December 19, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | Iran, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Russia, United States, Zionism |
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Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Saturday that the latest European Union sanctions against Russia will cause more harm to the EU than Russia.
Zakharova added that the EU’s “dictatorial” behavior reveals how Brussels is “denying” member states of their right to “protect their interests.”
She also warned the EU of the “heavy price” the Europeans must pay for the accession of Ukraine and Moldova to the bloc.
“It goes as far as absurdity, when through some unscrupulous manipulations – when certain heads of state and government are not present at the table, – some legally questionable and obviously politicized decisions are made, which are as follows: on the start of pre-accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, which not only fail to meet the EU’s elementary criteria but directly run counter to them, as well as on another ‘package’ of unilateral restrictive measures against Russia, which, like all the previous ones, will cause bigger harm to the European Union itself,” the diplomat said.
“This dictatorial behavior of Brussels reveals in all its magnitude that the member states are denied their democratic right to a dissenting opinion and the protection of their own interests.”
She went on to add that the EU’s confrontational “policy and the consequences of its opportunistic decisions regarding Ukraine and Moldova will have to be paid by the population of European countries.”
EU members agreed on a 12th package of sanctions against Russia, the European Council said on Thursday, meaning that a phased ban on Russian diamond imports among other measures will come into effect from January 1, 2024.
Moreover, after the summit, European Council President Charles Michel also announced that the EU members had decided to open accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, which may start in March 2024 or later.
The accession talks regarding Ukraine and Moldova started after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban left the summit in protest to the move. Budapest had earlier threatened to veto the accession of Ukraine into the European Union. “Hungary does not want to be part of this bad decision!” Orban said in a statement on Facebook.
Russia started the “special military operation” in its eastern neighbor in late February 2022 to defend the pro-Russian population in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk against persecution by Kiev.
Ever since the beginning of the war, Kiev’s Western allies, led by the United States, have been pumping Ukraine with advanced weapons and slapping Russia with a slew of sanctions, steps that Moscow says would only prolong the hostilities.
Zakharova also said that the EU is continuing to “swiftly lose both political and economic weight around the world” under the pressure of the United States’ missteps.
“The EU’s resources, so much needed for its domestic growth, are not funneled into resolving multiple problems and asserting its own place in the emerging multipolar world order, but into serving the US interests, including into the enrichment of the US military-industrial complex,” she said.
Zakharova added that it looks quite natural that against this backdrop, “the most responsible politicians in European countries are more and more frequently prioritizing national interests over some mantras of ‘European solidarity,’ which are out of touch with real needs.”
December 17, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Russophobia | European Union, Russia, Ukraine |
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The United States’ proxy war in Ukraine against Russia has cost the lives of up to 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers. In the last six months alone, it is estimated that over 120,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed in a failed counteroffensive.
Even Western media are coyly admitting the grim reality of failure after much-vaunted predictions last year of imminent victory against Russia.
Yet nearly two years after the conflict erupted, the leader of the puppet regime in Kiev persists in begging for billions more in funds from his Western sponsors to continue the bloodbath – the biggest armed confrontation in Europe since the Second World War.
The hostilities can be traced back to the 2014 coup in Kiev orchestrated by the CIA and precipitated by the European Union and Washington trying to cleave traditional Ukrainian relations with Russia. Those hostilities culminated in February 2022 in what can be seen as a U.S.-led proxy war against Russia. A war that has failed for the Western powers and needs to be peacefully negotiated to spare further death and destruction.
This week, however, saw Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky going to Washington to plead for $60 billion in additional funds. His begging mission failed. The U.S. Congress refused to pass the supplemental bill requested on his behalf by President Joe Biden for Ukraine.
After that humiliation, Zelensky then turned his solicitation to the European Union. The EU, by turn, failed to agree on a requested fund for $54 billion for Ukraine.
As a sort of consolation prize, the EU leaders at their two-day summit in Brussels declared that Ukraine could start negotiations for eventually gaining access to the 27-member bloc. That decision was bombastically hailed as “historic” but it seemed more theatre than substance given that the negotiations will take several years to conduct and there is no guarantee at the end of the tedious process that Ukraine will actually gain EU membership. Will Ukraine even exist as a state in a few years, as our columnist Stephen Karganovic ponders in an article this week?
The EU membership talks were granted no doubt as a way to distract from the fact that the EU funds were not forthcoming and especially following the miserable response from U.S. lawmakers.
The whole sorry saga indicates that the U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine has become a deplorable black hole for Western public money. Given the military debacle and the futile bloodshed, it is becoming politically untenable for Washington and Brussels to keep shovelling billions of taxpayer money into this abyss.
Up for the asking this week was a total of nearly $100 billion between the U.S. and Europe for Ukraine. How many badly needed public services in Western states could do with – and are denied – that kind of financial sustenance?
The spectacle of Zelensky touring the world scrounging for more money is as shameful as it is sordid.
Official figures show that the Western governments have already donated a combined total of $200 billion to Ukraine since the conflict escalated in February 2022.
To put that largesse into perspective, it is estimated that the U.S. Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of the whole of Europe following World War Two was equivalent to $173 billion in today’s money.
Think about that. The Western funding to Ukraine already exceeds this historic salvage package by some $30 billion. And yet Western governments are trying to muster another $100 billion on top of that.
There are several conclusions to be made. First of all, the U.S.-led proxy war against Russia is indisputably a calamitous failure. Despite the unprecedented financing of weapons and other support to the Kiev regime, the war is a dead-end for the Western powers. The 30-member NATO military alliance is staring at a defeat unparalleled in its 75-year history.
Secondly, it is patent that the Kiev regime is only being propped up by the transfer of colossal flows of aid from the West. Without those transfusions of weapons and capital, the regime is finished. It has already lost grievous numbers of troops on the battlefield. Conscription drives are scraping the barrel. Without the lifeline of aid, the regime is finished. The Kiel Institute for World Economy reported last week that Western capital pledges to the Kiev regime have fallen off a cliff since the summer.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week in his annual marathon televised Q&A with the public and journalists that Russia will push on with its objectives of eradicating the NATO-backed Nazi forces in Ukraine. There seems little doubt that the objective will be achieved given the parlous state of the Kiev regime.
Another conclusion to draw is the scale of corruption that Ukraine is mired in. For all the funds pumped into this regime so much of it has been siphoned off from the stated purposes.
The obscenity of this war racket is the inordinate corruption, deaths and destruction of economies across Europe while Western weapons corporations have raked in mega-profits.
Zelensky’s global begging tour is a desperate attempt to keep the war racket going for a while longer. He and his wife Olena have enriched themselves with overseas properties and shopping trips to Paris and New York. Zelensky and his cronies have been paid off with blood money for their role in peddling the biggest war scam in modern history. A scam that is funded by hard-pressed and hoodwinked Western taxpayers who have been gaslighted by their politicians and media about “defending democracy and freedom”.
To keep this grotesque charade going, Western politicians in the pay of arms companies and NATO think tanks are resorting to desperate scaremongering and blackmail.
President Biden has repeatedly warned that if extra funds were not released to Ukraine to “defend against Russian aggression” the rest of Europe will be overrun by Moscow.
In Washington this week, U.S. lawmakers who refused to pass the supplemental funding bill for Ukraine were, in effect, accused of being traitors by helping Russia.
Zelensky appealed to European leaders by saying that Putin would exploit any negativity towards Ukraine, and he pleaded with the EU to not “betray” Ukrainians.
On the eve of the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, the European Commission declared that it was finally releasing €10 billion in withheld funds to Hungary. That was a bribe to Hungarian premier Viktor Orban to concede to the proposed €50 billion in extra aid for the Kiev regime. In the end, Orban did not concede to the multi-billion-euro handout, however, he gave way to his objection to talks for Ukraine’s membership of the EU. Such is the shoddy business of propping up the Kiev regime that arm-twisting and bribery are the order of business in Brussels.
The horrendous waste of lives and financial resources in Ukraine by the Western elite – instead of pursuing diplomacy and peace – is the hallmark that these regimes are terminally corrupt and doomed to failure.
The conflict in Ukraine has recklessly stoked tensions between nuclear powers and has condemned generations of Americans and Europeans to debt. The war in Ukraine is a historic dead-end for the U.S. and its European vassals. Zelensky’s begging bowl is a death rattle.
December 16, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | European Union, NATO, Ukraine, United States |
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With Ukraine’s counteroffensive obviously failing, the United States has taken up a new rallying cry, which is to prevent Russian President Vladimir Putin from winning in Ukraine so that “NATO is not conquered,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
“After the collapse of the so-called counteroffensive, [people] in Washington stopped talking about Russia’s strategic defeat on the battlefield and, during Zelensky’s latest visit, activated a new mantra: ‘don’t let Putin win in Ukraine’, otherwise all of NATO will be conquered and then America won’t sit through it,” Lavrov said during the “government hour” in the Federation Council, upper house of the Russian parliament.
“We are ready for such a challenge and will continue to firmly defend our truth,” Lavrov emphasized.
The top Russian diplomat also noted that “it is not easy for our ill-wishers to come to grips with the fact that the bet on the sanctions blitzkrieg against the Russian economy has completely failed.”
“Therefore, those who launched the hybrid war against us won’t admit their mistakes, they are trying to use more and more illegitimate tools to wear down Russia, as they say, relishing the dream of eliminating our country as an independent geopolitical value,” the Russian diplomacy chief explained.
December 13, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | NATO, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to the Middle East – and the 21-gun salute welcome he received there – shows the failure of Washington’s consistent attempts to ‘isolate’ and defeat Russia. The visit also points to the Middle East’s increasing shift away from, and sole reliance on, Washington. Ever since the beginning of the Gaza War on October 7, the Middle East has been keeping contact with China, rather than the US, its first priority. The reason for this is not simply the fact that the US is supporting, militarily and diplomatically, Israel against Palestine, but also because the Middle East is strategically realigning itself with the realities of what is increasingly – and undeniably – a multipolar world. To the extent that the Middle East, a region where the US remained the most dominant extra-regional force for many decades, has made this shift also reflects the ongoing demise of US dominance more generally in the world. To the extent that China and Russia are two major proponents of multipolarity, connect the dots of this anti-US but pro-China and pro-Russia shift.
Putin’s trip to the UAE and Saudi Arabia has many dimensions. One of these dimensions is bilateral. Between 2017-2022, the trade turnover between Russia and the UAE has grown by almost six times. In 2022, the overall trade increased by almost 68% amounting to US$9 billion. The UAE is Russia’s largest trading partner in the Gulf Region, accounting for 55% of Russia’s total trade with the Persian Gulf.
It, therefore, makes sense for Washington to pressure the UAE government to drastically limit their trade ties with Moscow. Earlier in September, several Western officials from the United Kingdom, EU and US visited the UAE to persuade the UAE to review its trade ties with Russia. Western officials have been assuming that, in the wake of the threats of the Israel-Gaza war spreading to other parts of the Middle East, the UAE would go back to its ultimate security guarantor: the US. This would, however, happen only if the UAE has good ties with the US. Good ties, under the present context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, mean the UAE ending its trade ties with Russia, especially the ones that may have military implications.
The UAE has been resisting these pressures. In fact, its decision to welcome Putin himself means that the UAE is considering an alternative means of protecting itself in the wake of a wider war in the region. It is ensuring Russian (and Chinese support), and it is using this (possible) source of support to send a message to Washington, i.e., multiple options are possible in a multipolar world. The message is quite similar to the message that the Saudis have been giving to the Americans since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine military conflict.
If the Americans have been doing their best to convince the Saudis to break out of the OPEC+ deal and increase the production of oil to help reduce its prices and consequently help control the inflation in the West, the Saudis have not submitted. In this context, Putin’s visit to Saudi Arabia sought to reinforce the ‘oil alliance’ – which is also a major dimension of Russia-Saudi bilateral ties – at a time when the burden of wars (supporting Ukraine plus Israel) on the West is increasing manifold. For Putin, an appropriate message to the Middle East in particular and the Global South in general is this: the West supports aggression against all states, regardless of whether it is Russia or Palestine, and it expects other states (e.g., the Middle East) to support that aggression.
Russia understands that the West is fighting two wars, and it does not have any narrative to justify them both simultaneously. As even the US-based Carnegie Endowment said in one of its recent reports, “Washington’s pro-Israel stance undermines the legitimacy of the West’s broader reasons for supporting Ukraine in the eyes of many in the Global South. The moral argument against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine now looks like empty words, particularly in Middle East nations”. In this sense, the timing of Putin’s visit was far from coincidental. It aimed to tap into the opportunity to wean powerful states in the Middle East, who are also keen to expand ties with the non-Western world via BRICS, away from the US as much as possible.
Therefore, the purpose of Putin’s visit, as some Western media analysed and sought to trivialise, was not simply to “discuss” the Gaza war. It was part of Moscow’s wider outreach to the Middle East at an appropriate time to reorient the Middle East’s strategic priorities. Soon after coming back, Putin hosted Iran’s president in Moscow to build on the success of his visit and deepen Russia’s foothold in the region, a region that allows Russia to fight the West in the economic field by, for instance, coordinating the production of oil.
Still, the Gaza war was discussed. But that discussion was underpinned by the strategic failure of Washington’s plans to create a new Middle East. The failure of the US in the Middle East becomes yet another opportunity for Moscow to present itself as a potential peace broker rather than, and unlike the US, a troublemaker. If it was simply a war of narratives, Russia (and China) are clearly winning it in the Middle East.
December 11, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics | BRICS, European Union, Middle East, Russia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, UK, United States, Zionism |
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The 500-year-long dominance of the West is coming to an end, being replaced by “a new polycentric world,” Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Sunday in a video address to the Doha Forum.
The minister expressed regret that certain “circumstances” prevented him from coming to the Qatari capital in person and hearing the discussions at the annual high-profile event.
“But I assume that you were discussing the multipolar world, which is emerging after 500 years of domination of what we call the ‘collective West,’” Lavrov said.
This hegemony of the US and its allies had been “based on a diverse history, including ruthless exploitation of peoples and territories of other countries,” he said.
According to the minister, the West suggested that it could use the model of globalization, which it had been building for centuries, to maintain its dominance. “However, other countries, using exactly the principles and instruments of the Western globalization, managed to beat the West on its own turf, building the economies on the basis of national sovereignty, on the basis of balance of interests with other countries.”
New centers of economic growth and political influence have been emerging, “changing the balance of power in the world, and not to the West’s liking,” he said.
“In order to suppress this kind of development,” the US and its allies have in recent years “sacrificed” globalization in favor of the so-called ‘rules-based world order,’ Lavrov continued.
“The rules were never published, were never even announced by anyone to anyone, and they are being applied depending on what exactly the West needs at a particular moment of modern history,” he added.
The FM said that such an approach is most seen “in various conflicts, which the West ignites all over the world,” including the one in Ukraine. “Everything goes to keep the hegemony. Intervention in domestic affairs, sanctions against all the principles of competition, regime change, and of course direct military interventions, like we have seen in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere.”
“Is there a single place where the US intervened with military force, where life has become better? I think you know the answer,” Lavrov told the forum participants.
According to the diplomat, new formats like BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, ASEAN, African Union, and others will become “the bricks of the new polycentric world.”
It should be recognized, including by those in the West, that “the objective course of history… is the evolution of a multipolar world,” Lavrov insisted.
December 11, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics | BRICS |
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The announcement on Friday by Russian President Vladimir Putin that he will seek reelection for a fifth term in office came as no surprise. That he chose the occasion of a Kremlin ceremony conferring the Hero of Russia medals to servicemen who had taken part in Russia’s military operation against Ukraine to make the announcement is striking.
Putin was found responding to an exhortation by the Hero of the Donetsk People’s Republic Artyom Zhoga, commander of the famous Sparta Battalion (who succeeded his son Vladimir, who died at the age of 28 in 2022 and was posthumously awarded the title “Hero of Russia”) that the entire Donbass would like him to participate in the election. There is no question that Col. Zhoga voiced a collective wish of the Russian people.
The Ukraine war has turned out to be a defining event in Putin’s political life. There was some misjudgement initially when the special military operation commenced in late February 2022 that it would be a short-lived affair and President Vladimir Zelensky would take up the Russian offer to negotiate. But where Moscow went horribly wrong was that the US wouldn’t get into a proxy war with them with such gusto and manipulate Zelensky from seeking peace. (See an excellent account, in English, of the US’ sabotage of the Istanbul Agreement, titled Peace for Ukraine authored by a distinguished German troika of a diplomat, an historian and a general.)
Indeed, Putin eventually steered the tentative special military operation out of the woods by making a tactical withdrawal of troops in the northern sectors, allowing a large mobilisation of troops to pursue a war of attrition and ordering an effective multilevel fortification of the frontline. In retrospect, his military decisions turned the tide of war and Russian weaponry and military technology outclassed what the US and NATO supplied to Kiev.
As of now, Russian forces are pressing ahead all across the 900-km frontline and the momentum might carry them far, even across the Dnieper. Crimea and the Black Sea are not in any serious danger; the four new territories are resource-rich and Russia controls all the ports in the strategic Sea of Azov, which is an important access route for Central Asia from the Caspian Sea via the Volga-Don Canal.
However, although the US failed to achieve a military victory in Ukraine, the Biden Administration will try to prolong the conflict for as long as possible through 2024 hoping to bleed Russia in a gruelling struggle as in Afghanistan in the eighties. But it is a vain hope.
Sergey Naryshkin, chief of Russia’s foreign intelligence service wrote last week in the agency’s journal Razvedchik (The Intelligence Operative) that “there is a high probability that further support for the Kiev junta, especially given the increasing ‘toxicity’ of the Ukrainian theme for transatlantic unity and Western society as a whole, will accelerate the decline of the international authority of the West.
“Ukraine itself will turn into a ‘black hole’ absorbing material and human resources the further it goes,” he continued. “In the end, the US risks creating ‘another Vietnam,’ which every new US administration will have to deal with until some sensible person who has the courage and determination to break this vicious circle takes over in Washington.”
Ukraine will remain a priority issue for Russia and that is one main reason why the Russian elite and the nation at large want Putin to remain in power until 2030. The heart of the matter is that Putin also brilliantly tweaked the economic and social policies to sequester the lives of ordinary Russians from the usual deprivations characteristic of a ‘war economy’. Life moves on, and the ‘new normalcy’ is working well.
Putin has scattered the US’ goal to entrap Russia in an apparent quagmire — sending the Russian economy into a tailspin and stoking social discontent and creating conditions for an insurrection against the regime — to weaken Russia and remove it from the global stage as an increasingly effective counterpoint to the western hegemony by fuelling fissiparous tendencies to threaten the unity and integrity of the Russian Federation.
In reality, Putin’s achievements are a work in progress and his continuance in power remains a pre-requisite for Russia’s re-emergence as a ‘superpower’ surpassing even the Soviet Union in some ways in circumstances that are as much challenging as offering opportunities that must be creatively seized in a volatile world environment in historic transition.
Putin tested the waters and has put Russia on the right side of history, so to speak, which presents a study in contrast with the disarray and lack of conviction and mediocre leadership in the US and the transatlantic system as a whole.
If the above-mentioned essay by Naryshkin (entitled 2024 Is the Year Of the Geopolitical Awakening ) is taken as benchmark, the world in transition can be expected to have a trajectory on the following lines:
- A fundamental conflict between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ world, which has been maturing below the surface through the three decades since the end of the cold war, has “moved into an open phase” with the commencement of Russia’s special military operation and has “acquired a geographically all-encompassing character” in the last year.
- An increasing number of countries that “share the ideas of multipolarity and adhere to a traditional worldview” are pushing back the West’s globalist and anti-humanistic agenda.
- Consequently, the risks of instability are multiplying, which lead to “an increase in the chaotic nature of the processes taking place in the foreign policy arena.” The emergent situation demands “remarkable restraint and foresight” from world leaders.
- In sum, the current situation is “increasingly reminiscent of a class revolutionary situation, when the ‘upper classes’ in the face of the weakening United States can no longer provide their own leadership, and the ‘lower classes’, as the Anglo-Saxon elite refer to all other countries, no longer want to obey Western dictates.”
- In order to preserve their global hegemony, the Euro-Atlantic elite will follow the well-trodden path of creating controlled chaos — de-stabilising the situation in key regions by pitting some ‘recalcitrant’ states against others and “forming a sub-system around them as operational and tactical coalitions controlled by the West.”
- However, “responsible world players, especially Russia, China and India and some others demonstrate their readiness to resolutely resist external threats and independently implement crisis management.” Even the closest allies of the US are striving to diversify external relations faced with lack of confidence in America as provider of security. The eruption of Israel-Palestine conflict is “a sobering example” for many Western politicians.
- In such a backdrop, “the world stage will be marked by a further intensification of the confrontation between the two geopolitical principles — namely, the Anglo-Saxon, or island, ‘divide-and-rule’ and the continental ‘unite-and-lead’ directly antagonistic to it. Manifestations of this fierce confrontation in the coming year will be observed in even the most remote regions of the world.”
Interestingly, in Naryshkin’s prognosis, it is not the Indo-Pacific but the Arab world that will remain “the key arena of the struggle for a new world order” in 2024. By the way, the essay appeared on the eve of Putin’s daylong trip to the UAE and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday where he recieved a hero’s welcome. In an extraordinary courtesy by the host countries, Putin’s presidential jet was flanked by four armed Su-35 multi-role 4th + + generation multi-role fighter jets noted for great combat power, high speed and matchless flight range.
December 10, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Timeless or most popular | Russia, UK, Ukraine, United States |
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Achieving Net Zero means building 80 million kilometres of new and refurbished power lines within 17 years, equivalent to wrapping the Earth 2,000 times with new electricity grid capacity. All the high voltage lines built in the last century will need to be built again by 2040 to benefit from all the intermittent power produced by the vast number of wind turbines. The ecological costs of all this can only be guessed at. Electricity cables are made of aluminium and copper and strung on giant pylons made of steel and supported by large concrete bases. For their part, wind turbines are a menace to both avian and oceanic wildlife, consume vast quantities of raw materials, have a limited lifespan and are an increasing blight on both inland and offshore landscapes.
If the International Energy Agency (IEA) gets its way, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The roll-out of high voltage lines will be on an unprecedented scale. In a report on global electricity grids issued to coincide with COP28, the IEA states that “an unprecedented level of attention from policymakers and business leaders is needed to ensure grids support clean energy transitions and maintain electricity security”. Major changes in how grids operate and are regulated are said to be essential. Annual investment in grids, which has remained broadly stagnant, needs to double to more than $600 billion a year by 2030.
The Australian science journalist Jo Nova is in no mood to be understanding: “Remember, it’s not their fault that renewables need far more land, more space, more backup and more infrastructure – it’s our fault we didn’t build a world ready for their holy energy.”
The IEA paints a world where electricity grids are becoming a “bottleneck” for transitions to Net Zero emissions. While investment in renewables has been increasing rapidly, global investment in grids “has barely changed”. In Europe, policymakers can speed up progress on grids by “enhancing planning, ensuring regulatory risk assessments allow for anticipatory investment, and streamlining administrative processes”. In plain English this means ripping up local planning laws in over-populated Britain and blanketing the country with millions of giant electricity pylons. These will be required to bring energy to urban areas from power intermittently generated far away in the North Sea and off the Scottish coast.
It is perhaps no coincidence that the British Government recently set out “major plans” to speed up connections and rapidly increase capacity on the electricity grid. The press release cunningly linked it with a £960 million government investment in “green industries”. The new package is “expected” to bring forward £90 billion of investment over the next 10 years. The Government promised that it will “reward” those living closest to new infrastructure with up to £1,000 a year off their electricity bills. In another part of the release, this is downgraded to communities “could” benefit, and the bung is limited to 10 years.
Whatever the money is spent on, it is likely to be chickenfeed compared with the growing £12 billion annual subsidy paid by electricity consumers to the producers of renewable energy. But the next British government will face an empty exchequer and soaring state debt. Lack of finance along with the end of low interest rates and free money printing is likely to kill many of the green fantasises currently being peddled by collectivist Net Zero fanatics. It is becoming clearer by the day, to an increasing number of people, that renewable energy is unreliable and uneconomic, and has an insatiable requirement for financial subsidy.
Emeritus Cambridge Professor Michael Kelly has long been a critic of the blind, un-costed rush to Net Zero. The U.K. electricity grid will require upgrading from top to bottom, he wrote in a recent GWPF essay. Leaving aside the massive roll out of long-distance transmission lines required, he noted the inadequacies of all the local cabling and sub-stations built before the need to charge electric cars and run heat pumps. “The whole distribution system will need to be upgraded… the work will be extraordinarily expensive, but without it there will either be regular brownouts, or drivers will be told where and when they can charge their batteries,” he explained.
Professor Kelly believes it is a failure of the British political machinery, notably the work of the unelected Climate Change Committee. “We have set out to decarbonise the economy without anyone having thought through all the engineering issues, let alone put a cost on the exercise,” he concluded.
But as Jo Nova observes, it is all our fault. “Apparently, we should have paid attention and built the right grid and now due to our laziness we will have to rush in another 80 million kilometres of interconnectors, just like that,” she writes. Tell the children they’ve been lied to, she concludes. “The Green future is an industrial wasteland of concrete and steel built to line the pockets of billionaires and bankers.”
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
December 9, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | UK |
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IMF Chief Kristalina Georgieva has called for every government to implement some form of carbon taxes or “carbon pricing” in the near future.
Yes, we’re into week two of the UN’s COP28 climate change summit, and the hits just keep on coming.
For example, yesterday it was announced sixty-three world governments have pledged to reduce the emissions from air conditioners and electrics fans.
[You can read a detailed breakdown of the other pledges made during COP28’s first week here.]
Speaking at COP28 in Dubai, and repeated in an interview with the Guardian, Georgieva extolled the virtues of “carbon pricing” and heaped praise on the EU and Canada for their implementation:
When you put a price on carbon, decarbonisation accelerates. The Europeans introduced the emission trading scheme [in 2005] and they have been growing and yet emissions went down by 37%. You see the same thing in Canada with their carbon tax.”
While both the speech and interview discuss the proposed carbon taxes in terms of corporations as “major polluters”, any tax applied to big business would be directly passed onto private citizens via price increases.
The Guardian acknowledges this, but of course, decides to add a weasel-word qualification [emphasis added]:
However, attractive though a carbon price may be in economic theory, in practice governments are reluctant to impose such explicit prices and taxes, because they can easily be attacked, and because they hit poorer people hardest, if badly applied.
“If badly applied”, sure.
The truth is economic destruction, designed to lower the standard of living for ordinary people, is the whole point of “carbon taxes”. just as it was the point of lockdowns.
Deceptive language aside, the undeniable fact that any carbon tax – corporate or individual – would directly harm the poorest is clearly understood by the people who would seek to enforce them.
Not that they have a problem with that, you understand, their concern is merely that purely public rage and/or civil disobedience makes direct taxation difficult to implement. The Guardian article gives the game away by referencing France’s Gilets Jaunes protests as an example.
So, even as Georgieva names carbon taxes the “perfect” solution to climate change, she recognizes the need to rely on more indirect methods.
Yes, the best way to introduce implement carbon prices [is] a carbon tax…But it is not politically feasible in some countries … We can also use regulatory compliance in which standards lead to implicit prices on carbon.”
These “regulations” and “implicit” prices would not be “carbon taxes” in name, but they would very much be so in spirit.
Again the Guardian cites an example, the EU’s recent “carbon border adjustment mechanisms”, which charge more import duties on goods coming from countries with “lax” emissions policies.
A global version of those rules is likely just one of many such measures we can expect moving forward since, according to Georgieva, the world’s biggest financial institutions are all working together on this issue:
[T]he IMF, World Bank, OECD and World Trade Organization [have] set up a taskforce to examine the different carbon prices that are implied in countries around the world by their carbon policies and regulations.”
The head of IMF has spoken, and the World Bank and World Trade Organization are all on board: Carbon Taxes are inevitable. The only question is what they decide to call them.
All the world’s biggest financial heavy-hitters are coming together to figure out the best way to scam people out of their hard-earned money… for the good of the planet, obviously.
December 9, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Canada, European Union, IMF |
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Russia has confounded the West’s sanctions strategy to outstrip Europe in economic growth, pundits say.
Speaking at the plenary session of VTB Bank’s investment forum “Russia Calling!”, Putin highlighted that Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) had grown by 3.2% in the first 10 months of this year and is expected to reach 3.5% by the end of the year.
“Despite Western sanctions against Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine, the Russian economy manages to stay afloat due to various factors, including the restrictive economic policy of the EU and strategic alliances Russia has formed around the world,” Imelda Ibanez, a specialist in the history of Russian diplomacy and foreign policy at St. Petersburg State University, told Sputnik.
When the United States and its European allies decided to impose sanctions on Moscow, commodity prices rose significantly, resulting in an increased trade deficit for those countries.
“One factor [influencing the strengthening of the Russian economy] is the monetary policy of the European Union and the United States, as well as high commodity prices,” Ibanez said.
However, she emphasized that “Russia is one of the world’s leading producers of raw materials, including hydrocarbons, coal and even diamonds.”
“Russia has been able to strategically resist sanctions because it has relied on a geopolitical strategy that is aligned with its allies,” she added.
Isela Valdez, a lecturer in economics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), also speaking to Sputnik, noted that although European countries were strong partners for Moscow before the Ukrainian crisis, they were not the only ones.
“They are not Russia’s only trading partners; yes, they are obviously among the strongest, but there are also the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and even parts of Africa, which are alternative markets with which [Moscow] can develop trade relations,” she noted.
According to Ibanez, Russia’s strategic, commercial and economic link is China, a country with which it shares a common space in BRICS, the group of developing nations founded in 2009 that currently represents more than 31.5 percent of the world’s GDP and 42 percent of its population.
What will happen if the conflict in Ukraine drags on for even longer?
Western countries will find themselves in an even more difficult position in 2024, as another conflict between Israel and Palestine has burst onto the geopolitical chessboard, Valdez warned.
“It is more of an economic containment mechanism that we are beginning to see [in the West]. Next year, the situation for Europe will be very complex because it is on the central axis of the conflicts, almost acting as a mediator, and this will affect its production levels,” the expert noted.
Ibanez noted that Russia has managed to build bridges and alliances with the Global South through BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization — and these are platforms where Moscow could stand out.
December 8, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Russophobia | BRICS, European Union, Russia, United States |
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Disruption of Russian gas supplies due to Western sanctions on Moscow over Ukraine have left Europe grappling with spiraling inflation and surging energy bills, with the costs of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from the US adding to the pressures on European households’ budgets.
The European Union has been forced to overpay some €185 billion for gas imports since it imposed self-harming sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, according to Sputnik’s calculations based on Eurostat data.
Since February 2022, when Brussels first started to levy restrictions on Moscow, the EU’s average monthly gas import expenditures have risen to €15.2 billion. Of this, €7.7 billion has been spent on liquefied natural gas (LNG), while the remaining €7.5 billion has gone to pipeline gas. Meanwhile, during the year before the introduction of sanctions, European countries paid an average of €5.9 billion for gas (€3.6 billion for pipeline gas; €2.3 billion for liquefied gas).
Thus, it is estimated that EU member states over the course of 20 months spent a total of €304 billion on gas imports, while previously such expenses were accrued over several years. For example, from April 2017 to the end of 2021, the EU spent €186 billion on gas imports, and from 2013 to 2021 the value of such imports was at €292 billion.
While Europe has been reeling from the fallout from the backfiring sanctions, the United States has been raking in profits estimated to be worth €53 billion. Other countries that have benefited from the EU’s struggle to find alternatives to Russian energy are the UK (€27 billion), Norway (€24 billion), and Algeria (€21 billion).
Russia, on the other hand, despite the reduction in supply volumes, has received an additional €14 billion due to surging prices. The EU’s shortsighted crusade to limit Moscow’s energy-related income has resulted in Qatar earning the same amount – an additional €14 billion, while Azerbaijan brought in a bonus worth €12 billion. A look at some of the other beneficiaries of this EU gas policy revision shows that Angola banked €5 billion, Egypt – €4 billion, and Trinidad and Tobago – €3 billion. An additional €2 billion were received by Nigeria and Cameroon, and another billion each by Libya, Oman and Equatorial Guinea. Another 12 countries earned relatively small sums, totaling almost €2 billion.
Before the Ukraine crisis and the sanctions unleashed against Moscow over its special military operation in the neighboring country, Europe received approximately 40 percent of the gas it consumed from Russia. Ever since the Ukraine conflict escalated, Brussels has been cobbling together package after package of sanctions targeting Russia. However, to anyone with a clear understanding of the energy needs of the 27-member bloc, it was evident that it was backing itself into a corner by opting to “wean itself” off Russian gas. The Ukraine conflagration and the punitive restrictions have led to disruptions of supply chains and a surge in energy prices worldwide. Furthermore, the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage added to the continent’s woes.
The Nord Stream pipelines, built to deliver gas under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, were hit by explosions on September 26, 2022. Denmark, Germany, and Sweden left Russia out of their investigations into the attack, prompting Moscow to launch its own probe with charges of international terrorism. In the absence of any official results so far, Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report in February 2023 alleging that the blasts were organized by the US with Norway’s support. Washington has denied any involvement.
Western countries and their allies were left facing an energy crisis and struggling to fill their gas reserves. Overall, the sanctions have triggered in the West everything from raging inflation, recession fears, to looming deindustrialization, with Germany being hit the hardest.
At the same time, oil and gas revenues of the Russian budget have been significantly outpacing those of the last year since September despite external pressure, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said earlier in the autumn.
Furthermore, the World Bank reported in August that by the end of 2022, Russia’s wealth in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms had exceeded $5 trillion for the first time — putting it ahead of Western Europe’s three biggest economies, namely, France, financial giant the United Kingdom, and industrial powerhouse Germany.
December 6, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Russophobia | Africa, European Union, Middle East, Russia |
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Brazil does not recognize Western sanctions imposed on Russia and is instead looking to increase its business ties with the country, Brasilia’s ambassador to Moscow, Rodrigo de Lima Baena Soares, has said.
In an interview with the RBK news outlet posted on Monday, the diplomat noted that Brazil only recognizes sanctions issued by the UN Security Council, meaning it does not comply with restrictions imposed by some countries on Russia.
Brazil therefore has “normal trade relations” with Moscow and is focused on expanding bilateral commerce, Soares added.
He admitted that sanctions had created “a number of problems” regarding issues of payment, logistics, and insurance, but nonetheless stated that Russia-Brazil bilateral trade had reached record levels.
Given that some countries have stopped trading with Russia, Soares argued it is the ideal time to be “creative to take advantage of the opportunities we have,” suggesting that Russia and Brazil should work to further increase trade turnover.
Moscow has insisted that Western sanctions imposed in response to its military operation in Ukraine have not had the intended effect. Last month, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described the restrictions as “not so painful” for Russia and said they had backfired on those who introduced them.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has suggested that EU companies have lost at least €250 billion (around $265 billion) due to Western sanctions on Moscow, arguing that even these figures were “very conservative estimates.”
December 4, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics | Brazil, Russia, United States |
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