Sanctions hurt US more than Russia – poll
Samizdat | May 10, 2022
A poll published on Saturday found that 53% of Americans believe that sanctions on Moscow hurt the US more than Russia. Amid soaring gas prices and a rising cost of living, voters are losing confidence in US President Joe Biden’s leadership, and 43% say they’re “OK” with Ukraine losing its ongoing conflict with Russia.
With inflation at a 40-year peak and gas prices near record highs, the Democracy Institute/Express.co.uk poll revealed that Biden is polling negatively in all policy areas, with foreign policy the worst. Some 56% disapprove of his handling of foreign matters, compared to 40% approving. On Ukraine specifically, only 38% approve of his stewardship, while 52% disapprove.
The Biden administration has attempted to blame Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, for the rising cost of living at home, with his officials repeatedly referring to “Putin’s price hike.” However, living costs were rising for months before Russia sent troops into Ukraine, and voters are pointing the finger at Biden for their economic woes.
Some 50% said they’d back Republicans in November’s midterm elections, compared with 42% saying they’d vote Democrat. In addition to more voters being “OK” than “not OK” with Ukraine losing the conflict with Russia (43%-41%), more Americans think it would be better for Biden to leave office than for Putin to step down, by 53% to 44%.
Biden has sanctioned the Russian banking and energy sectors, and his administration has sent nearly $4 billion worth of weapons to Ukraine, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin promising last month to “move heaven and earth” to finance Kiev’s fighting. The US president has also asked Congress to approve another $33 billion aid package for Ukraine – of which $20 billion would be earmarked for military aid – and on Monday signed the Lend-Lease Act of 2022, allowing Washington to send unlimited quantities of arms to Kiev.
In the eyes of the Kremlin, this deluge of weapons plus the US and NATO’s intelligence-sharing arrangements with Kiev mean that the West is “essentially going to war with Russia through a proxy.”
American voters, however, are not as earnest as the Biden administration in fuelling this war. According to the latest poll, they consider Russia the fourth biggest threat to the US at 16%, behind North Korea (18%), Iran (20%), and China (40%).
“Americans were very pro sanctions at first, [but] they are not as keen on the sanctions as they were,” Democracy Institute Director Patrick Basham told Express. “Biden made these predictions at the outset – the ruble would be rubble, we were going to crash the Russian economy, people will rise up, Putin will be out, the Russians will run away from Ukraine … [but] none of those things have happened.”
This difference between expectation and reality has made people cynical, he claimed, comparing the apparent loss of trust to public disillusionment with coronavirus policies throughout the West.
“The problem [now] is that at least half of the country in America thinks they were hoodwinked over a lot of the Covid stuff, so they are even more cynical about government and media than they were two years ago,” he said.
Brazil rejected US oil request
Samizdat | May 10, 2022
The US asked Brazil in March to increase its crude oil output to curb soaring prices amid international sanctions against Russia, but Brazil refused, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
US government officials approached Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras, the outlet quoted its sources as saying, as crude prices started to rise against the backdrop of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine and the ensuing international sanctions.
The officials came away empty-handed, however, as Petrobras said that output levels were determined by business strategy rather than diplomacy and also that a significant short-term production boost would not be logistically possible, Reuters says.
Brazil is the world’s 11th largest oil exporter, with most of its crude going to China, the US, and India, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC).
Also in March, the US approached Venezuela, which has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, offering to ease some of the sanctions on the country in exchange for increased oil exports to the US. However, Washington later backtracked on the issue.
Washington banned the import of Russian oil in early March, with US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm saying that the country was on “war footing,” and calling on domestic producers to boost output. Last year, the US got 8% of its total petroleum imports from Russia, according to the US Energy Information Administration, with other major suppliers being Canada, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia.
Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Resigns Amid Anti-Government Protests
Samizdat – 09.05.2022
Sri Lanka has been rocked by mass protests for weeks, with people outraged over the government’s policies amid the country’s worst economic crisis in decades.
Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa has resigned, his spokesman Rohan Weliwita said.
The 76-year-old prime minister sent his letter of resignation to his younger brother, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, clearing the way for a “new unity government”, the spokesman said, quoted by AFP.
Earlier, news about the prime minister’s resignation was broken by local media.
On Monday, the government imposed a nationwide curfew and deployed the army in the capital Colombo amid violent clashes between anti-government protesters and government supporters outside President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office. Dozens of people were injured in the clashes. Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protesters.
Sri Lankans have been facing the worst economic crisis since gaining independence from British rule in 1948. People have been suffering amid acute shortages of food, fuel, and medicines, as well as months of power outages. The crisis broke out after Sri Lanka lost the vital income it had traditionally received from tourism and remittances. This happened due to the coronavirus pandemic and tough COVID-related restrictions that affected the entire region. As a result of this, Sri Lanka was no longer able to pay off its $51 billion foreign debt and banned the import of some goods.
Climate Colonialists Disrupt African Pipeline, Perpetuate Poverty
Vanessa Nakate
By Vijay Jayaraj | RealClear Energy | April 28, 2022
Climate activists’ ill-founded opposition to fossil fuels threatens to stop a major pipeline project in East Africa and stymie economic growth in Uganda and Tanzania — home to some of the world’s poorest people.
Uganda is betting big on its fossil fuel reserves. In February, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and France’s TotalEnergies agreed to invest $10 billion to develop two Ugandan oil reserves. But the landlocked country needs the East African Crude Oil Pipeline project (EACOP) to transport its product to a port in Tanzania.
The 895-mile-long pipeline from Uganda’s Lake Alberta region to the seaport of Tanga will be the longest electrically heated crude oil pipeline in the world and will carry 216,000 barrels per day. The project received a green light for construction after the completion of an Environment and Social Impact Assessment.
The Africa Report says that the investment will be huge: “(A)bout $10 billion will be invested in the sector (oil and gas) before first oil is produced in 2025, mainly on the pipeline, refinery, and infrastructure. The government has been commissioning road construction in the region where oil will be produced, in Buliisa and Hoima districts, and an airport is also being constructed in the region.” The project is expected to generate around 10,000 jobs even after the construction phase.
The Government of Uganda expects massive employment of its citizens during construction: “This will be through direct employment of about 14,000 people by the companies, indirect employment of about 45,000 people by the contractors, and induced employment of about 105,000 people as a result of utilization of other services by the oil and gas sector. Of the direct employment, 57 percent are expected to be Ugandans, which is expected to result in an estimated $48.5 million annual payment to Ugandan employees.”
However, the global war against fossil fuel has now reached Ugandan soil and extremists are determined to stop this lifesaving, economically critical project.
Vanessa Nakate of StopEACOP rants against the pipeline in a recent column in the New York Times, saying the project would bring poverty and destruction to the people of Africa. She also references extreme weather in implying the pipeline will worsen the climate.
During a visit to the ultra-rich Vatican, Vanessa says: “It is evident that there is no future in the fossil fuel industry…. we know the impacts on our food. We know the impacts on our water. We know the impacts on our livelihood…… the climate crisis is already affecting so many people not only in Uganda, but the African continent.”
But her reasons for opposing the pipeline are scientifically inaccurate and logically senseless.
She points to a forecast by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that predicts African droughts. But IPCC, by its own admission, has indicated that extreme weather events have no significant correlation with rising global average temperatures. Neither has there been any significant increase in the frequency of extreme cyclones, droughts, rainfall, and fires. Even if droughts and cyclones were to increase, a better socio-economic condition would enable people to adapt more effectively.
Contrary to Vanessa’s hyperbole, the world is experiencing near optimum temperatures for global food production and the advancement of human society, much as it did 1,000 years ago during the Medieval Warm Period and 2,000 years ago during the Roman Warm Period. Globally, we now have better access to clean water, better access to nutritious food, people with higher income, and a very rapid increase in life expectancy rates. How are we in a crisis if climate is aiding the improvement of every metric used to measure the quality of people’s lives?
It is shocking how Vanessa ignores the plight of millions of her own people dwelling in persistent poverty and in need of affordable, dependable energy sources like coal, oil, and gas. It is less shocking if we understand the DNA of climate extremists, which has them deny the reality of energy needs and promote unreliable, primitive, and expensive wind turbines that even economic giants like Germany and the U.S. hesitate to adopt completely.
Climate extremists like Vanessa are fostering the continuation of abject poverty in Africa — a continent with the lowest level of electrification and highest rates of poverty in the world. Vanessa claims that the pipeline is another colonial project subjecting Africans to slavery. But, it is Vanessa and her ilk who are the colonialists and would-be slave masters.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Va., and holds a Master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, England. He resides in Bengaluru, India.
African Governments to Western Eco-Imperialists Who Tell Them Not to Drill Their Own Oil and Gas – Get Lost
By Chris Morrison | The Daily Sceptic | May 5, 2022
It was never going to work. Telling African countries to stop developing their economies by banning cheap, reliable fossil fuel is little more than an eco-imperialist dream. Writing in Monday’s Daily Telegraph, Uganda President Yoweri Museveni lauded the discovery of oil in Lake Albert, but noted it was a battleground for the green NGOs and activists who claim that Armageddon is nigh at every opportunity.
“We are accustomed to these lectures, but we are tired of hearing them,” he added.
For the last decade, the West through the IMF and the World Bank has imposed a moratorium on support for African fossil fuel development – initially coal and more recently oil and gas as well. Museveni notes that in Africa the population is set to double by 2050, “and it is becoming increasingly clear that our energy needs cannot be met with a sudden shift to more expensive and less reliable solar and wind alone”.
Rich Western eco elites, of course, argue that the world must rid itself of fossil fuel as soon as possible. They believe the world is facing climate breakdown, although as articles in the Daily Sceptic show on a regular basis, that belief is backed by surprisingly few scientific facts. These Western elites effectively seek a command-and-control economy based on Net Zero, and a neo-pagan return to ancient Gaia goddess worship that elevates nature as sacred and denigrates humanity as destructive of it.
It might all play better in Africa if so-called global warming could be detected.
Atmospheric warming over the last 40 years has been more pronounced over the northern hemisphere, despite regular scare stories appearing about equatorial regions becoming uninhabitable. The GISS temperature database is run by NASA, and as with similar datasets it has been subject to considerable recent modifications, with the past cooled and later results warmed. Without these retrospective data adjustments, global recorded warming ran out of steam nearly two decades ago. Nevertheless, the contrast between the north, painted in fiery red, and most of Africa is clear from the GISS map (above).
The Lake Albert project is going ahead following a $10bn investment from the China National Offshore Oil Corporation and Total Energies of France. It includes the building of a 900 mile pipeline to the port of Tanga. According to Real Clear Energy, the project will provide $48.5m in annual payments to Ugandan employees living in one of the least developed countries in the world. But opposition is fierce. Writing in the New York Times the local green agitator Vanessa Nakate of StopEACOP said the project would bring “poverty and destruction to the people of Africa”. It is claimed by her activist group that building the East African crude oil pipeline would tip the world closer to “full blown climate catastrophe”.
It is comments such as these which mostly surface in mainstream media, rather than those of the President of Uganda. It might also be thought that most Africans are less impressed with other solutions advanced in the West to solve any problems caused by growing populations. Sir David Attenborough is on record as stating humans are a plague on the Earth, and it was “barmy” to send food to Ethiopia to solve the famine crisis. In Attenborough’s view, sending flour bags to under-developed countries was pointless.
In public in the West, many African politicians pay lip service to the aims of COP, not least because plenty of aid cash is on offer. Others take a more challenging and outspoken view. N.J. Ayuk is the Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber and he recently called the idea that you could develop Africa with handouts, “preposterous and sickening”.
He continued: “You cannot take people of any colour and exempt them from the requirements of civilisation – including work, free markets, behavioural standards, personal responsibility, fossil fuels, financial literacy and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain – without ruinous consequences to them and society at large.”
In his view, no country has ever been developed by fancy wind and green hydrogen. Africans see oil and gas as a path to success and a solution to their problems. “The demonisation of oil and gas companies will not work,” he added.
Writing in 2015, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson commented that something deep inside the human psyche makes it receptive to apocalyptic warnings. By a cruel irony, he said, too many climate scientists and their hangers-on have become the high priests of a new age of unreason. Asking developing countries to abandon the cheapest available sources of energy is, at the very least, asking them to delay the conquest of malnutrition, to perpetuate the incidence of preventable diseases and to increase the number of premature deaths.
“Global warming orthodoxy is not merely irrational. It is wicked,” he concluded.
US’ coercive diplomacy with Saudi Arabia
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | MAY 6, 2022
Some three weeks after the reported meeting of the CIA chief William Burns with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia Prince Mohammed bin Sultan, the OPEC+ ministerial held a videoconference on Thursday.
The OPEC+ meet drew satisfaction that “continuing oil market fundamentals and the consensus on the outlook pointed to a balanced market.” The press release issued in Vienna says the ministerial “further noted the continuing effects of geopolitical factors and issues related to the ongoing pandemic” and decided that the OPEC+ sticks to the monthly production adjustment mechanism agreed in July last year “to adjust upward the monthly overall production by 0.432 million barrels/day for the month of June 2022.”
As per the former publisher of the Journal Karen Elliott House, Burns came to Saudi Arabia for a “mating dance” with Prince Mohammad — namely, the Prince must cooperate on a new oil-for-security strategy to “increase production to save European nations from energy shortages.”
Burns’ visit to the Kingdom took place just ahead of the 5th round of Saudi-Iranian normalisation talks in Baghdad between the Saudi intelligence chief and the deputy head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. The Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi who was acting as mediator and attended the latest round of talks told the state media last week, “Our brothers in Saudi Arabia and Iran approach the dialogue with a big responsibility as demanded by the current regional situation. We are convinced that reconciliation is near.”
Nournews, affiliated to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, also reported on April 24 that the fifth round of talks on a possible détente was “constructive” and the negotiators managed “to draw a clearer picture” of how to resume bilateral relations, and, “given the constructive bilateral dialogue so far, there is a possibility of a meeting between the Iranian and Saudi top diplomats in the near future.”
Burns’ mission couldn’t have been indifferent toward the Saudis’ reconciliation track with Tehran. With the outcome of the JCPOA talks in Vienna uncertain, Iran’s close ties with Russia and China remains a major worry for Washington. And with Tehran’s stubborn refusal to trim its regional policies to suit US regional strategies, Washington has fallen back on the default option to resuscitate the anti-Iran front of its regional allies. The US hopes that Saudi Arabia will come on board the Abraham Accords.
Meanwhile, the issue of oil prices has returned to the centre stage. Indeed, high oil prices mean high income for Russia. Russia’s sales of oil and natural gas far exceeded initial forecasts for 2021 as a result of skyrocketing prices, accounting for 36% of the country’s total budget. The revenues exceeded initial plans by 51.3%, totalling $119 billion. The Biden administration’s best-laid plans to cripple the Russian economy are unravelling. Equally, high oil price is also a domestic issue for Biden. Above all, unless Europe finds other oil sources, it will continue buying Russian oil.
However, Prince Mohammad has a different agenda. He is likely to rule Saudi Arabia for many decades—half a century if he lives to 86, his father’s age. And the Prince has been remarkably successful in creating a “power base”. His lifestyle changes have been a smashing hit with Saudis 35 and under—70% of the Kingdom’s citizens — and his ambition to transform Saudi Arabia into a modern technological leader ignites the imagination of the youth.
Clearly, his refusal to punish Russia and his gesture to place the princely amount of $2bn in a new, untested investment fund started by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner speak for themselves. Prince Mohammed would have his own reasons too, starting with Biden’s contemptuous reference to Saudi Arabia as a “Pariah” state and refusal to deal in person.
The Prince hit back recently by declining to take a call from Joe Biden. Besides, the US’ restrictions on arms sales; insufficient response to attacks on Saudi Arabia by Houthi forces; publication of a report into the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi — all these are in play here.
Even if the administration is able to get Congressional approval for new security guarantees for Saudi Arabia (which is rather problematic), Prince Mohammad may not be swayed, since at the end of the day, high oil prices boost Saudi budget too.
The paradox is, both Saudi Arabia and Russia are stakeholders in OPEC+ as is evident from the explicit warning to the EU by OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo last month that it would be impossible to replace more than 7 million barrels per day of Russian oil and other liquids exports potentially lost due to current or future sanctions or voluntary actions.
In such a torrential stream where crosscurrents are foaming and weltering, what probably unnerves the Biden Administration most could be the talk that Chinese President Xi Jinping may be planning to visit Saudi Arabia, amidst persistent reports recently that Riyadh and Beijing are in talks to price some of the Gulf nation’s oil sales in yuan rather than dollars, which would indeed mark a profound shift for the oil market and help advance China’s efforts to convince more countries and international investors to transact in its currency.
The Saudi explanation for the shift to the yuan is that the kingdom could use part of new currency revenues to pay Chinese contractors involved in mega projects within the kingdom domestically, which would reduce the risks associated with the capital controls Beijing imposes on its currency. But, for Washington, that means certain sensitive Saudi-China transactions in yuan do not appear in the rearview mirror of the SWIFT messaging infrastructure, making transaction monitoring unviable.
There are persistent US reports that with Chinese support, Saudi Arabia may be constructing a new uranium processing facility near Al Ula to enhance its pursuit of nuclear technology. Saudi Arabia’s generous $8 billion in financial support for Pakistan, unveiled this week, will almost certainly raise hiccups in Washington.
Saudi Arabia is a central pillar of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative and ranks in the top three countries globally for Chinese construction projects, according to the China Global Investment Tracker, run by the American Enterprise Institute. Suffice to say, the CIA chief’s call could not have been for a friendly chat with Prince Mohammad.
European Commission’s plan to ban Russian oil imports receives backlash
By Paul Antonopoulos | May 6, 2022
The European Union announced on May 4 their intention to ban Russian oil imports within six months and refined products by the end of the year as part of their latest round of economic sanctions against Moscow. According to Oil Price, a barrel surged to over $110 for Brent and $108 for West Texas Intermediate following the European Commission’s announcement. Therefore, banning Russian oil imports is not only a rather arduous task, but the cost of this decision will be high.
“In the short term it might leave Russian revenues high while implying negative consequences for the EU and the global economy in terms of higher prices – not to mention retaliation risks [by Russia] on natural gas supplies,” Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel warned following the European Commission’s announcement. However, an EU diplomat told EURACTIV on condition of anonymity that “Politically, Europe cannot afford not adopting the sixth package [of economic sanctions].”
The EU will be once again be divided as its rare instance of geopolitical posturing is being challenged by the economic interests of individual member states. Hungary and Slovakia oppose the European Commission’s proposal despite being given until the end of 2023 to phase out Russian oil. At the same time, Bulgaria and Czechia have also asked to be given such an extension.
Sources have said Greece raised objections to another proposal to ban all shipping companies that are EU-owned or have European interests from transferring Russian oil into Europe or elsewhere, something of major importance since the Mediterranean country has the largest mercantile fleet in the world. Although Athens deeply supports all of the EU’s hostile actions against Russia, such as the expulsion of diplomats, imposition of sanctions and even the sending of weapons to Ukraine that could have ended up in the hands of the Azov Battalion that has persecuted the Greek minority, threatening the profits of Greek oligarchs provokes one of the rare instances of opposition from Greece’s ruling New Democracy party.
New Democracy is traditionally the pro-US/neo-liberal party of Greece that has served the interests of the country’s oligarchs, or softly known as magnates or tycoons, particularly the shipowners. Consider that 71% of Greeks in a poll said Greece’s position in the Ukraine War should be neutral, something that was categorically ignored by the Greek government as it strongly backed Ukraine instead. However, the moment that the profits of shipowners are threatened, and not over the past few months as citizens have dealt with rising energy and food costs, Athens voiced its first concern against the EU’s anti-Russia sanctions.
Theoretically, although Russian oil can be phased out of most of the EU within six months, it will none-the-less be a very difficult task, especially when taking into account the fact that there is currently an energy shortage. In addition, the imposition of such a policy could lead to a build-up of shocks in the EU economy.
The Russian economy will naturally be affected as it will be deprived of a major market. But of higher concern, for European citizens at least, is the realization of the effects that anti-Russia sanctions has even on their own daily lives. And whilst Europeans suffer from rising energy and food costs, Asia could very much become Gazprom’s main export market in five to seven years.
Although this does not offset the loss of the EU as an oil market, shifting most exports to much friendlier Asian markets will lessen the effects of Western sanctions, even if this shift could take several years. Although the problem is the supply price and the development of the corresponding gas transport infrastructure, including in countries like China, it is recalled that Russian President Vladimir Putin made a directive to the government to submit a plan by June 1 on how to build related infrastructure. The directive requested a proposal for a large-scale development of a gas pipeline system in Eastern Siberia, aimed at directing the flow of gas exports to the Chinese market.
China currently consumes about 350 billion cubic meters of gas per year, while the majority of the energy balance (about 70%) remains coal. Demand for gas in China is expected to grow to 450-480 billion cubic meters by 2025 and in the next 10 years, as coal is phased out, perhaps even nearly one trillion cubic meters of gas per year.
Currently, Russian gas supplies to China arrive through the “Power of Siberia” pipeline. Deliveries along this route began at the end of 2019 and in 2020 reached 4.1 billion cubic meters. It is expected that the annual supply volume will gradually increase until it reaches its capacity of 38 billion cubic meters in 2025. Taking into account the new agreement signed in February, the total gas capacity supplied to China via the Far Eastern pipeline could reach 48 billion cubic meters per year.
In this way, although Russia will be hurt in the short term by losing the European market for its oil, this action will only propel the flow of Russian energy eastward to an Asia that is continuously increasing its demand. Equally of interest is that Europe persistently promises that sanctions against Russia cannot hurt European citizens in equal measure, but weaning off Russian oil within a six-month period will only increase the likelihood of such an outcome.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
Nigerian Minister Says Russian Investors Interested in Financing African Gas Mega-Pipeline
Samizdat | May 4, 2022
The EU has been wooing Nigeria in recent weeks as one of the nations whose natural gas could help replace Russian supplies amid the bloc’s spat with Moscow over Ukraine. The charm offensive comes after years of efforts by the West to starve Sub-Saharan Africa of financing for gas projects.
Russian investors have expressed an interest in financing a massive gas pipeline from Nigeria to Morocco, Nigerian Minister of Petroleum Resources Timipre Sylva has announced.
“The Russians were with me in the office last week. They are very desirous to invest in this project and there are lots of other people who are also desirous to invest in the project,” Sylva said, speaking to reporters in Abuja, Nigeria on Monday.
The prospective 5,600 km+ long pipeline project, agreed to by Nigeria and Morocco in 2016, would run along the west coast of Africa, connecting to the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea-Bassau, Gambia, Senegal, and Mauritania along the way and serve as a major potential catalyst for regional economic development. It could also be used to pipe Nigerian gas to Europe via Spain. Six years after being agreed, the project still lacks the necessary financing for implementation.
The infrastructure would extend an existing pipeline pumping gas from southern Nigeria to neighbouring Benin, Togo and Ghana. “We want to continue that same pipeline all the way to Morocco down the coast. Right now, we are still at the level of studies and of course, we are at the level of securing funding for this project and a lot of people are indicating interest,” the oil minister said.
Sylva did not provide any further details on the eager Russian investors, or the project’s total expected cost, but said Abuja has yet to identify the “investors that we want to go with” for the ambitious infrastructure scheme.
Russia’s reported interest in the gas mega-pipeline is unclear, given that it could theoretically provide the same European countries threatening to halt the purchase of Russian natural gas and oil with a cost-effective Sub-Saharan African alternate.
European officials have flocked to Nigeria – the world’s 12th largest producer of natural gas, and 15th largest producer of oil, in recent weeks to try to secure additional energy from the African nation amid unprecedented tensions with Moscow over Ukraine. Last month, ambassadors from the European Union, Portugal, Spain, Italy and France met with Nigerian National Petroleum Company officials to discuss a “strengthened partnership” in the energy sector. No agreements were announced at the conclusion of the meeting.
On Monday, Bloomberg reported on an EU energy plan document which mentioned Nigeria, Senegal and Angola as nations with ‘largely untapped potential for liquefied natural gas’.
Nigeria has over 206 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves valued at hundreds of trillions of dollars, but has long been starved of capital for developing these resources amid a raft of problems ranging from corruption and inter-ethnic strife to pipeline vandalism.
On top of that, before the Ukraine crisis began, Europe largely ignored Nigeria’s gas potential. Last year, Nigerian environment minister Mohammad Mahmood Abubakar blasted developed countries for what he said was their deliberate policy of defunding African national gas projects.
“Many [wealthier nations] are now limiting financing to gas projects for domestic use in Sub-Saharan Africa, a region responsible for 0.55% of global carbon emissions that still needs to industrialize and grow. The defunding of gas projects by most financing organizations is a threat to achieving a global energy transition that is equitable, inclusive, just, leaving no one behind,” Abubakar said, speaking at a virtual ministerial event hosted by the United Nations last June.
The European Investment Bank stopped financing fossil fuels projects at the end of 2021. The same year, the Western cash-dominated World Bank indicated that it would shift resources to “combating climate change,” and limit assistance for natural gas projects except for rare exceptions.
Despite its vast wealth in energy resources, about 43 percent of Nigeria itself still lacks access to grid electricity.
Russia’s oil revenues expected to soar
Samizdat | May 2, 2022
Russia will see its income from the oil sector rise sharply this year and reach more than $180 billion, despite production cuts related to international sanctions, suggests a report published by independent research house Rystad Energy on Monday.
Thanks to the rising oil prices, Russia’s tax revenues will be 45% higher than last year and a whopping 181% higher than in 2020, Rystad Energy says.
“Europe’s dependence on Russian energy has been a deliberate and decades-long and mutually beneficial relationship. In this early phase of sanctions and embargoes, Russia will benefit as higher prices mean tax revenues are significantly higher than in recent years.” says Daria Melnik, a senior analyst at Rystad Energy.
According to the firm, the initial issues Russia had with its oil exports when European customers started shunning its oil were quickly resolved and loadings began to recover in late March, supported by orders from China and India. Russian crude exports remained resilient in April.
The EU, the US and their allies imposed sanctions against Russia with the aim of starving the country of cash and forcing it to abandon its military operation in Ukraine. However, Europe’s high dependence on Russian oil and gas has meant that turning away from it has proven problematic. The EU has pledged to phase out Russian gas by 2030.
If the EU decides to further restrict energy imports from Russia and impose an oil embargo, something that’s reportedly being considered by the bloc, Russia will be forced to cut oil production further as it lacks storage capacity for extra crude volumes and may not be able to quickly redirect the unwanted cargoes, Rystad Energy explains. In the long-term, Russia’s crude output will continue to decline more steeply than was estimated before the Ukraine crisis.
Renault to sell Russian assets for one ruble
Samizdat | May 2, 2022
French carmaker Renault plans to sell its stake in Russia’s Avtovaz for a symbolic sum of 1 ruble, the Russian Trade Ministry announced on Wednesday.
Renault will transfer its 68% stake to the auto research institute NAMI Russia, known for designing the Aurus Senat, the country’s first luxury car, currently used by President Vladimir Putin. Renault apparently took the step as it lacks the ability to maintain its Russian operations.
The Trade Ministry also said Renault’s factory in Moscow, which produces cars under the Renault and Nissan brands, would be transferred to the city’s government.
Renault has declined to comment on the deal.
The trade ministry said the French carmaker will have the right to buy back its Avtovaz stake within five to six years, if the company wishes to return to the Russian market.
“But if during this period we make investments, then that will be taken into account when it comes to the cost [of the shares]. We won’t be giving any presents here,” Trade Minister Denis Manturov said, commenting on the move.
The deal comes as Western companies try to navigate the new economic realities. Western states have placed unprecedented sanctions on Russia over the past two months in retaliation for Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
With many international companies under pressure to quit the Russian market, the Yale School of Management estimates that more than 750 firms are ending or scaling back their Russia operations.
Renault has until now been the most Russia-exposed Western carmaker. The company announced a suspension of operations at its Moscow plant last month, estimating the cost of the move at €2.2 billion ($2.3 billion).
Enormous U.S. Military Spending, EU Dragged into Abyss of War against Russia.
By Manlio Dinucci | Global Research | May 1, 2022
President Biden has asked Congress for another 33 billion dollars to arm and train the Ukrainian forces, in addition to the 20 billion dollars already allocated and provided to Kiev: a total of over 50 billion dollars from 2014 for the war against Russia. At the same time, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met in Germany with representatives of more than 40 countries, including Italy, to plan additional arms shipments.
This results in enormous military spending of public money diverted from social spending. For example, the M777 howitzer supplied to Ukrainian forces can fire 7 Excalibur bullets per minute at 40 km. Each bullet costs $112,000. Therefore in one minute the howitzer shoots bullets costing the equivalent of 25 gross annual salaries (according to the Italian average).
The US and NATO are thus conducting a proxy war against Russia in Europe, which began with the 2014 coup d’état and the attack on the Russian populations of Ukraine. Dramatic evidence of this is the massacre in Odessa on May 2, 2014, carried out by the neo-Nazi forces – Pravi Sektor, Azov Battalion and others – that have since assumed power in Kiev.
The regime established in Ukraine, represented publicly by President Zelensky, has imposed a single party and a single television channel, shutting down 11 political parties and all other television channels; it has drawn up a proscription list of thousands of independent journalists and implemented a systematic campaign of torture and assassinations to eliminate all opposition.
Europe, through the European Union itself, is thus dragged into the abyss of the war against Russia, which the US and NATO want to make permanent. The price paid by European citizens is enormous: the boycott of Russian gas imports is causing a disastrous economic crisis. Hence the vital need to bring Italy and Europe out of the war.
This article was originally published in Italian on byoblu.
Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
Northern Ireland faces loss of 1 million sheep and cattle to meet climate targets
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | April 30, 2022
Not only does agriculture account for a large slice of NI’s emissions (and Ireland’s too), it also accounts for a lot of its GDP, directly and indirectly.
There is a reason why Ireland is dominated by pastoral rather than arable farming. It’s because most of the land is unsuitable for growing of crops, certainly to a profitable extent. Much of the land is rocky and the climate is far too wet. That was why Ireland was so reliant on potatoes at the time of the Great Famine.
Currently only 4% of N Ireland’s farmland is arable.
Although farm labour only accounts for 7% of the country’s labour force, many more depend on the rural economy. Altogether the rural population makes up about 40% of the total in N Ireland. Destroying a large part of farming sector there would be catastrophic for the rural sector. Replacing the meat and dairy sector with, for instance, potatoes would decimate incomes and lead to mass migration out of the countryside.
Perhaps the most shocking part of the Guardian’s report is the reaction of Chris Stark, who is more interested in his modelling than in people’s lives. It also raises the question of just how all of this will be enforced. Farmers certainly are not going to give up willingly.
Shades of the infamous Soviet Land Reforms?
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Book Review
UAE tortured, killed journalist for opposing Israel normalization
The Cradle | October 31, 2026
UAE security officers detained, tortured, and killed Emirati poet and news editor Habib al-Sayegh in August 2019, shortly after he published a column opposing UAE normalization with Israel, according to a newly published book.
“Princes and Thieves,” a book by investigative journalist Matthew Cole published on 25 October, alleges that UAE security officers raided Sayegh’s Abu Dhabi home shortly after the publication of the column, hooded him in front of his wife and took him to a detention facility where he was tortured to death.
His interrogators reportedly pulled out several of his teeth with pliers and beat him repeatedly with a sharp metal object.
On 11 August 2019, Sayegh criticized the UAE’s plan to normalize relations with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords in his weekly column for Khaleej newspaper. The column was titled “Israel Is Our Real Enemy and A Dangerous Project.”
Sayegh described Israel as “a real and natural enemy” while questioning “who authorized the normalizers to speak on behalf of everyone?”
Nine days after the column was published, Emirati state media announced his death, without stating a cause. … continue
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