Damascus Airport Runways Out of Service After Israeli Strikes: Syrian Transport Ministry
Samizdat – 10.06.2022
The runways at Damascus airport are out of service as a result of airstrikes conducted by the Israeli air force, the Syrian Ministry of Transport said.
On Thursday, the Syrian Defense Ministry said that Israel had fired missiles at a number of targets south of Damascus. Syria said that Israeli warplanes aimed to hit the airport.
“As a result of the Israeli aggression, which hit the infrastructure of the international airport of Damascus, the runways are significantly damaged in several places along with the navigation lighting,” the ministry said, as quoted by the Shams FM broadcaster.
The attack also damaged the second terminal of the airport.
“At the moment, our specialists are working to eliminate the consequences of the airstrikes and repair what was damaged as a result of the attack. The airport’s operations will be resumed immediately after repair and safety checks,” the ministry added.
Syria’s Cham Wings Airlines said earlier that all of its flights were diverted from Damascus airport to Aleppo in the north of the country.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry Strongly Condemns Israeli Airstrike at Damascus Airport
Also on Friday, Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman, said that Moscow strongly condemns the Israeli airstrikes at the airport and calls on the Israeli side to halt such activities.
“In this regard, we are forced to emphasize again that the ongoing Israeli shelling of Syria territory … is absolutely unacceptable. We strongly condemn Israel’s provocative attack on critical Syrian civilian infrastructure,” the spokeswoman said in a statement published by the ministry.
Zakharova also said that such strikes create risks “for international air traffic.”
“We demand from the Israeli side to halt such activities,” Zakharova added.
How the West helped Israel take the IAEA hostage
By Syed Zafar Mehdi | Press TV | June 11, 2022
Israel, the world’s eighth-largest nuclear power, initiated its nuclear program in 1952 with technological support from France and the US, the two countries most vocal about Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.
The first nuclear weapons were developed by Tel Aviv somewhere around 1967-1968, according to military think tanks. After that, the production accelerated rapidly, with zero international outcry.
Today, the regime possesses over 90 nuclear warheads with enough plutonium to produce at least 200 nuclear weapons. Around 5 kg of weapons-grade plutonium is required for one nuclear bomb.
Despite its nuclear program being an open secret – thanks to technician Mordechai Vanunu who blew the lid off Pandora’s Box back in 1986 – the regime has obdurately refused to confirm or deny it.
Vanunu, who worked at the Dimona nuclear facility, was in 1988 convicted of treason and sentenced to 18 years in prison. The same year he was also nominated for the Nobel peace prize.
Vanunu isn’t the only one to blow the whistle. In December 2013, former Israeli Knesset member Avraham Burg in a rare admission said the regime possessed both nuclear and chemical weapons, dubbing the official policy of nuclear ambiguity as “outdated and childish”. He was soon reprimanded.
What has emboldened Tel Aviv to accelerate its nuclear activities while wrapping a cloak of secrecy around them is Western sponsorship made possible by Zionist lobbying groups in the US and Europe.
The two countries most critical of Iran’s nuclear program are Israel’s staunchest allies, who helped the regime become a nuclear power. Israel’s weapons-grade fissile material stocks originated in France in the 1960s and the US in the late 1960s.
The US support, in particular, has allowed Israel to escape accountability for its diabolic activities. In a classic case of double standards, successive regimes in Washington have made a conscious effort not to talk about Israel’s nuclear arsenal despite making hullabaloo for non-proliferation in the region.
It began back in 1968 when then-CIA director Richard Helms informed President Lyndon Johnson that Israel had built nuclear weapons and that its air force had conducted aerial maneuvers to drop them.
Johnson’s response, on expected lines, was muted. A year later, at a meeting between just-elected President Richard Nixon and then Israeli premier Golda Meir, it was agreed that Washington will not force Israel to sign the NPT, which had opened for signature months before, in July 1968.
The US policy of silence continued, which helped the illegitimate regime in Tel Aviv escape the scrutiny of the UN nuclear agency. This silence amounted to both cowardice and complicity.
Importantly, and quite scandalously, Israel is not the signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). It has repeatedly rejected calls to join the keystone accord of the international arms control regime and refused to give UN nuclear agency inspectors access to its nuclear sites.
Despite the regime’s dismissive approach, the International Atomic Energy Agency has adopted a remarkably soft approach to the point that many see collusion between the two.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi’s whirlwind trip to Tel Aviv ahead of the UN nuclear agency’s board of governors meeting in Vienna earlier this week lent credence to the plausible Israel-IAEA collusion theory.
Grossi dashed off to Israel to discuss the anti-Iran resolution drafted by the US and the European troika with Israeli officials, aimed at mounting pressure on Iran to give up its legitimate demands.
Does it make sense that the IAEA chief meets the head of an illegitimate regime, which has secretly built a nuclear arsenal and refused to cooperate with the UN agency, to discuss the nuclear program of a country that has signed the NPT, cooperated fully with the agency and fulfilled all its obligations? It smells of something deeply sinister, extremely despicable.
The resolution against Iran at the IAEA board of governors meeting, which has already seen a “firm and proportionate response” from Tehran, blamed Iran for lack of cooperation with the UN agency.
For those unnerved by Iran’s decision to ramp up its nuclear enrichment capacity, it is essential to understand that the Islamic Republic claims its rights under Article IV of the NPT to pursue a peaceful nuclear program for energy purposes, unlike rogue regimes like Israel.
It’s also imperative to understand that the decision to scale up uranium enrichment from 3.65 percent stipulated in the 2015 nuclear deal came a year after former US President Donald Trump in a unilateral and illegal move pulled his country out of the landmark agreement, followed by reinstatement of sanctions.
The negotiations between Iran and the world powers to salvage the deal have been paused not because of Iran’s excessive demands or non-compliance but due to the West’s obstructionism. Iran did everything to save the deal but the other parties continue to make all-out efforts to kill the same deal.
The latest move to remove cameras operating beyond the NPT safeguards agreement at some Iranian nuclear sites and feed gas into machines including IR-6 is a milder reaction to the hostile move at the IAEA board of governors meeting.
As Iran’s nuclear body chief Mohammad Eslami stated, it’s preposterous that the IAEA has been taken hostage by the illegitimate regime, which raises questions over its credibility and independence.
Unless the agency comes out of the ominous Israeli shadow and makes a concerted effort to focus on its professional and technical mandate, beyond politics, Iran reserves the right to take remedial measures.
And as President Ebrahim Raeisi asserted unambiguously, the Islamic Republic will not back down even an inch. The writing is on the wall.
Syed Zafar Mehdi is a Tehran-based journalist, editor and blogger. He has reported extensively from Kashmir, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran for leading publications worldwide.
Another nudge to vaccinate children and for whose benefit?
The runaway train that refuses to be knocked off course
Health Advisory & Recovery Team | June 10, 2022
When the JCVI considered covid vaccines for children in July 2021, they stated, “JCVI is of the view that the health benefits of universal vaccination in children and young people below the age of 18 years do not outweigh the potential risks”. Even in September 2021, they still said, “A precautionary approach was agreed given the very low risk of serious disease in those aged 12 to 15 years without an underlying health condition that puts them at increased risk.” As HART bulletin readers will know, the Chief Medical Officers eventually recommended the vaccine for 12-15s, in the vain hope of reducing school closures, which of course could have been achieved by simply stopping routine testing of asymptomatic school children and the sending home of healthy contacts.
Roll on to February 2022, when a ‘non-urgent offer’ was made of Pfizer vaccine for 5-11-year-olds, JCVI stated, “This advice on the offer of vaccination to 5 to 11-year olds who are not in a clinical risk group is considered by JCVI as a one-off pandemic response programme. As the COVID-19 pandemic moves further towards endemicity in the UK, JCVI will review whether, in the longer term, an offer of vaccination to this, and other paediatric age groups, continues to be advised.”
If any of our readers has seen this review, we would be pleased to know, as it might help us clarify the surprising appearance of Covid-19 on the NHS routine immunisation programme. Placing an unlicenced preparation onto the routine schedule is unprecedented. It raises serious questions of the legality, given the conditional authorisation was predicated on there being an emergency. It is also of course a subtle way of making parents think this vaccine is just run-of-the-mill. The current low uptake (53% of 12-15s and a mere 8.5% of 5-11s) suggests that at present, parents are well aware that covid-19 vaccines are not the same as other vaccines, either in terms of the risk of the disease for children or in terms of drug safety. They will also be well aware that lots of their triple vaccinated adult friends and family, have been catching covid regardless.
Not content with slipping this drug into the schedule under cover of the 4-day Jubilee holiday, the Local Government Association has been pushing behavioural psychology techniques to increase vaccine uptake in the young. Their opening gambit is, “Younger generations are more likely to be vaccine hesitant partly because they perceive themselves to be at lower risk of developing a severe form of COVID-19”. Surely, this is not a ‘perception’, it is a ‘fact’, which should surely have been viewed as a blessing, rather than an annoyance.
It gets worse: “Highlight the pro-social benefits of vaccination
Behavioural Insight: Emphasising the pro-social benefits of vaccination is particularly effective among young people. Prosocial benefits include achieving herd immunity and protecting others, especially those that are vulnerable and cannot get vaccinated. Combining both informational and emotional content can be effective.” Another one for the fact checkers – the JCVI say, “the benefits to the wider population are highly uncertain.”
And worse: “Highlight social norms about vaccination
Behavioural Insight: Highlighting that there are growing intentions to get vaccinated, that most people are getting vaccinated and that they approve doing so, can effectively encourage vaccine take up. Since young people tend to be more susceptible to peer influence, it is likely that social norms can be particularly effective when targeting this group.
Potential application: Emphasise Social norms in communications targeted towards young people. Make vaccination visible to other young people by setting up vaccination centres in university campuses or schools. Launch an ‘I will get vaccinated’-pledge on social media.”
And faintly ridiculous: “Second vaccine jab compliance
Ensuring residents take their second vaccine dose could be a challenge with which councils can support PHE and the NHS. This could be especially the case if news on vaccine efficacy and new strains undermines the perceived value of the second jab.” Again, the use of the word ‘perceived’ implies that the ‘news’ on vaccine efficacy and new strains is somehow irrelevant to informed consent. No wonder the powers that be don’t want people to see this graph from week 13 of 2022, dropped from the more recent weekly vaccine reports.
The January 6 Capitol riot was not the real insurrection
America is under attack from within, and it’s not by the DC rioters from 17 months back
By Ian Miles Cheong | Samizdat | June 11, 2022
As members of the House of Representatives gather to attend the hearing of the US House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, one can’t help but wonder about the hypocrisy of the spectacle, especially in light of the Biden administration’s soft touch approach to the George Floyd riots that swept the nation in 2020.
As the pandemic raged during the summer of 2020, thousands of Americans took to the streets to protest, and in some cases riot, over the death of George Floyd, an African-American man who was killed in police custody.
Floyd’s death was a flashpoint in America’s growing racial and cultural divide, exacerbated by social justice activists who maintain that police in America are racist, and that their actions are enabled by systemic racism inherent in America’s culture, history, and its very foundations.
The riots saw over a billion dollars in property damage, according to reporting from Axios, but the true cost of the violence is even higher due to their impact on cities – not to mention the human cost and the destruction of anything that wasn’t properly insured.
Opportunists and looters ran amok in American cities, wreaking havoc on commercial districts – and even residential neighborhoods. Black- and minority-owned businesses in cities like Kenosha and Minneapolis were burned to the ground by rioters chanting ‘Black Lives Matter’ slogans, few of which have recovered.
In Seattle, Antifa and Black Lives Matter activists took over an entire neighborhood. Dubbing it ‘CHAZ’ (Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone) or ‘CHOP’ (Capitol Hill Organized Protest), the protesters sectioned off a portion of the city, turning it into a police no-go zone. It was rife with crime. Several people, including minors, were shot and killed in the so-called ‘autonomous zone’. Several sexual assaults allegedly took place. Only one man was arrested over one of the fatal shootings a year later.
In the US alone, at least 25 people are estimated to have been killed while participating in protests and incidents related to the political violence that occurred throughout that summer. Retired police officer David Dorn was murdered on the streets of St. Louis while trying to protect a pawn shop. His death was a rallying cry for conservatives and supporters of the police who were tired of seeing the men and women in blue vilified for doing their jobs.
The impact of the George Floyd riots cannot be understated. It continues to reverberate throughout America as numerous liberal cities have moved to implement bail reform, defund police forces, and put in place legislation to hinder so-called ‘police brutality’ – effectively neutering law enforcement.
The nation saw a drop in police recruitment and rise in resignations, transfers, and an overall decline in morale. Cities like San Francisco, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, and Minneapolis have seen spikes in property crime, violent crime, and carjackings as prosecutors refuse to try cases, letting felons back out onto the street with little more than a slap on the wrist. The shocking examples of victims falling by the wayside as violent criminals with extensive arrest records get away with racially-motivated assaults on whites, Asians, and Jews. Their crimes go unpunished while Joe Biden and members of his administration continue to rail against the threat of ‘white supremacy’ and wave around Transgender Pride flags, giving empty speeches about society’s apparently most marginalized demographic – trans people.
‘Move out of the cities’ has become a common refrain among conservatives who cite the destruction of America’s most prosperous and populous locales as a reason to embrace rural living outside of suburbia.
Cities, once the pinnacle of American culture, and home to monuments honoring the Founding Fathers, have become a sad parody of themselves. Crime goes unpunished, drug addicts litter the streets with needles, and homeless people set up camp right in front of the world’s largest corporations. In Seattle, Amazon was forced to shutter its downtown office due to violent crime.
At the height of the summer, innumerable statues were torn down, damaged, or removed by the cities due the racially-charged protests. Few were ever held responsible for the destruction of these historical monuments.
Despite the destruction and ruination of American cities, and the attack on America’s founding values, Democrats have chosen instead to not only ignore the riots’ cost to American lives, but champion the protests as a positive, progressive development.
Approximately $90 million was given to Black Lives Matter, and millions more have been spent on reshaping American culture through diversity initiatives in corporate boardrooms, civilian government, and even the military. The mayors of Portland and Minneapolis endured struggle sessions. Democrats took a knee in a symbolic gesture honoring Black Lives Matter.
When Democrats insist that the January 6 attack on Capitol Hill was one of the worst moments in American history, they’re ignoring the ongoing destruction of America and absolving themselves of their participation in it.
“The insurrection on January 6 was one of the darkest chapters in our nation’s history,” said President Biden at an event on Friday. Describing it as “a brutal assault on our democracy, a brutal attack on law enforcement,” the president insists that “it’s important that the American people understand what truly happened and to understand that the same forces that led to January 6 remain at work today.”
Biden is right about one thing – the forces that led to January 6 remain at work today.
To understand what’s going on, we have to look at how the January 6 riot was caused by a general sense of discontent with America’s downward trajectory. It was staged by a collective of Americans who refer to themselves as patriots, who are unhappy with the continued destruction of America and its values. When they raised their voices, they were mocked, silenced, and disenfranchised as traitors and conspiracy theorists – all this even before the events of that fateful day. And after that day, many were arrested – some of whom were forced into solitary confinement and stripped of their rights even to this day. They have had few defenders, and the legacy media remains unwilling to even speak of their plight.
If there’s an insurrection, it’s ongoing, and it’s seeing through the destruction of America’s core values. When all is said and done, the events of January 6, 2021 will be nothing more than a footnote in the history books.
Ian Miles Cheong is a political and cultural commentator. His work has been featured on The Rebel, Penthouse, Human Events, and The Post Millennial.
Leslie Wexner’s Inner Demon
This short excerpt from Whitney Webb’s upcoming book “One Nation Under Blackmail” examines an obscure media profile of Leslie Wexner, Jeffrey Epstein’s mentor, from the 1980s that contains disconcerting revelations about Wexner’s personality and his inner world.
BY WHITNEY WEBB |
UNLIMITED HANGOUT| JUNE 10, 2022
1985 was the year that Leslie Wexner became a billionaire. It was also that year that the chairman of The Limited (now L Brands) began to build up his public persona. This effort to “re-brand” himself began with a series of fawning media profiles. The main outlets that participated in Wexner’s first main, personal PR campaign were written by prominent New York City-based outlets, like New York magazine and the New York Times.
The New York magazine profile, which was the cover story for its August 5, 1985 issue, was entitled “The Bachelor Billionaire: On Pins and Needles with Leslie Wexner.” Though filled with photos of a middle-aged Wexner grinning and embracing friends as well as lavish praise for his business dealings and his “tender” and “gentle” personality, one of the main themes of the article revolves around what is apparently a spiritual affliction or mental illness of Wexner’s, depending on the reader’s own spiritual persuasion.
The New York magazine article opens as follows:
“On the morning Leslie Wexner became a billionaire, he woke up worried, but this was not unusual. He always wakes up worried because of his dybbuk, which pokes and prods and gives him the itchiness of the soul that he calls shpilkes [“pins” in Yiddish]. Sometimes he runs away from it on the roads of Columbus, or drives away from it in one of his Porsches, or flies from it in one of his planes, but then it is back, with his first coffee, his first meeting, nudging at him.”
One may interpret this use of shpilkes, literally “pins” or “spikes” in Yiddish and often used to describe nervous energy, impatience or anxiety, as Wexner merely personifying his anxiety. However, his decision to use the word dybbuk, which he does throughout the article, is quite significant. Also notable is how Wexner goes on to describe this apparent entity throughout the article and his intimate relationship with it.
First page of New York magazine’s 1985 profile of Wexner
As defined by Encyclopedia Britannica, a dybbuk is a Jewish folklore term for “a disembodied human spirit that, because of former sins, wanders restlessly until it finds a haven in the body of a living person.” Unlike spirits that have yet to move on but possess positive qualities, such as the maggid or ibbur, the dybbuk is almost always considered to be malicious, which leads it to be translated in English as “demon”. This was also the case in this New York magazine profile on Wexner.
The author of that article, Julie Baumgold, describes Leslie Wexner’s dybbuk as “the demon that always wakes up in the morning with Wexner and tweaks and pulls at him.” Wexner could have easily chosen to frame the entity as a righteous spirit (maggid) or as his righteous ancestors (ibbur) guiding his life and business decisions, especially for the purpose of an interview that would be read widely throughout the country. Instead, Wexner chose this particular term, which says a lot for a man who has since used his billions to shape both mainstream Jewish identity and leadership in both the US and Israel for decades.
As the article continues, it states that Wexner has been with the dybbuk since he was a boy and that his father had recognized it and referred to it as the “churning”. Per Wexner, the dybbuk causes him to feel “molten” and constantly pricked by “spiritual pins and needles”. It apparently left him at some point as a young man, only to return in 1977 when he was 40, half-frozen during an ill-fated trip up a mountain near his vacation home in Vail, Colorado. This specific trip is when Wexner says he both rejoined with his childhood dybbuk and decided to “change his life.”
He told New York magazine that his dybbuk makes him “wander from house to house”, “wanting more and more” and “swallowing companies larger than his own.” In other words, it compels him to accumulate more money and more power with no end in sight. Wexner later describes the dybbuk as an integral “part of his genius.”
Wexner further describes his dybbuk as keeping “him out of balance, emotionally stunted, a part of him — the precious, treasured boy-son part — lagging behind [the dybbuk].” This is consistent with other definitions of the term in Jewish media, including a feature piece published in the Jewish Chronicle. That article first defines the term as “a demon [that] clings to [a person’s] soul” and then states that: “The Hebrew verb from which the word dybbuk is derived is also used to describe the cleaving of a pious soul to God. The two states are mirror images of each other.” Per Wexner’s word choice and his characterization of what he perceives as an entity dwelling within him, the entity — the dybbuk — is dominant while his actual self and soul “lags behind” and is stunted, causing him to identify more with the entity than with himself.
This is also reflected in the concluding paragraph of the New York magazine article:
“Les Wexner picks up his heavy black case and flies off in his Challenger, with his dybbuk sitting next to him, taunting and poking him with impatience, that little demon he really loves. The dybbuk turns his face. What does he look like? ‘Me,’ says Leslie Wexner.”
Outside of the spiritual aspect of this discussion, it can also be surmised from the above that there is a strong possibility that Wexner suffers from some sort of mental disorder that causes him to exhibit two distinct personalities which continuously battle within him. What is astounding is that he describes this apparent affliction to a prominent media outlet with pride and the author of the piece weaves Wexner’s “demon” throughout a piece that seeks to praise his business acumen above all else.
Yet, perhaps the most troubling aspect of Wexner’s experience with his “dybbuk”, whether real or imagined, is the fact that Wexner, in the years before and after this article was published, has had a massive impact on Jewish communities in the US and beyond through his “philanthropy.” Some of those philanthropic efforts, like the Wexner Foundation, saw Wexner mold generations of Jewish leaders through Wexner Foundation programs while others, such as the Mega Group, see the organized crime-linked Leslie Wexner joined by several other like-minded billionaires, many of which also boast considerable organized crime connections, in an effort to shape the relationship of the American Jewish community, as well as the US government, with the state of Israel.
For a man of such influence in the Jewish community, why have there been essentially no questions raised as to Wexner’s role in directing the affairs of that ethno-religious community given that he has openly claimed to be guided by a “dybbuk”? This is particularly odd when one considers that Wexner has come under increased scrutiny in recent years after his protege and closest associate for decades, Jeffrey E. Epstein, was outed as both a pedophile and serial sex trafficker. Did Wexner’s dybbuk draw him to Epstein and prompt him to financially support his horrific crimes against minors?
Note: The above is an adapted excerpt from Whitney Webb’s upcoming book “One Nation Under Blackmail: the sordid union between Intelligence and Organized Crime that gave rise to Jeffrey Epstein”. Those interested may pre-order the book directly from the publisher’s website or from Amazon.
Ex-Bolivian president Jeanine Anez sentenced to 10 years in prison
Press TV – June 11, 2022
Former Bolivian interim president Jeanine Anez has been sentenced to a 10-year prison term more than a year after being arrested on charges of leading a US-backed plot in 2019 to oust re-elected socialist president Evo Morales.
Anez will serve 10 years in a women’s prison in La Paz, the administrative capital’s First Sentencing Court announced on Friday in a ruling that came three months after her trial began.
Convicted of crimes “contrary to the constitution and a dereliction of duties,” the former right-wing television presenter was sentenced to “a punishment of 10 years” over charges stemming from when she was a senator, before becoming president.
Government prosecutors, however, had asked for a 15-year jail term for Anez, who has been held in pre-trial detention since March 2021 while dismissing her trial as “political persecution.”
Also sentenced to 10 years were the former chief of Bolivia’s armed forces, William Kaliman, and the country’s ex-police chief Yuri Calderon — both of whom have reportedly fled the country and remain on the run.
This is while Anez still faces a separate, pending court case for sedition and other charges related to her short presidential tenure.
At the start of her presidency, the US-sponsored rightist politician had called in the police and military to restore order. The post-election unrest left 22 people dead, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
For that, Anez also further faces genocide charges, which carry prison sentences of between 10 and 20 years.
The IACHR described the 22 deaths that occurred at the beginning of Anez’s presidential stint as “massacres,” and found they indicated “serious violations of human rights.”
Unlike the other accusations against Anez, the case will be dealt with by congress, which will decide whether or not to hold a trial.
The ex-president had already declared she would appeal if convicted, claiming, “We will not stop there. We will go before the international justice system.”
Anez became Bolivia’s interim president in November 2019 after Morales, who had won a fourth consecutive term as president, fled the country in the face of what was widely viewed as a US-sponsored unrest purportedly against alleged electoral fraud.
The US-led and Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS) claimed at the time that it had found “clear evidence” of voting irregularities in favor of Morales, a popular, anti-US president who was re-elected into office for 14 years.
Many potential successors to Morales — all members of his MAS party – were also forced to resign or flee, leaving right-wing opposition member Anez, then vice-president of the Senate, next in line.
Virtually unknown, the lawyer and former TV personality proclaimed herself interim president of the Andean nation on November 12, 2019, two days after Morales’ forced resignation.
The Constitutional Court recognized Anez’s mandate as interim, caretaker president, but MAS members disputed her legitimacy.
Elections were held a year later, and won by Luis Arce – a close ally of Morales.
With the presidency and congress both firmly in MAS control, Morales returned to Bolivia in November 2020.
After handing over the presidential reins to Arce, Anez was detained in March 2021, charged with illegitimate assumption of power.
“I denounce before Bolivia and the world that in an act of abuse and political persecution, the MAS government has ordered my arrest,” she proclaimed in a Twitter post at the time.
Germans warned of ‘difficult autumn’ and ‘tough winter’
“Whoever saves energy helps Germany become more independent from Russian imports and also does it for the sake of the climate”
Samizdat | June 11, 2022
Germans should brace for a difficult autumn and winter due to skyrocketing prices, as the country pushes for independence from Russian energy, the Vice Chancellor, and head of the Ministry of Economy, Robert Habeck warned on Friday.
“As for the support of the people who need it, I clearly indicated what is ahead of us and what is already partially a reality… we are facing a very difficult autumn and a very tough winter,” he said, as cited by RIA Novosti.
Habeck made the prediction as he presented a new energy saving initiative of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK). Berlin is planning to replace Russian coal and oil by the end of the year and stop importing Russian gas by 2024, and is struggling to find alternative energy sources. According to the vice chancellor, energy prices are already extremely high and “many people will get significantly higher bills than usual” in the upcoming heating season.
“For this reason alone, saving energy is urgently needed, and I know that many are already looking at where they can save something, especially when they have to watch every cent anyway,” he said.
The new initiative – ‘80 million together for energy change’ – aims to motivate people to save energy. It provides examples on its website from everyday life and recommendations for saving energy, including: regularly defrosting the freezer, raising the refrigerator temperature to 7C, using LED light bulbs in offices, ways to cut down on water consumption and heating in the bathroom and kitchen, etc.
“Whoever saves energy helps Germany become more independent from Russian imports and also does it for the sake of the climate,” Habeck said.
The tumultuous situation with energy prices around the world has hit Germany hard. The availability of Russian energy carriers on the global market was put into jeopardy following the launch of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine and the retaliatory sanctions from the West.
Energy prices propelled annual inflation in Europe’s largest economy to 7.9% in May, its highest level in nearly 50 years. Energy prices in the country rose 38.3% year-on-year last month, while food prices posted an 11.1% leap, data from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) shows. As a result, nearly half of German citizens have been forced to change their lifestyle and cut back on spending, media reports, citing polls. According to a study conducted for Bild newspaper by INSA this week, every sixth German citizen does not eat regularly due to the rise in prices, and another 13% are considering the possibility of saving on food.
One in Six Germans Forced to Skip Meals Thanks to Food Price Crunch: Survey
Samizdat – 11.06.2022
Europeans face a perfect storm of soaring inflation, self-inflicted energy price shocks caused by sanctions on Russia, and fears of a looming recession. In Germany, the region’s traditional economic and industrial powerhouse, ordinary people have taken a hit to their wallets, while businesses have warned of large-scale losses and layoffs.
Nearly one in six Germans (16 percent) have been forced to go without regular meals to make ends meet, and another 13 percent may face a similar situation if food prices continue to rise, a new survey by the Institute for New Social Answers (INSA) for Germany’s Bild newspaper has found.
According to the survey, people from low-income households whose income after taxes is less than 1,000 euros per month have been the most heavily affected, with 32 percent of respondents forced to skip meals regularly.
42 percent of those polled also indicated that they are forced to cook more sparingly due to inflation, leaving out certain ingredients in meals, or dessert. Another 41 percent said they rely on supermarket special offers and discounts to stretch their euros as far as possible.
INSA’s study was conducted on 7 June, with a representative sample of 1,002 people queried.
Adolf Bauer, president of the German Association for Social Affairs, told Bild he was “greatly worried” by the survey’s results, saying it was a “clear sign that the measures taken by the federal government to date are not sufficient.” Bauer had previously warned Berlin not to introduce an energy embargo on Russia, saying it would add to suffering among ordinary people caused by out of control energy, food and rent prices.
Verena Bentele, president of the Social Association of Germany, a major Berlin-headquartered socio-political advocacy organization, echoed Bauer’s concerns, saying the figures show that people are “suffering greatly from the increased prices.”
“Members tell us they can only afford pasta and toast. We urgently need the VAT on fresh foods to be abolished and financial relief for those who have so far received nothing from the government’s energy price flat-rate,” Bentele urged.
Germans and other Europeans have faced out of control inflationary and price pressures in recent months, with Handelsblatt reporting double-digit growth on some food items in April. Last month, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten reported that EU sanctions on fertilizer imports from Russia and Belarus would result in losses of up to 3 million tonnes of harvest in the current year. Europe relied on the two countries for some 4.6 million tonnes of its 13 million tonnes-worth of fertilizer consumption last year, while local production efforts have been hampered by the large amount of energy required to produce them.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has lamented at the European Union’s decision to commit “economic suicide” by depriving itself of cheap and reliable Russian energy supplies, and expressed sympathy for ordinary Europeans and Americans suffering as a result of their leaders’ decision-making. “The truth is that the current problems that millions of people in the West face are the result of many actions by the ruling elites of their states, their mistakes, myopia and ambitions. These elites are not thinking about how to improve the lives of their citizens. They are obsessed with their own selfish interests and surplus profits,” he suggested at a briefing in March.