Treating Coronavirus Shots Injury
By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | July 19, 2022
Throughout the coronavirus panic, the word from national, state, and local governments, and the big money media, was nearly uniformly that people who had coronavirus should stay isolated at home and then go to the hospital if their condition became dire, such as they could hardly breathe. The message was that there was nothing these individuals could do in the meantime to counter the sickness. They could just wait and see.
When some new, expensive, and experimental pharmaceuticals rushed to market with scanty evaluation ultimately became available, the message changed some. Early treatment suddenly was promoted, but only using these new drugs.
All the while, some doctors willing to stand up to the pressure to conform did what doctors have long done to help patients. They took inexpensive drugs, vitamins, and therapies already long in use and employed them in innovative ways to provide patients with early treatment.
To do the right thing, these doctors risked being fired by employers and having their medical licenses revoked. And governments even threw up hurdles before these doctors’ patients in an effort to stop them from obtain drugs such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Meanwhile, big money media blared these drugs were dangerous despite the fact that decades of use had shown them to be relatively safe drugs and less risky than the new and experimental coronavirus “vaccines” and early treatment drugs the media pushed.
Fortunately, some patients found the renegade doctors and obtained relief early, thus countering sickness and avoiding hospitalization.
Since the experimental coronavirus “vaccine” shots came out, politicians and the big money media have been promoting them, and even booster shot upon booster shot as “safe and effective.” But, it has become increasingly obvious that the shots are neither.
The shots do not stop the shot takers from becoming sick from coronavirus, transmitting coronavirus to other people, or dying from coronavirus.
One thing the shots do cause is dangerous side effects. Governments and the big money media have, in their devotion to rejecting any criticism of the purported miracle vaccines, kept mum about the idea that people harmed by the shots should seek treatment. But, fortunately, some brave doctors are doing their best to repurpose drugs, vitamins, and therapies to help people injured by the shots.
This effort to help shots victims is similar to the early treatment efforts doctors took for people with coronavirus when the overriding public message was to just stay isolated at home until you are so sick you have to go to the hospital. They are doctors choosing to act as doctors even though there is incredible pressure against doing so.
Not surprisingly, some of the doctors who have taken the brave step to help people harmed by the coronavirus shots are the same doctors who helped coronavirus patients who the politicians and big money media had declared should not be helped or, later, should only be given the new experimental drugs. For example, the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) has added to its protocols a post-vaccine treatment protocol alongside its early covid treatment protocol and a link for helping people find doctors who follow the protocols. It is refreshing to see doctors, associated with FLCCC and otherwise, refuse to give in to the pressure to just let people suffer from first coronavirus and then the coronavirus shots.
Copyright © 2022 by RonPaul Institute.
Independent SAGE’s Dumb “Seven-Point” Covid Plan
By Igor Chudov | July 19, 2022
Many of my readers had one Covid a long time ago, or never had Covid, are not having another Covid so far, and may not realize how badly are things going in Covid-land in Europe and highly vaccinated areas of USA.
More than one out of 15 Brits is having COVID today (Jul 19, 2022). This is higher than ever before. An “unexpected” largest-ever wave of a yet-another variant Ba.5 is reinfecting highly-vaccinated countries one more time. Hospitals are strained, because sick, force-injected health care workers are staying home due to their Covid reinfections, and patients are hospitalized at record rates. Excess mortality is rising.
People are, naturally, becoming worried as they or their relatives have two-week-long bouts of Covid reinfections that do not feel mild to them and leave them exhausted. My own opinion is that we are on the verge of significant increases in overall mortality. I am quite worried about that.
Rumblings of discontent are appearing. The powers-to-be are wondering what to do.
So, the so-called “Independent SAGE” just came up with a “seven-point plan” to combat COVID. The plan is so spectacularly stupid that it reads like a parody. Here it is, from the British Medical Journal no less.
This plan is the product of supposedly the “best Covid minds”, the leading thinkers of UK science, whose recommendations influence UK policy. What did these minds produce? Let’s look.
They are proposing to do more of same!
The “clear and consistent messaging” is a theme of the pandemic, it relates to a bad idea that all officials should parrot one line during a so-called “emergency”, to avoid confusing the public. The result of this policy was a lack of independent thinking, as well as censorship of any dissenting voices, that led to groupthink. What message, pray tell, should such “clear and consistent messaging” convey? The seven-point plan?
The efforts to promote “vaccine uptake” are particularly laughable in July of 2022. Here’s how vaccine uptake looks in the UK:
Of special interest is a need to have a “clear long-term plan to address waning immunity and immune escape”. What they are saying is that they do not have such a plan. They merely want to have a plan, which they do not have, as of now.
The concept of “air filtration” refers to a sincerely expressed, but misguided idea that retrofitting buildings with “air filtration devices” will stop the pandemic. While I personally like almost all people who advocate it, I also recognize that it is largely futile, for many reasons having to do with physics and gas dynamics.
Air filtration that could effectively capture airborne virions, would need to turn over enormous volumes of air every minute, through the finest filters, continuously. This is not compatible with existing buildings’ HVAC systems. It would also cost a fortune in electric bills and create a lot of heat. I do not want to get into this discussion too much, but “air filtration” of that kind is not possible in most establishments or homes.
The “FFP3 masks” are obvious non-starters because of difficulties wearing them. Making the public wear such masks in 2022 is impossible.
The worst part of this proposal is the so-called “equitable global provision of vaccines”. This is a code word for bribing governments of poor countries into forcing their citizens to take “vaccines” that these wise but poor people refuse to take voluntarily. The countries with unvaccinated majorities are the future of humanity, in my opinion. They are largely at herd immunity precisely because they refused to vaccinate. Yet, Independent SAGE wants to inject them with non-working “vaccines” in the name of “equity”. Why?
The crazy “Independent SAGE” advisers are anything but sage, are actually stupid, and I am very sorry that they have been UK’s thought leaders since 2020.
Here’s a clip from “Idiocracy”. While it is funny, it shows President Camacho actually solving his country’s problem of dying plants, with his three-point plan of hiring the smartest person in the world named Not Sure. Not Sure figured out the problem and proceeded to stop using Brawndo to water plants.
Brawndo’, which owned the FDA, went bankrupt. The plants started growing, given clean water. Any parallels with the present?
P.S. Please do not think that I am badmouthing the UK by criticizing British Covid experts: Covid experts in the USA are so much worse and could not even come up with a “seven-point plan”. So there is no “USA Covid plan” that I could criticize.
The war ‘diplomat’: How the West lost the ‘global battle of narratives’
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | July 20, 2022
In a blog entry, reflecting on the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Bali, Indonesia, on 7-8 July, the High Representative of the European Union, Josep Borrell, seems to have accepted the painful truth that the West is losing what he termed “the global battle of narratives”.
“The global battle of narratives is in full swing and, for now, we are not winning,” Borrell admitted. The solution: “As the EU, we have to engage further to refute Russian lies and war propaganda,” the EU’s top diplomat added.
Borrell’s piece is a testimony to the very erroneous logic that led to the so-called ‘battle of narratives’ to be lost in the first place.
Borrell starts by reassuring his readers that, despite the fact that many countries in the Global South refuse to join the West’s sanctions on Russia, “everybody agrees”, though in “abstract terms”, on the “need for multilateralism and defending principles such as territorial sovereignty”.
The immediate impression that such a statement gives is that the West is the global vanguard of multilateralism and territorial sovereignty. The opposite is true. The US-western military interventions in Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and many other regions around the world have largely taken place without international consent and without any regard for the sovereignty of nations. In the case of the NATO war on Libya, a massively destructive military campaign was initiated based on the intentional misinterpretation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1973, which called for the use of “all means necessary to protect civilians”.
Borrell, like other western diplomats, conveniently omits the West’s repeated – and ongoing – interventions in the affairs of other nations, while painting the Russian-Ukraine war as the starkest example of “blatant violations of international law, contravening the basic tenets of the UN Charter and endangering the global economic recovery”.
Would Borrell employ such strong language to depict the numerous ongoing war crimes in parts of the world involving European countries or their allies? For example, France’s despicable war record in Mali? Or, even more obvious, the 75-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestine?
When addressing “food and energy security”, Borrell lamented that many in the G20 have bought into the “propaganda and lies coming from the Kremlin” regarding the actual cause of the food crisis. He concluded that it is not the EU but “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine that is dramatically aggravating the food crisis.”
Again, Borrell was selective with his logic. While naturally, a war between two countries that contribute a large share of the world’s basic food supplies will detrimentally impact food security, Borrell made no mention that the thousands of sanctions imposed by the West on Moscow have disrupted the supply chain of many critical products, raw material and basic food items.
When the West imposed those sanctions, it only thought of its national interests, erroneously centered around defeating Russia. Neither the people of Sri Lanka, Somalia, Lebanon, nor, frankly, Ukraine were relevant factors in the West’s decision.
Borrell, whose job as a diplomat suggests that he should be investing in diplomacy to resolve conflicts, has repeatedly called for widening the scope of the war on Russia, insisting that the war can only be “won on the battlefield”. Such statements were made with western interests in mind, despite the obvious devastating consequences that Borrell’s battlefield would have on the rest of the world.
Still, Borrell had the audacity to chastise G20 members for behaving in ways that seemed, to him, focused solely on their national interests. “The hard truth is that national interests often outweigh general commitments to bigger ideals,” he wrote. If defeating Russia is central to Borrell’s and the EU’s “bigger ideals”, why should the rest of the world, especially in the Global South, embrace the West’s self-serving priorities?
Borrell also needs to be reminded that the West’s “global battle of narratives” had been lost well before 24 February. Much of the Global South rightly sees the West’s interests at odds with its own. This seemingly cynical view is an outcome of decades – in fact, hundreds of years – of real experiences, starting with colonialism and ending, presently, with the routine military and political interventions.
Borrell speaks of ‘bigger ideals’, as if the West is the only morally mature entity that is capable of thinking about rights and wrongs in a selfless, detached manner. In addition to there being no evidence to support Borrell’s claim, such condescending language, itself an expression of cultural arrogance, makes it impossible for non-western countries to accept, or even engage, with the West regarding the morality of its politics.
Borrell, for example, accuses Russia of a “deliberate attempt to use food as a weapon against the most vulnerable countries in the world, especially in Africa”. Even if we accept this problematic premise as a morally driven position, how can Borrell justify the West’s sanctions that have effectively starved many people in “vulnerable countries” around the world?
Perhaps, Afghans are the most vulnerable people in the world today, thanks to 20 years of a devastating US/NATO war which has killed and maimed tens of thousands. Though the US and its western allies were forced out of Afghanistan last August, billions of dollars of Afghan money are illegally frozen in Western bank accounts, pushing the whole country to the brink of starvation. Why can Borrell not apply his ‘bigger ideals’ in this particular scenario, demanding immediate unfreezing of Afghan money?
In truth, Borrell, the EU, NATO and the West are not only losing the global battle of narratives, they never won it in the first place. Winning or losing that battle never mattered to Western leaders in the past, because the Global South was hardly considered when the West made its unilateral decisions regarding war, military invasions or economic sanctions.
The Global South matters now, simply because the West is no longer determining all political outcomes, as was often the case. Russia, China, India and others are now relevant, because they can collectively balance out the skewed global order that has been dominated by Borrell and his likes for far too long.
US Threatens Lebanon: Accept Israel’s Conditions or You Won’t Be Able to Extract Maritime Gas for Decades
Al-Manar | July 20, 2022
Caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdallah Bou Habib met on Wednesday with head of the American Task Force For Lebanon Edward Gabriel heading a delegation.
After the meeting, Gabriel addressed the reporters, conveying an American threat to Lebanon.
Gabriel considered that Lebanon has a small chance to extract its maritime gas resources by concluding a settlement after engaging in negotiations.
Otherwise, Lebanon would not be able to extract its maritime gas for decades, Gabriel added.
It is worth noting that Lebanon has insisted on obtaining its entire maritime rights preserved by a fair and legal border demarcation. However, the Zionist enemy has stubbornly rejected Lebanon’s demands.
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah warned the Israeli enemy and the United States that if Lebanon is prevented from extracting its maritime resources, none will be able to extract or sell gas and oil.
In a televised speech, Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that Hezbollah military forces are monitoring all the Zionist platforms across the occupied Palestinian coast, adding that the Resistance may resort to ground, maritime or air capabilities in order to attack the enemy and secure Lebanon’s rights.
According to Sayyed Nasrallah, the new equation is Karish, what’s beyond Karish and what’s far beyond Karish.
Thus, Hezbollah military power has been writing the long story of Lebanon’s pride of victory that protects the nations and secures its all-leveled prosperity.
Ukraine’s Naftogaz Reportedly Requests $5Bln in Government Subsidies to Buy Gas Ahead of Winter
Samizdat – 20.07.2022
Ukraine’s state-run oil and gas company Naftogaz has requested 150 billion Ukrainian hryvnias ($5 billion) in subsidies from the government to purchase enough gas ahead of the heating season, the RBC Ukraine news agency reported on Wednesday, citing the firm’s letter to the government.
Naftogaz had to request budgetary help since raising such massive funds otherwise is neither possible domestically nor internationally, the company wrote in the letter to the cabinet, according to the report.
“In such conditions, the state budget is the only possible source of financing the purchase of imported natural gas… The most favorable option is to increase the authorized capital of Naftogaz of Ukraine,” the letter read, according to the report.
The company suggested increasing its authorized share capital by 150 billion Ukrainian hryvnias, the report said.
On July 12, Naftogaz asked the holders of its Eurobonds to defer interest payments for two years but was not granted such concession, thereby exposing the company to the risk of default.
Ukraine’s former housing and communal services minister, Oleksiy Kucherenko, has accused Naftogaz of forging its profit results in 2021, saying that the breach now has to be patched with 264 billion hryvnias from the budget. The ex-official also noted that Ukraine’s budget is running low, so Kiev may have to request assistance from the United States.
Let the people pay: EU leaders make their citizens suffer the fallout from their failed Russia policy
Samizdat | July 20, 2022
In a Bastille Day interview, French President Emmanuel Macron told citizens to “prepare ourselves for a scenario where we have to do without Russian gas entirely.” At the same time, Macron accused Moscow of using the fuel as a “weapon of war,” echoing the spin emanating from a European Union leadership that obscures the real reason the bloc is facing an energy shortage that’s driving up the cost of living.
This crisis is entirely self-inflicted.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen accused Russia of energy “blackmail” at the end of April, citing the state-owned Gazprom’s announcement of a halt in gas deliveries to Poland and Bulgaria for failing to pay for in rubles. What von der Leyen – and now Macron – conveniently omitted was that it was the EU’s own anti-Russian sanctions, adopted in a knee-jerk and ideologically-driven fashion at the outset of the Ukraine conflict, that represent the root cause of these disruptions.
The West quickly adopted a strategy of targeting and sanctioning various aspects of the Russian financial system, including banks and foreign reserves, cutting it off from the SWIFT global transaction system – and then had the gall to complain that Moscow was asking for payment for its gas exports in its own currency to mitigate the hassle of navigating a system from which it was effectively blocked. “Export your gas but good luck trying to get paid,” is hardly a reasonable expectation.
It wasn’t Russian President Vladimir Putin who called on the EU to cut off Russian gas. Rather, it was his Ukrainian counterpart Vladimir Zelensky, who has constantly pushed for ever more Western sanctions on Russian fossil fuels. And the West has only been to happy to recklessly indulge him to the detriment of their own citizens.
Earlier this month, Zelensky even admonished Canada for agreeing to return repaired turbines for reintegration into the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline that provides gas to Germany, and demanded that Ottawa reverse its decision. Canada had earlier faced the dilemma of violating the West’s own anti-Russian sanctions by virtue of even returning the critical parts – even though the pipeline is so vital to EU industry that the bloc’s leaders have even been freaking out about its scheduled maintenance shutdown.
Why would you be so worried about Russia failing to turn the tap back on when you’ve been saying repeatedly that you’ll gladly do without it “for Ukraine.”
But even in defending the return of the turbines, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cited the same ridiculous Western establishment propaganda of Russia’s “weaponization” of gas, when in reality it’s the West’s own sanctions that have wreaked energy havoc and caused all this drama.
“We have seen Russia consistently trying to weaponize energy as a way of creating division amongst the allies,” Trudeau said. So if Canada doesn’t violate its own sanctions and return the turbines to Germany, then Putin wins. The Olympic level rhetorical gymnastics required by Western leaders to justify violating their own failed sanctions are second only to their recent defense of firing up coal plants again, and redefining fossil fuel energy as “green,” amid the current shortages.
EU leaders are calling for an end to Russian energy imports, citing their decision to sanction their own gas supply as a reason to expedite a transition to unproven renewables. But rather than take responsibility for the fact that they set fire to their sails and are now stranded in the middle of the ocean while awaiting the manifestation of their renewable energy transition fantasy, they’re blaming Russia for their own shortsightedness and trying to spin it as a withholding of energy orchestrated by Moscow.
Russia is only too happy to sell its fuel to whomever wants to buy it. And if the EU sanctions were lifted, the Western energy crisis would end. But that would mean admitting to a failed policy. So, instead, we’re being told that it’s all Putin’s fault, but also that the best way to stick it to Vladimir Putin is to take short, cold showers and to reduce “night lighting,” as Macron has recently suggested.
Western leaders aren’t just taking their citizens for credulous fools with their ridiculous propaganda as cover for their own failures, but they’re treating the livelihood of the average person as collateral economic damage in their hopeless bid to isolate Russia. They’ve convinced themselves, from their ideologically-isolated elite bubble, that they represent the entire world. But they’re mostly just fooling themselves.
Even the EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, admitted to a rude awakening recently at the G20 summit. “The G7 and like-minded countries are united in condemning and sanctioning Russia and in trying to hold the regime accountable,” Borrell said in a statement on the EU’s website. “But other countries, and we can speak here of the majority of the ‘Global South’, often take a different perspective.”
But then Borrell gave away the game. “The global battle of narratives is in full swing and, for now, we are not winning,” he said. “As the EU, we have to engage further to refute Russian lies and war propaganda.” But who’s really peddling the propaganda? On one hand, the EU has been trying to portray the impact of their own irresponsible and devastating sanctions on their own economies and citizens as Putin’s doing even as they try to convince Westerners that their suffering is some kind of a war effort that’s doing harm to Russia.
However, in reality, Russia can pivot to the rest of the entire world and simply leave West Europeans to wallow in their own costly delusions. They may be about to find out whether moral superiority and virtue-signaling will heat the house or feed the kids this winter.
Russia teaches Europe ABCs of gas trade
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JULY 20, 2022
The unthinkable is happening for the second time in five months: Russian gas giant Gazprom writes to German gas companies announcing force majeure effective from June 14, exonerating it from any compensation for shortfalls since then.
The first time shock and awe appeared in German-Russian relations this year was on February 22 when Chancellor Olaf Shloz surprised even hardened political observers by freezing approval process for the newly-constructed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The $11 billion pipeline beneath the Baltic Sea would have doubled the volume of gas sent directly from Russia to Germany, but Scholz instead blocked its commissioning. Those were halcyon days when Berlin talked of “defeating” Russia.
Scholz’s move was in reaction to Moscow’s decision on February 21 to recognise two breakaway regions of Ukraine as independent republics. Russia hawks in Germany applauded his decision. Acclaim came pouring in. Jana Puglierin, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, praised Scholz, saying he was “raising the bar for all other EU countries… this is real leadership at a crucial moment.”
However, in Moscow, which has a thorough understanding of the German energy market, Scholz’s move was seen as an act of deliberate self-harm. Moscow reacted with a flash of sardonic humour. Dmitry Medvedev, former president and deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, tweeted, “Welcome to the brave new world where Europeans will soon be paying €2,000 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas!”
He was alluding to the grim reality that gas accounted for a quarter of Germany’s energy mix, and more than half of it came from Russia. Indeed, it was plain to see that Germany’s reliance on gas could only rise having decided to shelve nuclear power in the aftermath of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan and committed to phasing out coal-fired power by 2030.
But Scholz insisted that Germany would expand solar and wind power capacity “so we can produce steel, cement and chemicals without using fossil fuels.” His confidence actually stemmed from the fact that Germany had a long-term contract with Russia to supply gas at a friendly price via Nord Stream 1.
The first indication that something was going horribly wrong was when the influential Russian daily Izvestia wrote on July 11 quoting industry experts in Moscow that the scheduled routine stoppage of NS1 for annual servicing and repairs from July 11-21 might continue due to Canada holding back, under sanctions against Russia, the turbine that had gone for repair.
The daily went on to forecast that Gazprom might announce force majeure because of western sanctions, as Siemens twice already failed to return equipment to Gazprom after repairs in Canada, which resulted in a reduction in the gas flow from the planned 167 million cubic meters.m to 67 million cubic meters.m per day.
Izvestia noted that the situation would lead to a spike in spot market price for LNG upward of $2,000 per 1,000 cubic meters — perhaps, “even more — up to $ 3,500” — from the July 8 price level of $1800.
Acting on an urgent request from Berlin and recommendation for Washington for waiver of sanctions, Canada since agreed, but, according to Izvestia, even after Siemens returns the turbines to Gazprom, “there will be a long period of testing the turbines to find out how correctly they were repaired. No one wants to install turbines that are at risk of failure after being repaired in an unfriendly country. So the real time for launching turbines and returning SP-1 (NS1) to its design capacity is two to three months.”
That is, gas may flow through NS1 earliest only by September/October. Even then, Gazprom may not be able to utilise more than 60 percent of its capacity, since overhauls are overdue for two more turbines.
Therefore, the experts told Izvestia that problems with gas shortages in the European Union would persist for the next few winters and authorities may have to “limit the supply of hot water, dim street lights, close swimming pools and turn off energy-consuming equipment” and, furthermore, instead of green energy, switch to coal.
Kommersant newspaper reported today that while classic force majeure events could be natural disasters, fires, etc., in the case of Gazprom, “we are talking about a technical malfunction of equipment,” which may lead to litigation — and, “what will be decisive will be whether Gazprom’s actions to cut gas supplies were proportionate to the real scale of the technical problems.”
Evidently, Gazprom is well-prepared. Germans suspect that Gazprom’s alibi of non-delivery of gas turbines from Canada, et al, is bogus. And Kommersant foresees a “lengthy trial.” Now, the catch is, in the long run, we are all dead.
For Germany, however, this is a grave situation, as many industries may have to shut down, and there could be serious social unrest. Germans are convinced that Moscow is resorting to the “nuclear option.” The big question is whether Germany’s solidarity with Ukraine will survive a cold winter.
Scholz’s confidence was predicated on the belief that Russia desperately needed the income from gas exports. But then, Moscow is today generating more income from less exports. Arguably, Russia’s best strategy today would be to reduce gas deliveries without ending them altogether, as even if Russia sells only a third of the gas it sold previously, its revenues do not get affected, since the shortage of LNG globally has exponentially spiked the market price. It’s a fair bet that’s what Gazprom would do.
Putin once disclosed that under the long-term contracts, Russia sold gas to Germany at ridiculously low price — $280 per thousand cubic meters — and Germany was even reselling Russian gas to other customers for a tidy profit!
Where it hurts Germany most is that this is not only about freezing homes, but the implosion of its entire economic model that is over-reliant on industrial exports, thanks to imports of cheap fossil fuels from Russia. German industry is responsible for 36 percent of its gas use.
Germany behaved in an unprincipled way on all aspects of the Ukraine crisis. It pretended to support Zelensky but shied away from giving military support, triggering a nasty diplomatic spat between Kiev and Berlin. On the other hand, when Moscow introduced the new payment scheme for gas exports, making it mandatory to pay in rubles, Germany was the first country to fall in line, knowing well that the new regime undercut EU sanctions.
Thus, Moscow insists that German gas buyers keep euro and dollar accounts at Gazprombank (which is not subject to EU sanctions) and convert the currencies into rubles, since the Russian central bank is subject to western sanctions and can no longer transact in foreign exchange markets!
Russians have made monkeys out of Europeans. Clearly, it is impossible to sanction a country that is sitting on valuable commodities. Russia is the world’s second largest exporter of oil, the largest exporter of gas, and the largest exporter of wheat and fertilisers — plus the range of rare earth metals like palladium.
Both Boeing and Airbus have complained of risks in their supply chain. Airbus imports large quantities of titanium where about 65 percent of the supply of the metal comes from Russia. It has publicly requested the EU not to impose restrictions on the material, which is used to manufacture critical components of aircraft.
Thus, it comes as no surprise that the EU is slowing down the pace of sanctions against Russia. The bureaucrats in Brussels have exhausted the potential for increasing sanctions and the political elites admit that the sanctions were a mistake.
The consequences for European economies are already extremely serious. The rising energy prices are fuelling inflation in all EU countries. According to forecasts, in France inflation will reach 7% this year; in Germany – 8.5-9%; and in Italy – 10%. And this is just the beginning. Most countries will also face a serious drop in GDP next year — from 2 to 4 percent.
Iran deal can survive if US opts for own interests rather than Israel’s: Foreign Ministry
Press TV – July 20, 2022
Tehran says multilateral negotiations to revive the 2015 Iran deal will be fruitful if the United States looks at the issue through the lens of its own national interests rather than those of the Israeli regime.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani told a press conference on Wednesday that the US seems to be weak when it comes to making “an independent political decision” about whether it is willing to return to the deal, four years after it unilaterally walked away.
“If the US administration [of Joe Biden] looks at this issue through the lens of American national interests and not through the lens of the interests of the occupying Zionist regime, the ground will be paved for an agreement in the near future,” Kan’ani said.
More than a year of negotiations – first in Vienna and now in Doha – have not yet led to an agreement on what steps each side needs to take in order to restore the ailing accord, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The US withdrew from the JCPOA back in 2018 as it unleashed a “maximum pressure” campaign targeting the Iranian economy, despite Tehran’s strict compliance with the terms of the accord.
The Vienna talks, which began in April last year, hit a deadlock in March owing to Washington’s insistence on retaining parts of its sanctions against Iran. The Doha talks, however, have led to different interpretations by the parties to the talks.
“Contrary to the claim of the American side that the Doha negotiations were a failure, they opened up a path for the continuation of talks between the different parties of the nuclear agreement,” Kan’ani said, assessing the negotiations as “good.”
He explained that there is no major obstacle to concluding an agreement, except that the American side has to make a serious political decision.
“On the one hand, the US administration expresses its desire to return to the agreement, and on the other hand, it does not want to pay the costs of returning to the agreement,” the Iranian spokesman added.
‘US, Israel failed to form anti-Iran coalition’
In his Wednesday press conference, Kan’ani also pointed to Biden’s recent trip to the region with the agenda of forming an anti-Iran coalition among other objectives, saying both the US and the Israeli regime failed to achieve that goal.
“The Zionist regime attempted to form a regional coalition during that trip to put pressure on Iran,” he said. “In this effort, this regime has failed and the American government has not succeeded either.”
Biden arrived in the Israeli-occupied territories last Wednesday, kicking off a much-anticipated four-day trip to the region. The regional tour also took the US president to Saudi Arabia, the country he once pledged to make “the pariah that they are.”
Since 2020, the US has brokered normalization agreements under the so-called Abraham Accords between the Israeli regime and some Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan – with Saudi Arabia expected to be the next.
In Saudi Arabia, Biden attended a summit of the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, plus Egypt, Jordan, and Iraq – also known as GCC+3. The summit, which was ostensibly aimed to build an anti-Iran front, failed to garner much support.
A day before the summit, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi stressed that Iraq will not be part of any camp or military alliance, and “will not be a base for threatening any neighboring countries.”
The UAE, a close ally of both Saudi Arabia and the US, also dismissed the idea of forming a NATO-like military alliance in the region.
“We are open to cooperation, but not cooperation targeting any other country in the region and I specifically mention Iran,” Anwar Gargash, the UAE president’s diplomatic adviser, said.
“The UAE is not going to be a party to any group of countries that sees confrontation as a direction,” Gargash added.
After the summit, Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan claimed that his country extends a hand of friendship toward Iran.
He also expressed the kingdom’s willingness to reestablish normal relations with the Islamic Republic.
“The messages we received from Arab officials in the region, both directly and indirectly, show that fortunately, the countries of the region are not ready to act against Iran [and in line with] America’s regional policies,” Kan’ani said.
He then added that conditions are now ripe for Iran to organize and host talks to deepen regional cooperation.
He also urged the US to stop meddling in the internal affairs of regional countries, halt its plots of forming fictitious alliances, and refrain from imposing American values on the region.
Regional countries naturally have common interests and views, he said, adding, “They are capable of creating the best conditions for stability and security in the region in the light of regional meetings.”
US and UK want ‘real war’ between Russia and EU – Lavrov
Samizdat | July 20, 2022
The US and UK want to escalate the Russia-Ukraine conflict into a larger confrontation between Moscow and members of the European Union, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday in an interview with RT and Sputnik.
“Our American counterparts, British counterparts… with active support from Germans, the Polish and the Baltic states, they really want to turn this war into a real war and start a confrontation between Russia and European states,” Lavrov told RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan.
The Western governments are “keeping Ukraine from any constructive steps” towards a peace settlement, Lavrov argued. “[Ukraine is] not just [being] pumped with weapons. They are forced to use these weapons in an increasingly riskier way.”
Russia launched its military operation in the neighboring country in late February. Many countries, including NATO members, imposed sweeping sanctions on Moscow and have been supplying Kiev with heavy weapons. The latest deliveries include US-made M142 HIMARS multiple rocket launchers and M777 howitzers.
Lavrov claimed that the US and Britain were acting to their own advantage in the conflict between Russia and the EU because the economies of the bloc’s members are bearing the brunt of the sanctions. He added that the US has been acting “irresponsibly” by stoking tensions with Russia.
They are playing a very dangerous game. I don’t think they understand it themselves. But then, in Europe, a lot of people are starting to understand that.
US President Joe Biden said last week that Russia must suffer “a strategic failure” in Ukraine and vowed more support for Kiev.
Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”
In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.