Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Facebook reported ‘anti-authority’ users to FBI

Samizdat – September 16, 2022

Facebook has been reporting users to the FBI’s domestic terrorism unit for nothing more than anti-authority sentiment, the New York Post reported on Wednesday, citing Justice Department (DOJ) sources.

“Facebook provides the FBI with private conversations which are protected by the First Amendment without any subpoena,” the sources claimed, explaining this is done “outside the legal process and without probable cause.”

Merely expressing concern about the legitimacy of the 2020 US election results was enough to get users flagged, they said.

Excerpts from those messages, often highlighting the “most egregious-sounding comments out of context,” were offered to nearby FBI field offices as “leads.”

Upon receiving them, the local offices could request subpoenas from their partner US attorney’s office in order to legally obtain the private messages they had already been shown by Facebook outside the legal process, the Post’s sources claimed.

None of the subsequent FBI investigations turned up any criminal or violent activity, the sources said.

“It was a waste of our time,” one source complained, describing a “frenzy” of subpoena requests and other activity over the last 19 months aimed at backing up the claims made by the administration of President Joe Biden about the threat posed by domestic terrorism in the aftermath of the January 6 Capitol riot.

The users targeted by Facebook for this kind of surveillance were all “gun-toting, red-blooded Americans who were angry after the election and shooting off their mouths and talking about staging protests,” the source said, adding there was “nothing criminal, nothing about violence or massacring or assassinating anyone.”

Facebook initially called the DOJ sources’ claims “false” before releasing a second statement to the Post an hour later characterizing them as “wrong,” insisting the company’s relationship with the FBI was “designed to protect people from harm” rather than to “proactively supply” law enforcement with the names of users expressing anti-government sentiment.

“We carefully scrutinize all government requests for user information to make sure they’re legally valid and narrowly tailored and we often push back,” Erica Sackin, a spokesperson for parent company Meta, said in the statement.

The FBI admitted it receives information “with investigative value” from social media providers and that it “maintains an ongoing dialogue to enable a quick exchange of threat information,” but would neither confirm nor deny the specific allegations made by the DOJ whistleblowers.

September 17, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Senators use hearing to criticize Big Tech for not censoring enough “disinformation”

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | September 16, 2022

The Senate Homeland Security Committee questioned executives from social media companies about allowing “disinformation” to go viral.

Watch the hearing here.

Former executives from these companies appeared during the hearings and accused their former employers of allowing misinformation to spread because it has more user engagement.

Committee chair Senator Gary Peters (a Democrat from Michigan) told Twitter, Meta, YouTube, and TikTok that by pushing “the most engaging posts to more users, they end up amplifying extremist, dangerous, and radicalizing content. This includes QAnon, Stop the Steal, and other conspiracy theories, as well as white supremacist and anti-Semitic rhetoric.”

Last September, a former Facebook employee, turned 🛡“whistleblower,” claimed that the company allows “disinformation” to spread to boost growth and called for more censorship.

During the hearing, former head engineer at Twitter, Alex Roetter, said that social media companies do not want to rein in disinformation because it is profitable.

“Regulators must understand these companies’ incentives, culture, and internal processes to fully appreciate how resistant they will be to changing the status quo that has been so lucrative for them,” he said.

Roetter went on to say that Twitter uses an experimental system to test how to get the most engagement from users.

“This system logs a slew of data for every live experiment,” he said. “Teams use this data to show per-experiment effects on various user and revenue metrics. Noticeably absent were any values tracking impacts on trust and safety metrics.”

Former vice president for product engineering, marketing, strategic operations, and analytics at Facebook, Brian Boland, testified about his former employer prioritizing user engagement. He said that Facebook acquired CrowdTangle, a company that provided “industry-leading transparency” into the platform’s newsfeed content. The company showed that Facebook was amplifying political and racial divisions in 2020. According to Boland, Meta “attempted to delegitimize the CrowdTangle-generated data.”

“What finally convinced me that it was time to leave was that despite growing evidence that the newsfeed may be causing harm globally, the focus on and investments in safety remained small and siloed,” Boland said. “Rather than address the serious issues raised by its own research, Meta leadership chooses growing the company over keeping more people safe.”

Boland also noted that Facebook disbanded its Responsible Innovation team last week. He added that social media companies should be regulated because their algorithms will only get better at targeting vulnerable users.

September 17, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

US impeded independent research into Covid origins – Lancet

Samizdat – September 15, 2022

The US has prevented independent research into the origins of the Covid-19 virus, a report by the Lancet Commission has asserted.

Washington barred the researchers from accessing relevant laboratories and refused to disclose full information on American studies of the virus, the document, published in the British medical journal on Wednesday, outlined.

“Independent researchers have not yet investigated the US laboratories engaged in the laboratory manipulation of SARS-CoV-like viruses,” the report said while discussing the potential origins of the Covid-19 infection. Nor had they gained access to the research conducted at the Wuhan laboratory, which has been considered a possible place where the disease might have originated, the document added.

The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) also “resisted disclosing the details” of the research conducted in America on SARS-CoV-related viruses, which the US government agency has been supporting, according to the report. Eventually, only an “extensively redacted” version of the relevant data was provided, the document said, adding that it contains only as much information that was required by the Freedom of Information act lawsuits.

The lack of the needed data on the virus origins still prevents the researchers from determining the origin of the virus, the paper admits, adding that virtually any hypothesis in this field remains plausible. In particular, it said that “two main possible pathways” of its emergence should still be considered: a natural spillover event, in which a person contracted it from an animal, and a “research-related” incident.

The second pathway particularly suggests that a researcher could have become “infected in the field or in the laboratory with a natural virus, or … in the laboratory with a genetically manipulated virus,” the document said.

“The search for the origins of the virus requires unbiased, independent, transparent, and rigorous work … supported by all governments,” the report noted. Washington has so far not commented on the Lancet Commission findings.

The exact origins of the Covid-19 virus have yet to be conclusively proven. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated in February 2021 that it was most likely transmitted from an animal, possibly a bat, to humans.

Earlier in September, an Israeli study concluded that bats are likely not to blame for the Covid-19 pandemic since there is no compelling evidence proving a link between bats and the disease outbreak.

September 17, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Illegal Collusion Between Government and Big Tech Exposed

By Dr. Joseph Mercola | September 15, 2022

In a September 1, 2022, article,1 the Post Millennial reveals how federal officials in the Biden administration have held secret censorship meetings with social media companies to suppress Americans’ First Amendment rights to free speech, and to ban or deplatform those who share unauthorized views about COVID and vaccines.

The evidence for this comes out of a lawsuit2 brought by the New Civil Liberties Alliance and the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana (Eric Schmitt and Jeff Landry) against President Biden, filed in May 2022.

During the discovery process, the plaintiffs sought to identify “all meetings with any social media platform relating to content modulation and/or misinformation,” which is how we now know that such illegal meetings did, in fact, take place.

Illegal Collusion to Suppress Free Speech

Monthly, a Unified Strategies Group (USG) meeting took place — and may still be taking place — between a wide variety of government agencies and Big Tech companies, during which topics to be censored and suppressed were/are discussed.

Censored topics included stories involving COVID jab refusal, especially those involving military refusals and consequences thereof, criticism against COVID restrictions and their effects on mental health, posts talking about testing positive for COVID after getting the jab, personal stories of COVID jab side effects, including menstrual irregularities, and worries about vaccine passports becoming mandatory.3 According to the New Civil Liberties Alliance:4

“… scores of federal officials … have secretly communicated with social-media platforms to censor and suppress private speech federal officials disfavor. This unlawful enterprise has been wildly successful.

Under the First Amendment, the federal government may not police private speech nor pick winners and losers in the marketplace of ideas. But that is precisely what the government has done — and is still doing — on a massive scale not previously divulged.

Multiple agencies’ communications demonstrate that the federal government has exerted tremendous pressure on social-media companies — pressure to which companies have repeatedly bowed …

Communications show these federal officials are fully aware that the pressure they exert is an effective and necessary way to induce social-media platforms to increase censorship. The head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency even griped about the need to overcome social-media companies’ ‘hesitation’ to work with the government …

This unlawful government interference violates the fundamental right of free speech for all Americans, whether or not they are on social media. More discovery is needed to uncover the full extent of this regime — i.e., the identities of other White House and agency officials involved and the nature and content of their communications with social-media companies.”

Jenin Younes, litigation counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance added:5

“If there was ever any doubt the federal government was behind censorship of Americans who dared to dissent from official COVID messaging, that doubt has been erased. The shocking extent of the government’s involvement in silencing Americans, through coercing social-media companies, has now been revealed …”

Federal Agencies Involved in Free Speech Suppression

Documents obtained so far have identified more than 50 federal employees across 15 federal agencies, who participated in these censorship meetings or otherwise engaged in illegal censorship activities.6 This includes officials from:

  • The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Election Security and Resilience team
  • Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis
  • The FBI’s foreign influence taskforce
  • The Justice Department’s (DOJ) national security division
  • The Office of the Director of National Intelligence
  • White House staff (including White House lawyer Dana Remus, deputy assistant to the president Rob Flaherty and former White House senior COVID-19 adviser Andy Slavitt)
  • Health and Human Services (HHS)
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
  • National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
  • The Office of the Surgeon General
  • The Census Bureau
  • The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
  • The State Department
  • The U.S. Treasury Department
  • The U.S. Election Assistance Commission

Emails from a strategic communications and marketing firm called Reingold7 also reveals that outside consultants were hired to manage the government’s collusion with social media to censor Americans. For example, Reingold set up a “partner support portal” for the CDC so that CDC officials could link emails to the portal for easier flagging of content it wanted censored by social media companies linked to the portal.

Big Tech Companies Involved in Government Censorship

On the private industry side, notable tech participants in the censorship meetings include:

  • Google
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Reddit
  • Microsoft
  • Verizon Media
  • Pinterest
  • Wikimedia Foundation

While some social media companies may have “hesitated” to censor on the government’s behalf at times, Facebook was certainly an eager beaver from the get-go. As early as February 2020, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in contact with the State Department, offering its services to help “control information and misinformation related to coronavirus.”8

Biden Administration’s ‘Executive Privilege’ Denied

As you might expect, the White House has not cooperated with discovery and have fought to keep communications secret — especially with regard to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s correspondence — claiming all White House communications as “privileged.”

However, executive privilege does NOT apply to external communications, so the plaintiffs called on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana to “overrule the government defendants’ objections and order them to supply this highly relevant, responsive and probative information immediately.”

September 7, 2022, Judge Terry Doughty did just that. The Biden administration’s claim of executive privilege was rejected and Doughty ordered the White House to hand over any and all relevant records.9 That includes correspondence to and from Fauci, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and many others. According to the judge’s order, they have three weeks to comply.

Examples of Illegal Government Censorship

On Twitter,10 Missouri AG Schmitt has shared a long list of examples of government censorship, including one document in which Clarke Humphrey, COVID-19 response digital director at the White House, asked Facebook to take down the Instagram account “anthonyfauciofficial,” a parody account dedicated to making fun of Fauci.11 Facebook complied.

Schmitt also shared emails12,13 between a senior Facebook official and the surgeon general, stating, “I know our teams met today to better understand the scope of what the White House expects from us on misinformation going forward.” This email came on the heels of the surgeon general’s July 2021 “misinformation health advisory.”

The CDC also coordinated with Facebook, providing them with talking points to debunk various claims, including the claim that spike protein in the COVID shots is dangerous and cytotoxic. In a July 28, 2021, email, a CDC official provided Facebook with the following counter-narrative, taken straight from the “How mRNA Vaccines Work” section on the CDC website:14

“Messenger mRNA [sic] vaccines work by teaching our cells to create a harmless spike protein …” (Emphasis in the original.)

Fast-forward to mid-June 2022, and the CDC was suddenly less sure about the harmlessness of the spike protein.

Up until then, the words “harmless spike protein” had always been bolded, but in this June revision, they removed the bolding, along with an entire section in which they’d previously claimed that mRNA was rapidly broken down and spike protein did not last more than a few weeks in the body.15 Clearly, the truth was catching up to them and certain lies were getting too risky to hold on to.

CISA also reached out to Google, Meta (Facebook’s parent company), Microsoft and Twitter for help, shortly after the DHS’s Disinformation Governance Board was announced.16 Fortunately, public outcry put an end to this Orwellian Ministry of Truth before it got started.

When Censorship Becomes Election Interference

According to The Washington Times :17

“Details about the Biden administration’s conduct raised the hackles of Republican lawmakers. ‘Confirming that this is the most dangerously anti-free speech administration in American history AND that Facebook … is nothing but an appendage of the deep state,’ Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, said on Twitter as he shared news of the court filing.”

Other lawmakers are also getting involved. In an August 29, 2022, letter18,19 to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, Republican Sens. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin requested records of the government’s contacts with social media companies to ascertain whether the FBI and/or DOJ did, in fact, instruct them to censor information about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal by falsely referring to it as “Russian disinformation.”20

Zuckerberg has also been asked21 to provide any correspondence involving the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story, especially as it pertains to the FBI’s instructions to censor this political hot potato — something he openly admitted in a recent Joe Rogan interview (see video above).22

Lawmakers Pursue Legislation to Penalize Gov’t Censorship

Three Republican House Representatives on the House Oversight and Reform, Judiciary, and Commerce committees — Reps. James Comer of Kentucky, Jim Jordan of Ohio, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington — have also introduced the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act23 (HR.8752), aimed at preventing federal employees from using their positions to influence censorship decisions by tech platforms.

The bill would create restrictions to prevent federal employees from asking or encouraging private entities to censor private speech or otherwise discourage free speech, and impose penalties, including civil fines and disciplinary actions for government employees who facilitate social media censorship.

While the U.S. Constitution clearly forbids government censoring and restricting free speech, HR. 8752 could be a helpful enforcement tool, as people might tend to think twice when they know there’s a real and personal price to pay.

Sources and References

September 17, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

POLITICO: How Bill Gates Took Over the Covid Pandemic

Bill Gates took over Covid just like he took over Operating Systems

By Igor Chudov | September 15, 2022

An amazing article from the least expected, mainstream source: Politico.

The title of the article was apparently edited in a hurry post-publication because Google News still lists it as “How Bill Gates and his partners took over the global Covid response”. Here’s the archive link to the original article with “Bill Gates” in the title — proving it was later edited in a hurry.

Even the article URL lists Bill Gates:

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/14/global-covid-pandemic-response-bill-gates-partners-00053969

The article would be fascinating to read for people who were not previously aware of what most of us knew already — that the so-called “pandemic response” and global health are taken over by unaccountable private interest groups serving Bill Gates.

I highly recommend that you take a look!

The story given by the article is incomplete but very interesting.

It mentions that the pandemic response was taken over by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, GAVI, CEPI, and the Wellcome Trust. All four organizations pretend to be independent, but all were financed by Bill Gates.

They participated in Event 201, planning out the pandemic, in October 2019.

“What makes Bill Gates qualified to be giving advice and advising the U.S. government on where they should be putting the tremendous resources?” asked Kate Elder, senior vaccines policy adviser for the Doctors Without Borders’ Access Campaign.

Several important items are glaringly missing from the article:

  • Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with the US government (Avril Haines representing the US intelligence community) and China CDC, planned out the pandemic in October of 2019 by means of an “exercise” called Event 201.
  • Sars-Cov-2 is lab engineered and was designed intentionally
  • As pointed out by our astute reader Mel, do not forget the 3.1 million shares of BioNTech that Gates bought in Sept 2019 for $18.10/share. That $55 million investment was worth $1.7 billion by Aug 2021.https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1776985/000119312519241112/d635330dex1036.htm
  • Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation financed the organization that developed Sars-Cov-2 (EcoHealth Alliance) via grant INV-002838, and possibly more.
  • Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation financed University of North Carolina, where Ralph Baric developed Sars-Cov-2 for EcoHealth Alliance, via 56 grants: INV-026327 INV-030330 INV-031704 INV-028991 INV-036494 INV-032887 INV-033909 INV-036560 OPP1192462 OPP1199232 OPP1201585 OPP1203327 OPP1195157 OPP1195363 OPP1191684 OPP1061107 OPP1090837 OPP1086528 OPP1108279 OPP1107923 OPP1235 OPP3436 OPP1142921 OPP38920 OPP38381 OPP23847 OPP17809 OPP1161858 OPP1158402 OPP1154943 OPP1172799 OPP1183027 OPP1181722 INV-006232 INV-001748 INV-005277 INV-016221 INV-019193 INV-016163 INV-003112 INV-001805 INV-003266 INV-002551 OPP1203712 OPP9404 OPP1014802 OPP1015539 OPP1024615 OPP1024664 OPP1015381 OPP1018000 OPP51976 OPP53107 OPP53450 OPP52037 OPP49260
  • Bill Gates had close ties with Jeffrey Epstein and visited him numerous times

Nevertheless, the mere publication of this article has huge importance. The things that most of us know and talk about, are appearing in the so-called “mainstream press” — after the damage was all done, of course.

The virus was released; millions died; over a billion young people were force-vaccinated under false pretenses. When it is too late to change anything, Politico is finally stating the obvious. Still, it is better than nothing.

Almost everything in the Politico article was known a year ago. Where was Politico then? Busy taking government covid vaccine advertising money.

The pandemic was a crime, not an accident.

September 17, 2022 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

War of the Worlds

By Todd Hayen | OffGuardian | September 17, 2022

The Queen is dead, long live the King. In another world I used to know, and can still access at will, I would be interested in such an event. I would be a bit sad and reverent; thinking of an amazing life lived, thinking of all of the people who loved her so much.

In that other world I would binge watch The Crown, and be anxious to watch the plethora of documentaries showing up on Netflix for the occasion. I would be anxious to watch the pomp and spectacle of her funeral and the coronation of the man who now would be king.

Sure, even in that world there is bitter-sweetness, there are things about Elizabeth and Charles that are not perfect. The biggest crime against the Queen was probably, in this older (in my experience) world, is the way she treated Diana.

Charles would be accused of the same, as well as other stupid things that made him a rather unsavoury character. But that’s about it.

In that world.

Now, in the other world, the newer world in my experience, Queen Elizabeth II is at times called Queen A-Lizard-Beast. The Now-King Charles is suspected by some of being a pedophile and was involved with his brother’s association with the Isle of Epstein Evil.

Although both of these accusations are found to originate in the QAnon movement and not shared by everyone occupying World B, it is still a part of it. Both Queen Elizabeth and King Charles are/were members of the WEF group-of-goons-club positioned to take over the world.

In this other world they both, including the whole of the Royal Family, are guilty of so many other atrocities and horrors it would take volumes to present. The Queen’s death is certainly something that should not be mourned, on the contrary, it is an event that should be celebrated, and Charles taking on the throne of one of the most powerful nations on earth (at least historically) should send a shiver up everyone’s spine.

World A and World B—to keep it simple—will be what I use to differentiate between these two “realities” in this article.

World A is the world I used to know, and what would now be considered all a lie.

World B is, to me, the “new” world, although it is anything but new. This is the world where truth resides, the world that exists behind the wizard’s curtain. And it is really, really, dark. Now, World B does contain truth, and it really is the only place to find most of it.

But not everything in World B is true. It contains obvious things (if you pull aside the curtain) such as blatant Government corruption, censorship, medical terrorism, the unelected elite running the world, tyranny, totalitarianism. Simple stuff like that. But it also contains stuff that is way out there, like some of the things mentioned above.

Is it all true? I doubt it, or I should say, I hope not. If so we are in bigger trouble than we know.

Worlds A and B apparently have always existed. I have not given that claim a whole lot of serious consideration, but I would be fine to believe these two worlds co-existed for quite some time. At the very least they have been around for 200 years or so.

I do believe that World B was, at one time, not as prominent, and maybe there was a bit more reality to World A. But at the moment, it is rather clear, even to a guy that spent most of his life happily in World A, that World B is here, clearly and obviously.

I think the last three years has been the primary curtain pull, certainly for me. A reveal that quite a few people “got,” but then quite a few people didn’t. There have been numerous curtain pulls before that, but I have to admit that yours truly was just as blind as a blissful sheep back then.

I questioned a bunch of things along the way, but never saw the whole picture, nor realized the extent of the implication. I scratched my head with various historical events, Viet Nam, Watergate, The Gulf War, Saddam Hussein and WMDs, Kennedy’s assassination, and particularly 9/11.

But nothing revealed the whole extent of the Wizard behind the controls, behind the curtain, than Covid. Finally, I saw it all, or most of it, or maybe not most of—it is a deep rabbit hole, and as my toes curl, I resist seeing it all.

To restate, not everything in World B is true, of course.

World A folks don’t think any of it is. However, much of World B is true—a whole lot of it. Anyway… World B definitely exists for me now, but World A is still very seducing. I was happy back when World A was my world—then in my ignorance. Now, I no longer am happy.

Right at this moment I am sitting on my deck in my backyard. The weather is sublime. I am watching the birds at our feeders, and feeling the amazingly comforting breeze as it wafts over the deck. My wife, who manages to live exclusively in World A, suggests we go out to a local festival tonight and have a nice “date night.”

World A is so seductive. Why not?

Why not ignore World B entirely, follow all the protocols and demands of World A, and just “be happy”?

We’ve heard that one before, right, “you’ll own nothing and be happy”?

Honestly, I know my wife would. She says when hearing that Herr Klaus statement, “What’s the big deal?”—the title of a recent article. Yeah, really, what’s the big deal?

Another interesting point about this idea, is that anyone who lives most of his or her life in World A, and has some sort of inkling of a World B, believe that everything in World B is a lie.

The other way around is true as well. If you live in one world, the other world is not reality.

This is easier to do if you live in World A most of the time because it has most of the persuasive power and support behind it. The media is there supporting its illusion, and nearly everyone in power supports its reality.

World B is dark and dank, it is filled with shadows and uncertainties, and it is, by design, very evil. No one wants World B (just like no one except truth seekers wanted to live outside of the illusion of the Matrix). So the illusion of World A is easier to maintain for people who really don’t think about it.

Most of the time, though, people in World A don’t even know about World B.

People in World B know everything about World A though, obviously.

There is something about following the truth, though, that is too compelling to just dismiss, along with all its accompanying pain, and say, “Forget that, I don’t need it, I’m going to live the happy life, even though it is entirely made up of lies.” I have brought this up before in previous articles.

During this current insanity I have thought often about a Star Trek episode (from the ‘60s series) where Capt. Pike (the first Enterprise Captain from the pilot) is stuck on a planet where the inhabitants have him imprisoned. These strange beings can read their prisoners’ minds and create incredible realistic environments based on their prisoners’ memories.

Pike ends up in a place with horses, beautiful natural surroundings, and a super fox partner who could not have been more alluring (especially for my pubescent sensibilities). All this was pulled from his memory banks, and as I watched this when it first aired in the ‘60s I said to myself, “Dude, this is a no brainer! Take the girl and the horse and be happy!” (Needless to say, I more than likely did not say “dude” since that was not yet popular… creative license, forgive me.)

Of course, Pike would have nothing of it. “No way,” he said, “these beings are not going to take away my freedom!” The girl, and I, shouted, “Stupid! You are crazy!!”

There is a similar situation in the first instalment of The Matrix series. “Wouldn’t you rather have this (World A) than that?” The choice in that example was the wrong one.

You should always choose truth (real) over lies (unreal). Every time.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not considering choosing the “fake good” side. But I am confused by it. As I said, it is seductive. And although it does not “lure” me into untruth, it confuses me. Living this double life is indeed a serious example of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance can cause all sorts of problems: depression, anxiety, and disorientation being just a few of them.

I think one odd thing that comes from all this, at least for me, is a desire for World B to fill my reality. I am tired of living in this “eye of the storm”… this world of ambiguity. As awful as I know that would be, it seems that this would break the cognitive dissonance and the appearance of the world around me would not be a mixture of the two worlds, but only one world, the real one.

World A is difficult to give up. It is filled with familiar things and familiar rituals. It is a bitter-sweet world, but for the most part filled with happy stuff. Vacations, sporting events, happy people in happy television and internet advertisements. Happy people on talk shows, newscasts, etc. All dressed up, all pretty for the camera.

Celebrities we love, and swoon over, movies we love, TV series we love; a The Truman Show reality that is filled mostly with good things.

When someone famous dies we mourn, cry, think about their wonderful life, or about their miserable life and thank God our life is not as miserable. We don’t see much that is happening in the world where it isn’t so pretty. Most of that is at arm’s length.

In World A we trust our leaders. We trust our medical professionals, our Universities and hospitals. We trust institutions like the UN, the WHO, and NATO. We trust famous people like the Pope, Bill Gates, and Tom Hanks. Maybe some of these people are good, maybe not. In World A we don’t care, we trust.

But I do often wonder if the reality, THE reality, is not categorically World B, but a mixture of A and B. Maybe reality is not as bad as it seems to be, but until everyone is on board, and the lies of World A take a back seat to truth, we will find that things are not so unconscionably evil.

This is a hope and a dream, but I have an uncomfortable feeling that it is just a pipe dream, and more than likely things we discover will be worse.

But even so, there will be no temptress of World A tugging at my heart. I will finally be living only the truth where my wife, and most other loved ones, and the rest of the world are not telling me I am a dolt and a conspiracy theorist.

Then I will not be tempted to slip into a dream world of untruths, no matter how nice it once looked.

Todd Hayen is a registered psychotherapist practicing in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He holds a PhD in depth psychotherapy and an MA in Consciousness Studies. He specializes in Jungian, archetypal, psychology. Todd also writes for his own substack, which you can read here.

September 17, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Russia won’t congratulate CIA on its diamond jubilee

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | SEPTEMBER 15, 2022 

In the Russian journal Natsionalnaya Oborona (National Defence), the chief of Russia’s foreign intelligence Sergey Naryshkin has written a riveting essay on the 75th anniversary of the Central Intelligence Agency, which falls on Sunday. It is an unusual gesture, especially in the middle of the hybrid war in Ukraine. 

Probably, it serves a purpose? Most certainly, it serves to remind the Russian people and foreigners alike that nothing has been forgotten, nothing forgiven. 

The title of the essay — 75 candles on the CIA Cake — is somewhat misleading, as Naryshkin’s concluding remark is that “Anniversary congratulations and wishes there will not be. As there can be no compromise in assessing its (CIA’s) role in history and ‘merits’ to humanity.” 

Naryshkin’s essay will be closely studied by the western intelligence  for any “clues.” Indeed, what is he messaging? Naryshkin and President Vladimir Putin go back some 40 years. Naryshkin had just graduated from one of Moscow’s most prestigious institutions, the Felix Dzerzhinsky Higher School of the KGB and  Putin was already working in the foreign intelligence department of the Leningrad KGB when they bumped into each other in the corridors of the Big House (as KGB’s regional headquarters in Leningrad was known).

Unsurprisingly, Naryshkin writes about the CIA with an easy familiarity. As he put it, “The CIA was created at the beginning of the Cold War era in order to conduct intelligence activities around the world as a tool to counteract the existence and strengthen the role of the USSR in the world, the formation of a bloc of socialist states, and the rise of the national liberation movement in Africa, Asia, and South America.” 

Funnily enough, nonetheless, the CIA began with a colossal intelligence failure when it predicted on 20th September 1949 that the first Soviet atomic bomb would appear in mid-1953, when, actually, 22 days before the publication of that forecast, the Soviet Union had already conducted its first test of a nuclear device.  

The CIA was once again clueless when Putin announced in March 2018 in an address to the Russian Parliament that Russia had developed a new hypersonic missile system, which “will be practically invulnerable.” US officials and analysts were taken aback. The CIA has a history of getting Russia all wrong, including about the collapse of the Soviet Union.  

But the CIA had its successes too — for example,  the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1951 after his move to nationalise Iranian oil fields. By the 1950s, CIA already turned into a “multi-disciplinary monster” when besides traditional intelligence activities, it was also “tasked with tracking and suppressing any political, economic, military processes in all parts of the planet that could threaten the world hegemony of the United States and its allies.” Naryshkin gives credit to Allen Dulles for this metamorphosis. Dulles introduced “aggressiveness and lack of morality into the activities” of the CIA. He was just the man to do so, having been station chief of the OSS (CIA’s predecessor) in Bern in 1942-1945, who had clandestine dealings with the Nazis behind the back of the US’ Soviet ally. 

Naryshkin takes us through the chronicle of CIA’s “coups d’etat, direct military interventions, provocations of all kinds, assassinations of objectionable politicians, terror, sabotage, bribery” and all that cloak and dagger stuff, which prompted President Lyndon Johnson’s famous condemnation of the agency as the “damn murder corporation.” Like in Banquo’s ghost scene at Macbeth’s banquet table in Shakespeare’s play, the victims appear — Patrice Lumumba, Salvador Allende …

There are chilling references to the CIA’s practice of using cancer spreading technology to eliminate “objectionable” Latin American leaders — Argentina’s Kirchner (thyroid cancer), Paraguay’s Lugo (lymphoma), Brazil’s Lula da Silva (laryngeal cancer) and D. Dilma Rousseff (lymphoma) — and, of course, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez (tracheal cancer). According to Naryshkin, “In 1955, the CIA attempted to eliminate Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, who was perceived by the Americans as “a maniacal fanatic seeking to take over the world,” but failed miserably. Agents blew up the plane on which Zhou was supposed to fly to a conference of Asian and African leaders in Indonesia.” Thereupon, Dulles developed a plan to poison Zhou but gave up fearing that CIA’s involvement might get exposed!

A US Senate commission in 1975 uncovered and confirmed CIA involvement in contract killings and coup d’état. It counted 8 cases of assassination attempts by CIA agents and mercenaries on Fidel Castro during 1960-1965 alone. Havana later revealed the full tally — from 1959 through 1990, CIA planned 634 assassination attempts on Fidel. To quote Naryshkin, “With maniacal persistence, the CIA officers developed simply exotic ways to eliminate the Comandante. They tried to kill him with the help of suicide pilots, paratrooper agents, recruited agents from the inner circle, shelling cars and yachts from ships, boats and subversive saboteurs, with the help of scuba gear with a tubercle bacillus brought there, poisoned cigars, poisonous pills for food and much more.”

“The CIA used every opportunity to inflict maximum damage on the Soviet Union, including economic damage. CIA director W. Casey personally addressed the king of Saudi Arabia and persuaded him to sharply increase oil production, which caused world prices for the most important export resources for the USSR to fall by almost three times. For the budget of the Soviet Union, this was a huge loss, which seriously influenced further political events in the USSR.” 

Naryshkin throws some riveting insights into the saga of Ukraine in the 1948-1949 period when the CIA “actively used the experience of Hitler’s special services for launching subversive work against the USSR with recruits in the camps of displaced East Europeans who included quarter of a million Ukrainians. “Almost all the leaders and top functionaries of the Ukrainian nationalists were in one way or another bound by cooperation with the Nazis and therefore were completely controlled” by the CIA and British intelligence. In November 1950, the head of the CIA’s Policy Coordination Office, Frank Wisner bragged that CIA was capable of deploying up to 100,000 Ukrainian nationalists in case of a war with the Soviet Union. 

The U2 incident — shooting down the CIA spy plane — in the Urals on May 1, 1960 was a dramatic incident when Washington accused the USSR of destroying a scientific aircraft and a pilot-scientist, but was profoundly embarrassed when Moscow presented not only the wreckage of the aircraft and spy equipment to the media, “but also the living pilot Francis Gary Powers, who frankly told what he was doing in the sky over the USSR and on whose instructions.”

On the other hand, the masterstroke of a South Korean Boeing entering  Soviet airspace and getting shot down in 1983 provided just the “propaganda basis” for President Reagan “to announce another ‘crusade against communism.’ The policy of detente was thrown aside, and a new round of the arms race began.”  

Naryshkin’s final reflection is calm and collected with no trace of hyperbole: “Evaluation of the effectiveness of any special service is always relative. The US Central Intelligence Agency, entering its 76th year of existence, has been and remains a zealous executor of the will of the ruling circles of its country. Despite the significant changes taking place, they continue to imagine themselves as the only hegemon in the unipolar world. The organisation is intelligence, based on its name, but with a sensitive focus on conducting subversive actions against sovereign states.” 

To Indians, CIA has become a benign creature, no longer feared. Having links with the CIA carries no stigma among Indian elites. They regard “CIA phobia”  as a legacy of the Indira Gandhi era. And they thrive as mainstream columnists, think tankers and opinion makers. Naryshkin’s essay is a sobering reminder that history has not ended — and it never will. 

The essay (in Russian) is here. 

September 17, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

The first German district blackout simulation: 400 dead in 96 hours

Free West Media | September 14, 2022

Germany’s municipalities are getting serious and preparing for the concrete consequences of a widespread power blackout. The Hessian Rheingau-Taunus district is the first of 401 German districts and urban districts to have a specialist company in Berlin examine and simulate what threatens in the event of a blackout in order to be prepared for the increasingly likely eventuality.

According to this, 400 deaths could be expected within 96 hours. After 24 hours, livestock would die, substations would fail, and water tanks would run dry. Then there would be looting, fires and economic damage in the hundreds of millions. Unlike Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck, district fire inspector Christian Rossel currently considers the risk of a blackout to be much more likely than a lack of gas, which would not have such dramatic consequences, even if one were not preparing for it.

Authorities admit danger is real

The blackout, a widespread power failure, is sadly no longer a horror fairy tale of sinister conspiracy theorists as authorities now consider the danger to be real (but conceal the fact that it is home-made and a consequence of their own catastrophic policies).

The German Association of Towns and Municipalities (DStGB) sounded the alarm and warned of a possible overload of the German power grid. Even worse: cities and municipalities are not remotely prepared for such a scenario.

“There is a risk of a blackout,” said DStGB chief executive Gerd Landsberg told German weekly Welt am Sonntag that realistic scenarios are both hacker attacks and “an overload of the power grid – for example, if the 650 000 fan heaters sold this year are connected to the grid if the gas supply fails”. In this case, Landsberg expressly does not want to rule out widespread power failures.

The head of the DStGB is even clearer: the federal government has recognized the situation, but is not responding as it should. Every citizen must be aware of what happens when there is no electricity: “Then there is no water, you can’t fill up, after two days you can’t charge your cell phone. We are in no way prepared for such a scenario!”.

The “blackout” would only be a particularly drastic scenario. Less drastic scenarios such as electricity or gas shortages have long been casting their shadows. An umbrella organization for independent welfare in Germany based in Berlin, the Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband recently warned that, as a result of the exploding energy costs, “the livelihoods of social institutions and services are threatened to an unprecedented extent”.

Retirement and nursing homes, for example, are coming under pressure due to the rapidly increasing costs. The Federal Association of Private Providers of Social Services (BPA) predicted that “this crisis will cost some providers their existence because the burdens from rising energy costs, general inflation and the omnipresent shortage of skilled workers can no longer be borne”. And all this is just the beginning, according to Bloomberg. The federal government’s €65 billion financial aid package will not be able to prevent the impending recession.

Commerzbank economist Jörg Krämer meanwhile warned that the announced steps only “create the illusion that large parts of the population can be protected from the consequences of rising energy prices”.

What happens if the lights go out?

In the event of a widespread power failure, nothing works anymore. Internet, landline telephony and heating systems would fail first, followed closely by mobile communications and digital radio. Gas stations would run out of petrol, electronic money and payment systems would fail, food could no longer be cooled. Clinics, care facilities and water suppliers and disposal companies depend on their respective equipment to outlast the blackout. Rossel made it clear that the district could not ensure the power supply. Like Landsberg, he advised citizens to stock up on food and drinking water for 14 days.

The district will ensure that administration and civil protection work so that emergency aid can be coordinated. For this, the “equipment security” has to ensure electricity for servers and satellite-supported communication systems for the crisis management teams. The current emergency generator can run continuously for 16 hours. However, since the police, fire brigades and rescue workers would also need several 10 000 liters per day, negotiations are being held with heating oil suppliers.

All of these scenarios show a country that is on the brink of complete collapse in an emergency due to ideology-driven politics and decades of neglect of important infrastructure. … Full article

September 16, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

Ukraine sliding into a real war

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | SEPTEMBER 14, 2022 

A recurring feature of the Cold War was that the United States almost always placed great store on the optics of a Soviet-American affair while Moscow chose to concentrate on the end result. The Cuban Missile Crisis is the best known example where the denouement was about the publicised abandonment of the planned Soviet deployment of missiles in Cuba and a US public declaration and agreement not to invade Cuba again. But it later came to be known that there was also  an unpublicised part, namely, the dismantling of all of the Jupiter ballistic missiles that had been deployed to Turkey.  

The behavioural pattern remains the same in Ukraine. Per the western narrative, Russia is staring at the abyss of defeat amidst the “rout” in the Kharkov Region. Interestingly, though, at the responsible levels in the Beltway, there is noticeable reticence about beating the drums presumably because of their awareness that the Ukrainian forces simply re-entered the Balakleysko-Izyum direction to occupy areas that Russians had planned to vacate. 

Moscow is once again leaving the optics almost entirely to the American journalists while Moscow concentrates on the end result, which has had three dimensions: one, complete the ongoing evacuation from the Balakleysko-Izyum direction without loss of lives; two, exploit the Ukrainian troop movements to target the forces that came out into the open from well-fortified positions in the Kharkov Region; and, three, concentrate on the campaign in Donetsk. 

The last part is becoming very sensitive for Moscow, as a significant section of Russian “war correspondents” carried sensational reports that it is apocalypse now. Even senior politicians such as Gennady Zyuganov, General Secretary of the Communist Party, and a powerful voice in the State Duma, feels agitated. 

Zyuganov said at the first plenary meeting of the Russian State Duma’s fall session on Tuesday that the “special operation”  has grown into a full-fledged war and the situation on the front has “changed drastically” in the past couple of months.  

A fragment of the speech, posted in the Communist Party’s website also quoted Zyuganov as saying that “every war requires a response. First and foremost, it requires maximum mobilisation of forces and resources. It demands social cohesion and clear prioritisation.”

Although intended as constructive criticism, Zyuganov’s advice will almost certainly be passed over by the Kremlin. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has responded with alacrity, saying, “At this moment — no, it (full or partial mobilisation) is not on the agenda.” 

President Putin’s support base remains as strong as ever. The recent Russian regional and local elections partly turned into a “referendum” on the Ukraine situation. And the fact that the ruling party received one of the best results in its history by winning about 80 percent of the mandates in regional and local parliaments shows a resounding vote of confidence in Putin’s  leadership. 

That said, the “angry patriots” pose a headache. That is why the latest situation around Bakhmut in Donetsk assumes particular significance. Bakhmut is undoubtedly the lynchpin of the entire fortification that Kiev erected in Donbass in the past 8 years. It is a strategic communication junction with roads in many directions —  Lysychansk, Horlivka, Kostiantynivka, and Kramatorsk — and control of the city is vital for establishing full supremacy over the Donetsk Region.

The Russian troops and allied militia groups have been trying since August 3 to break into the Ukrainian defences in the Bakhmut-Soledar direction but with patchy success. Now come reports that the Russians have entered Bakhmut city and taken control of the industrial zone in the northeastern parts. 

Some reports say the Russian military contractors known as the Wagner Group have been deployed in Bakhmut. These are highly trained ex-military personnel. 

The stakes are exceedingly high. For Kiev, the entire logistics of the operations in Donetsk can unravel if it loses control of Bakhmut. As for the Russians, the breakthrough in the Bakhmut-Soledar direction will clear the main hurdle for the crucial offensive toward the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk axis to the west, the last conglomeration of Ukrainian forces in Donetsk. Bakhmut is only 50 kms from Slavyansk-Kramatorsk. 

Speaking about the Ukrainian “counteroffensive” last weekend to National Public Radio, General Mark Milley, US chairman, Chiefs of Staff, had made some interesting points:  

  • Ukraine has amassed a good amount of combat power. How they use that will now be the determining factor. Things will clarify “in the coming days and weeks.”
  • The Ukrainian military so far fought extraordinarily well in defence. Defence has always been the stronger form of war. 
  • Ukraine is now moving into offensive operations where it is critical to integrate fire power into their maneuver in order to achieve superiority. 
  • Therefore, “it remains to be seen” what is happening in the next few weeks. “It is a very, very difficult task that the Ukrainians are undertaking” — combining their offence with maneuver.

The Ukrainian offensive in Kharkov was planned as a flank attack to encircle and destroy the Russian groupings in the area of Balakleya, Kupyansk and Izyum. But the Russian command anticipated such an attempt, as its frontline had thinned out lately. The Ukrainian forces outnumbered the Russians by almost 4-5 times. 

Interestingly, in anticipation of a Ukrainian offensive, civilians who agreed to leave the region for Russia were evacuated from the threatened settlements in military convoys. Using mobile defence tactics under the cover of specially organised units, Russians finally succeeded in withdrawing their forces. 

In effect, the Ukrainian/US/NATO plan to manoeuvre a flank attack and encircle the Russian troops was thwarted with minimal losses. On the other hand, Ukrainians also admit that Russians inflicted significant losses of manpower on their opponents (who included a big chunk of fighters from NATO countries.)   

But the Russian military also made mistakes. Thus, their forward positions were not mined — inexplicably enough; frontline intelligence gathering was deficient; and, the residual Russian troops (drawn down to one-third of full strength) were not even equipped with anti-tank weapons. 

The single biggest outcome of the past week’s happenings is that the conflict has assumed the nature of a full-fledged war. Zyuganov was not off the mark when he said in his Russian state Duma speech: “The military-political operation… has escalated into a full-fledged war, which has been declared against us by the Americans, NATO members, and a unified Europe. 

“A war is fundamentally different from a special operation. A special operation is something you announce — and something you can choose to put an end to. A war is something you can’t stop even if you want to. You have to fight to the end. War has two possible outcomes: victory or defeat.” 

Putin has a big decision to make now. For, while the good part for the Russian military may be that the frontline has been straightened and large Russian reserves are being transferred to the battlefields, de facto, a state of war exists now between Russia and NATO. 

The recent phone calls to Putin in quick succession by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, after an interlude of months, signals that an exigency may have arisen to re-engage the Kremlin leader. 

September 16, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

NATO membership will harm Swedish international image and cause economic losses

The country may see a decrease in its exports if confirmed its adhesion to NATO

By Lucas Leiroz | September 16, 2022

Having military strength is an important issue for any country in the world. However, some states benefit from the image of “peaceful countries” and “neutral nations”. This is precisely the Swedish case. Decades ago, Sweden began to invest in a security policy based on absolute neutrality. Its image before international partners is seen as that of a country that does not get involved in conflicts and cares abut peace. Therefore, changing this stance with a possible NATO membership could have a strong impact on Swedish foreign policy.

One of the direct and immediate impacts would be on the economic issue. The Scandinavian country may suffer losses in its exports due to the possible NATO membership. Some countries that currently import products from – or export to – Sweden would certainly consider it problematic after the accession to the alliance, which would lead them to seek other trading partners. The Swedes would begin to deal with a reality that is common to every country that invests in becoming a military power: facing boycotts and restrictions in negotiations with countries with different interests.

In this sense, Per Högselius, professor of history of technology at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), comments that the Swedish state is very sensitive to world changes and depends on a stable scenario to keep its economic and industrial structure solid and strong. One of the points that most benefits the country allowing it to remain free of problems concerning the international scenario is precisely its image of a small and unarmed state – which will surely change now.

“Swedish industry has often benefited from the fact that Sweden has enjoyed an image abroad as a small, harmless country with good relations with in principle all other countries (…) Sweden is extremely sensitive to events in the outside world, and much more so today than in the 1970s”, Högselius said.

In fact, many problems for the national industry may arise after the confirmation of Sweden’s entry into NATO. The country’s main exports are focused on machinery, transport equipment and chemical products. Interestingly, these three sectors account for the majority of Swedish exports to China. In a scenario with increasing tensions between China and NATO, with the alliance considering the Asian country one of its main threats, it is possible to predict that Beijing, despite being quite pragmatic, may try to seek other partners to obtain some of the products it currently imports from Sweden.

When we analyze the European scenario, many things can get worse too. In a future eventual situation of pacification of the conflict in Ukraine and normalization of relations with Russia, Sweden will be unable to reverse the path that is being taken now, if its entry into NATO is really consolidated. The Scandinavian country will be viewed with suspicion by the Russians, who will place limits on bilateral cooperation – which will take Sweden off an important trade route for iron, steel, fertilizers, among other essential products. In other words, decisions taken against Russia now could seriously affect business in the future.

Furthermore, Swedish diplomacy itself would be destabilized by joining NATO. This entry would be the immediate reversal of decades of work built by Swedish strategists to transform the country into a militarily neutral and economically developed pole. Foreign policy focused on neutrality and peace would be replaced by a program of military objectives unilaterally instituted by the alliance. In practice, all countries that currently see Sweden as a non-ideological and geopolitically harmless partner would act more cautiously during negotiations with the Swedes as they would also be negotiating with a new representative of the largest military alliance on the planet.

The most interesting thing is to note how the possible accession, in addition to such economic losses, will bring few real strategic benefits to Sweden. As established by the regulations, the country will commit to militarily assist any other member state of the alliance in the event of an attack. But in exchange for such a commitment, little is offered to the Swedes. In fact, Sweden will remain a militarily weak country, but with many more international enemies than it has today.

Unfortunately, however, the Western-supported anti-Russian paranoia seems to have overcome the strategic sense of Swedish decision-makers, in addition to scaring the local population. Currently, almost all parties are support joining NATO, as do 58% of the population. It is very likely that the process will be completed at some point in the near future and the country will take this extremely negative step for its own interests.

Considering that Sweden is already going through an internal political crisis, with PM Magdalena Andersson having announced that she will resign after the defeat of her supporters in the parliamentary elections, the near future will be tense for the country. The next Swedish government will deal with strong popular and parliamentary pressure, in addition to excessive obligations in NATO, while the country will continue to be militarily weak, but it will lose its neutrality status, bringing impacts in all areas of its foreign policy.

Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.

September 16, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

India unlikely to be coerced by G7 to enforce price cap on Russian oil

Ursula von der Leyen says anti-Russia sanctions “are here to stay” despite European crisis

By Ahmed Adel | September 16, 2022

G7 countries are hoping to secure India’s support to enforce a price cap on Russian oil. Decisionmakers in New Delhi are unlikely to be coerced though as Moscow is willing to provide petroleum at even lower rates than before.

“In principle, the ask in return is that India should not support the G7 proposal. A decision on this issue will be taken later following talks with all the partners,” the The Business Standard quoted a foreign ministry official as saying.

Comprising of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US, the G7 excludes India despite the South Asian country now having the fifth largest economy, larger than the UK, France, Italy and Canada. The Western bloc, with the exception being Japan, are looking to choke Russia’s crude oil revenue streams, but countries like India are prioritising their economy and citizen wellbeing instead of serving Washington’s agenda.

India depends on imports to meet 85% of its petroleum needs, and with Russia offering good deals to friendly countries, it became the second-largest crude oil supplier to the country after Iraq. Although Russia’s share in India’s imports rose to only 1% in February, before the war in Ukraine began, it skyrocketed to 18% by June. 

Russian oil was $16 cheaper in May than the average barrel of crude oil ($110) imported to India. It is for this reason that India took advantage of many countries ending their trade with Russia. Russia has so far reduced $30 on every barrel of oil it sells to India, forcing Iraq to cut its rate to $9 lower than a Russian barrel of oil. At the same time, according to Business Standard, Russian crude oil in August cost $6 less than India’s average imported barrel.

The G7 is hoping to enforce price caps on Russian crude oil and refined petroleum products. While the one on crude oil comes into effect on December 5, the other will be enacted on February 5, 2023. This is when the European Union bans Russian oil products. Although India has said it will consider all aspects before making a decision, it is unlikely that New Delhi will decide on the same self-destructive policies as the European Union.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who spoke at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on September 14 and delivered her State of the Union address, said: “It is the Kremlin that has put Russia’s economy on the path to oblivion. This is the price for Putin’s trail of death and destruction. And I want to make it very clear, the sanctions are here to stay. This is the time for us to show resolve, not appeasement.”

However, it is the economies of European Union member states that are suffering much worse than Russia now. In fact, their economies will only continue to decline as winter approaches. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on September 7 that he will stop oil and gas supply to countries that introduce price caps.

Putin told the Eastern Economic Forum that such a move “would be an absolutely stupid decision”.

“We will not supply anything at all if it is contrary to our interests, in this case economic (interests),” he said. “No gas, no oil, no coal, no fuel oil, nothing.”

Putin said that Russia would supply nothing outside of existing contracts.

The Munich-based Ifo think-tank warned that the recent surge in electricity and gas prices was “wreaking havoc” on the German economy and that the main cause was the expected “decline in private consumer spending” triggered by energy suppliers “markedly adjusting their electricity and gas prices in the light of high procurement costs, especially at the beginning of 2023.”

For their part, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy slashed its forecast for the German GDP next year by 4% points to minus 0.7%, warning: “With the high import prices for energy, an economic avalanche is rolling towards Germany.” Meanwhile, German deputy finance minister Florian Toncar warned of an “increasing risk of stagflation” in the country, telling the VVW insurance sector publication: “We are experiencing supply-chain problems, production bottlenecks and price increases the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades.”

Germany, as the industrial and economic centre of the European Union, will be experiencing a crisis that it has not seen since the end of World War II. The rest of the European Union will also end up in the same position, if not worse than Germany. As for India, it is this exact situation it wants to avoid, hence why it has increased its imports of Russian energy at good prices. For this reason, it is unlikely that New Delhi will be coerced by the G7 to implement a price cap on Russian oil.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

September 16, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Germany’s Decision on Rosneft Means Complete Loss of Assets – Company

Samizdat – 16.09.2022

The German government’s decision to transfer Rosneft’s subsidiaries under the control of the Federal Network Agency means a complete loss of assets for the Russian company, Rosneft said on Friday, adding that it will make efforts to protect those assets.

Earlier in the day, the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action said that Berlin had transferred Rosneft’s subsidiaries — Rosneft Deutschland and RN Refining & Marketing — under the control of the Federal Network Agency.

“The decision of the German Federal Government to transfer the company’s German assets to the federal grid agency for external management, unfortunately, is not unexpected for us and is in line with the US-imposed algorithm of actions in relation to Russian enterprises in Germany. This decision is illegal and, in fact, is an expropriation of shareholding as a result of a situation deliberately created by the relevant EU sanctions and the actions of German and Polish regulators, the purpose of which was to seize assets,” Rosneft said in a statement.

The Russian company added that Berlin’s decision is a violation of the principles of a market economy.

“The company understands that the decision taken by the Federal Government of Germany is not temporary, and, in fact, means the irretrievable loss of assets. Rosneft will work out all possible measures to protect shareholders, including going to court,” Rosneft said, adding that it is ready to negotiate a new contract if “there are guarantees of payment for supplied raw materials and protection of investments.”

September 16, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »