allegations, with a spokesperson arguing its teams have “conscientiously worked for years to respond to inquiries and litigation.” They added that the company has “produced over 4 million documents in this case alone, and millions more to regulators around the world.” The antitrust case against Google was opened in 2020, when the Justice Department said the company is a “monopoly under traditional antitrust principles” in the search engine industry and “must be stopped.” While the government argued the firm has used its market power to disadvantage smaller competitors, Google later slammed the suit as “deeply flawed,” insisting it would “do nothing to help consumers.”

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“..as Joker stated in The Dark Knight, Madness … is a lot like gravity. All it takes is a little push.”

Hunter Biden’s Latest Rebrand Is Just Smoke And Errors (Turley)

Welcome to the latest Hunter Biden reboot. Call it Dark Biden rises. Hunter has long been a reclamation project for the media and the Biden team. Despite ample evidence that he and his family may have engaged in one of the largest influence-peddling operations in history, the media have struggled to find a redeeming image for someone who’s committed his life to a toxic mix of nepotism, narcissism and narcotics. First there was “Hunter: the wrongly accused international businessman.” This blanket denial of wrongdoing was maintained by his father and dutifully repeated by the media. Hunter Biden did “nothing wrong,” and reporters pressing questions of corruption were immediately attacked. Then came “Hunter Biden: victim of Russian disinformation.”

Before the 2020 election, the media repeated the false claim that the Hunter laptop was likely “Russian disinformation.” Despite the denial of American intelligence and self-verifying emails on the laptop, the media accepted without question the dubious claims of former intelligence figures pushed by longtime Democratic operatives. Then it was “Hunter Biden: heroic recovering addict.” As the media denials became more difficult to maintain, Biden released a book that detailed his struggle with drugs and debauchery. The media again launched into the same fawning, unquestioning mode. Now we have the Dark Biden. Hunter’s handlers are reinventing Hunter in a more menacing image. He is an edgy and aggressive antagonist ready to fight fire with fire against Republicans.

A team was assembled to reportedly attack potential witnesses and critics. With a possible criminal indictment and congressional investigations looming, Hunter the wronged businessman or Russian victim or recovering addict will not do. Hunter appears to have acquired lawyers by the gross, including high-profile lawyer Abbe Lowell. Lowell recently sent out a letter that caused a stir by not only confirming the authenticity of the laptop but threatening a host of critics. Lowell categorically refused to turn over a single document to House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), saying there was no “legitimate legislative purpose” for the investigation. He left open the possibility the House might convince Hunter to cooperate.

It’s all bravado and the posturing will be even less credible in the future when he backs down. Congress clearly has a legitimate interest in investigating whether millions of dollars from foreign interests, including some connected to foreign intelligence, were funneled to the Biden family to influence President Biden. [..] Despite the considerable risk, Hunter is keeping to his new character. He has not shared information on his art sales. Now his art dealer, Georges Berges, has also reportedly refused to provide the House Oversight Committee with identities of the buyers. It won t work. Indeed, it is a strategy that could lead to a criminal charge entirely separate from the underlying allegations. It just shows, as Joker stated in The Dark Knight, Madness … is a lot like gravity. All it takes is a little push.

Read more …

This issue will explode.

The Immediate Need To Screen Blood For mRNA And Spike Protein (Horowitz)

You might be part of that small percentage of adults who were smart enough to avoid the COVID gene therapy and lucky enough not to have it forced upon you to keep your job. But what happens if you ever need blood in the hospital? Or what about those who got the jabs but were lucky enough to have the spike protein leave their systems without much harm? What if you were forced to accept more spike protein through blood transfusions due to a medical emergency? New research points to the imperative for state lawmakers to pass laws requiring that blood banks screen out spike protein from the blood supply. Danish microbiologists published a shocking finding this week in the Journal of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology.

They took samples of blood from 108 hepatitis C patients, and one of the discoveries was that “full-length or traces of SARS-CoV-2 spike mRNA vaccine sequences were found in blood up to 28 days after COVID-19 vaccination.” Lest you think that they were picking up on spike protein from natural infection still lingering in the blood, the researchers meticulously distinguished not just between infection- and vaccine-induced spike protein, but even between the genetic codes of Pfizer and Moderna. It turns out five of those detected were positive for the Pfizer nucleotides and five had the Moderna ones. “To our knowledge, our study is the first to detect Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccine sequences in blood after vaccination, and therefore provides new knowledge regarding the timeframe in which the mRNA can be detected,” observed the authors.

One the one hand, we should be thankful that most did not have detectable spike protein circulating in the blood plasma. But the fact that they found it in 10% of the samples (and contrasted to a control group) raisess the obvious question: How many blood supplies in the blood banks from the general population have spike protein, and if this sample detected spike protein up to 28 days (the extent of the study period), how much longer can it potentially last? Remember, the bombshell study from Stanford last year found spike antigen remaining in germinal cells up to 60 days after injection, and researchers did not study beyond that time frame. Even more disturbing, a study by St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix found exosomes containing spike protein were detectable for up to four months after vaccination. Another paper in Frontiers in Immunology revealed the detection of some spike in monocytes for 15 months!

Read more …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birds

 

 


Elephant throws a 500 kg buffalo into the air like a rag doll – Kim Maurer

 

 

Horse chicken
https://twitter.com/i/status/1628618176425775104

 

 

 

 

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