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EU launches world’s first carbon border tax

RT | October 1, 2023

The EU launched the first phase of an emissions tariff scheme on Sunday, with a planned import tax on steel, aluminum, cement and fertilisers, as part of its bid to become a climate-neutral region.

During the first phase, until 2026, Brussels does not plan to collect any CO2 emissions charges at the border. Until then the system will collect data on carbon-intensive imports.

EU importers are now obliged to report the greenhouse gas emissions embedded in the production of imported iron, steel, aluminium, cement, electricity, fertilisers and hydrogen.

Starting on January 1, 2026, they will have to buy certificates to cover these CO2 emissions. This will inevitably increase the final cost of produce imported by the bloc, reducing their competitiveness compared to goods manufactured domestically.

The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is supposed to prevent more polluting foreign products from undermining the green transition. The measure will potentially protect local producers from losing out to foreign competitors, while they invest in meeting EU targets to cut the bloc’s net emissions by 55% compared to 1990 levels, by 2030.

According to European Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, the goal of the new policy is also to encourage a global shift to greener production and prevent EU producers from relocating to nations with a less strict environmental regulatory base.

The system has already faced criticism from the bloc’s major trading partners, who say it undermines free trade. It has also added to trade tensions between Brussels and Washington, with the latter asking earlier this year for US steel and exports to be exempt from tax.

October 1, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

Biden demands uninterrupted cash flow to Ukraine

RT | October 1, 2023

President Joe Biden has welcomed a bipartisan short-term budget deal that will keep the US government open for the next 45 days, but was disappointed that none of the billions of dollars in aid to Kiev that he had requested made it to the final bill.

“We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted,” Biden said in a brief statement on Saturday night, shortly after Congress passed the measure.

Biden had requested an additional $24 billion for Ukraine, but critics argued that Washington has more important priorities and should have stronger safeguards against the misappropriation of the funds and supplies it sends to Kiev.

The US leader, however, blamed “extreme House Republicans” for causing a “manufactured crisis” and “demanding drastic cuts that would have been devastating for millions of Americans.”

“I fully expect the Speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment,” the US president added.

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had to rely on Democrats in order to pass the bill and avert a government shutdown, as 90 Republicans opposed any short-term funding measures, denying him the much-needed votes. As a part of the deal, McCarthy increased federal disaster assistance by $16 billion, but had to forgo the border security provisions sought by the GOP.

After no new aid to Ukraine made it to the final bill, the House Democratic leadership said in a statement on Saturday that they expect McCarthy to bring a separate Ukraine aid package to vote when the House returns.

The Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also welcomed the bill passing, but called on the Congress to “live up to America’s commitment to provide urgently-needed assistance” to Kiev. “America must live up to its word and continue to lead,” he added in a statement published on Saturday.

October 1, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US has close partnership with Takfiri terrorists in Syria, says President Assad

Press TV – September 30, 2023

President Bashar al-Assad says foreign-sponsored Takfiri terrorists are operating in areas of northeast Syria controlled by US occupation forces, stating that Washington has built up a close and strong partnership with militants wreaking havoc across the country.

Assad made the remarks in an exclusive interview with China’s state-run CGTN television news channel broadcast late on Friday.

“The northeastern sector of Syria is exactly the region, where terrorists are operating and Americans assert control over. The issue is not simply restricted to the looting of natural resources; but rather a partnership with terrorists to reap mutual benefits. This brings another problem, as a major power is in cahoots with terrorist. These are the facts on the ground in Syria,” he said.

Assad said the Syrian conflict is not over yet, and the Arab country is in the midst of a war.

“Syria, due to its geographical location, has historically endured numerous invasions. Anytime occupiers overran the country, they destroyed its cities and towns. Syria has, however, managed to recover. Syrian people will be able to rebuild their own country when the war ends and the siege is lifted.”

Assad said, “The current situation is certainly not good. It is, frankly speaking, difficult because livelihood woes and struggles are the main problems of the Syrian nation. I mean the financial miseries that they have to endure. Their pains and sufferings are increasing.”

“If reconstruction gets underway, Syria will have a very bright future. I am not speaking of assumptions, desires and expectations, but rather about the pre-war situation. Prior to the war, Syria’s growth was at its best rate of 7%, which was considered a very high ratio for a country with limited capacities.

“We had no foreign debts. We used to borrow and pay back our debts directly. We had enough wheat and used to export grains to other countries. We used to export vegetables and fruits, and were developing our industries in the early years of the crisis. Therefore, I can assuredly say that Syria will be much better than what it was before the war in case the war stops and reconstruction starts,” Assad added.

September 30, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Illegal Occupation | , | Leave a comment

‘Ukraine has a terrorist government’: A new force wants the EU to change its stance

By Bradley Blankenship | RT | September 30, 2023

On September 16, around 10,000 protesters descended on Prague’s Wenceslas Square to demand a change to their government’s foreign policy. These protests were led by a group called Pravo Respekt Odbornost (Law Respect Expertise; PRO), which the Western mainstream media describes as pro-Russian and anti-Western.

Jindrich Rajchl, a Czech attorney inspired by the political lines of American conservatives Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, is the leader of the group. While some may see Rajchl’s movement as completely out of touch with the country’s traditional politics, he believes that he’s tapped into something much more critical to Prague’s national mythos: rejecting foreign domination.

PRO and its supporters see the current Czech government as traitors who are controlled primarily from Washington and Brussels. And even though the political environment in the country has been turbulent over the past several years, a situation which the current goverment was meant to resolve, Rajchl and PRO believe that a national-conservative platform is the only thing that will rein in out-of-control excesses emanating from foreign powers.

Political situation in the Czech Republic

The current Czech government is led by a three-party center-right coalition called SPOLU (‘Together’), which is composed of the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL), and TOP 09. These also have an agreement with the Pirate Party and the Mayors and Independents. It rode into power on a strong pro-Western, anti-corruption platform after the 2021 parliamentary elections.

That election was, first and foremost, a referendum on the leadership of former prime minister Andrej Babis, who held this post from 2017 until his eventual defeat, and served before that as finance minister from 2014. He was the spitting image of the prototypical Eastern European ‘oligarch’ before seeking public office, and is one of Europe’s richest people, according to Forbes, with an estimated net worth of $3.7 billion.

Throughout his entire tenure as prime minister, allegations of impropriety dogged him, sparking widespread mobilization within civil society. He was caught up in an EU subsidy fraud case, for which he was charged criminally and investigated by Brussels; he allegedly forcibly disappeared his own son; and he was mentioned in the Pandora Papers. It is against the backdrop of this intense public scrutiny for Babis and his left-wing coalition, which was composed of his center-left populist ANO (‘Yes’) party and the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD), with a tentative agreement with the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM), that the Czech left was obliterated.

Babis’ alleged corruption was tied not only to his person but also to left-wing politics and its basic positions in general. While Babis was a moderate on foreign policy and supported French President Emmanuel Macron’s call for ‘strategic autonomy,’ the PM was instead cast as pro-China and pro-Russia for not buying all-in to Brussels’ political agenda. Likewise, the junior parties of the coalition – the CSSD and KSCM – were so damaged by their affiliation with Babis that neither qualified for any seats in the current Chamber of Deputies, and CSSD has only one senator, marking the first time that both houses of parliament have been without a communist party representative.

This strong mandate for the pro-Western Czech right is led by Prime Minister Petr Fiala, the leader of the very party that helped impose Washington’s ‘shock therapy’ on Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic during the 1990s. It has been given carte blanche to buy into Washington’s imperial project in Ukraine – and in the Czech Republic itself.

The current Czech parliament ratified a new defense treaty with the United States that will make it easier for Washington to deploy troops on Czech soil – a move that critics see as a violation of Czech sovereignty. Defense Minister Jana Cernochova and the ruling coalition have even expressed a desire to host a US military base in their country. Given the Czech Republic’s experience with foreign occupiers, including Nazi Germany during the Second World War and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, such a move would betray the country’s fundamental ideals.

With the death of the left comes an opportunity for the right

Enter a Czech lawyer named Jindrich Rajchl, who leads the emerging political party, PRO. The views of Rajchl and his party, in contrast to the positions of the ruling coalition, may seem out of step with the country’s typical view. For example, here’s what he said at September’s rally:

“We made another step today to move out of the way the rock that is the government of Mr. [Prime Minister Petr] Fiala,” Rajchl told demonstrators.

“They are agents of foreign powers, people who fulfill orders, ordinary puppets. And I do not want a puppet government anymore,” he said, calling on Prague to veto Ukraine’s inclusion in NATO.

PRO’s position – a national-conservative-based populist backlash against the decadence of Western liberalism – seems to be a welcome alternative to many disaffected Czechs, many of whom saw Fiala and his Civic Democratic Party (ODS), the party of the country’s first president, Vaclav Havel, as a return to normalcy.

They also want to broadly slash spending on social services, such as education, and pass the burden onto students. For example, PRO wishes to see university tuition introduced – which, to be sure, would be far less than in places such as the United States.

While PRO is an up-and-coming group and has yet to participate in an election, Rajchl told RT in a profile published in May that he is optimistic about his party’s odds. According to internal polling, he said his party was just over the minimum 5% threshold needed to enter parliament in the 2025 election. That means that, if the elections were held then, Rajchl would be an MP, a position he hopes to wield to form an alliance with other parties, such as the right-wing party Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) or potentially Andrej Babis’ ANO, which is topping polls. Politico’s latest tracker, however, has PRO at only 2% – below the threshold – and ANO on top with 34%.

But Rajchl hopes to run for the European Parliament in June 2024, primarily so he can take on Brussels directly.

Economy or war?

The economic situation in the Czech Republic may give PRO a chance for success. In the years following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, prominent international credit agencies like Moody’s have downgraded the Czech Republic’s credit rating due to substantial budget deficits. Before this development, the Czech Republic boasted one of Europe’s, if not the world’s, most favorable public finance outlooks.

Inflation has rocked the Czech economy for several years. According to the Czech Statistical Office, Czechs spent 14% more last year than the year before but, in real terms, spending fell by over 1%. Energy prices were primarily responsible, soaring by 15.5% while fuel increased by 33.5%.

The general outlook for the working class has also been abysmal – and policymakers have done little to support them. Analysis by PAQ Research published in December 2022, based on data from the Czech Statistical Office (CSU), projected that up to 30% of Czech households would fall into poverty this year. Despite this forecast, the ruling coalition still moved forward with an austerity package that would have an outsized effect on average people.

A current austerity initiative making its way through the Czech Republic is set to reduce spending by roughly 94 billion Czech crowns ($4.4 billion) in 2024, followed by an additional 150 billion in 2025 ($6.9 billion). This plan aims to achieve these cuts through various measures, including raising the retirement age, slightly increasing corporate and real estate taxes, and augmenting the current alcohol tax. Furthermore, it will entail workforce reductions within the public sector or corresponding wage adjustments, and it will also significantly raise taxes on the middle class, students, parents, and others.

Numerous experts have shared their views in the media, suggesting that the government’s adoption of an austerity plan became an unavoidable necessity. But unions and opposition political parties have staunchly disagreed, spawning massive protests over the past year.

At the same time, the Fiala goverment has sent weapons and aid hand over fist to Ukraine. In February alone, the goverment approved one weapons shipment worth an estimated 10 billion crowns ($430.74 million). The total amount of aid sent to Ukraine is believed to be around 20 billion crowns ($861.55 million), which constitutes a significant portion of the amount the government wants to cut with its austerity plan.

PRO is tying the Czech Republic’s economic and financial woes to Ukraine aid, and believes that out-of-control spending is hurting the country.

Ukrainian bone of contention

To elaborate on these topics and more, RT caught up with Rajchl again to learn more about PRO’s foreign policy agenda, following the aforementioned profile on him from May. A few developments have happened in Europe since the last conversation, including a public falling out between Poland and Ukraine over grain. Warsaw has unilaterally blocked agricultural imports from Kiev, which had flooded the European market and, Polish leaders say, hurt local farmers. This occurred after an EU-wide ban expired.

When asked about the latest spat between Ukraine and Poland, Rajchl said he shares the same views; however, he insisted that he had always held this position.

“I’ve been saying this since last year: In the end, it’s about the black hole that’s taking European and US money, and there’s huge corruption. The money isn’t used to help the Ukrainian oligarchs. And everyone has understood that the policy of President Zelensky is failing. I’m glad that the Polish government finally found this out. I hope the Czech government will too, but I don’t think they will. They put all their political capital into helping Ukraine and if they admitted that they were wrong, they would be recalled and would have to resign,” Rajchl said.

He added: “The Ukrainian government is a terrorist government. [With regard to] the rocket that crossed into Poland, it’s clear that this was a Ukrainian rocket – not a Russian rocket. Zelensky blamed Russia from the very beginning, although he knew from the very beginning it was his own rocket. He fired the rocket against the EU as a false-flag operation to blame Putin and get more help from the West, which is a form of blackmail. This regime is a criminal regime, Zelensky is a terrorist and should be tried at The Hague.”

Indeed, just after Rajchl’s conversation with RT, Polish investigators reportedly reached the conclusion that the rockets that hit the Polish border village of Przewodow must have been of Ukrainian origin, according to a Polish media report.

What else do they believe in?

Last year, at the height of Europe’s inflation crisis, PRO held a similar rally that attracted tens of thousands of people. During those protests, the group blasted the inflation that was crippling the working class and demanded the government’s resignation. Today, according to the latest Morning Consult tracker of world leaders, Fiala’s government has a dismal 20% approval rating.

Commenting on this, Rajchl said, “It’s a well-deserved place because he’s the worst leader in the world right now, of all of the leaders I know. He doesn’t care about his own people. The economic situation is mostly contributing to this; Fiala is not doing anything to help the Czech people, and they know it. He’s just taking orders from the EU, from the US, from Kiev, but he’s not doing anything for ordinary Czech people.”

The PRO leader also pointed out the absurdity of Czech officials calling on Europe and the West to prepare for nuclear conflict with Russia. “We don’t need to prepare [for this]; we need to do everything in our power to avoid nuclear conflict with anybody in the world.”

“I don’t want to have any enemies in the world. I am reminded of a speech by John F. Kennedy, when he said, ‘We don’t want to have Pax Americana that is forced by American weapons.’ We need to change the perception of the world so that there won’t be friends and foes, but simply neighbors that are just living on the same planet. I don’t see Russia as a threat; I believe the much bigger threat is the Western powers that are dragging us into this stupid conflict,” Rajchl said about his feelings regarding Russia.

The organizer’s position of establishing equal partnerships and being against hegemony sounded similar to the words of some world leaders at the latest BRICS summit in South Africa. Rajchl said he would be open to seeing Prague join BRICS+, perhaps becoming the first EU member state to be incorporated into that emerging bloc.

In his profile for RT in May, he stressed that he was not anti-American or anti-NATO. However, the protest had a much more radical rhetorical angle this time around. Rajchl stressed that he was not against Washington but rather the current leadership of President Joe Biden.

“I believe Donald Trump is the right leader for the United States,” he said, “Biden is just a puppet. There are people behind the current pushing for war, pushing for the woke agenda, the LGBTQ, the Green New Deal, and all these crazy agendas that are poisoning the world and the minds of our children, which I see as the biggest threat to the world and Europe,” he said.

“The woke agenda,” Rajchl stressed, “is the biggest threat to Western civilization. Look at the United States: Its cities are full of people addicted to fentanyl. Western Europe is full of migrants from Muslim countries, which threatens our security.”

The lawyer-turned-politician plans to run for the European Parliament in the country’s upcoming election in June 2024. Rajchl said he wants to “explore and research all of the things that happened during Covid” because his movement is convinced that there were “a lot of crimes that have been committed by members of the European Commission,” and he also wants to form a “national-conservative platform” to stand up against Brussels’ overreach. While not specific on the numbers, the organizer said he was optimistic about his odds of securing an MEP seat, according to internal polling.

September 30, 2023 Posted by | Economics, False Flag Terrorism, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Rand Paul Issues Ultimatum: Withdraw Ukraine Billions Or Face Government Shutdown

By Steve Watson | Summit News | September 29, 2023

Senator Rand Paul declared that he will hold up a spending bill in the Senate and push toward a government shutdown unless $6 billion in aid to Ukraine is removed from the legislation.

Paul took to Twitter noting that he will only allow a vote on the spending stopgap before the Sept. 30 deadline for funding government if Senate leaders get rid of the massive amount of money earmarked for the war.

“If leadership insists on funding another country’s government at the expense of our own government, all blame rests with their intransigence,” Paul wrote.

Last week, Paul slammed the Ukrainian leadership as “corrupt” and blasting the visiting President Zelensky as “begging for more money.”

In the Senate, Paul asked “When will the aid requests end? When will the war end? Can someone explain what victory looks like?”

Paul also noted that Zelensky has cancelled Democracy in the country.

“They’ve cancelled the elections. What kind of democracy has no election?” he noted, adding “next year, Zelensky said he’s not going to have an election because it would be inconvenient during the war and would be expensive.”

He continued, “if you don’t have elections, who in the world will be supporting a country that’s not a democracy? They’ve banned the political parties, they’ve invaded churches, they’ve arrested priests. So, no, it isn’t a democracy. It’s a corrupt regime.”

Meanwhile, Democratic Presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warned on Thursday that the “next step of Ukraine War escalation” is stationing United States military advisers on the ground.

“Have they forgotten how we got embroiled in Vietnam?” RFK Jr. noted, linking to a recent article in Foreign Affairs calling for on-the-ground training:

September 29, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Poland rejects Ukraine’s proposal to end grain embargo crisis

BY GRZEGORZ ADAMCZYK | DZIENNIK.PL | SEPTEMBER 29, 2023

On Sept. 27, Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Trade Taras Kachka said that if Poland, Hungary and Slovakia guarantee that they will not impose unilateral limits on Ukrainian products in the future, Ukraine will be able to withdraw its complaint from the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Piotr Muller, the Polish government’s spokesman, told the conservative TV station Republika on Sept. 28 that the Ukrainian proposal for withdrawing the WTO complaint is unacceptable because “Ukraine is in fact proposing that its food products should be able to enter without any limits being set.”

He added that “the embargo will continue until we are satisfied that the import of Ukrainian products will not negatively impact our agricultural markets, and that is not likely in the near future.”

Muller also said that Poland was ready to discuss the matter with Ukraine but that “for the time being the embargo remains in force.” However, he felt that Ukraine withdrawing the complaint it filed with the WTO would be a positive development, “showing that Ukraine wants to negotiate with partners rather than confront them with lawsuits.”

On Sept. 26, the agriculture ministers from the Visegrád Four states — Poland, Hungary, Czechia and Slovakia — held a meeting in Znojmo, Czechia, at which they held a teleconference with the Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky.

The four ministers agreed that the withdrawal of the complaint made to the WTO would facilitate better relations, but the Ukrainian minister did not answer Polish Deputy Agriculture Minister Robert Bartosik’s question about whether Ukraine would cancel its lawsuit.

On Sept. 18, Kyiv filed a complaint with the WTO against Poland, Hungary and Slovakia for the imposition of unilateral embargoes on Ukrainian grain, which the three EU member states imposed in defiance of the European Commission’s decision to lift the grain embargo that was in place between May and Sept. 15 of this year.

September 29, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Hungary sets condition for further Ukrainian aid from Brussels

RT | September 29, 2023

Budapest will block further EU aid to Ukraine if Kiev doesn’t account for the money it has already received from Brussels since the start of the conflict with Russia, a senior Hungarian government official has said.

“There are many technical ways to finance Ukraine and also help in the humanitarian field,” said Gergely Gulyas, the head of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office. He told a briefing on Thursday that Hungary had no objections to individual EU countries providing assistance to Kiev.

He said unanimity would be required regarding any changes to the EU budget, however, which is currently “on the table for amendment.”

Budapest will make sure that Ukraine “will not receive a single penny of new aid” if it can’t account for the funds it has already been given by the EU, Gulyas insisted.

In June, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen requested an increase of €66 billion ($69.9 billion) for the EU’s long-term budget, which includes €17 billion (around $18 billion) for providing grants for Ukraine.

According to EU data, the bloc and its individual members have supplied Kiev with more than $88 billion in financial, military, humanitarian, and refugee assistance since February 2022.

It’s “absurd and embarrassing” that Brussels keeps withholding EU funds from Hungary while looking for ways to find more money for Ukraine, Gulyas said.

“Let’s hope it’s not because the money was spent on something else, God forbid it was given to a country outside the EU,” he added.

The bloc suspended around €7.5 billion ($7.9 billion) of funds allocated to Hungary in 2022 over what it called rule-of-law concerns.

Hungarian authorities have taken a balanced approach to the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. While supplying humanitarian aid, Budapest has refused to send arms to President Vladimir Zelensky’s government. Hungary has also consistently called for a peaceful settlement to the crisis and criticized sanctions imposed by Brussels on Moscow, arguing that they were hurting the EU more than Russia.

September 29, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Orban: EU May Have Given Hungarian Money to Ukraine

Sputnik – 29.09.2023

BUDAPEST – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has indicated that some of the EU funds that Brussels is supposed to allocate to Budapest may already have been transferred to Kiev.

The European Union froze over €6 billion designated for Hungary last September due to alleged political concerns. However, Hungarian PM Orban insists that Hungary has met all the EU’s requirements and that the funds were rather used to back the Kiev regime.

“It is possible that some of it [the money] is already in Ukraine. If there is no money to give Ukraine the sums promised before, and we promise to give new sums, and there are people who haven’t received the money, it is reasonable to assume that this money is already gone. We don’t know for sure because Brussels is not clear about it,” Orban said on a Hungarian radio station.

He added that Brussels owes Hungary “more than three billion euros” because Budapest “paid everything that had to be paid.”

“In terms of the Hungarian budget, this is a significant amount,” the prime minister stressed.

Earlier, Gergely Gulyas, the current head of the prime minister’s office, said that Ukraine would not receive any EU budget funds until Hungary gets its rightful share, as unanimous support is necessary to adjust the EU budget.

Earlier, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed increasing the EU’s budget for 2024-2027 by €66 billion to support Ukraine, migration and refugee programs, as well as improve competitiveness. The proposal includes €50 billion in grants and loans over the next four years. Orban dismissed this proposal, citing uncertainty about the funds already sent to Ukraine.

In September 2022, the European Commission froze EU funds earmarked for Hungary, withholding some €7.5 billion and citing Budapest’s alleged violation of EU rules.

In December 2022, the EU countries agreed to reduce the withheld funds to €6.3 billion. In exchange, Hungary agreed to lift its veto on several issues of European politics.

The Hungarian prime minister said that the EU is withholding funds from Hungary to influence its positions on migration, sex education, and sanctions. However, Hungary remains steadfast in its stance on these issues, anticipating continued pressure from the EU.

For his part, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated that the country must be prepared for serious attacks from the EU because “Brussels and the liberal propaganda machine” are not selective in their means and use all forms of blackmail against Budapest.

September 29, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

US Aid to Ukraine May Dry Out, But Not Because of House GOP

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 27.09.2023

The US may run out of money to support Ukraine “in a few weeks,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby has warned. However, it’s not the potential government shutdown that could shrink the Ukrainian aid, former Pentagon analyst Karen Kwiatkowski has told Sputnik.

The Biden administration wants the US Congress to pass a $24 billion package for Ukraine along with other spending initiatives as soon as possible. Washington has already committed over $110 billion in Ukraine assistance to date.

While House Republicans appear skeptical about further financial and military assistance to the Kiev regime, which has failed to succeed with its summer counteroffensive, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy proposed to pass a stopgap measure to avoid a looming government shutdown. September 30 is the deadline. GOP lawmakers have signaled that they won’t include any funds for Ukraine in their stopgap bill.

On September 22, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Capitol Hill to lobby for a hefty multi-billion package. Even though McCarthy (unlike his predecessor Nancy Pelosi) did not provide the Ukrainian president with an opportunity to address the House, he held a conversation with Zelensky.

The day after the meeting with Zelensky, McCarthy told reporters in the Capitol that he had decided to keep the $300 million in Ukraine aid in the Pentagon funding bill, adding that another spending measure set for the State Department and foreign operations would also include money for Kiev. The development is by no means surprising, according to retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense.

“The Pentagon has stated that Ukraine funding and aid would continue unabated by any government shutdown, and this includes the payment of salaries for tens of thousands of Ukrainian government employees and bureaucrats – even as paychecks for US government employees, and bureaucrats can and likely would be held back in the event of a shutdown,” Kwiatkowski told Sputnik. “I think this is a Pentagon and administration attempt to remove the ability of the Congressional GOP Freedom Caucus to argue that they desire to pay American salaries, before they pay Ukrainian ones – by saying we (the Biden admin) are paying Ukrainian salaries no matter what you (the House America First-types) do.”

When it comes to the larger $24 billion package, the former Pentagon analyst has a sense that “if serious negotiations are forced on Speaker Kevin McCarthy, they will find a way to reduce this amount, or to separate this aid out for separate and subsequent Congressional consideration.” The Biden administration has publicly promised this aid to Ukraine, but they do not control the appropriations – the House does, she emphasized.

“However – the Pentagon could simply provide it to Ukraine using a recalculation ‘trick’ and devaluing of past aid in the amount of $24 billion. I give this a 50% chance of happening in some way,” Kwiatkowski said.

For example, in late June, the Pentagon said that it had overestimated the value of the arms it supplied to Kiev by $6.2 billion over the past two years. Four weeks earlier, the US Department of Defense cited an accounting error of at least $3 billion. Eventually, the “surplus” simply went back into the Pentagon’s pot allocated for Ukraine within the president’s drawdown authority (which allows providing Kiev with weapons directly, without Congressional approval).

“I think there is a good chance Ukraine will be able to wring out much of the promised $24 billion – but that the political battle, here in the US, to make that happen will reveal much to Congress and the American people about both the shady accounting ‘principles’ of the Pentagon and the honest situation in Ukraine,” Kwiatkowski said.

Still, trouble is brewing for Kiev: it seems like many in Congress on both sides of the political aisle are beginning to understand the practical and political need for Kiev and Washington to end the conflict immediately, according to the former Pentagon analyst.

She suspects that “the truth about the terrific loss on the battlefield and in Ukrainian military capability in the past 18 months is getting to the various committees in both the House and the Senate.”

“It appears that many otherwise hawkish Congressmen and Senators want to put Ukraine behind them politically, and develop massive new spending for some idea of ‘containing’ China in the Pacific,” the retired lieutenant colonel pointed out. “If the CIA and DIA are influencing our Congress, which they do by design, we may see Ukraine aid one-for-one shifted to that China ‘effort’ as part of a negotiation. The cold reception of Zelensky in US political circles portends that much of Congress wishes to extricate themselves from the dangerous proxy war Biden and his advisors, left over from the Obama days, have contrived, and incidentally, have lost.”

In August, a majority of US respondents told pollsters they oppose more aid for Ukraine. In September, another survey indicated that 41% now say the United States is doing too much to support Ukraine, up from 33% in February and 14% in April 2022. Remarkably, even Democratic voters now appear to hold this stance, despite previously being staunch supporters of more US spending on Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the Asia-Pacific topic has steadily been getting hotter this year: first, the Pentagon announced about speeding up the provision of weapons to Taiwan island; then, in August, the White House signaled that it would ask Congress to fund arms for Taiwan as part of a supplemental budget request for Ukraine; in mid-September, the mainstream press reported that the US plans to redirect $85 million in military aid allocated for Egypt to Taiwan. If the pivot to Asia becomes the main focus of US lawmakers, the flow of funds to Kiev may soon start drying out.

September 27, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Nord Stream Blast: Why the West Still Can’t Name the Culprit

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 26.09.2023

Exactly a year ago three out of four Nord Stream pipelines running from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea to provide Western Europe with natural gas were destroyed. Western investigators have so far failed to find the saboteurs behind the blast.

Gas leaks from the Nord Stream pipeline system were detected on 26 September 2022, with the EU leadership admitting that this could be the result of a “deliberate attack”.

Two days later, on 28 September, the Kremlin announced that Russia was ready to consider applications from EU countries for a joint investigation into the Nord Stream incident.

However, not only did the West snub Moscow’s request but also blamed Russia for destroying its own pipelines. Later, European and American officials backtracked on their accusations but fell short of naming a potential perpetrator.

On 12 October 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the incident “an act of international terrorism”. Meanwhile, as gas prices soared and US energy producers secured lucrative liquefied natural gas (LNG) contracts with European countries, it became clear that Washington had been the major beneficiary from the Nord Stream destruction.

Furthermore, the US leadership had previously issued several threats that it would destroy the pipelines.

“We know that the United States President Joe Biden, threatened openly that he would stop Nord Stream 2 if the Russians were to militarily intervene in Ukraine,” Philip Giraldi, former CIA station chief and now an executive director of the Council for the National Interest, told Sputnik. “That was repeated by Victoria Nuland, who was Number Three at the State Department. She said basically the same thing. So we had the President and a senior official both saying that they would stop the pipeline if this were to happen. So we have a statement coming from the government itself saying it would do this.”

“And then I would say on top of that, the United States – given its military capabilities – had the capability to do this. They sent divers down to attach explosives and to arrange for a drone satellite that would ignite the charges and blow up the pipelines. It had the capability to do it. And it also had the motive, which was basically to weaken Russia’s ability to use its energy resources to affect politics in Europe. So this is what it was all about,” Giraldi continued.

On 8 February 2023, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh dropped a bombshell, detailing an apparent plot by Team Biden and the US intelligence community to blast the Nord Stream pipelines with the help of Norwegian operatives.

Reflecting on Hersh’s version, Giraldi said that he feels that Hersh’s narrative is “correct in every detail.”

“And I can confirm to you that Sy Hersh, whom I know somewhat, has excellent sources inside CIA and inside the Pentagon. So what he’s telling us comes straight from people who know about it,” the CIA veteran said.

Blame Game Time: The Andromeda Yarn

On 7 March, the US and German mainstream sources published two separate articles claiming that international investigators had managed to trace the 26 September 2022 sabotage attack to a “pro-Ukrainian” group operating from the Andromeda, a 15-meter chartered yacht. The story immediately prompted a lot of controversy.

German media, for example, asked how a 15-meter chartered yacht could carry the 1,500-2,000 kilograms of explosives needed to destroy the pipelines, adding that the Andromeda does not have a crane to hoist such quantities safely into the water. It was also unclear how the group of volunteers managed to transport that amount of explosives across Europe.

Another problem, cited by the press, was that at the site of the explosion, the depth of the Baltic Sea is about 80 meters, requiring special diving equipment which the private vessel lacked. On top of this, the gang of saboteurs returned the yacht in bad condition and even left a couple of fake passports on board which made the story even fishier.

Hersh ridiculed the mainstream media yarn while discussing it with an anonymous CIA operative familiar with the issue. According to Hersh, it’s not just a “bad” media story but a deliberate “parody” fed by the CIA to the US and German media.

“In the world of professional analysts and operators, everyone will universally and correctly conclude from your story that the devilish CIA concocted a counter-op that is on its face so ridiculous and childish that the real purpose was to reinforce the truth,” the investigative journalist wrote on 5 April.

The most recent Western media stories alleging Ukraine’s involvement don’t hold water, either, according to Giraldi:

“Look, when you’re doing things in the intelligence world, you look for corroborative details – details that tell you that this story is coming from a good source or that it is fundamentally correct. And I saw none of that in this story. There have been a number of stories, of course, about people from Ukraine having done this, or people even from Germany renting boats and going over there, and they didn’t know what nationality they were. I mean, these are repeated stories. I have no reason to assume that this story is correct.”

The CIA veteran goes on to say that at present there is no story that sounds as credible as Hersh’s version. Besides, the US had the motive; it had the capability to do it; and it also had the objective to do it as a way of weakening Russia’s ability to influence Western Europe, Giraldi summarized.

“So I think that a lot of the background or the backstory supports the fact that the United States basically did it, though, apparently with the assistance of the Norwegians, and I would imagine some of the other NATO allies were also briefed in a certain fashion. In other words, not all the details, but given some indication that something might be happening in the near future in the Baltic.”

Why Couldn’t EU Investigators Name the Culprit?

It’s hardly surprising that despite official investigations in three countries – Sweden, Denmark, and Germany – the question of who is responsible for the sabotage remains unanswered, according to Giraldi.

“The fact that there have been three investigations carried out means nothing because the three countries that carry out the investigation are all NATO members. So they would have no motive whatsoever to challenge the argument that this was carried out by the Russians themselves or by the Ukrainians,” the CIA veteran said.

However, Giraldi suspects that the German investigation probably came closest to the truth. However, what they told the public was essentially a narrative acceptable to the United States and to NATO. The former CIA field officer pointed out that Germany suffered the most from the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines.

“Their economy is in trouble. They were dependent on Russian energy and so they are paying a price for it, and I’m sure that many Germans – I do know that many Germans are aware of this and are complaining that this ever took place. I was in Eastern Europe about two months ago, and I heard this a lot from Europeans, how stupid this whole thing was to destroy a resource that was very good for Europe as well as being good for Russia.”

According to Giraldi, it’s interesting to examine who else – apart from the US and Norway – was aware of the Nord Stream plot and was foolhardy enough to get involved in it. Giraldi doubted whether Berlin had been in collusion with the US and Norway from the beginning and said that it did not make sense for a country to sacrifice its own economy willingly.

Furthermore, the Nord Stream pipelines weren’t just a Gazprom asset, Giraldi emphasized: there were other countries – other companies from Western Europe – that participated in the project that had been worth billions of dollars. And because of the US plot, their money had been squandered and their infrastructure had suffered incalculable damage.

But the financial aspect is only half the story: the most worrying part is that those who blew the pipelines up risked escalating the crisis dramatically.

“The destruction of the pipeline was an act of war,” stressed Giraldi, “… so this is an interesting story if we ever find out the truth.”

On 17 September 2023, the First Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN Dmitry Polyansky said that Russia was calling for the UN Security Council to meet to discuss the Nord Stream gas pipelines and the council will gather on Tuesday, 26 September – a year after the sabotage occurred.

On 27 August, the Prime Minister of the German federal state of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, announced the need to repair the damaged gas pipelines which he said will help to ensure the country’s energy supply for another five to 10 years.

September 26, 2023 Posted by | Economics, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

US intel knew Biden planned to blow up Nord Stream prior to Ukraine conflict – Hersh

RT | September 26, 2023

US President Joe Biden initially planned on destroying the Nord Stream gas pipelines to deter Russia from launching its military operation in Ukraine, American journalist Seymour Hersh reported on Tuesday. However, Hersh alleged that the sabotage operation went ahead later not to deter Russia, but to damage the German economy.

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, which connected Russia and Germany through the Baltic Sea, were destroyed in a series of underwater explosions exactly a year ago on Tuesday. Competing theories have emerged as to who was to blame, with mainstream media in the West blaming a Ukrainian commando unit and Seymour Hersh claiming that the CIA carried out the operation under direct orders from Biden.

In a blog post on Tuesday, Hersh alleged that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan convened a series of meetings in late 2021, tasking intelligence officials with coming up with a means of deterring Russian President Vladimir Putin from sending troops into Ukraine.

“The White House’s policy was to deter Russia from an attack,” an intelligence source told Hersh. “The challenge it gave to the intelligence community was to come up with a way that was powerful enough to do that, and to make a strong statement of American capability.”

By January, as Russian forces were massing on the Ukrainian border, the CIA had “solved the problem,” the source said. With a plan in place to plant remotely-detonated explosives on the pipelines under the Baltic Sea, Biden warned in early February that in the event of military action by Russia, “there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

Following Biden’s statement, which was delivered alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the CIA team tasked with sabotaging the pipelines received new orders, Hersh claimed. Instead of immediately destroying Nord Stream, the team was instructed to plant the explosives for detonation at a later date.

“It was then that we understood that the attack on the pipelines was not a deterrent because as the war went on we never got the command,” a member of the team told Hersh.

“We realized that the destruction of the two Russian pipelines was not related to the Ukrainian war,” the source continued. “But was part of a neocon political agenda to keep Scholz and Germany, with winter coming up and the pipelines shut down, from getting cold feet and opening up.”

According to Hersh’s earlier reporting, CIA divers planted the explosives last summer with the help of the Norwegian navy, using a NATO exercise in the region as cover. By the time the bombs were triggered in September, the flow of Russian gas to Germany via Nord Stream 1 had already been slowed to a trickle by Russia in response to Western sanctions, while Nord Stream 2 was never certified to begin operation by Scholz’s government. However, with the German economy heavily dependent on Russian gas, Biden reportedly feared that Scholz would choose reproachment with Moscow over support for Ukraine.

“The President of the United States would rather see Germany freeze than [see] Germany possibly stop supporting Ukraine,” Hersh declared earlier this year.

September 26, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Most Russian oil exports bypassing price cap – FT

RT | September 25, 2023

The EU and G7 countries have largely failed to enforce a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil exports, Financial Times reported on Monday, citing an analysis of shipping and insurance records.

In August, around three-quarters of Russian oil was reportedly being shipped overseas without Western insurers, which was considered one of the tools helping to limit the price at which Russian crude was being sold on the global market.

About half of Russian oil exports did not use Western insurance services during the entire spring, according to Kpler data, as cited by the media, suggesting Moscow “is becoming more adept at circumventing the cap.”

Meanwhile, global prices for crude are on the rise, nearing 13-month highs. Brent futures for November delivery were trading at $93.51 per barrel on Monday, while US West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) climbed above $90 per barrel. Russian crude was no exception, with the Far Eastern blend ESPO trading at over $88 per barrel, and with Urals crude above $78 per barrel.

In June, US Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo claimed that the price cap imposed by the Western allies in December was working as intended.

“In just six months, the price cap has contributed to a significant decline in Russian revenue at a key juncture in the war,” he said.

In August, Acting US Assistant Treasury Secretary Eric Van Nostrand said that he was “confident that the price cap is achieving its twin goals of restricting Russian revenues while helping stabilize energy markets.”

According to FT, Russian, Chinese, and Indian insurers have stepped in to replace Western majors, while a “dark fleet” of tankers, built for transporting Russian crude around the world, has helped Moscow to avoid Western insurers and shippers.

September 25, 2023 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

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