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US offers to pay Polish media for Ukraine coverage

RT | September 13, 2023

The US Consulate General in Krakow is soliciting Polish outlets to write about Ukrainian refugees “returning and rebuilding,” it emerged on Wednesday. Washington is offering $50,000 for the year-long project.

The project “to promote coverage in Poland by local and regional media representatives of stories in Ukraine” was first spotted by a Telegram channel based in Belarus. It can be found at the website of the US embassy in Poland, under the designation WAW-NOFO-FY23-05.

It was unclear when the solicitation was originally posted. However, the deadline for submissions is end of the day Friday, September 15.

According to the post, the goal is to “promote in-depth reporting by local and regional Polish media of the return of Ukrainian families from Poland to Ukraine and their social and physical rebuilding efforts, particularly those built on partnerships between Poles and Ukrainians.”

The articles should fuel “public understanding of the challenges and opportunities faced by Ukrainians” as well as interest in Ukrainian “efforts to return and rebuild” and the “enduring impact of support provided by Polish society to Ukrainian refugees.”

The solicitation suggests the project would actually be given to a Polish NGO, with US embassy staff having “substantial involvement in the grant implementation, including reviewing and approving selection of participants, trainers, and award decisions within the project.”

The NGO would get a grant of $50,000 (about 215,500 zloty at the current exchange rate) and then have Polish journalists compete for portions of the money. The embassy would evaluate their success by the “quality and reach of reports generated.”

The project also includes at least one workshop teaching the reporters “culturally sensitive and trauma-informed manner and how to create compelling human-interest stories in this context,” taught by “experts in the intersection between mental health and journalism in war zones” and others with the relevant experience.

The entire project is slated to run for a single year, though Washington reserves the right to extend that if it’s judged to be “in the best interest of the US Department of State.”

There are approximately one million Ukrainian refugees in Poland at the moment. Multiple surveys of those who settled in EU countries show that more than 40% do not intend to return even if the conflict with Russia ends. Warsaw has reportedly already started sending men of military age back, even as other EU members have refused to do so on human rights grounds.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | 2 Comments

Life Not so Peachy for Biden as Impeachment Looms

By James Tweedie – Sputnik -13.09.2023

Joe Biden is now facing a congressional probe into his alleged influence-peddling abroad. Ted Harvey, a former senator in the Colorado state legislature, said the allegations were more damaging than impeachment proceedings would be.

Moves to impeach US President Joe Biden will undermine his political support and leadership of the Democratic Party, says a former state legislator.

Republican House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced a formal impeachment inquiry into Biden’s involvement in his son Hunter’s shady business dealings abroad — including in Ukraine during Biden’s time as vice-president to Barack Obama.

Files on Hunter Biden’s abandoned “laptop from hell” and testimony by whistleblowers indicate that the Democrat president sat in on online meetings with his son’s partners where payments in return for political influence were negotiated.

Fellow Republican Ted Harvey told Sputnik that the three main grounds for impeaching a president were “treason, bribery or high crimes and misdemeanors,” and there was copious evidence Biden was guilty of “one of the top two, bribery.”

“The more that comes out about what then Vice President Joe Biden did and his son did and his family did, it rises to the level of bribery and there’s bank statements that show the money coming in,” he pointed out. “There’s bank statements showing that they were distributing the money to various family members.”

“Though most speakers don’t want to do an impeachment, I think that the evidence is getting to a point where they have no other choice than to at least do a very serious investigation and all of the subpoena powers that come along with that,” Harvey said. “And I think it’s only going to get worse for Biden and the Democrats as this unfolds over the next year.”

The pundit argued that Biden’s grip on power was looking more tenuous as Democrats were now “getting very nervous with where the president is in his poll numbers.”

“And then he goes on his trip to Vietnam and Asia, and he is embarrassing not only the country, but he’s embarrassing himself,” Harvey said. “I’m as a partizan of a Republican as you can get, but I felt sorry for the president. Our country is in a terrible position right now where somebody who is obviously lost his cognitive abilities is leading the free world.”

He said Democrats were reluctant to “throw him overboard” before the next election as “Kamala Harris isn’t much better, and it puts their party in even worse position from a public polling perspective.”

But McCarthy continues to drip-feed damaging information on the Biden family to the media — a move seemingly focused on attacking Biden politically, not legally.

“It’s good politics to not provide all of the information that they have on the president until it gets closer to the election, and puts the Democrats in a bind where they already have their horse that they’ve chosen to ride into the 2024 election” Harvey said. “And I think he’s going to be a very compromised the more information that comes out.”

An impeachment may backfire, especially as the Republicans lack the numbers in the Senate to carry it through.

“You don’t want to strengthen Joe Biden. If you look at Bill Clinton when he was impeached, he left office as the most popular president ever and still is the most popular president ever from a polling perspective,” Harvey noted. “Look at Trump — he was impeached twice, and now he’s winning the Republican nomination by 60 percent and he’s beating Joe Biden.”

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Corruption | , | 2 Comments

White House tells media how to cover Biden impeachment

RT | September 13, 2023

White House lawyers have reportedly written a letter directing CNN, the New York Times and other US media outlets to scrutinize Republican lawmakers more aggressively as they try to impeach US President Joe Biden.

CNN and other recipients of the letter acknowledged getting the missive on Wednesday. “It’s time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies,” Ian Sams, a spokesman for the White House Counsel’s Office, wrote in the letter. He added that the impeachment efforts should “set off alarm bells for news organizations.”

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) launched the impeachment effort on Tuesday, directing committees of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives to open a formal inquiry. He said allegations of influence-peddling and solicitation of bribes by the Biden family “paint a picture of a culture of corruption.”

Even before receiving any guidance from the White House, some US media outlets already appeared to be trying to protect the president. CNN and Associated Press, for instance, suggested that Republicans were trying to prosecute Biden without having evidence to justify their investigation.

Those outlets apparently ignored such evidence as the sworn testimony of IRS whistleblowers and the records of bank transfers that lawmakers have already revealed. By launching impeachment proceedings, congressional committees will gain more power to subpoena documents that could help prove or debunk the allegations.

Veteran US journalist Matthew Keys, who has worked for such outlets as Reuters and Fox News, said the White House directive on impeachment coverage was “not OK.” He added, “The White House should not be encouraging, influencing or interfering in the editorial strategies of America’s newsrooms, including CNN and the New York Times.” The letter could backfire, Keys said, because “any time the media does try to hold Republicans to account, those lawmakers can simply counter by questioning whether it’s actual journalism or something encouraged by the Biden administration.”

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University, said the directive “has an uncomfortable feeling of marching orders to the media.” By trying to influence coverage of the impeachment inquiry, he argued, the administration “removes any pretense of separation between the Biden personal legal team and the White House Counsel’s Office.”

Sams, who also serves as a senior adviser to Biden, claimed that Republicans had failed in nearly nine months of investigation to “turn up any evidence of the president doing anything wrong.” He added that impeachment is “grave, rare and historic,” and the press must treat the claims of Republicans with “appropriate scrutiny.” The White House official attached a 14-page appendix to his memo providing talking points to address Republican “lies.”

Democrats previously controlled the House and twice impeached then-President Donald Trump.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | | Leave a comment

Threads Is Already Blacklisting Covid Terms From Search, As Part of New Censorship Campaign

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | September 12, 2023

Meta is once again up to its old tricks. The new social networking app Threads, which was marketed as an alternative to the platform formerly known as Twitter, is now limiting access to information and prohibiting searches related to key terms such as “coronavirus” and “vaccines,” as revealed by the Washington Post.

Despite only being a couple of months old, the platform has already been observed to deliberately muzzle certain search terms in its novel search functionality.

Meta has previously implemented search blackouts around Covid-related terms due to combating what it says is “misinformation.”

Offering an explanation for the obstruction, Meta conceded to the Washington Post, “The search functionality temporarily doesn’t provide results for keywords that may show potentially sensitive content.”

They assured that they would reinstate search results for these terms when they believed the content quality was up to their standards. However, they declined to disclose a complete list of obstructed search terms, leaving users guessing.

Apparently, Meta has opted for strict keyword censorship, instead of engaging in complex debates about what content concerning the Coronavirus should be permissible.

This move is suggestive of their unwillingness to disclose more internal correspondences, many of which came to light during the ongoing inquiries on censorship stemming from COVID-related discussions.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

CDC Recommends New Covid Boosters to Everyone Over Six Months of Age

eugyppius: a plague chronicle | September 13, 2023

While Europe has now largely confined Covid vaccination to older and vulnerable groups, the American Centers for Disease Control have chosen a different path. Yesterday, they accepted the advice of an advisory panel and recommended the XBB.1.5 jabs to everyone six months and older. They insist that “the benefits of vaccination exceed the risks for everyone,” and hope vaguely that their “universal recommendation” will “ease the rollout of the vaccine and improve access and equity.”

“Let’s keep America strong, healthy,” said Dr. Camille Kotton, a panel member who voted in favor of the recommendation and who is an infectious disease specialist at Harvard Medical School. “Let’s do away with COVID-19 as best we can by prevention of disease through vaccines. Let’s make things clear.”

The argument is not easy to parse. First, the vaccines are alleged to be universally beneficial, although no studies beyond a “CDC analysis” exist to support this broad claim. Second, the universal recommendation is necessary to ensure “equity” and “make things clear.” In other words, more targeted recommendations would sow confusion and limit their uptake among those groups who would benefit from them. Finally, our Dr. Kotton still hopes that the vaccines can “do away with COVID-19.” Either she knows better or she is stupid, but once again, in the striving after an upside beyond benefits to the individual, we see an implicit acknowledgment that the vaccines aren’t universally beneficial after all.

An important consequence of the pandemic in the United States has been the alienation of a great part of the population from the project of public health in general on the one hand, and the overt politicisation of the CDC on the other. Before 2020, American medical mandarins at least claimed to work on behalf of society as a whole; now and again, they even found occasion to worry about how their recommendations would effect their credibility among the entire population. They have since abandoned this mission, adopting a narrow, much more politicised hygiene extremism. Now they have dropped all pretence, appealing only to the highly radicalised Covidians and the pharmaceuticals. Thus their rhetoric and their advice grows steadily more divorced from reality and reason, even as the actual threat of Covid recedes.

Ironically, the radicalism of the CDC arises from the success of the pandemicist opposition in the United States. America was one of the few Western countries that saw genuine resistance to the lockdowners and the vaccinators, extending even to elements of the political establishment. This opposition did serious damage to the entire enterprise of public health, and now millions of Americans will never care what the CDC says about anything ever again. In Europe, the mainstream parties formed a united front in support of the hygiene dictatorship, permitting our public health institutions to retain some claim to social consensus, however tenuous. On this side of the Atlantic, they still have something to lose, which is an incentive towards moderation.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | 1 Comment

Shocking Failures of Climate and Covid Science Highlighted by Critical New Report

BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

The recent and concerning collapse of the once revered scientific process in large parts of the climate change and medical community is detailed in a highly critical ‘open review’ paper from the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF). Someday, charge the authors, there will need to be an inquiry into how so many scientific bodies abandoned core principles of scientific integrity, took strong positions on unsettled science, took people’s word for things uncritically, and silenced those who tried to continue the scientific endeavour.

Universities have abandoned their historical role of open and disinterested enquiry on behalf of humanity, and “should be sanctioned for this by revoking their charitable status”. Group-think that maintains prevailing fads and supresses dissent on behalf of alleged ‘consensus’ is the opposite of the central purpose of universities. Mainstream media have long been uncritical receptacles for alarmist ‘clickbait’ political scare stories, and this, it might be added, encourages self-promotion among aggressive publicity-hungry scientists. There are many errors and deceptions and much censorship, state the authors, blighting the complete story being told in an unbiased manner. Singling out the behaviour of state broadcaster the BBC, they note: “Any reasonable observer will wonder whether Ofcom [the state regulator] is asleep at the wheel, not requiring the BBC to correct the errors it has been made aware of by experts, nor return to some form of neutrality.”

The report is mainly written by Professor Michael Kelly, the former Prince Philip Professor of Engineering, Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, and Clive Hambler, Science Lecturer at Hertford College, Oxford. There is also economic input from Professor Roger Koppl from Syracuse University. The full GWPF report is due to be published in December and the paper is currently open for review, comments and contributions from other academics. The GWPF notes habitual attacks on its work from activists, and its ‘open review’ policy is explained here.

The realisation that genuine free speech and scientific enquiry is being replaced by strict politicised requirements to adhere to orthodoxy and pre-set narratives grows with every appalling ‘climategate’-style scandal. Regular readers will need little reminding of the recent retraction of the Alimonti et al. paper by Springer Nature following a year-long campaign by a small group of activist scientists and journalists. The paper, whose lead author was Professor of Physics Gianluca Alimonti, reviewed past weather trends and found no data to support the politically-termed ‘climate emergency’. World headlines have also been devoted to the astonishing story of Dr. Patrick Brown of Johns Hopkins University, who blew the whistle on his recent paper published in Nature on California wildfires. He said he wrote it according to the approved script boosting the role of ‘climate change’ and downplaying any natural causes and the horrendous role played by arsonists.

The full publication of the GWPF paper will add to the growing concern and alarm about the science advice given to governments and the media for onward distribution to the public. The corruptions involved in this process are seemingly built into the current system. Trillions of dollars now back the Net Zero collectivisation project across the world, and most scientists, largely paid for by politicians and wealthy green elites, are fully onboard the gravy train.

The GWPF authors aim to push back by maximising the diversity of advice, challenging advice through opposing ‘red’ teams, ensuring a reasonable level of accountability for scientists to discourage hype, and protecting scientists from career damage if they rationally disagree with mainstream views. Institutions should not take official positions on scientific issues, “since this stifles diversity of thought, freedom of speech and the reliability of advice”. Scepticism must be recovered as a respectful term for scientific behaviour from its present position as an insult, “and reinstated as a core duty of universities and learned societies”, demand the authors.

The authors are particularly dismissive of the role of computer models in the recent Covid pandemic and the promotion of climate change alarm. In the U.K., the “gross misuse” of Covid computer models in the absence of robust data to measure them against is noted. Along with a “paucity of challenge” to scientific advice, this may have contributed to “death tolls, economic decline and societal ills”.

On the climate side, the models have produced temperature forecasts two to three times higher than the actual data eventually showed. What is worse is that the results are getting more inaccurate. If the models were actually modelling the evolving climate, the gap would be narrowing. The inaccuracy is a “major embarrassment” and would not be tolerated in any other field of science, and certainly not in engineering. Separation of human-induced warming from natural temperature variation is far more difficult than that portrayed by the UN-funded Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC), since experimentation and replication is “simply not possible”. The inability to model significant parts of the atmosphere are “fatal flaws” in any system that is supposed to be predicting future climate change.

Yet, as regular readers will again recall, computer models play a vital part in promoting the unhinged Thermogeddon fantasies of people like the UN Secretary-General Antonio ‘global boiling’ Guterres. The UN-backed IPCC seems addicted to using computer models incorporating a ‘pathway’ of 5°C global warming within less than 80 years. Over 40% of its impact predictions are based on this forecast, despite an admission it is of “low likelihood”. According to a recent Clintel report, over 50% of clickbait climate science papers incorporate this pathway in a seemingly desperate attempt to attract the attention of activists writing in the mainstream media.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic‘s Environment Editor.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

China releases ‘blueprint’ for integrating with Taiwan

RT | September 13, 2023

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has pitched an economic-integration plan for Taiwan, while at the same time deploying a historically large fleet of warships and aircraft surrounding the self-governing island.

Released on Tuesday by the CCP’s Central Committee and Beijing’s State Council, the proposal was touted as a “blueprint” for Taiwan’s future development. Under the plan, the coastal province of Fujian would become a “demonstration zone” for the integrated development of Taiwan.

The proposal calls for allowing Taiwanese residents to live, work, and study on the mainland, initially in Fujian. Taiwanese businesses would also be allowed to hang a shingle in the neighboring province and would be encouraged to list their shares on Chinese stock exchanges.

Tensions in the Taiwan Strait have escalated in recent years amid rising concerns that China will attack the island. Washington has ramped up weapons sales to Taipei, and US politicians have made controversial visits to the island. China, which claims sovereignty over Taiwan, has vowed to reunify with the breakaway province – by force if necessary. Only 13 nations recognize Taiwan as a sovereign country.

“Solving the Taiwan issue and realizing the complete reunification of the motherland is the unswerving historical task of the Communist Party of China, the common aspiration of all Chinese people, and the inevitable requirement for realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” the CCP said in its proposal.

Taiwanese MP Wang Ting-yu, a member of the island’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, called the integration blueprint “ridiculous.” Speaking in a video message on Wednesday, he said, “China should think about how it can take care of its bad debts, but not how it can conduct united-front work against Taiwan.”

Dozens of Chinese military planes and warships, including an aircraft carrier, were deployed in the Taiwan Strait this week. The display of military might was reportedly one of Beijing’s largest in recent years.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Economics | | 3 Comments

The inevitable EV implosion

By Ron Ross | American Thinker | September 12, 2023

The electric vehicle honeymoon is over. Don’t expect the marriage itself to last much longer either.

The mass conversion from internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEs) to electric vehicles was never more than a Democrat/environmentalist hallucination anyway. It was the most ill-conceived government policy objective in modern history.

The transition should have been a non-starter. It’s riddled with numerous deal killers. It’s like having a dozen fatal diseases all at the same time.

Any goal as massive as a total conversion from ICE vehicles to EVs requires careful planning and infrastructure preparation. It would necessitate a rapid doubling of electricity generation and grid expansion. In today’s world that’s impossible.

EV promoters could never deliver on their promises. Their grandiose assurances were nothing more than wishful thinking.

There was no market research. Hmm — I wonder why. There were no feasibility studies. Hmm — I wonder why. Did they actually believe everyone would tolerate spending hours to charge their vehicles rather than the minutes they were accustomed to?

Car dealers are resisting further deliveries of EVs because of swelling inventories. Avis and Hertz can’t even get people to rent EVs! Yet, manufacturers are ramping up production just as consumers are balking. Something will have to give, and soon. EV makers and their shareholders will tire of pouring money down a rathole.

We are spending trillions of dollars on a fabricated dream, all for imaginary payoffs decades in the future.

When the EV house of cards collapses what will the reaction be? Ordinarily, for normal persons, it would be a time for regret, rethinking, and humility.

It would be good if the Democrat/environmentalist true believers learned something from the EV debacle. However, the same utopian blindness that caused this fiasco will prevent any lesson-learning on their part. We are more likely to see them doubling down instead.

Ron Ross Ph.D. is a former economics professor and author of The Unbeatable Market. He resides in Arcata. California and can be reached at rossecon@aol.com.

His website is rossecon.com.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

The Elites Directing The Energy Transition Really Have No Idea What They Are Doing

By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | September 06, 2023

We are on our way to Net Zero by 2050. It must be true because everybody says so. The entire $6+ trillion per year federal government is committed to the project, which obviously would not be the case if the whole thing were impossible. Equally fully committed are essentially all of the colleges and universities, where all of the smartest people are to be found. As well as every other elite institution of every kind and sort.

Take the World Economic Forum. If there is a number one elitest among all elite institutions, this has to be it. At their annual confab in Davos, Switzerland, they gather the greatest of geniuses to instruct the very top government and business leaders how to run the world. Would you like to go? It will cost you $52,000 to join the organization, and then an additional $19,000 to attend the conference. Chartering a private jet to get you there will cost thousands more. Once there, you can hear the very smartest people imparting their thoughts on the most important topics of the day, like “The Great Reset,” “Emerging Technologies,” “Diversity and Inclusions,” and, of course, “The Net Zero Transition.”

Is it possible that these people are completely incompetent and have no idea what they are doing?

A reader has sent me the very latest from the WEF on how the world is going to get to Net Zero. The piece has a date of September 5, 2023, and is titled “How battery energy storage can power us to Net Zero.” The authors are three people from the World Bank, with the lead author being one Amit Jain, who is the Bank’s Energy Storage Program Lead. This is the guy on the receiving end of tens of billions of dollars of government money to pass out to make the energy transition happen throughout the developing world.

Now, it so happens that energy storage is something I know a little about, and in particular about the problem of trying to store enough energy to make an electrical grid work without full dispatchable backup. See my energy storage Report, dated December 1, 2022, at this link.

So let’s take a look at Jain, et al.’s, take on how battery storage will “power us to Net Zero.” First, some excited happy talk:

Across the globe, power systems are experiencing a period of unprecedented change. Low-cost renewable electricity is spreading and there is a growing urgency to boost power system resilience and enhance digitalization. This requires stockpiling renewable energy on a massive scale, notably in developing countries, which makes energy storage fundamental. . . .

Making energy storage systems mainstream in the developing world will be a game changer. Deploying battery energy storage systems will provide more comprehensive access to electricity while enabling much greater use of renewable energy, ultimately helping the world meet its Net Zero decarbonization targets. International organizations and development institutions are leading the way forward to enable this decarbonization. . . .

So OK Amit, how much storage are we talking about here?

In 2022, approximately 192GW (gigawatts) of solar and 75GW of wind were installed globally. However, only 16GW/35GWh (gigawatts per hour) of new storage systems were deployed. A recent International Energy Agency analysis finds that although battery energy storage systems have seen strong growth in recent years, grid-scale storage capacity still needs to be scaled up to reach Net Zero Emissions by 2050. . . . To meet our Net Zero ambitions of 2050, annual additions of grid-scale battery energy storage globally must rise to an average of 80 GW annually between now and 2030.

Holy underwear, Batman! Could this guy really not even know what units he’s talking about? Thinking his readers might not understand the abbreviation “GWh” he helpfully defines it as “gigawatts per hour”! Could he really be this clueless? And he had two co-authors to check him!

And then there’s the statement that to meet the 2050 Net Zero ambition, annual deployments of grid-scale batteries “must rise to an average of 80 GW annually.” Of course he is using the wrong units (and undoubtedly does not know that). But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he is talking about the standard batteries available today, which are 4 hour batteries, meaning that 80 GW would provide 320 GWh of storage. If the world would add that much capacity every year from now to 2050, that would come to 8,960 GWh of storage. How have Mr. Jain et al. come to the conclusion that this 8,960 GWh of storage will be enough to “meet our Net Zero ambitions of 2050”? The piece contains no quantitative analysis or backup of any kind to support the proposition that this amount of storage would be sufficient.

My own energy storage Report does contain backup and calculations, although only for certain countries rather than for the whole world. For example, for the United States, the figures cited in my Report are that it would take some 233,000 GWh of battery storage to fully back up the electrical grid, assuming current levels and patterns of usage. Since the U.S. is about 4% of world population, we can multiply that figure by 25 to get the storage requirement for the world (assuming that the world electrifies to the U.S. level by 2050). The total would be 5,825,000 GWh. In other words, Jain, et al., are off by a factor of about 650, give or take maybe a few hundred.

But it’s OK, because Jain and his colleagues have no skin in this game. They just babble some happy talk to get their hands on a few hundred billions of money from rich governments, and pass it out to build impressive-looking battery projects that are actually next to useless to provide reliable grid electricity. They can be very confident that no one in their circles will ever check the math to see if the numbers add up. When 2050 rolls around and the whole thing doesn’t work, they will be long retired on generous pensions.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | 1 Comment

After spending tens of billions on Ukraine and migrants, Scholz laughs when asked why elderly receive no pension inflation bonus

BY JOHN CODY | REMIX NEWS | SEPTEMBER 12, 2023

German leader, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, laughed off the possibility of providing seniors with a pension inflation bonus, telling an audience that the cost is far too great. The claim that the costs are too great to support seniors on meager pensions follows unprecedented spending from Germany’s left-wing government on weapons for Ukraine and social benefits for migrants.

As poverty rises in Germany, seniors on fixed pensions, known as “Rentner” and “Rentnerinnen,” have been hit especially hard. There are different categories of pensions in Germany, with those earning a higher pension, such as doctors and professors, receiving a far higher sum than those in the “Rentner” class. Those receiving smaller pensions, which totals millions of German seniors, are more acutely affected as rising costs for food, housing and energy eat into their income at a far faster rate.

More and more people are therefore demanding an inflation bonus for this vulnerable group totaling €3,000. Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz had not yet commented on these demands, but finally addressed the topic for the first time at a citizens’ dialogue in Bendorf in Rhineland-Palatinate. When asked about an inflation bonus for pensioners, the chancellor reportedly laughed. He then said: “Well, multiply the number of millions of pensioners by 3,000 – and then sit down very slowly. That’s quite a sum of money.”

Approximately 4.5 million seniors in the “Rentner” category survive on €1,500 a month.

Germany spends tens of billions on Ukraine, migrants, and climate protection in India

As of March 2023, Germany has sent Ukraine at least €14 billion in weapons and aid shipments, which was six months ago. Since then, that figure has risen to €22 billion and is only expected to rise over time. It must also be noted that due to sanctions on Russia, which is tied to the war in Ukraine, there has been an enormous increase in the cost of energy in Germany, which has not only eaten into the pocketbooks of households but also led to an increase in bankruptcies and a recession in Germany.

In addition, the German federal government plans to spend €36 billion on migrants in 2023, which includes housing, social benefits, and education, but that figure is likely a lowball estimate, as there are numerous hidden costs as well, such as millions more spent for police and security at German swimming pools to protect against migrant assaults and sexual violence.

The German government also proudly announced that India will receive €10 billion over the next 10 years on its own website, writing: “With the new Indo-German Partnership for Green and Sustainable Development signed by Prime Minister Modi and Chancellor Scholz at the 6th Indo-German Intergovernmental Consultations in Berlin on 2 May 2022, this cooperation has been uplifted to a new level, with Germany announcing to provide additional funds of Euro 10 billion for the next 10 years.”

India just sent its first space probe to the Moon, a feat Germany still has not accomplished.

In addition, some critics online have joked that “retirement at 30” in the form of welfare payments, known as “a citizen’s income” was just raised by approximately €50 billion.

In short, the funds are theoretically there for seniors, they are just going to other priorities. At present, Germany’s booming elderly population is suffering from poverty at a high rate. Federal government data published under a request from several Alternative for Germany (AfD) lawmakers revealed that 28.1 percent of the German elderly are at risk of poverty, a figure that is higher than the EU average of 27.4 percent and far greater than its Western European neighbors of France (19.1 percent), Belgium (17.4 percent), and Luxembourg (9.3 percent).

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Economics | | 1 Comment

China and India have ‘low intellectual potential’ – top Zelensky aide

RT | September 13, 2023

The people leading India and China lack the ability to predict the long-term consequences of their policies, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has claimed.

Mikhail Podoliak pointed to what he called “the problem of the modern world,” singling out India and China, in an interview with Ukrainian media on Tuesday.

“The problem with these countries is that they do not analyze the consequences of their own moves. These countries, unfortunately, have low intellectual potential,” he said.

Podoliak suggested that even though India has a lunar exploration program, it “does not mean that this nation understands what the modern world precisely is.”

The dismissive remarks were in the context of Beijing and New Delhi’s refusal to support Kiev in its conflict with Moscow. Podoliak complained that India, China and Türkiye were “profiting” from the war by maintaining trade with Russia.

“Technically, it is in their national interests,” he acknowledged, before presenting his view of what would benefit China in the long-run.

“China should be interested in Russia disappearing, because it is an archaic nation that drags China into unnecessary conflicts,” he claimed.

“It would be in their interest now to distance themselves from Russia as far as possible, take all the resources it has, and take part of the Russian territory under their legal control. In fact, they will do that,” he added.

Following the interview, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman urged Podoliak to clarify his remarks, when asked about them during a media briefing on Wednesday.

Podoliak has a record of lashing out at nations, organizations and public figures seen as not sufficiently supportive of Kiev.

Among his latest targets was Pope Francis, whom he had branded an “instrument of Russian propaganda” who “continues to reduce the influence of Catholicism in the world to zero.” The pontiff had encouraged Russian Catholics to cherish their nation’s historic legacy.

The Ukrainian official also recently hit out at Elon Musk, who Podoliak claimed “enabled evil” by refusing Kiev’s request to use his Starlink communications system to launch drone attacks against the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

Podoliak isn’t the first high-ranking Ukrainian official to make derogatory remarks about Asian countries. In August, Aleksey Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, suggested that Asian people were less humane compared to Europeans, including Ukrainians. “I’m fine with Asians, but Russians are Asians. They have a completely different culture, vision. Our key difference from them is humanity,” Danilov said.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Vietnam prioritizes Russian ties despite US attempts to pull it into its orbit

By Drago Bosnic | September 13, 2023

On September 11, Joe Biden concluded his visit to Vietnam, often hailed as an historic one by the mainstream propaganda machine. For instance, the BBC claims that “more than 50 years since the last American soldier left Vietnam, Mr Biden travelled to Hanoi to sign the agreement that will bring the former foes closer than ever before”. The troubled Biden administration hailed the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Vietnam as a major upgrade in relations with Hanoi and the culmination of efforts Washington DC invested in over the last several years. Biden also tried to present the rapprochement as having nothing to do with containing or isolating China, but about “maintaining stability in accordance with international rules”.

“I think we think too much in terms of Cold War. It’s not about that. It’s about generating economic growth and stability,” Biden told reporters on September 10, adding: “I want to see China to succeed economically, but I want to see them succeed by the rules.”

Obviously, this is a laughable claim for anyone remotely familiar with the rabidly Sinophobic policies the United States keeps escalating, be it the strategic containment of China, the never-ending stoking of tensions in Taiwan, attempts to prevent or at least derail Beijing’s technological development, etc. And to say nothing of the vaunted “rules-based world order”, as nobody actually knows what “rules” Biden is referring to. Not even Western leaders could pinpoint or even broadly explain the meaning of this pointless phrase, as the “rules” they keep parroting about are not defined. Essentially, they just make them up as they go, depending on the geopolitical circumstances, only later trying to present them as “in line with the international law”.

Still, even the BBC had to admit that Vietnam sees this rapprochement as nothing more than symbolic. According to Le Hong Hiep from Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, “Hanoi has thought this through”, as the aforementioned agreement with the US is “symbolic rather than [one of] substance”. Washington DC was hoping to use the sizeable investments of various American corporations in Vietnam for geopolitical purposes, including the reduction of China’s economic influence and Russia’s close military cooperation with Hanoi. However, both attempts are bound to fail, as Vietnam will certainly not break close ties with either for the sake of US interests in the region, particularly not with Moscow, one of its closest allies.

Namely, on September 9, the New York Times published the contents of a leaked document issued by the Vietnamese Ministry of Finance, revealing a plan to covertly acquire advanced Russian weapons. It should be noted that the US would have to impose sanctions in the case that Hanoi goes through with the deal, which is not exactly a very good message if Washington DC wants a strategic rapprochement with Vietnam. The NYT complains that “even as the United States and Vietnam have nurtured their relationship over recent months, Hanoi is making clandestine plans to buy an arsenal of weapons from Russia”. This only reinforces the notion that the “upgraded US-Vietnam relations” are indeed largely symbolic.

“The Ministry of Finance document, which is dated March 2023 and whose contents have been verified by former and current Vietnamese officials, lays out how Vietnam proposes to modernize its military by secretly paying for defense purchases through transfers at a joint Vietnamese and Russian oil venture in Siberia,” the NYT reports, adding: “Signed by a Vietnamese deputy finance minister, the document notes that Vietnam is negotiating a new arms deal with Russia that would ‘strengthen strategic trust’ at a time when ‘Russia is being embargoed by Western countries in all aspects’.”

In other words, Vietnam is clearly determined not to turn its back on one of its oldest and closest allies. Hanoi could certainly get concessions from the US, including advanced weapons, but its leadership is perfectly aware that this would be unwise, to say the least. Russian weapons haven’t only been proven as much more robust and equally or more advanced than American equivalents, but also much more affordable and logistically less strenuous. To say nothing of the history of US aggression in Indochina, where the belligerent thalassocracy killed up to four million people in Vietnam alone. And yet, the casualties would’ve been a lot worse had it not been for Moscow’s extensive aid, both economic and military.

It was Russian SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems that brought down thousands of American aircraft, saving millions of civilians in the process. Without Russian assault rifles, tanks, artillery and other weapons, Vietnam’s chances of driving out American invaders would’ve been slim to none. Hanoi never forgot that and continues fostering close ties with Moscow. The document cited by the NYT states precisely that – “Our party and state still identify Russia as the most important strategic partner in defense and security.” Vietnam’s reliance on Russian weapons is the most geopolitically sound, as Hanoi’s complicated relationship with both the US and China prevents it from relying on either militarily. This is highly unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

September 13, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | 1 Comment

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