“Exorbitant Rise In Energy Prices” Forces Europe’s Top Steelmaker To Close Plants
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | September 3, 2022
Even though European power and natural gas prices have subsided this week, Germany, the largest economy in the bloc, still faces historically high energy costs that have forced cuts in industrial output.
The latest example is the world’s largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal, which released a statement Friday about shutting down two plants and idling one.
Europe’s top steelmaker said two plants in Germany (one in Bremen and the other in Hamburg) would be partially closed at the end of September. A plant in Asturias, Spain, will also be idled.
ArcelorMittal blamed the coming smelter shutdowns on “the exorbitant rise in energy prices,” which is devastatingly impacting the company’s “competitiveness of steel production.” The decision to reduce metal output was also based on “weak market demand and a negative economic outlook” as energy hyperinflation risks sending Europe into a deep recession.
“As an energy-intensive industry, we are extremely affected. With gas and electricity prices increasing tenfold within just a few months, we are no longer competitive in a market that is 25% supplied by imports,” explained Reiner Blaschek, CEO of ArcelorMittal Germany.
Blaschek asked lawmakers to address the historic energy crisis and get prices “under control immediately.” Elevated prices this summer have resulted in a series of smelter closures from other metal-producing companies because high energy costs made production uneconomical.
In Germany, one of every six industrial companies feels forced to reduce production due to high energy prices, a survey by the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce, DIHK, showed at the end of July. Nearly a quarter of the companies forced to reduce production had already done so by end-July, and another one-quarter are in the process of scaling back production due to sky-high energy prices, according to the survey of 3,500 companies from all sectors and regions in Germany.
The energy-intensive industries and firms are particularly hit, as 32 percent of the companies plan to or have already started to reduce production and even halt entire production lines, the DIHK survey showed. — OilPrice.com’s Tsvetana Paraskova
Runaway energy costs were halted this week as German year-ahead electricity futures plunged by half since Monday’s peak above 1,000 euros a megawatt-hour as the EU considers market interventions. EU NatGas prices closed down about 33% from the highs reached on Aug. 25.
However, here’s where things get very dicey. After European markets closed, around the lunch hour in New York, news broke that Russian energy giant Gazprom won’t resume critical NatGas supplies to Europe via Nord Stream 1 tomorrow after an oil leak was detected. There’s no timeframe when NatGas supply will resume to the energy-stricken continent.
Europe’s energy crisis could materially worsen, which means higher NatGas and power prices that will only curb more industrial output. Germany could fall into recession this winter, bringing the rest of the bloc down with it.
Biden regime asks for more money for Ukraine
Samizdat | September 3, 2022
The White House asked Congress on Friday to approve another $11.7 billion in military aid for Ukraine amid its conflict with Russia.
The sum was included in an emergency funding request for $47.1 billion, which the Biden administration said was also required for its response to Covid-19 and monkeypox, as well as disaster relief efforts.
The $11.7 billion package includes $4.5 billion for military equipment and the replenishment of Pentagon stockpiles, $2.7 billion on defense and intelligence aid for Ukraine, and $4.5 billion on budgetary support for the government in Kiev.
“We have rallied the world to support the people of Ukraine to defend their democracy and we simply cannot allow that support to Ukraine to run dry,” White House Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young wrote in a blog post.
The administration also requested $2 billion to alleviate the negative effects of the conflict in Ukraine, as well as Western sanctions imposed on Russia affecting energy supplies in the US.
The US has been the main backer of Kiev in its conflict with Moscow, providing the Ukrainian forces with billions of dollars in military and financial aid, as well as intelligence data. Washington’s deliveries to the Zelensky government have included such sophisticated hardware as HIMARS multiple rocket launchers, M777 howitzers, and combat drones.
Congress approved a $40 billion military and humanitarian support package for Ukraine in May. According to Young, around three-quarters of the aid that lawmakers provided to Kiev has already been disbursed or committed. “As we said at the time, those resources were intended to last through September,” she explained.
Russia has repeatedly criticized the deliveries of weapons to Kiev from Washington and its allies, saying they won’t change the outcome of the conflict, but will prolong the fighting and increase the risk of a direct confrontation between Moscow and NATO.
Washington’s “ever more obvious and deeper involvement in Ukraine in terms of countering our military operation, in fact, puts… the US on the verge of turning into a party to the conflict,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned last month.
Israeli occupation forces confiscate 4 boats, sink 2 others off Gaza shores
Palestinian Information Center – September 2, 2022
GAZA – During the past two days, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have escalated their attacks against the Palestinian fishermen off the Gaza shores.
The IOF chased and opened fire at Palestinian fishing boats sailing within the allowed fishing area in separate incidents. As a result, four boats were confiscated, and another was sunk, while a fifth was burned.
According to the Palestinian fishermen syndicate, the occupation forces burned a boat belonging to the fisherman Haitham Farwana after opening fire at it off Khan Yunis shores on Thursday.
The Israeli forces also confiscated on the same day the boat of the fisherman Abdel Moati Al-Habil.
Earlier on Wednesday, IOF confiscated a fishing boat where Ahmad Adel Mohammad Al-Bardawil was on board sailing within 3 nautical miles off western Rafah shore, southern Gaza Strip. There were also 2 generators and 30 searchlights on the boat.
The IOF also confiscated 2 fishing boats belonging to Muhannad Ra’fat Radwan Baker, and Tayseer Mohammad Abdulnouri, who are both residents of al-Shati refugee camp. They were sailing within 3 nautical miles off al-Waha shore, northwest of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.
In a separate incident, a fisherman named Omar Mohammad Ism’ail Al-Bardawil said that IOF’s gunboats stationed off the Fishermen Seaport, western Rafah, pumped water at a fishing boat he owns and sank it. The boat was sailing within 6 nautical miles and had a generator and searchlights on board.
So far in 2022, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) documented the injury of 19 fishermen and the arrest of 44 others, including 6 children; 2 fishermen remain in IOF detention. Also, the Israeli authorities continue to keep 18 fishing boats and dozens of fishing tools and equipment in their custody.
In this regard, PCHR reiterated its call upon the international community, including the States Party to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, to compel the Israeli authorities to cease their attacks and pursuit of Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza waters, and to allow them to fish freely.
Israeli naval delegation deployed to Yemen’s Socotra Island
The Cradle | September 2, 2022
Yemeni media reported on 2 September that a delegation of Israeli military experts has been deployed to the UAE-controlled Yemeni island of Socotra, located in the Gulf of Aden.
According to the report, the Israeli team has been on the island for the past few days, and is accompanied by several Emirati intelligence officers.
The report adds that the delegation, who belong to Tel Aviv’s navy, have been carrying out search operations and excavations across Socotra Island.
The island, inhabited by around 60,000 people, overlooks the Strait of Bab Al-Mandab, a major shipping corridor that links the Red Sea to both the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Over the past year, Israel has reportedly been working with its Gulf partner to establish a presence on Socotra.
According to a Yemeni media report from March, the UAE is involved in the development of a construction project to build facilities on the island for the purpose of hosting Israeli soldiers, officers, and other military experts and personnel.
This is allegedly part of a plan to turn the Yemeni island into a center for regional espionage, as well as to increase military control over maritime routes.
Last year, Israel signed an agreement with the UAE, allowing it to establish an intelligence center at the island’s Hadibu Airport.
Israel is also interested in the strategic Yemeni island because it serves as a potential flashpoint for a confrontation with Iran. In 2020, the Washington Institute published an analysis examining how Israeli submarines could potentially strike the Islamic Republic from positions near Yemen.
In January of this year, Socotra Island made headlines due to controversial photos of Israeli tourists who had visited the island under a UAE-issued visa.
In June of 2020, the UAE established control of the island by bribing its tribal authorities.
Former Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi described the UAE’s takeover of the island as “a full-fledged coup,” however.
Since the start of the war on Yemen in 2015, the UAE has been an integral part of the Saudi-led coalition, backing mercenary groups across the country and taking part in indiscriminate bombing campaigns.
The Saudi-led coalition, which continues to violate the UN-brokered ceasefire agreement, receives logistical and military support from the US, the UK, France, and most notably Israel.
Biden seeks to get political enemies killed – ex-Trump aide
Samizdat | September 2, 2022
Former Donald Trump aide Steve Bannon has accused US President Joe Biden of trying to stir up hatred of his political enemies to get them killed. Bannon made the comments after being “swatted” – his home was stormed by heavily armed police based on a false report – for the second time this summer.
“The White House is trying to use this type of violence,” Bannon told the UK’s Daily Mail on Friday, one day after Biden vilified supporters of former President Donald Trump as “extremists” who threaten to destroy American democracy. “They’re stirring up unstable people on the far left to do this.”
Police in Washington were called to Bannon’s home on a false report on Thursday evening, just minutes before Biden began his scathing primetime speech. Earlier in the day, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemned those who don’t agree with the American majority as “extreme.” Last week, Biden likened the “Make America Great Again” philosophy of Trump’s supporters to “semi-fascism” and accused “MAGA Republicans” of posing “a threat to our very democracy.”
“This is 100% triggered by the White House – the White House spokeswoman earlier that day, Biden’s announcements over the last couple of days,” said Bannon, formerly chief White House strategist and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign CEO. He added that the swatting calls were “very specific” and were intended to trigger police to use “deadly force.”
Bannon, who normally broadcasts his “War Room” radio show from his home, wasn’t there during the latest swatting incident. He was targeted in a similar incident last July, when armed police swarmed his home after a caller said a gunman was inside and had shot someone.
Another top Biden critic, US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, was swatted last month, when a caller falsely reported that a man had been shot in a bathtub at her Georgia home. After waking to loud knocks and seeing people and lights outside, she opened her door to police with guns drawn. The caller who made the false report later claimed to be angry about Greene’s opposition to child sex-change operations and admitted wanting to “swat” her.
Swatting calls have led to multiple deaths in the US. For example, a Kansas man was killed by police in 2017, after a 911 caller reported that he had shot his father and was holding remaining family members hostage.
“What happened to [Greene] and myself is, they’re trying to get us assassinated by using law enforcement,” Bannon said. He added that would-be assassins could use other methods to target Biden’s enemies. “Biden is stirring up his most unstable and radical element to use any means necessary to physically harm or suppress dissenting voices.”
Nevertheless, Bannon vowed to keep pushing for conservative causes. “I’m never going to stop, so they’ll have to kill me first.”
EU wants to set price for Russian gas
Samizdat | September 2, 2022
The EU needs a price ceiling on imports of Russian pipeline gas, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Friday, according to Reuters.
“I firmly believe that it is now time for a price cap on Russian pipeline gas to Europe,” she told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of German conservative lawmakers in the town of Murnau.
The EU chief insists the measure would prevent what she called Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attempts to manipulate the European energy market.
EU energy ministers are expected to discuss the issue during an extraordinary meeting on September 9.
Meanwhile, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev warned on Friday that in the event of the introduction of such a price cap, EU nations won’t get any Russian gas. “It will be like with oil. There will be no Russian gas in Europe,” Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel.
His comments relate to a plan to limit prices on Russian oil currently being discussed by Group of Seven (G7) countries. Moscow has already warned it will embargo countries that support the Washington-proposed price cap on its crude exports.
G7 unveils plan to enforce Russian oil price cap
Samizdat | September 2, 2022
The finance ministers of the Group of Seven influential nations announced on Friday their intention to ban maritime services transporting Russian oil if its price is not approved by ‘international partners.’
“We commit to urgently work on the finalization and implementation of this measure,” representatives from the US, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, the UK and Japan said in a joint statement seen by AFP, without specifying the cap level.
“We seek to establish a broad coalition in order to maximize effectiveness and urge all countries that still seek to import Russian oil and petroleum products to commit to doing so only at prices at or below the price cap,” they added.
The move is aimed at slashing Moscow’s revenues while maintaining a flow of its crude to the international markets, to avoid a price surge.
“We will curtail [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s capacity to fund his war from oil exports by banning services, such as insurance and the provision of finance, to vessels carrying Russian oil above an agreed price cap,” British Finance Minister Nadhim Zahawi reportedly said, according to a tweet by a Sky News reporter.
According to the statement, the initial price cap will be based on a range of technical inputs, and the price level will be revisited as necessary. “We aim to align implementation with the timeline of related measures within the EU’s sixth sanctions package,” the ministers noted.
Western leaders agreed in June to explore a price ceiling to limit how much refiners and traders can pay for Russian crude. Moscow has made it clear that it would not comply, instead shipping its crude to countries not bound by the cap. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak warned on Thursday that nations that support the price cap will not get Russian crude.
US violates UN agreement – Moscow
Samizdat – September 2, 2022
The US has neglected its obligation as the nation hosting the UN headquarters when it refused to grant visas to Russia’s interior minister and other members of his delegation, Moscow has argued. Vladimir Kolokoltsev and colleagues had intended to take part in a UN summit of interior ministers.
“Because of the American side’s actions, the participation in the summit of the Russian delegation headed by interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev has been called off,” Russia’s permanent representative at the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said Thursday.
The diplomat went on to describe Washington’s refusal to issue visas to the Russian officials as “yet another blatant violation by the US of its obligations” under the 1947 agreement regarding the headquarters of the UN.
Nebenzia stressed that giving access to the international organization’s premises is not a privilege, but rather Washington’s obligation under international law.
This is not the first time that the US has refused to grant visas to Russian officials.
In late July, Andrey Krutskih, the director of the international information security department in the country’s foreign ministry, was denied entry to the US, where he had planned to take part in a UN session.
On top of this, Washington has yet to issue visas for Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who is to head the country’s delegation at the UN General Assembly, which kicks off on September 13. According to Russian officials, even though Moscow had requested the visas well in advance, American authorities have not yet signaled their readiness to grant them.
Earlier, both Nebenzia and his deputy Dmitry Polyansky called on the UN to take action and launch an arbitral tribunal against Washington over its repeated visa denials to Russian officials.
Commenting on the latest such instance on Thursday, Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said that the “UN constantly raises the question with the host country over the non-issuance of visas to Russian diplomats arriving at the UN.” The international organization will “continue to do it,” he added, as quoted by TASS agency.
Under an accord between the US and the UN, Washington should not obstruct visits by representatives and officials of the member states to the organization’s New York headquarters.
YouTube will censor election “misinformation” that doesn’t break any rules
By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | September 1, 2022
YouTube has detailed how it will scale up its censorship efforts in the run-up to the 2022 US midterm elections by removing election “misinformation” and suppressing content that doesn’t break any rules but is considered to be “borderline.”
YouTube claims that its election misinformation policy applies to any past US presidential election, the 2021 German federal election, and the 2014 and 2018 Brazilian presidential elections. Under this policy, alleging that “widespread fraud, errors, or glitches” occurred in these elections or claiming that “certified results of those elections were false” is banned.
Despite YouTube’s claim that this policy applies to any past US presidential election, numerous videos questioning the 2016 US presidential results and alleging that Russia hacked the election are still on the platform. By contrast, the policy was used to remove more than 8,000 channels for making “harmful and misleading” claims about the 2020 US presidential election. And YouTube said it’s already removed several videos related to the 2022 US midterms.
In addition to removing content that breaks its election misinformation rules, YouTube will also prevent “borderline” content from being widely recommended. According to YouTube, borderline content doesn’t break any rules but is suppressed because it comes close to breaking the rules.
Finally, YouTube will amplify mainstream media outlets that it deems to be “authoritative” by:
- Prominently recommending their content
- Promoting their election night live streams on the YouTube homepage
- Adding labels from these sources below videos about the midterms and in search results about the midterms
YouTube said that PBS NewsHour, The Wall Street Journal, Univision and local ABC, CBS and, NBC affiliates are some of the authoritative sources that will receive additional amplification.
In 2020, YouTube’s artificial amplification of mainstream media outlets gave them a huge advantage over independent creators. Independent creators were 14x less likely to be recommended on election-related content and mainstream media outlets had an 88% chance of ranking in the top 10 search results for election-related content.
This year, YouTube has censored several videos about the 2022 Brazilian general election including a video from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and multiple videos from journalists.
YouTube is one of several Big Tech platforms to announce increased election censorship measures in the run-up to the 2022 US midterms with Facebook and Twitter recently describing how they plan to censor what they deem to be election misinformation as the midterms approach.
Related:
🛡 The subtle (and not so subtle) ways Big Tech has the power to influence elections
Bank of Russia explains why country’s frozen reserves were kept abroad
Samizdat | September 2, 2022
The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) explained on Friday why half of the country’s foreign currency reserves were being held abroad, which enabled their seizure by Western governments.
Foreign exchange reserves were deliberately divided into two halves, one of which was dollar and euro assets, CBR’s first deputy chairman Dmitry Tulin told business daily RBK. Those assets were actively used in domestic money circulation, so the regulator had to play the role of a “wholesale warehouse,” he explained.
“The fact that, by the beginning of 2022, the international reserves were divided, as they say, into “two piles” – one for peacetime and the other for emergency situations, is a consequence of the work that has been systematically carried out since 2015,” Tulin said, noting that “there was no way not to keep part of the reserves in dollars and euros, because these currencies were most actively used … for settlements in foreign trade.”
According to Tulin, who oversees the supervision of the banking sector at the CBR, “if there’s constant capital turnover, there should be reserves.”
The deputy chairman drew an analogy with the retail sector, noting that a store, in order to operate smoothly and satisfy customer demand, needs to keep stocks. “There are small warehouses at shops and large warehouses at wholesale bases. The role of a wholesale warehouse for conducting operations in foreign currencies in our economy was performed by the Central Bank, which held the state foreign exchange reserves,” Tulin said.
In March, nearly half of Russia’s foreign reserves – worth $300 billion – were frozen as part of the sanctions imposed by the US, the EU, and their allies over the conflict in Ukraine.
The regulator then explained that keeping gold and foreign exchange reserves in the country would have been like having no reserves at all, as such assets protect the economy against external crises. Reserves in US dollars and euros help the country pay its debts and keep trade going, so nothing could have been done to prevent a freeze of its assets, the bank said. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the asset freeze by the West essentially constitutes theft.
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New Book
The Garlic Book — 2026
Lies are Unbekoming | November 5, 2026
What The Garlic Book shows
The book is in four parts.
Part One, The Record, treats the history of garlic as evidence. From the clay garlic bulb placed in an Egyptian grave nearly six thousand years ago, through the Ebers Papyrus, through Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Pliny and Galen, the Arab physicians under Avicenna, the medieval herbals, Culpeper, and the plague years, to the last era in which Western physicians prescribed garlic as a matter of course, which ran from 1850 to 1945. It closes with the living traditions that never stopped using it, and with the folklore of charms, vampires and the evil eye.
Part Two, The Chemistry and the Evidence, sets out what is known about why a clove has no smell until it is cut, and why the order of crush, rest and heat changes the medicine. It then reads the clinical evidence against the historical record — bacteria, blood and vessels, cancer epidemiology, metals and fatigue — and names the trials that went against garlic as directly as the trials that went for it, including the 2007 Stanford trial funded by the US National Institutes of Health which found that raw garlic, garlic powder and aged garlic extract moved LDL cholesterol no more than placebo did. It then turns to onion, garlic’s closest relative, and reads the newer evidence published since 2015, before closing with the whole of the record through the terrain lens.
Part Three, Why Medicine Set It Aside, asks the question directly. One chapter contrasts the pharmaceutical model of isolating a single active compound with the folk model of combining whole plants, and reports what the garlic evidence says about which model works better. One chapter examines the economics of research on a plant that cannot be patented. One chapter — Fire Cider — tells the story of a folk preparation whose name was taken into a United States trademark by a Massachusetts company in 2012, and won back by three herbalists in 2014 who documented forty years of prior use through Rosemary Gladstar and her students into the older tradition.
Part Four, Garlic in Practice, is the working manual — the kitchen pharmacy, traditional uses by body system, a full chapter on safety and interactions, and a complaint-by-complaint practical guide. The book closes with The Trial That Was Never Run — a one-chapter reading of the whole evidential architecture.
At the back: two appendices (a traditional list of uses, and a preparation quick-reference), a full bibliography, and a live index.
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