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The UK is Doing Its Best to Stir a Food Crisis While Pinning the Blame on Russia

By Ekaterina Blunova – Samizdat – 24.06.2022

Russia’s special operation in Ukraine may cause a two-year global food crisis even if the standoff ends tomorrow, The Telegraph claims, citing Western officials. They insist that exporting grain “trapped” in Ukraine is the remedy, while remaining mute about West’s sanctions paralyzing larger food exports from Russia to third-world countries.

“We are very clear that this grain crisis is urgent, that it needs to be solved within the next month otherwise we could see devastating consequences,” UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told the press on June 23.

The ongoing conflict has disrupted production, “causing global food prices to soar to record levels,” claims The Telegraph. In particular, wheat prices increased to an average of 56.2% in May, 2022 above their value last year, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The newspaper’s source says that the British officials see current efforts to move Ukrainian grain over land and road as “far below” what is needed. They insist that the commodity needs to be exported by sea, accusing Russia of blocking Ukraine’s food supplies from leaving Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. According to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Moscow was trying to hold the world “ransom.”

The newspaper also cites “newly declassified US intelligence” claiming that the Russian navy “has been given orders to lay mines” in Odessa and Ochakov and “mined” the Dnieper River “as part of its blockade of Ukrainian grain exports.” According to BoJo, the UK is helping Ukraine “at a technical level to help demine Odessa.”

Western Press Remain Mute About Russia’s Black Sea Corridors

Russia denounced the US and the UK claims, stressing that the Ukrainian military mined their own ports during the retreat. Furthermore, Ukraine continues to stampede Russo-Turkish efforts to demine the area and ensure the safe passage of ships from the country’s territorial waters.

On June 2, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya made it clear that Russia is ready to provide safe corridors for Ukrainian ships carrying 20 million tons of grain if Kiev demines the water area surrounding its ports.

In late May, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that the Russian Navy had created safe zones in the Black and Azov Seas for ships leaving Ukraine along humanitarian corridors. The corridors with a length of 139 miles and 3 miles wide are operating daily from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm (GMT+3) in the Black Sea for vessels stationed in the ports of Kherson, Nikolaev, Chernomorsk, Ochakov, Odessa and Yuzhny.

Nevertheless, the Kiev authorities “continue to do everything possible to evade interaction with representatives of foreign states and ship-owning companies in resolving the issue of ensuring the safe exit of blocked ships,” according to the MoD.

Turkey, which has worked with Russia in demining the Black Sea and providing safe passage to vessels, echoes Moscow’s concerns. Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu told Anadolu Agency last month that the two major obstacles hindering grain exports are mines placed by the Ukrainian military in the Odessa water area as well as Western sanctions slapped on Russian ships in terms of insurance and the provision of services at international ports.

Ukraine’s Role in Food Crisis Largely Overestimated

The Western press is shying away from discussing how anti-Russian sanctions, imposed on the country’s trade, finance, transportation and crucial agricultural commodities have backfired on the global food market sending prices high.

Senegalese President and African Union chief Macky Sall raised the alarm earlier this month over Western restrictions preventing Russia’s grain and fertilizers exports to Africa.

“Sanctions against Russia have aggravated the situation with the supply of grains and fertilizers to African countries. We no longer have access to them, and this poses a serious threat to food security on the continent,” Sall warned on 3 June during an official visit to Russia.

Together Ukraine and Russia produce about a third of the wheat traded in global markets, according to the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Still, Russia is the world’s largest exporter of wheat, providing more than 17% of all wheat sold in the global market while Ukraine’s share amounts to roughly 10%.

For comparison’s sake, Russia exported 44.64 million tons of wheat in 2018, while Ukraine provided the global market with 16.91 tons of the commodity the same year, according to FAO.

Ukraine’s role as a food commodity exporter is deliberately overestimated by the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a June interview with Rossiya-1.

“The world produces about 800 million tons of grain and wheat per year. Now we are told that Ukraine is ready to export 20 million tons. 20 million tons compared to the 800 million tons the world makes is 2.5% of that figure. But if we proceed from the fact that wheat makes up only 20% of the total food supply (and this is the reality, these are not our figures but those of the UN) this means that these 20 million tons of Ukrainian wheat make up 0.5 percent,” the Russian president told the broadcaster.

Putin dismissed claims that Russia was supposedly trying to block the export of Ukrainian grain, calling the allegations a “bluff.” The Russian president stressed there were no obstacles to the export of grain from Ukraine. He stressed that ships carrying wheat could enter the Black Sea any time if Kiev clears ports of mines. World wheat prices have fallen by 10% after Putin signaled Russia’s readiness to ensure the transport of grain from Ukrainian ports.

G7 & NATO to Double Down on Further Isolating Russia

While the British government continues to castigate Russia’s special operation for the unfolding global food crisis, the British prime minister is calling for Europe to step up military aid to Ukraine.

In particular, BoJo came up with a new plan offering Ukraine a training campaign for its military personnel and urging Western leaders to provide “constant funding and technical help” to Ukraine to ensure Kiev’s longstanding resistance to Russia.

BoJo is expected to push France and Germany to strengthen their support for Ukraine during the G7 summit next week, “as he fears that [Ukrainian President] Volodymyr Zelensky could be bounced into agreeing a ‘s***y’ peace deal [with Russia],” according to the Telegraph.

For its part, Reuters projects that next week G7 and NATO leaders will work to “increase pressure” on Russia over its special operation in Ukraine, while seeking to further isolate the country from the global economy.

June 24, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Argentina Requests BRICS Membership

Samizdat – 24.06.2022

Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández requested BRICS membership for his country during the 14th summit of the international organization, which the Argentinian leader attended among other high-ranking guests.

“We aspire to be a full member of this group of nations that already represents 42% of the world’s population and 24% of the global gross product”, the president said.

Fernández noted that his country could supplement the union of five countries as a reliable supplier of food, as well as a recognized player in the field of biotechnology and logistics. He further stressed Argentina’s ability to train specialists in various fields, as well as provide various services on the international scale.

The president expressed an eagerness for his country to join the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) during its 14th summit, which is taking place in a videoconference format this year. It formally kicked off on June 22 and has continued through June 24.

Its members meet to discuss acute political and economic trends and mildly coordinate their own political and economic policies. They also discussed how to jointly navigate the currents of global trade and exercise their considerable influence (24% of global GDP) to change them.

June 24, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

The Lockdown Advocacy of Devi Sridhar

By Jeffrey A. Tucker | Brownstone Institute | June 20, 2022

The Covid era gave rise not only to popular mania but also to astonishing intellectual pretension. The experts were everywhere. They had all the answers. They knew for certain that a path never tried in anyone’s lifetimes was the certain way to go in order to control a virus. And this fanatical attachment to one goal caused all other considerations to be pushed aside.

The end of the story was baked in from the start. The experts were proven to have massively exaggerated their prowess and understanding of events. On point after point, their models blew up. The epidemic would end the way they always have, through acquired immunity and endemicity. Nowhere did the methods of the vaunted experts achieve the goal; at best they delayed the end point and created tremendous destruction along the way.

Now there is a problem: how to dial it all back without admitting profound error. This is a particular problem for those who wrote books before the story was complete. And by complete I am referring especially to the tremendous waves of infections that came 20 months after lockdowns were first imposed.

A paradigmatic case is Devi Sridhar, professor and chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. During the pandemic, she became a ubiquitous presence on television for two years both in the UK and the US. Her main message was to advocate and defend lockdowns, masking, mandates, and the entire apparatus of compulsion that characterized the pandemic response in nearly every country in the world. Her message was always geared toward what is called eliminationism or zero Covid.

As a Rhodes scholar in a high prestige position, she was well positioned to be this messenger. She has a compelling way and presents well in the medium. Plus, the message she delivered was the one that earned an official stamp of approval from all mainstream media. She was also a pro at delivering an attitude of disdain toward anyone who dared question the zero Covid story.

Now she has a book out that further elaborates on her point of view. It has the right title: Preventable: How a Pandemic Changed the World and How to Prevent the Next One. It’s a pretentious title, presuming that she knows for certain that the pandemic was preventable and therefore she should be trusted to tell us what to do next time.

What’s striking is the contrast between the certitude of the body of the book in which she is an unapologetic defender of China-style lockdowns and the afterword, which must have been written only days before the book went to print. Here we have a very different tone, discussed toward the end of this review.

Sadly for her, the book came out just before a wave of new lockdowns came to China that wrecked the lives and liberties of hundreds of millions of people and made an enormous mess of the entire economic mission of the country. She must not have had time to revise the manuscript.

Of China, her book says:

The way China set about eliminating SARS-CoV-2 could be described as draconian. It undertook house-to-house testing and removed individuals to quarantine facilities if they tested positive (sometimes against their will); it used tracking technology to trace 99–100 per cent of those who had had contact with the infected; it locked down entire buildings so individuals could not leave their flats or have free movement; and it constructed completely new hospitals within days…

The Chinese government understood well that the virus moves when people move. So it stopped people moving internally…

The efforts to contain the spread within Wuhan were effective and focused on reducing the R number…

These measures to contain spread worked…

[China showed that] containment strategies (however draconian) could be effective at stopping this respiratory pathogen…

The evidence in February 2020 showed that containment was successful…

Within the span of three months, China had eliminated the virus fully within its borders…

This is the same message she delivered to millions day after day for two years.

We could just stop this review here, observing that none of the above turns out to be true. Currently, China faces an enormous problem. If we are to believe the data, vast swaths of China’s population still lack acquired immunity to Covid. Millions or billions need the exposure, and, as with all places in the world, the result for nearly everyone moderately healthy and not elderly will be recovery. This will happen with or without lockdowns.

President Xi Jinping, however, became convinced either by virtue of his ego or his circle of sycophants that his lockdowns two and a half years ago were his greatest achievement. He was celebrated by the World Health Organization and nearly every country in the world copied his brutal methods of virus suppression. He regarded it then as evidence that the CCP was destined to rule the future, by virtue of its masterful social, economic, and now medical management of society.

So of course the CCP cannot turn back now. He has stated repeatedly that there will be no compromise of the zero Covid stance that both he and Dr. Sridhar have long advocated. He must now either continue to threaten and enact lockdowns or figure out some clever way to back away from the position without admitting past error. He may in fact figure it out at some point.

After all, nearly every other government in the world has finally figured it out. Even under the best of assumptions that lockdowns offer some contribution to mitigate the ill-effects of a pathogen, the costs far outweigh those benefits. And those costs not only include economic, educational, and nutritional ones but also costs in terms of deaths from overdoses, despair, and self-harm from the inevitable demoralization from being treated like a prisoner or lab rat.

So I did read Dr. Sridhar’s book in search of some insight as to why she could have made such a profound error. All I found was a relentless and single-minded attachment to a zero Covid agenda, or some version of it, a genuine belief that the right deployment of human force could somehow make a virus go away. It truly boggles the mind.

The rest of the narrative is utterly predictable.

Countries that locked down are good, especially New Zealand and Australia. Countries that did not are bad, especially Sweden but also the UK and the US after reopening. Countries that kept lockdowns longer are good. Countries that opened up too soon are corrupt and rejecting “the science.” The Great Barrington Declaration is bad. Ramdesivir is good while Ivermectin is bad. And so on.

Her hard-core bias extends even to a rousing defense of Rebekah Jones, the low-level data employee in Florida who wrongly accused the Governor’s office of manipulating data in a case that was later tossed out.

The book is so partisan that she sometimes lets her politics even race ahead of her epidemiological position. For example, and this probably won’t surprise you, she comes to the defense of the George Floyd protests even in the midst of lockdowns:

In late May 2020, I was asked whether protesters were wrong to take to the streets. I replied that racism is also a pandemic, and one that Black Americans feel can’t be swept under the carpet any longer. While clearly mass gatherings during a pandemic are risky, I could understand that people were willing to take this risk in order to effect change for their children and the children of their children. This is how the civil rights movement has attempted to progress racial equality over decades.

In any case, you get the point here. She has a tribe and she wants to be its messenger. Still, I struggled through the entire text to see if I could find insight. This one jumped out at me:

While WHO was at the forefront of press briefings and leading technical and normative guidance to the pandemic, the World Bank had the financial power to help governments respond with key policies, whether through building up health systems and testing, putting in place economic packages to support lockdown measures, or in acquiring and distributing vaccines.

There we go: the World Bank subsidized lockdowns. Fascinating. That I did not know. This is a serious problem that needs to be fixed. How many millions face malnutrition as a result?

So much for the body of the book.

Probably the most telling part of the book is the afterword, written January 2022. Here our author jumps in with the latest information, namely that China had not in fact eradicated the virus and now keeps locking down, which she says is due to inferior vaccines. Within a few paragraphs, she – for the first time in the book – recognizes that even the best vaccines do not stop infection and do not stop the spread..

Whoops. Is she willing to rewrite the entire book in light of this last-minute realization that lockdown eliminationism and even mass vaccination cannot achieve the goal? No. Is she willing to rethink? Perhaps a bit but not enough.

While some say we should adapt normal social relations and mixing for the foreseeable future, I struggle with this line of thought. Humans are social: we need to hug, talk, dance, sing, kiss and be around others. We’re not bears or rhinos or other solitary creatures. We like seeing each other’s faces. And we know that a sense of community and connection are vital to wellbeing too. A holistic approach to public health is vital, and this includes not just people’s mental health but also their ability to pay rent, feed their family, stay warm through the winter and have a meaningful role in society, be that going to church or being part of a glee club. For a certain period of time, altering these made sense, so that we could avoid preventable illness and deaths; allow vaccines to be created, trialled and distributed in 2020 and into 2021; allow clinicians to better understand how to treat COVID-19; and allow a better understanding of transmission and risk.

Again, very interesting, especially because the change in tone from the rest of the book is so sharp. She doesn’t come close to repudiating her entire book – and she still believes that totalitarian measures somehow make sense for a “period of time” – but she does say that she is tired and exhausted and perhaps ready for some rethinking.

“I’ve taken a step back from media work… I’ve been testing several times a week, and, while I cautiously avoid crowded spaces, and wear masks on public transport and in shops, I continue to go to the gym and to hot yoga and to see friends outside or in small groups. I’ve found a sustainable way to live alongside COVID-19 for now… You’ve heard enough from me.

These are hopeful signs. It’s possible that even Devi Sridhar might eventually come to see the error of her ways. Or perhaps like most of the exalted experts who assisted in driving the world into the greatest calamity of the modern era, she will quietly disappear from the op-ed pages and television screens and go back to her prior life as a public health professor with degrees in anthropology. At some point, too, she will get Covid and discover with millions of others that it is part of the human experience to get sick and get well and become stronger as a result.

We will wait in vain for any sort of extended literary mea culpas. Not even the pensive afterword comes close. After all, when the next great health crisis presents itself, the WHO pushes for lockdowns again, and the major media empires need some great excuse to order people back home to be glued to the screen, the expertise of these compelling pundits – now with real media experience – will need to be called upon again.

Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and ten books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown.

June 23, 2022 Posted by | Book Review, Civil Liberties, Economics, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

BRICS Leaders Vow to Enhance & Expand New Development Bank

Samizdat – 23.06.2022

The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa held their 14th annual summit on Thursday virtually. This year, the summit was chaired by China.

BRICS members vowed to widen the Shanghai-based New Development Bank (NDB) on Thursday, following the successful admission of Bangladesh, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Uruguay in September 2021.

“We look forward to further membership expansion in a gradual and balanced manner in terms of geographic representation and comprising of both developed and developing countries, to enhance the NDB’s international influence as well as the representation and voice of Emerging Market and Developing Countries (EMDCs) in global governance,” the 75-point joint declaration released after the summit read.

BRICS has supported the NDB’s goals of attaining the highest possible credit rating and institutional development. The BRICS member nations have also stressed that they have a similar approach to the global economic governance, and their mutual cooperation can make a valuable contribution to the post-Covid economic recovery.

Geopolitical Concerns

Leaders also discussed the ongoing crisis in Eastern Europe, recalling their national positions at different global forums, including the United Nations’ Security Council and General Assembly.

“We support talks between Russia and Ukraine. We have also discussed our concerns over the humanitarian situation in and around Ukraine,” the joint declaration said.

Amid border tensions between India and China, the leaders committed to “respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all States,” stressing the peaceful resolution of differences and disputes through dialogue and consultation.

The BRICS countries – which represent 24 percent of the global GDP and 16 percent of worldwide trade – further reiterated the need to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue through peaceful and diplomatic means as per international law. They stressed the importance of preserving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a deal reached between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in 2015. The stand-off between Iran and western nations continues following the US’ withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018.

June 23, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Israeli occupation forces destroy an access road to a Ramallah-area village

WAFA – June 22, 2022

RAMALLAH – The Israeli occupation forces today destroyed an access road to Ras Karkar village, northwest of Ramallah, hampering the movement of people, according to the head of Ras Karkar village council, Marwan Nofal.

He said that the destroyed road had been partially paved for 20 years and that three months ago, following coordination with the Israeli military government, work on the rehabilitation of the road started. However, two days after the start of the work, the military forces raided the area and seized the vehicles used in the work, imposing a fine on their owners.

Nofal said that despite continuous promises to allow the rehabilitation work, the army sent its bulldozers today to destroy the road under the pretext that the road is located on “state land”.

The destruction of the road led to depriving farmers of access to their lands on the western side of the village, he said, and isolating several houses, noting that this is not the first time the Israeli military has targeted the village.

Ras Karkar suffers from the presence of seven iron gates at its entrances that limit the movement of people and access to their homes and lands.

At the same time, the Israeli military government does not allow it to carry out any work to improve the village’s infrastructure, said Nofal.

June 23, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Most African countries support Russia

By Lucas Leiroz | June 22, 2022

Apparently, Volodymir Zelensky’s popularity in Ukraine is very low. The Ukrainian leader called for a virtual diplomatic meeting with African heads of state, but the event failed completely. Almost all African leaders declined to participate, hampering Zelensky’s plans to make the meeting a pro-Kiev propaganda stage. Meanwhile, the Russian government’s popularity is growing in Africa, where citizens take the streets in support for the special military operation in Ukraine and ask for Russian help in combating terrorism.

On June 20, the Ukrainian president met with representatives of the African Union in order to discuss matters concerning the current conflict situation in Eastern Europe and the role of Africa on the world arena. Of the fifty-five heads of state invited to the meeting, only four attended. The other countries sent only diplomats or ministers, with the heads of state and government not willing to attend, even with the meeting being virtual.

The heads of state who attended the meeting were Macky Sall of Senegal, Alassane Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire, Mohammed el-Menfi, President of the Libyan Council, and Denis Sassou Nguesso of Congo. It is important to note that Sall is the current president of the African Union, which is why his presence was essential for the event to take place. Therefore, his attendance does not necessarily mean an expression of his real desire – even more considering his recent conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the effort to increase Russia-Africa cooperation.

The virtual meeting was operated in secret, behind closed doors. According to official sources, Zelensky reiterated the Ukrainian position on the conflict, calling the Russian operation an unjustified “aggression”. He also commented on the current food crisis affecting Africa as a result of the conflict’s impact on the grain market. According to Zelensky, the African continent is Russia’s “hostage” because food shortages would be the result of such “aggression” and would only end when Russia decided to retreat.

Commenting on the event, Macky Sall took the most neutral and impartial stance possible, demonstrating that the Africa Union did not adhere to Zelensky’s appeals, but was concerned only with African states’ interests and the proper functioning of international law.

“Africa remains committed to respecting the rules of international law, the peaceful resolution of conflicts and the freedom of trade”, he said in a publication in his Twitter account.

It is interesting to note how Zelensky’s attempt to convince African leaders to adhere to the Kiev-Western narrative absolutely failed. Not only did most African heads of state refuse to listen to the Ukrainian leader, but there was no adherence to the pro-Kiev speech on the part of those who attended the conference. For the African Union, the meeting was just a diplomatic formality, with no real gains or changes in position – which reveals that Zelensky’s plans did not work as expected.

This failure, however, was predictable for any realistic analyst. For African leaders, it is really hard to believe the fallacious narrative that Ukraine is a simple “victim” of an “unjustified aggression”. African countries are used to centuries of Western interventionism and violence and the peoples of this continent react to this with strong distrust of everything that Western nations support. As Zelensky is the ally of the US and Europe, he will likely be viewed with suspicion by countries that suffer so much from Western colonialist mentality and praxis.

In addition, there are other factors that need to be mentioned. Zelensky’s arguments that the food crisis is caused exclusively by Russia are no longer able to convince public opinion and state authorities. It is evident that, more than the conflict itself, the crisis has been caused by the sanctions against Russia, which motivates emerging countries to be enthusiastic about the end of these sanctions. Also, there are many reports that Kiev is exporting grain to the US and Europe in exchange for weapons, which is unacceptable.

Furthermore, there has recently been a strong wave of popular support for the operation in Ukraine from citizens of several African countries, especially in the regions most affected by terrorism. After the abandonment that Africa has suffered from the West in terms of security policies and defense cooperation, seeking Russian support has become the greatest hope for the members of the African Union, which is why recently there have been popular demonstrations in support of all Moscow’s actions, alongside requests for help to solve Africa’s internal problems.

In fact, in international relations, nothing matters more than cooperation. Zelensky will not be able to garner African support if he does not show interest or conditions to cooperate with Africa. Kiev currently has nothing to offer African countries, as it is economically broken and militarily virtually neutralized. On the other hand, Russia shows itself as a pillar for African food security and as a hope against terrorism in the continent. It is absolutely expected that in this context the African Union will decline its ties with Kiev and seek to approach the side that offers the best opportunities for cooperation.

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

June 22, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Von Der Leyen’s Proposal to Reduce Heating Temperature by 2 Degrees ‘Naive’, Analysts Say

Samizdat – 21.06.2022

BRUSSELS – The proposal voiced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to lower domestic thermostats in Europe by 2 degrees Celsius to replace gas supplies from Russia’s Nord Stream 1 is “incredibly naive,” energy experts said on Tuesday.

On Monday, the EC head said that Europeans can replace gas supplies coming via Russia’s Nord Stream 1 pipeline by lowering the heating or air conditioner temperatures by 2 degrees, adding that the EU has comprehensive emergency plans in place, including energy savings.

Samuele Furfari, a professor of geopolitics of energy at ULB university in Brussels, believes that von der Leyen’s proposal is “ridiculous,” as a two-degree reduction in heating cannot replace energy demand of 194 million European households.

“It is incredibly naive of the President of the European Commission to present a 2-degree reduction in domestic heating, for more than 194 million households in the Europe at 27 [countries], as a solution to the end of the supply of Russian gas by Nord Stream 1. It is moreover only the capacity of Nord Stream 1 which would be ‘covered’ by this theoretical and simplistic reduction. There are other gas pipelines delivering Russian gas. She even specifies, since the commission seems to have thought about this ridiculous idea, that it would also apply to air conditioning. We navigate in a pure dream,” Furfari said.

Gas demand is inelastic, so Europe cannot lower the heating in hospitals or schools, and it is “a dream” to believe that EU residents will simply comply with von der Leyen’s proposal, which will “hit people hard” in their comfort zone, he added.

“How are we going to apply this theoretical measure seriously? By installing ‘limited’ room thermostats, such as for car or motorcycle engines? Are we being prepared for Orwell’s society? No EU government is going to accept that Brussels gives them temperature reduction instructions or face sanctions. I am not even talking about the electricity market, which does not work in Europe, with the emphasis wrongly put on pseudo-renewable energies. Obviously, the European Commission is totally stuck, and Brussels does not know what to do. There is no other solution than that of Russian gas supplies for a long time to come. We are waiting for the next ‘brilliant’ idea from the European Commission,” Furfari said.

According to the professor, 70% of the gas consumed in Europe is allocated to the production of heat, and even when Germany relaunches its coal power stations, which emit large amounts of CO2, it will be far too little to compensate for the loss of gas.

Damien Ernst, a Liege university professor in Belgium and a specialist of electromechanical engineering and energy, said that von der Leyen’s proposal shows how much the EU is “at a loss.”

“Europe will suffer terribly in terms of energy prices and scarcity. This astonishing reaction from Ursula von der Leyen is even scary, as she is so naive, and shows how much the EU is at a loss. The EU is not going to send armies of controllers to check the ambient temperature in people’s homes. At best, Europe can only carry out awareness campaigns on the need to save energy,” Ernst said.

If there is a signal that the price will become “astronomically high,” people and businesses will spontaneously reduce their consumption, causing a sharp decrease in demand and reducing the competitiveness of European producers compared to those from Asia and the US, Ernst explained.

“Europe has it all wrong,” he lamented.

AfD spokesman in the Bundestag Economic Affairs and Energy Committee Steffen Kotre, in turn, said that the EC head should advise her German colleagues to immediately open the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, instead of proposing to reduce domestic heating.

“Mrs von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, should advise Germany to open Nord Stream 2 immediately to compensate for the loss of throughput of Nord Stream 1, and to restart German nuclear power plants for electricity production, rather than make ridiculous statements about the energy savings Europeans should make by reducing their thermostat to compensate for Europe’s misguided policy in the Ukrainian conflict. It would impose a loss of comfort to all the citizens of the union,” Kotre said.

According to the expert, the German federal government is endangering the country’s future with its “energy policy narrow-mindedness,” and the six nuclear power plants, which were shut down at the end of 2021, or scheduled to be shut down at the end of 2022, could replace a significant part of Russia’s natural gas, which is converted into electricity. To cover the rest, the phase-out of Russian gas must be halted.

“Minister [Robert] Habeck’s energy policy is driving our country against a wall,” the professor concluded.

June 21, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

EU Commission comments on Lithuania’s restrictions

Samizdat | June 21, 2022

The EU Commission reiterated its support for Lithuania’s decision to heavily restrict the transit of goods to Kaliningrad Region, Russia. At a regular press conference on Tuesday, European Commission chief spokesman Eric Mamer said the country has merely implemented the EU sanctions on Russia rather than imposing an economic blockade.

“We’re not talking about the Commission giving a recommendation to a country. This is a member state implementing decisions that they have taken when it comes to the sanctions against Russia. And Lithuania is basically doing what it is supposed to do under the sanctions regime,” Mamer stated, noting that the bloc’s stance was “extensively” explained by top EU diplomat Josep Borrell a day before.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Borrell insisted that Vilnius’ move does not constitute a blockade against the small exclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, but was merely the implementation of the EU’s sanctions on Moscow, imposed over the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. On Saturday, Lithuania’s national railway operator banned the flow of sanctioned goods between the region and the rest of Russia, citing instructions from the European Commission.

“Lithuania has not taken any unilateral national restrictions. But, in accordance with European Union sanctions, there are import and export restrictions that apply in relation with certain goods, including the prohibition of transit from those goods through European Union territory. Lithuania is doing nothing else than implementing the guidelines provided by the Commission,” Borrell stated.

A similar take on the situation was given by senior Lithuanian officials. Earlier on Tuesday, Lithuanian PM Ingrida Simonyte told public broadcaster LRT that the decision was based on the sanctions imposed by the EU, and not an attempt to escalate tensions with Russia. The flow of non-sanctioned goods and passenger transit will continue uninterrupted, she said.

The Russian government labeled the move an “economic blockade” of Kaliningrad Region, saying it violates the country’s international obligations to ensure the uninterrupted transit of goods to the exclave. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Vilnius’ decision was unprecedented, and in “violation of anything and everything.”

The head of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, warned that the ongoing “blockade” will trigger a response from Moscow that will “have a serious negative impact on the people of Lithuania.”

“Of course, Russia will respond to hostile actions. Appropriate measures are in the works, and will be adopted in the near future,” Patrushev told reporters during a visit to Kaliningrad on Tuesday.

June 21, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Explain It to Me, Please

If you want a war with Iran, Russia, China and Venezuela tell me why and how it would benefit Americans

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JUNE 21, 2022

So Honest Joe Biden is now going to give another $1.2 billion to the Ukrainians on top of the sixty or so billion that is already in the pipeline, but who’s counting, particularly as Congress refused to approve having an inspector general to monitor whose pockets will be lined. The money will be printed up without any collateral or “borrowed” and the American taxpayer will somehow have to bear the burden of this latest folly that is ipso facto driving much of the world into recession. And it will no doubt be blamed on Vladimir Putin, a process that is already well under way from president mumbles. But you have to wonder why no one has told Joe that the whole exercise in pushing much of the world towards a catastrophic war is a fool’s errand. But then again, the clowns that the president has surrounded himself with might not be very big on speaking the truth even if they know what that means.

Having followed the Ukraine problem since the United States and its poodles refused to negotiate seriously with Vladimir Putin in the real world, I have had to wonder what is wrong with Washington. We have had the ignorant and impulsive Donald Trump supported by a cast of characters that included the mentally unstable Mike Pompeo and John Bolton followed by Biden with the usual bunch of Democratic Party rejects. By that I mean deep thinkers about social issues who would not be able to run a hot dog stand if that were what they were forced to do to make a living. But they are real good at shouting “freedom” and “democracy” whenever questioned concerning their motives.

Indeed, opinion polls suggest that there is a great deal of unrest among middle and working class Americans who see a reversion to Jimmy Carter era financial instability, at that time caused by the oil embargo. Well, there is a new energy embargo in place brought about by the Biden Administration’s desire to wage proxy war to “weaken” Russia. Analysts predict that the costs for all forms of energy will double in the next several months and surging energy costs will impact the prices of other essentials, including food. Given all that, the fundamental issue plaguing both Democrats and Republicans is their inability to actually explain to the American people why the country’s foreign and national security policy always seems to be on the boil, searching for enemies and also creating them when they do not exist, even when the results are damaging to the interests of actual Americans.

That a serious discussion of why the United States needs to have a military that costs as much as the next nine nations in that ranking combined is long overdue and rarely addressed outside the alternative media. The 2023 military budget has been increased from this year’s, totaling $858 billion, and, if one includes the constantly growing largesse to Ukraine, approaching a hitherto unimaginable trillion dollars. The military budget has become a major driver of the country’s unsustainable deficits. The deaths of millions of people directly and indirectly in the wars started in 9/11 aside, the wars of choice have cost an estimated $8 trillion.

The Constitution of the United States makes it clear that a national army was only acceptable to the Founders when it was dedicated to defending the country from foreign threats. Do Americans really believe that bearing the burden of having something like 1,000 military bases scattered around the world really makes them safer? The recent rapid collapse of the security situation in Afghanistan suggests that having such bases turns soldiers and bureaucrats into potential hostages and is therefore a liability. One might also suggest that the insecurity currently prevailing in the country can in large part be attributed to the government’s depiction of numerous “threats” in order to justify both the commitment and the expense.

So where does all the money go? And what are the threats? Starting with a war that the United States is de facto though not de jure involved in, Ukraine, what was the Russian threat that demanded Washington’s intervention? Well, if one discards the nonsense of a “rules based international order” or a plucky little democracy Ukraine fighting valiantly against the Russian bear, Moscow did not threaten the United States in any way before the missiles starting flying. Putin sought to negotiate a settlement with Ukraine based on a number of perceived existential Russian national security interests, all of which were negotiable, but the US and its friends were uninterested in compromise while also plying the corrupt Zelensky regime with weapons, money and political support. The final result is a conflict that will likely only end when the last Ukrainian is dead and it includes the possibility that a misstep by the United States and Russia could lead to a nuclear holocaust. To put it succinctly, what is going on does not enhance US national security, nor does it benefit Americans economically.

And then there is China. Biden let the cat out of the bag on his recent trip to the Far East. He stated that the United States would defend Taiwan if China were to attempt to annex it. In saying that, Biden demonstrated that he does not understand the strategic ambiguity that the US and the Chinese have preferred over the past fifty years as an alternative to war. The White House for its part quickly issued a correction to the Biden statement, explaining that it was not true that Washington is obligated to defend Taiwan. Some uber hawkish congressmen have apparently found the Biden gaffe appealing and are promoting a firm US commitment to defend Taiwan, coupled with a $4.5 billion military assistance package, of course.

At the same time, some officials in the Pentagon and the usual gaggle of congressmen also keep warning about the over the horizon threat from China as an excuse to boost defense spending. Most recently, there was alarm over Chinese participation in a meeting in May in Fiji to consider a China-Pacific Islands free trade pact! In reality, the only serious current threat from China is as an economic competitor. A trade war with China would be a disaster for the US economy, which is heavily dependent on Chinese manufactured goods, but Beijing, with its relatively small military budget, does not pose a physical threat to the United States.

And let’s not ignore Iran which has been hammered by economic sanctions and also through the covert killing of its officials and scientists. The US/Israeli war on Iran has also spilled over into neighboring Syria, where Washington actually has troops on the ground occupying the country’s oil producing region and stealing the oil. Iran’s possible expansion of its nuclear program to produce a weapon was effectively impeded through monitoring connected to a multilateral 2015 agreement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) but Donald Trump, unwisely and acting against actual American interests, withdrew from it. Joe Biden has been warned by Israel not to re-enter the agreement, so he will no doubt comply with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s determination to have Washington continue to apply “extreme pressure” on the Islamic Republic. Does either Iran or its ally Syria threaten the United States in any way? No. Their crime is that they are in the same neighborhood as the Jewish state, which finds the US government easy to manipulate into acting against its own interests.

Finally, in America’s own hemisphere there is Venezuela, which has been elevated to the status of Washington’s most hated nation in the region. Venezuelans have been subjected to increasingly punitive US sanctions, including some new ones just last week, which hurt the poorer citizens disproportionately but have not brought about regime change. Why the animosity? Because the country’s leader Nicolas Maduro is still in power in spite of a US assertion that the country’s opposition leader Juan Guaido should rightfully and legitimately be in charge after a possibly fraudulent election in 2018. The latest therapy applied by the United States on Caracas consisted of blocking the country as well as Nicaragua and Cuba from participating in the recent meeting of the Ninth Summit of the Americas which was held in Los Angeles. A State Department spokesman explained that the move was due to the three countries “lacking democratic governances.” Mexican President Lopez Obrador protested against the move and removed himself from his country’s delegation, saying “There can’t be a Summit of the Americas if not all countries of the American continent are taking part.” The despicable US Senator Robert Menendez of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee then felt compelled to add his two cents, criticizing the Mexican president and warning that his “decision to stand with dictators and despots” would hurt US-Mexico relations. So where was the threat from Venezuela (and Cuba and Nicaragua) and why is the US involved at all? Beats me.

What all of this means is that there is absolutely no standard of genuine national security that motivates the US’s completely illegal aggression in many parts of the world. What occurs may be linked to a desire to dominate or a madness sometimes described as “exceptionalism” and/or “leadership of the free world,” neither of which has anything to do with actual security. And the American people are paying the price both in terms of decline in standards of living due to the upheaval created in Ukraine and elsewhere as well as a completely understandable loss of faith in the US system of government. By all means, let us shrink the US military until it is responsive to actual identifiable threats. Let’s elect a president who will follow the sage advice of President John Quincy Adams, who declared that “Americans should not go abroad to slay dragons they do not understand in the name of spreading democracy.” At this point, one can only imagine an America that is at peace with itself and with what it represents while also being considered a friend to the rest of the world.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

June 21, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

‘Stop NATO,’ protesters chant at massive rally in heart of EU

Samizdat | June 20, 2022

A trade union-organized protest numbering 70,000 to 80,000 demonstrators packed the streets of Brussels on Monday, bringing the city to a standstill. In addition to expressing anger at the rising cost of living in Belgium, many condemned the US-led NATO alliance and its involvement in the Ukrainian conflict.

Trade unions said that 80,000 people attended the protest, while police said that the turnout was closer to 70,000, Reuters reported. In addition to packing the streets, the protest led to mass cancellations of flights at Brussels Airport, as unions representing security personnel went on strike. Public transit routes around the city were also operating at drastically reduced capacity.

Inflation hit 9% in Belgium in June, a four-decade high. With spending power declining, protesters demanded salary hikes and tax cuts.

However, many linked their dire economic straits to the EU’s sanctions regime on Russia and with the NATO alliance’s rush to arm Ukraine.

Protesters demanded that their leaders “spend money on salaries, not on weapons,” and chanted “stop NATO.”

While similar protests against rising costs have taken place across Europe as of late – thousands of trade unionists marched in London on Saturday – few have linked the soaring prices with the actions of NATO and its members.

Just three months ago, some protesters in Brussels waved Ukrainian flags and demanded that the EU cut itself off from “Putin’s Oil.” Weeks before that, there was a demonstration outside European Parliament buildings calling for “sanctions for Russia.”

Brussels is home to headquarters of both the EU and NATO. It was also the city from where US President Joe Biden chose to announce a round of sanctions on Moscow in March, before immediately telling a reporter that “sanctions never deter” those targeted by them.

Despite predicting in April that these measures would “wipe out the last 15 years of Russia’s economic gains,” Russia’s energy earnings have hit record levels since February, and the Russian ruble is currently at a seven-year high against the euro.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused European countries of committing economic “suicide” via sanctions, and predicted last week that the EU’s “direct losses” from this sanctions policy “could exceed $400 billion in a year.”

June 20, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

Iran and Russia Revive the North-South Transport Corridor

By Vladimir Platov – New Eastern Outlook – 20.06.2022

Following agreements reached during the January official visit to Moscow by Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, to further develop and deepen bilateral relations between Iran and Russia, the countries have decided to jointly revive the North-South Transport Corridor. This decision has become particularly relevant against the background of the unlawful sanctions policy pursued by the United States and its Western allies against Russia and Iran, and Tehran’s and Moscow’s desire to establish trade routes that are not linked to the West.

In order to implement this decision, Iranian authorities are seeking to revive the recently stalled International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) project, which traverses Russian and Iranian territory and the two countries’ waters to connect with Asian export markets. As the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported on June 11, in order to implement the International North-South Transport Corridor, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) has initiated the transit of cargo from Russia to India or to South Asia through the project, using just one consignment note for the entire transit route.

According to Dariusz Jamali, director of the joint Iranian-Russian terminal in Astrakhan, such transits have taken place occasionally in recent times. However, this route has clear advantages: lower transport costs (such as port and customs charges in particular),shorter waiting periods for containers, faster delivery of goods, elimination of dangers in transferring empty or full containers, issuance of legal documents and compensation for possible losses, and faster banking transactions.

The first pilot Russian-Iranian transit proposed by IRISL consists of two 41-ton containers of wood laminated plastic. The consignor is in St. Petersburg and the transit port is Astrakhan. The cargo will then be transported by the Caspian Sea to the northern Iranian port of Anzali (Bandar-e Anzali) and then by road through Iranian territory from the port of Anzali to the southern port of Bandar Abbas on the Persian Gulf and further by sea to the Indian port of Nhava Sheva. IRISL is the operator. The estimated delivery time is 25 days.

It is assumed that the main Russian exports through Astrakhan could be cereals (wheat), timber and scrap metal.

This transport corridor could go to Afghanistan via Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan Province. The plan for further joint use of the North-South Transport Corridor even includes the construction of a railway line that could bring goods arriving at Iranian Caspian Sea ports to the south-eastern port of Chabahar. In addition, the construction of a railway line from Chabahar to the Hajigak iron ore mine in Afghanistan, where India has made large investments, is also under consideration.

The International North-South Transport Corridor emphasizes the Russian port of Astrakhan and the Iranian Chabahar as bases for further transport to Eurasia. The development of the latter, as well as the construction of a large petrochemical complex and an export terminal near the port of Jask, are projects being implemented by the Iranian government as part of the Mokran coastal development strategy.

Nevsky Shipyard, which produces multipurpose dry-cargo ships of RSD49 (deadweight of 7150 tons, container capacity of 289 TEU) and 005RSD03 (container capacity of 225 TEU) projects, is also engaged in the work of the North-South transit corridor in building ships for the Caspian Sea.

As part of its increased participation in the North-South Transport Corridor, Iran is considering expanding international road transport cooperation with the countries participating in the Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia (TRACECA) program, the Tehran Times reported, citing the Iranian Ministry of Roads and Urban Development.  This issue was brought up in particular during a meeting between Aset Assavbayev, Secretary General of the Permanent Secretariat of the TRACECA International Transport Program, and Dariush Amani, Head of Iran Road Maintenance and Transportation Organization (RMTO). The negotiations focused on developing international road transport cooperation with TRACECA member countries and increasing the volume of transit traffic along the corridor. As you may know, the TRACECA International Transport Program, in which the European Union and 12 countries of Eastern Europe, Southern Caucasus and Central Asia now participate, was set up in Brussels in May 1993. The aim of the program is to strengthen economic ties, trade and transport links.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov plans to visit Iran in the near future to discuss, among other things, further steps of cooperation between Russia and Iran. The year 2022 has already seen two important visits in Russian-Iranian interaction. First, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to Moscow in January 2022, which was a clear diplomatic breakthrough for the new head of the Iranian government. And second, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak’s visit to Iran in May, which took place against the backdrop of unprecedentedly harsh sanctions imposed by the West in the wake of the Ukrainian events. The biggest change in regional policy is undoubtedly the prospect of a full-fledged free trade area (FTA) agreement with the EEU. It is expected to be signed by the autumn of this year to replace the interim FTA that came into force on October 27, 2019, and which has already had a positive impact on bilateral trade between Russia and Iran.

In the rapprochement between the two countries, Moscow takes into account the compromise position taken by Iran after the start of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine: while not proclaiming its support for Russia’s actions per se, Tehran has not joined the wave of international condemnation of Moscow, instead placing the main blame for what is happening on the US and NATO. Russia also takes into account that Iran’s potential as an economic partner far exceeds the current level of relations.

June 20, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

The Old World is Over: Key Takeaways from Putin’s First Major Speech Since Russia’s Military Offensive in Ukraine

We are strong people and can deal with any challenge. Like our predecessors, we can resolve any task. The entire thousand-year history of our country bears this out.

However, the ruling elite of some Western states seem to be harbouring this kind of illusion. They refuse to notice obvious things, stubbornly clinging to the shadows of the past. For example, they seem to believe that the dominance of the West in global politics and the economy is an unchanging, eternal value. Nothing lasts forever.

Our colleagues are not just denying reality. More than that; they are trying to reverse the course of history. They seem to think in terms of the past century. They are still influenced by their own misconceptions about countries outside the so-called “golden billion”: they consider everything a backwater, or their backyard. They still treat them like colonies, and the people living there, like second-class people, because they consider themselves exceptional. If they are exceptional, that means everyone else is second rate.

Thereby, the irrepressible urge to punish, to economically crush anyone who does not fit with the mainstream, does not want to blindly obey. Moreover, they crudely and shamelessly impose their ethics, their views on culture and ideas about history, sometimes questioning the sovereignty and integrity of states, and threatening their very existence. Suffice it to recall what happened in Yugoslavia, Syria, Libya and Iraq.

If some “rebel” state cannot be suppressed or pacified, they try to isolate that state, or “cancel” it, to use their modern term. Everything goes, even sports, the Olympics, bans on culture and art masterpieces just because their creators come from the “wrong” country.

This is the nature of the current round of Russophobia in the West, and the insane sanctions against Russia. They are crazy and, I would say, thoughtless. They are unprecedented in the number of them or the pace the West churns them out at.

The idea was clear as day – they expected to suddenly and violently crush the Russian economy, to hit Russia’s industry, finance, and people’s living standards by destroying business chains, forcibly recalling Western companies from the Russian market, and freezing Russian assets.

This did not work. Obviously, it did not work out; it did not happen. Russian entrepreneurs and authorities have acted in a collected and professional manner, and Russians have shown solidarity and responsibility.

Step by step, we will normalise the economic situation. We have stabilised the financial markets, the banking system and the trade network. Now we are busy saturating the economy with liquidity and working capital to maintain the stable operation of enterprises and companies, employment and jobs.

…

Full transcript.

Full video:

June 19, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

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