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Milan Prosecutor Approves Extradition of Russian Governor’s Son to US

Samizdat – 26.11.2022

ROME – Milan prosecutor’s office submitted to the court a positive decision on the extradition of the son of Russian Krasnoyarsk Territory’s governor, Artem Uss, to the United States, the Il Giorno newspaper reported on Friday.

Artem Uss was arrested in Italy on a US warrant on October 17. Alongside four other Russian citizens, he was accused of money laundering and evasion of sanctions. The 40-year-old has denied any wrongdoings and rejected voluntary extradition to the United States.

According to the media, Uss during Friday’s hearing stated that he had never been to New York and his last visit to the US had occurred 25 years ago, when he was 14 years old, adding that information provided by the US Department of Justice was false.

The prosecutor’s office also reportedly rejected appeal of Uss’s lawyers to put him under house arrest in Milan.
Uss’s lawyer Vinicio Nardo refused to give Sputnik his comments on the case.

On October 28, Moscow court issued a warrant in absentia for the arrest of Uss for money laundering and put him on the Russian interior ministry’s register of wanted persons.

November 25, 2022 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Western-led ‘international’ organizations have no future

By Drago Bosnic | November 21, 2022

On November 18, the Polish foreign ministry stated that it will not allow a Russian delegation to attend the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) summit next month. OSCE is one of the most prominent regional security organizations in the world and its stated goal is to establish a viable security framework that would prevent conflicts in Europe and beyond. However, the reality is a bit different from the organization’s publicly altruistic intentions. The Associated Press asked the Polish foreign ministry if Russia would be denied entry to the OSCE’s December conference and Spokesman Lukasz Jasina responded that it would.

Russia, one of the most important members of the organization, as well as a key player in European security, is being denied entry due to politics. The very fact that this is even possible calls into question the purpose of OSCE or any similar organization dominated by the political West. This year, Poland is chairing the 57-nation organization, with the annual ministerial conference scheduled to be held in the city of Lodz on December 1-2. When asked if Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would be attending the conference, Jasina responded, “We are not expecting a visit by minister Lavrov to Lodz.”

“Delegations should be adjusted to the current EU regulations and not include persons that are sanctioned by the European Union,” according to an announcement by the Polish OSCE Chairmanship. “…a number of Russian nationals were added to the list of sanctioned individuals, including Minister Lavrov,” it added.

OSCE should be excluded from EU regulations, as the very purpose of the organization is to be a forum for security dialogue between European and other countries and prevent any escalation or spillover of local conflicts. By denying Russia the opportunity to attend the December 1-2 confidence in Lodz, precisely this security dialogue is being prevented, eliminating the need for OSCE altogether. However, in recent months, certain events have led many to believe the organization is hardly a neutral one, as its actions have often been used to aid one side in a particular conflict.

For instance, the war in Donbass, which has been going on for nearly a decade, and which has taken the lives of around 15,000 local men, women and children by early 2022, pushed the role of OSCE into more of a gray area. Its mission in Donbass, which the organization itself claims to be “arms control, promotion of human rights, early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management” failed back in April. In fact, it has continually been failing for over 8 years, as the Kiev regime’s shelling of the people of Donbass never stopped. Worse yet, it turned out that OSCE didn’t just fail to prevent the conflict, but it might have even done certain things to facilitate it.

In a rather disturbing revelation by war correspondent Alexander Sladkov, the organization was using high-resolution cameras, originally placed to conduct ceasefire monitoring, to relay DNR and LNR positions to the Kiev regime forces which then used the provided data to target or correct their artillery fire. The OSCE mission provided their observation data, captured by cameras and other monitoring equipment they installed over the years. In essence, OSCE was spying and effectively waging war on the side of the Neo-Nazi junta. To make matters worse, the provided monitoring data also included the movement of regular Russian military personnel in the early days of the special military operation.

The report was heavily censored by the mainstream propaganda machine, making it virtually impossible for most people in Europe to see how a supposedly impartial international organization effectively became a party to the conflict which could not only undermine security in Europe, but the world as well. To make matters worse, these issues aren’t only limited to the OSCE, but many other apparently “international” organizations, including the United Nations. Back in February, twelve Russian UN diplomats were ordered to leave the US after being accused of being “intelligence operatives engaged in espionage.” The same pretext could be used to expel virtually anyone deemed a “security challenge” by the US, which would affect entire nations or groups of nations the ability to defend their interests at the UN.

The latest G20 summit held in Bali was also a clear indicator that the world is moving away from Western-led “international” organizations. While most members were trying to focus on actual global issues, the G7 members within the G20 were effectively trying to hijack the summit and make it entirely Ukraine-focused, which failed for the most part. All of this is happening at a time when BRICS is expanding across the world, with approximately a dozen major nations showing direct interest in joining the organization. The BRICS+ framework allows countries to maintain their sovereignty while becoming members of the world’s largest truly international organization.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

November 21, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Hungary reveals cost of sanctions on Russia

RT | November 18, 2022

The Hungarian economy is losing billions of dollars due to Western sanctions on Russia, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday.

“The policy of sanctions,” which has led to a drastic surge in energy prices across the EU, will cost his country’s economy $10 billion a year, he stated.

Orban explained that the pressure on the Hungarian budget will result in cuts to social spending, adding that from this perspective, Hungary’s stance against the sanctions “doesn’t seem to be excessive.”

Earlier this week, speaking with local media, he said that “the policy of sanctions is a way to war,” and stressed that the main goal for Budapest is to avoid a Europe-wide recession.

The Hungarian leader is a vocal critic of the EU’s approach towards the conflict in Ukraine, and has repeatedly said that the sanctions imposed on Moscow are hurting the EU more than they hurt Russia.

Hungary’s economy heavily relies on Russian energy, and the government has resisted EU plans to completely ban oil and gas imports from the country. After tense negotiations, Budapest received several exemptions from the bloc-wide restrictions on purchases of Russian fossil fuels.

November 18, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

The press are completely crazy and they are going to get us all killed

The heedless jingoistic war rhetoric of the German media

eugyppius: a plague chronicle | November 16, 2022

Yesterday, at around 3.40 in the afternoon, a rocket exploded in the Polish village of Przewodów. Two people died. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky immediately blamed Russia, later going so far as to characterise the alleged attack as a message from Putin to the G20 summit. Then the Associated Press reported that they had heard from “a senior U.S. intelligence official” claiming that “Russian missiles” were responsible for the attack, and thereafter the worst German journalistic actors embarked upon an evening of dark speculation about the proper NATO response to a Russian attack on Poland. Higher brow outlets, like ZDF, merely ran inflammatory headlines about Russian rockets, with the crucial information – that the rockets were Russian-made, while their immediate origins were unclear – buried in the body of the piece. Bild, on the other hand, went all-in, with this incredible rant from chief editor Johannes Boie:

The Russian army has bombed Poland, the AP news agency reports, citing a US intelligence official.

Two people are dead, murdered!

Accidental or not – this is an armed attack on NATO territory!

The two most likely possibilities are, first, that Putin’s soldiers hit Poland by mistake. They are often poorly trained and drunk. In this case, the tyrant must apologise formally, beg for forgiveness on bended knee, so to speak, while armed NATO fighter jets fly around his country.

He is not used to that. When his troops shot down a passenger plane in 2014, killing 298 people, there were no consequences.

Or alternatively, Putin attacked NATO on purpose. In this case, the alliance must hit back hard, because NATO cannot simply let its territory be bombed or let its citizens die in a hail of Russian bombs. Putin will only respond to force.

Should the unlikely third possibility be true, that the explosion was the result of Ukrainian air defence, then – indeed – the Russians are also to blame. For they are playing with fire on the NATO border.

The mad tyrant is bringing us ever closer to World War 3.

This morning, Boie’s paper carried a front-page headline screaming “Putin fires rockets at Poland.”

Now that both Poland and the Americans have clarified that the explosion was likely caused by a stray Ukrainian air defence missile, the story has disappeared entirely from the top of Bild.de. I guess they’re not so interested in extracting apologies from a kneeling Zelensky. Meanwhile, that other major Axel Springer organ, Welt, are running damage-control pieces, like this one from obnoxious mediocrity Clemens Wergin, claiming that “Without Russia’s war crimes, it never would’ve come to the accident in Poland.”

There are a few observations to make about this little storm in a teacup. The first is that, despite appearances, not all of the American government and not all of NATO have completely lost their minds. Scholz, Macron and others called for caution and avoided open statements of blame, and today we’ve seen a clearly coordinated campaign to shift direct responsibility away from Russia. The second is that there are, however, plenty of powerful people, in NATO and elsewhere, who are indeed totally, stratospherically crazy. These include very probably that anonymous senior intelligence official who spoke to the Associated Press, and also a great part of the media, who have made a habit out of printing reheated Ukrainian press releases as news, and who have never quite recovered their senses since they lost them in the great Corona panic.

It must be fun to rage about the tyrannical evils of Russia and the democratic virtues of the NATO countries, most of which have spent the last three years denying their allegedly free citizens all manner of basic rights and freedoms. It’s also incredibly, incredibly dangerous. A direct NATO attack on Russia would be a catastrophe for Europe. Maybe somebody should try to rein in the press and wean them from their crisis addiction before they happen upon another pretence to invoke Article 5. There’s no guarantee the next one will be clarified so quickly.

November 16, 2022 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

RT sends request to UN over rape allegations

RT | November 15, 2022

RT has reached out to the UN special representative on sexual violence, Pramila Patten, to request a correction or retraction of a statement in which she accused the Russian Armed Forces of employing a deliberate “rape strategy” as part of its military campaign in Ukraine. Patten made the claim in October in an interview with the AFP only to admit she did not have any solid evidence to substantiate it a month later.

“The allegations Ms. Patten has brought forward are of a very serious nature, which have the power to shape public discourse around the events in Ukraine,” RT said in a statement, adding that her words were then “widely distributed amongst media outlets and social media, to create a misleading, if not entirely false, narrative.”

In October, Patten told the AFP that when “you hear women testify about Russian soldiers equipped with Viagra, it’s clearly a military strategy.” Less than a month later, the UN official admitted that her words were based solely on some unverified reports disclosed to her in the presence of two Ukrainian officials. Speaking to Russian prank artists Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov, also known as Vovan and Lexus, she recently said that it was “not her job” to conduct investigations anyway.

No evidence has since been provided to corroborate these claims. In its statement, RT asked Patten whether she “intends to issue a retraction – or at least a correction – of her original, misleading statement.”

“As a person holding such a public role with enormous responsibility, one would hope that Ms Patten seek to provide a true, verified testimony of her organization’s work,” the statement added.

RT also asked Patten’s office to provide some evidence to support her allegations in case the UN special representative believes a retraction would be “improper.” Neither Patten nor her office has commented on the request so far.

Moscow has previously denied the accusations made by Patten. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova blasted the UN official’s claims as going “beyond the reach of reason.”

November 15, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

Washington Attempts To Bully India Into Cutting Ties With Russia

By Conor Gallagher | naked capitalism | November 13, 2022

For months the US has repeatedly tried to coerce India into cutting ties with Russia, thereby abandoning its national interests. New Delhi, however, continues to spurn American attempts to subject its economy to Washington’s dictates.

The latest fuss concerns the G7 price cap on Russian oil and EU and UK bans on shipping and related services for Russian crude. India continues to have no interest in joining the US-led initiative as it gets a steep discount on oil from Russia and wants to maintain the relationship with a long-time strategic partner. Indian Foreign Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar was just in Moscow on Nov. 8 to discuss continued sales of oil. From the South China Morning Post :

India’s foreign minister hailed New Delhi’s “strong and steady” relationship with Moscow on Tuesday, during his first visit there since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

Subrahmanyam Jaishankar also declared India’s intention to continue to buy Russian oil, again disregarding the US appeal to allies and partners to isolate Russia from the global markets.

The G-7 plans are likely to send oil prices higher (despite US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen claiming the opposite) and reduce tanker availability, both of which will threaten India’s energy security and hurt its economy as India is the third-largest consumer and importer of oil worldwide.

Russia has said it will not sell to any countries that participate in the price cap scheme, and Jaishankar has repeatedly stated that India cannot afford to buy oil at high prices – at least not without undermining its economic growth, which is forecast to be 6.1 percent in 2023, the fastest-growing major economy in the world. According to Energy Intelligence :

Russia emerged as India’s top crude supplier in October, shipping over 900,000 barrels per day or roughly a fifth of India’s demand. The two countries’ biggest concern is ensuring that Russian oil continues to flow after the Dec. 5 EU and UK bans and related G7 price cap.

But despite Jaishankar’s bullish stance in Moscow, India’s state refiners have not placed orders for crude lifting beyond Dec. 5 due to uncertainties about whether shipping and insurance will be available, Energy Intelligence understands. And a recent attempt by an Indian buyer to use the price cap in negotiations with a Russian seller prompted the latter to abandon the deal, market sources said.

The ongoing lack of clarity on the G-7 could be by design. Russian oil exports have already begun to dip, and Bruce Paulsen, a sanctions expert and partner at law firm Seward & Kissel, told American Shipper, “ If guidance on [price cap] compliance doesn’t come soon, some industry players may sit on the sidelines until they can determine that shipments under the price cap are safe.”

The US, in a neat sleight of hand, quit pressuring India to adhere to the price cap, and Yellen now says Washington is “happy” for New Delhi to continue buying as much Russian oil as it wants, including at prices above a G7-imposed price cap. But there are just a few caveats: India wouldn’t be able to use western insurance, finance, or maritime services to transport the oil.

“Russia is going to find it very difficult to continue shipping as much oil as they have done when the EU stops buying Russian oil,” Yellen told Reuters on Friday. “They’re going to be heavily in search of buyers, and many buyers are reliant on Western services.”

More from Energy Intelligence on why this amounts to a de facto price cap:

Indian refiners have the capacity to soak up another 600,000 b/d of Russian crude, provided it outcompetes the staple Mideast grades that are the lifeline of the country’s 5 million b/d refining base. But the availability of shipping and insurance — and payment channels — is key. From Dec. 5, tankers and shipping insurance linked to EU and G7 countries — which dominate oil shipping globally — will be barred from trading Russian crude unless those volumes are sold under the price cap, as yet undetermined.

About 90% of India’s liquids trade is shipped by foreign tankers, presenting challenges, independent energy analyst Narendra Taneja said. Insurance does not appear as problematic, and analysts say that Russian and Chinese firms can handle it.

This could leave Russia reliant on a shadow fleet of older tankers with opaque ownership that do not transact in dollars. According to Freight Waves :

Brokerage Braemar reported that 33 tankers previously handling Iranian or Venezuelan exports have carried Russian exports since April, mostly to China and secondarily to India.

Braemar defined the dark fleet as tankers that have carried Iranian or Venezuelan crude at least once in the past year. It put the current total at 240 tankers, mostly smaller and midsized, with 74% 19 years or older. Eighty of those vessels are very large crude carriers (VLCCs, tankers that carry 2 million barrels) that won’t fit in Russian ports but could be used for ship-to-ship transfers for Russian cargoes.

If the entire dark fleet switched to Russian service and were as efficient as the “mainstream fleet,” it would be more than enough to keep Russian exports flowing, but “vessels engaged in illicit trading are highly inefficient,” Braemar emphasized.

At the same time Washington is pressuring New Delhi to comply with the price cap, it is importing from India more vacuum gasoil, which is mostly used at refineries to produce other products such as gasoline and diesel. From Reuters :

Russia used to be a key VGO supplier to U.S. refiners before the Ukraine war broke out.

“Given that the U.S. is not buying Russian oil, they are looking for any and all alternatives,” said Roslan Khasawneh, senior fuel oil analyst at Vortexa…

U.S. and EU sanctions do not apply to refined products produced from Russian crude exported from a third country as they are not of Russian origin. In India, refiners boosted imports of discounted Russian oil to 793,000 barrels per day between April and October, up from just 38,000 bpd in the same period a year ago, trade data showed.

India joins a list of countries – including Saudi Arabia, Serbia, and Turkey – that are causing heads to explode in Washington for refusing to be bullied into submission.

This all must be coming as a shock in Washington as its Indo-Pacific strategy in recent years has always included a “like-minded” India helping to counter China and do the US’ bidding in southeast Asia. The possibility that India might pursue its own national interests didn’t seem to factor into the strategy.

The tension over the Russian price cap is just the latest in a series of disagreements between New Delhi and Washington. US sanctions on Iran’s oil exports deprive India of cheap Iranian oil, and force it to buy more expensive US energy exports. India is now the largest oil export destination for the US.

Similar to the way Washington is arming Greece and Cyprus in an effort to bully Turkey into breaking off its friendly ties with Russia, the US is doing the same in Pakistan to pressure India. The US has begun to accommodate Pakistan again after the ouster of former Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan, who blames his loss of power in a no-confidence vote on the US.

In September, the U.S. State Department enraged India when it approved a $450 million deal to upgrade Pakistan’s F-16 fleet. Shortly after, the US ambassador to Pakistan created more tension during a visit to the Pakistani-held part of Kashmir, which he called by its Pakistani name instead of the United Nations-approved name “Pakistan-administered Kashmir.”

On Nov. 8 US State Department spokesman Ned Price lectured India on what are in its best interests:

We’ve also been clear that now is not the time for business as usual with Russia, and it’s incumbent on countries around the world to do what they can to lessen those economic ties with Russia. That’s something that’s in the collective interest, but it’s also in the bilateral interest of countries around the world to end and certainly over the course of time to wean their dependence on Russian energy. There have been a number of countries that have learned the hard way of the fact that Russia is not a reliable source of energy. Russia is not a reliable supplier of security assistance. Russia is far from reliable in any realm. So it is not only in the interest of Ukraine, it is not only in the interest of the region, of the collective interests that India decrease its dependence on Russia over time, but it’s also in India’s own bilateral interest, given what we’ve seen from Russia.

We’ll have to wait and see if the Indian people get the message because as of now the opposite is true. India’s Observer Research Foundation released poll results on Nov. 2 that showed that 43 percent of Indians regarded Russia as their country’s most reliable partner, which was far ahead of the US at 27 percent.

Washington would be hard pressed to explain how New Delhi scaling back its economic ties with Russia would be a good thing for India.

Fuelled by a surge in import of oil and fertilizers, India’s bilateral trade with Russia has soared to an all-time high of $18.2 billion over the April-August period of this financial year, according to the latest data available with the Department of Commerce. That makes Russia India’s seventh biggest trading partner — up from its 25th position last year. The US, China, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Indonesia remain ahead of Russia.

India, Iran, and Russia have also spent the past twenty years developing the International North-South Transport Corridor to increase trade between the countries, and it took on increased importance with the western sanctions on Moscow. From The LoadStar :

RZD Logistics, a subsidiary of Russian railway monopoly RZD, has begun regular container train services from Moscow to Iran to serve growing trade with India by transloading.

This is aimed at maximizing use of the alternative International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a Central Asia cross-border multimodal freight network helping the two strategic partners work around supply chain challenges created by western sanctions on Russia.

The inland-ocean leg involves an estimated transit time of 35 days, compared with about 40 with previous traditional shipping, according to industry sources.

©Peter Hermes Furian

In much the same way that US heavy-handedness is backfiring elsewhere, the pressure applied on India seems to only be encouraging New Delhi to find a way around the dollar. The Loadstar adds that the Reserve Bank of India is also implementing new regulatory guidelines to help exporters settle shipments in rupees, instead of US dollars that had run into sanctions-related bottlenecks:

The Federation of Indian Export Organizations has also been pressing government leaders to extend the alternative currency method beyond Russian markets.

“While the Russia-Ukraine war is a setback to our exports in the short run, we are looking to increase our exports to Russia once the rupee payment mechanism gets operationalised,” FIEO noted.

While India has been benefitting from the discounted Russian crude, it also wants to maintain good ties with Moscow to avoid pushing Russia closer to China and potentially Pakistan, India’s biggest rivals in Asia.

Pakistan is also now asking the Russian Trade Ministry to introduce a currency swap arrangement to strengthen economic ties between the two countries.

November 14, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Britain’s Liberal Technocratic Recession

BY NOAH CARL | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | NOVEMBER 13, 2022

On November 3rd, the Bank of England announced that Britain is facing its “longest recession since records began”, with unemployment forecast to nearly double by 2025.

How did we get here?

In most developed economies, recessions happen once or twice a decade (although Australia went without one for 30 years). So in some sense, they’re unavoidable. Yet the scale of the one we’re facing – the longest since records began – suggests some fundamental errors have been made.

The first was lockdown. For more than a year, we spent untold sums of money on daft furlough schemes and boondoggles like ‘Test and Trace’. Meanwhile, we allowed supply chains to break down through trade restrictions and lack of maintenance. We were spending more while producing less – which set us on course for inflation.

The second was letting dozens of oil refineries shut down without building any new ones. Such refineries became unprofitable during the pandemic, and firms didn’t bother to upgrade or replace them due to costly environmental regulations and the uncertainty surrounding ‘Net Zero’.

The third were the reckless sanctions against Russia. Rather than using the threat of sanctions as a bargaining chip, we immediately went pedal to the metal and tried to crush Russia’s economy. This backfired: while we have inflicted some long-term damage, we hamstrung our own economies in the process.

All three of these blunders stem from hubris on the part of liberal technocratic policymakers, who believe there are straightforward ‘solutions’ to problems like pandemics, climate change and interstate conflict. In reality, we’re always faced with trade-offs and unintended consequences.

The British economy is now grappling with general inflation (caused by lockdowns) and rising energy costs (caused by lack of refining capacity and sanctions against Russia).

The severity of these problems is laid bare in the ONS’s Business Insights and Conditions Survey – a fortnightly survey of around 10,000 businesses. Respondents were asked, “Which of the following, if any, will be the main concern for your business in November 2022?” Results are shown below.

Results from the ONS’s Business Insights and Conditions Survey

As you can see, by far the most frequently mentioned concerns were “inflation” and “energy prices”. Only around 7% of businesses mentioned “taxation” as their main concern, demonstrating how ill-conceived was Liz Truss’s economic program. (She thought we could tax-cut our way out of an energy crisis).

Policymakers need to get grips with the fact that not every problem has a liberal technocratic ‘solution’. Paying people not to work, shutting down refineries, and sanctioning other countries may feel good. But that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

November 13, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

New Delhi may sue Berlin over undelivered LNG – Bloomberg

RT | November 12, 2022

A diplomatic dispute is brewing between India and Germany after Berlin took over a former Gazprom subsidiary and halted LNG shipments to New Delhi.

The Russian gas giant’s former local subsidiary Gazprom Germania, renamed SEFE (Securing Energy for Europe), cut LNG supplies to India’s Gail back in May, citing sanctions Moscow imposed after the company was taken over by the German state. Under the sanctions, Gazprom stopped supplying SEFE with gas.

Gail had a 20-year contract with Gazprom Germania’s Singaporean unit, GM&T Singapore, for the supply of 2.5 million tons of LNG per year. According to Bloomberg, citing the association of LNG importers GIIGNL, the contract remained valid after Berlin took over Gazprom Germania, meaning SEFE was still required to meet its obligations to Gail.

In September, SEFE’s Singaporean unit said it could no longer fulfill its long-term contract with Gail and offered to pay compensation of 20% of the contract price for the failed LNG deliveries. Gail CFO Rakesh Kumar Jain last week said that SEFE had canceled a total of 17 LNG shipments since May.

According to Bloomberg’s sources, India is now demanding that SEFE find alternative gas suppliers in order to meet its obligations to Gail, as the Indian company has been forced to spend much larger sums to buy gas on the spot market. It also had to cut supplies to customers and lower production at its petrochemicals plant due to the LNG deficit. The company has also turned down the compensation offer for undelivered LNG as it prefers to retain the right to the cancelled cargoes, Reuters reported on Friday.

Bloomberg’s sources said that both Indian and German diplomats have been engaged to solve the dispute. A diplomatic solution is preferable for the parties, according to the sources, although they noted that Gail was also consulting lawyers about arbitration over the contract with SEFE, which means the dispute could turn into a lawsuit. Gail is also reportedly negotiating with Gazprom to buy LNG directly from the Russian company.

November 12, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Cargo of Russian fertilizers to leave EU port

RT | November 12, 2022

Russian fertilizers which have been blocked at an EU port, due to Ukraine-related sanctions, will be shipped next week, the UN announced on Friday.

The world’s largest country is a key producer of the materials and the uncertainty around supply has heightened fears about food insecurity, particuarly in poorer nations.

The 20,000 ton cargo has been held in the Dutch port, Rotterdam, and is destined for Malawi, under the UN World Food Program.

Following a meeting between senior UN officials and a Russian delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin on Friday a UN statement confirmed it has been “… briefed on recently issued General Licenses and shipments of fertilizer to developing countries’ destinations and its ongoing engagement with private sector and member states. It is anticipated that the first shipment of donated fertilizers will depart for Malawi in the coming week.”

The meeting centered on Russia’s continued dissatisfaction with UN efforts to lift Western sanctions that pose problems for Russia’s agricultural exports. The organization pledged to assist Russia back in July as part of a UN-brokered grain deal, which unblocked the export of food and fertilizers from several Black Sea ports. Russia said it may choose not to extend its participation in the deal, which is set to expire on November 19, if the UN does not follow through on its promises regarding Russian exports.

On Friday, the Dutch government confirmed that the Russian fertilizer cargo has been given permission to leave the port at the UN’s request.

“The decision to release the fertilizer was made on the understanding that the UN would ensure that it is delivered to the agreed location, Malawi, and that the Russian company and sanctioned individual will earn nothing from the transaction,” the Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

It did not disclose the name of the Russian company that owns the shipment. Earlier this month, however, TASS news agency reported that Russian fertilizer producer Uralchem-Uralkali was ready to donate 240,000 tons of its fertilizers stuck in EU warehouses for humanitarian purposes, with the first shipment destined for Malawi.

Prior to this, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that a total of 300,000 tons of Russian fertilizers were stuck at EU ports due to Western sanctions. In September, he said that Russia was prepared to give these fertilizers to developing nations free of charge.

November 12, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Up to 280,000 Tonnes of Russian Fertilizers Arrested in Europe, Deputy Foreign Minister Says

Samizdat – 12.11.2022

As many as 280,000 tonnes of Russian mineral fertilizers remain arrested in European ports, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said on Saturday.

“Up to 280,000 tonnes of Russian mineral fertilizers have been under arrest in a number of European countries over recent months,” Vershinin said adding that Russia supported gratuitous exports of these arrested fertilizers to countries in need, especially in Africa.

The deputy minister added that Moscow was not satisfied with the implementation of the Black Sea grain deal, as Russian food products and fertilizers should have a “real access” to international markets.

Russia, Ukraine and Turkey signed on July 22 the United Nations-brokered agreement to secure a humanitarian corridor via the Black Sea for grain and fertilizer exports. The parties agreed for the agreement to last 120 days and expire on November 19.

On October 29, Russia suspended its participation in the agreement after its military and civilian ships were attacked by Ukraine in the bay of Sevastopol. On November 2, the Russian Defense Ministry said that Moscow was returning to the agreement after receiving written guarantees from Ukraine that Kiev will refrain from using the humanitarian corridor for military purposes. Kiev has denied providing any additional guarantees.

November 12, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Hungarian objections to EU aid for Kiev regime in line with what most Europeans think

By Drago Bosnic | November 9, 2022

The bureaucratic empire in Brussels seems to be pushing all the wrong buttons in regards to Budapest. The European Union’s failed attempts to force it into submission are effectively being laughed off in Hungary. The bloc’s suicidal anti-Russian sanctions and policies are creating numerous points of contention between Brussels and Budapest. Viktor Orban’s Hungary has run out of patience for this, especially as the EU is also threatening the Central European country with internal sanctions and other restrictions under various pretexts. There are very few things Brussels and Budapest agree on and the differences aren’t only limited to domestic EU policies, but foreign relations as well.

While Hungary prefers a realpolitik approach in regards to other countries and global powers, particularly Russia (and to a certain extent China), the EU’s foreign policy framework is ideological. This often results in accusations that Budapest is a “Russian puppet/asset” and that it’s “trying to ease” the bloc’s economic pressure on Moscow. However, the reality is much simpler – Hungary is trying to ease the pressure on its citizens, as the economic fallout of the failed siege of Russia is deeply affecting the regular people. In the meantime, the detached bureaucrats in Brussels are left unscathed and thus unmoved by the struggles of tens of millions of EU countries’ citizens.

Being fully aware of this for years and determined to prevent economic consequences of such policies, Budapest stated that it won’t support the bloc’s latest “aid” package for the Kiev regime. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto openly stated that the country will not change its stance as long as it’s forced to fight for access to EU funds blocked by the “rule-of-law” dispute. Namely, Brussels is still holding up at least €7.5 billion in funds for Hungary under the pretext of “persisting corruption and fraud” in the country. In reality, the reason is Budapest’s refusal to follow anti-Russian sanctions and policies which would effectively destroy its economy.

The Western mainstream propaganda machine often portrays Hungary as a “rogue state” and the main obstacle to the futile attempts of isolating Russia, while its leader Viktor Orban is usually presented as a “dictator”, although his popularity in the country suggests otherwise. Hungary’s persistence in its demands for exemptions from anti-Russian energy sanctions is usually used to accuse it of being pro-Russian. However, the country accomplished retaining lower energy prices in comparison to the rest of the EU, which is going through economic and financial unraveling thanks to Brussels’ suicidal subservience to Washington DC.

As there is growing conviction among many EU member states that anti-Russian policies have not only failed to produce desired results, but have even backfired and are ravaging their economies, Hungary is hardly alone in this regard. In addition, the claim that Budapest is pro-Russian is genuinely laughable, as it has provided ample support for the Kiev regime and will continue to do so, as stated by the country’s foreign minister Szijjarto, who said so on November 7 during a conference in Sofia. However, “Budapest still opposes any arrangement that would see funding [for Kiev] jointly with other EU member states,” he added.

Today, November 9, the EU is set to propose a new €18 billion “aid” package for the Kiev regime, which would provide constant cash flow to the Neo-Nazi junta in 2023. The plan is to use the bloc’s joint budget as a guarantee to secure funding for the Kiev regime. The move also involves changes to the EU’s rules that require a unanimous vote to pass proposals. Hungary objects to this, as it would be a dangerous precedent which would force members who voted against certain policies to still follow them, regardless of the negative consequences for those who objected. What’s more, even if a member state voted for a certain decision, it could still be denied funds if it was under sanctions of the unelected bureaucrats in Brussels.

This paradox is precisely what’s happening to Hungary. Namely, the country already supported the EU’s decision to jointly raise debt to finance the bloc’s recovery from the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the funds Budapest is set to receive are being blocked until it “ensures the rule of law.” Brussels is planning to discuss the status of those funds on November 22, which is the deadline given to Hungary to meet the bloc’s “rule of law” requirements. EU bureaucrats are currently working on an assessment of Hungary’s compliance regarding 17 pieces of legislation the bloc insists on. Still, Budapest is not hiding its frustration with the way it’s being treated.

“They’re punishing us and openly blackmailing us with EU money,” Viktor Orban said in a statement for the Budapester Zeitung news outlet last month. “But there’s no legal basis for this — it’s blackmail, pure and simple,” he concluded.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

November 9, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

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