By Patrick Clarke | December 14, 2022
First we were placed under virtual house arrest. Now we are being frozen by soaring fuel bills and energy supply shortages in those same homes. Coming next, we are to be starved. All in pursuit of one of the Net Zero cults: Covid or carbon emissions. Too bleak a picture? We have only to look across the North Sea to one of our nearest neighbours, the Netherlands.
Surprisingly for such a small country (it is only about twice the size of Wales), the Netherlands is the second largest food exporter in the world, second only to the United States. It is Europe’s largest meat exporter. Four million cows, 13 million pigs and 104 million chickens are reared annually. It provides vegetables to many of its Western European neighbours.
One would assume this success story would be widely cherished, especially in an era of increasing food insecurity and shortages, with other key sources such as Ukraine under serious threat due to the continuing conflict there.
Remarkably, and many would say sinisterly, the polar opposite is the case. The supposed crime of the Dutch farmers? They have fallen foul of the ‘Zero Carbon’ fixation of the Climate Change Cultists who control so much of the current political and economic agenda.
One of that agenda’s chief targets is agriculture, particularly the use of nitrogen. The Dutch are at the top of the tree for nitrogen use per hectare of cultivated land, at nearly twice the European average.
The European Commission has given strict guidelines to EU member states to reduce their use of nitrogen. To comply with this the Dutch Government introduced laws to enforce a reduction of 50 per cent in nitrogen emissions by 2030. Such draconian targets can only come with draconian enforcement measures.
Dutch farming is being strangled through an assortment of regulations, including new flood prevention regulations, bizarrely given the success of the Dutch in preventing flooding over the centuries despite the fact that large parts of the country are below sea level, having been reclaimed from the sea.
Perhaps worst of all, one of the Government’s new laws bans the children of farmers from inheriting the farm when their parents retire or die. Once a farmer stops farming, their entire family becomes banned from farming in the Netherlands again. A whole way of life plus decades, sometimes even centuries, of experience is being gratuitously thrown away.
Where regulation fails, mandatory purchasing of land by the state is feared to be the next step as farmers have so far shown little interest in selling any of their land. Around 300,000 hectares of farmland is earmarked to be converted into nature conservation areas between now and 2040. More than 1,000 farms face forcible closure.
Nor is it just the Dutch Government that the farmers are battling. A panoply of NGOs are on the case too, using the courts to pursue any part of the government at national or provincial level deemed to be faltering in enforcing these objectives.
Those of us in the UK, long weary of seeing how political charities and activist lawyers run rings round attempts to enforce curbs on immigration, will be familiar with the process.
It’s worth pointing out too that, despite Brexit, Northern Ireland still has to implement these same EU directives as part of the Northern Ireland protocol. Thanks for that one, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. So while today it is Dutch farming under siege from its own government, tomorrow it will be farming in Northern Ireland that is compelled to go through the same pain.
Interestingly, no one has yet stepped forward with a credible plan for how these vital lost sources of food are going to be replaced. The Dutch Government hopes that it will come from artificially created meat from laboratories and is investing in this technology, though how it can be sufficiently scaled up remains to be seen. Given what is already widely known about the harmful effects of eating too many processed foods instead of natural foods, such as the triggering of obesity and potential heart disease, it has to be asked whether this is a desirable course, or indeed what the further health implications for users may be.
Some would say the whole agenda is a straight forward grab by bad actors intent on taking control of the world’s food resources, for whom Net Zero objectives provide a convenient camouflage for their own lust for power, control and yet more wealth than they already have. The usual suspects certainly spring to mind.
Others argue that out-of-control digital technocrats are so conditioned to assuming they can control anything, however complex, that they can’t accept that some things remain beyond human control, such as airborne viruses and the climate.
Each failure to learn that simple lesson is leading to ever more intensive efforts to achieve that control, control that must be achieved at all costs. Either way, vicious cycles of more authoritarianism, human misery arising from absurd and seriously harmful measures, plus more setbacks in failing to reach unobtainable goals lie ahead. Unless we can shake off the grip of these technocrats on our societies and the political institutions in thrall to them, the prospect of starving to death will become our grim reality in an increasingly tyrannical world.
Think that couldn’t happen here? Just look at Sri Lanka, though as with the Dutch farmers, most of the media and nearly every politician would prefer you not to!
Samizdat – 16.12.2022
The European Union released its ninth round of anti-Russian sanctions earlier Thursday, with the latest batch placing bans on the exports of drone engines, investments within the mining sector and implementing prohibitions on ads and public opinion polling services, among other penalties.
The European Union’s ninth round of sanctions targeted RT and its parent company Ano TV-Novosti, it has been detailed.
The designation has prompted Brussels to seize the funds and assets of those belonging to RT in Europe over its allegations that the non-profit parent firm and RT work to “spread propaganda and disinformation.”
The block further claimed in its announcement that the organization was considered to be “involved in undermining the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.”
Also detailed in the Thursday announcement was the suspension of licenses for media outlets NTV/NTV Mir, Rossiya 1, REN TV and Pervyi Kanal.
“These outlets are under the permanent direct or indirect control of the leadership of the Russian Federation and have been used by latter for its continuous and concerted disinformation and war propaganda actions, which legitimise Russia’s aggression and undermine support for Ukraine,” a statement reads, noting that the EU decision was “in line with the Charter of Fundamental Rights.”
George Szamuely, a senior research fellow at the Global Policy Institute, spoke to the development with RT, underscoring that the move was a “great shame” and simply the product of “EU and US hypocrisy.”
“It means that Europeans won’t get to hear the other side of the story,” Szamuely said of the ongoing western narrative being pushed in regards to Russia’s special military operation. “Now is the most imporant time to hear the other side.”
“What they call disinformation is information they don’t like… it’s a perspective that they want to deny to the European public,” he stressed, adding that he did not believe western journalists would condemn the EU move as “they’re much too busy getting indignant about a handful of journalists getting suspended by Twitter.”
As for a tenth sanctions package, a source told Sputnik that no EU member state has made any proposals on the matter, but that a future sanctions batch would likely focus on “closing loopholes of the current sanction packages.”
RT | December 13, 2022
The Russian authorities have “generally agreed” on a response to a Western coalition’s price cap on the country’s seaborne oil that took effect last week, the newspaper Vedomosti reported on Tuesday.
Moscow will ban oil sales under contracts that specify a price cap, according to the report, which cites government sources. Also, exports will be banned to countries that demand the price cap as a condition in their supply contracts, or if their reference prices are fixed at the cap price level of $60 per barrel.
A decree describing the mechanism is currently being finalized by the president’s administration, sources said. It will take effect immediately upon being issued and will be valid until July 1, 2023, with the possibility of extension. On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the decree would be announced “in the next few days.”
The document will also reportedly contain a clause that allows buyers to bypass the restrictions if granted government approval. The measures will not apply to contracts that were concluded prior to December 5, the date when the price cap took effect. One of the sources said the final draft of the decree might include a provision on the marginal discount for Russian oil relative to international grades.
The price cap was introduced by the EU, G7 countries and Australia on December 5. The mechanism prohibits Western companies from providing shipping, insurance, and other services to tankers carrying Russian oil, unless the cargo is bought at or below the price limit.
RT | December 12, 2022
Ukrainian officials have failed to present any evidence suggesting Iranian drones have been used by Russia in the ongoing conflict between Kiev and Moscow, Iranian Defense Minister, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Ashtiani said on Monday. His words came following a meeting between Ukrainian and Iranian specialists.
“The Ukrainian side did not present any evidence of Russia’s use of Iranian drones in the war with this nation at the technical meeting,” the minister told several Iranian news agencies. According to Ashtiani, the Ukrainian officials then vowed to present such evidence at the next meeting.
According to the general, claims about Russian forces supposedly employing Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in their campaign in Ukraine are based on “baseless statements and rumors.” Ashtiani admitted that Moscow and Tehran had a long history of military cooperation but it was in no way linked to the alleged use of Iranian drones in the conflict.
His words came as the EU was considering a fresh sanctions batch against Tehran, both over its response to mass protests inside Iran and over alleged weapons supplies to Russia.
Speculation that Tehran has been supplying UAVs to Moscow surfaced in recent months after Russia started to actively use kamikaze drones during its military offensive in Ukraine. Kiev and the Western media outlets have claimed that Russia’s Geran-2 drones are actually Iranian-made Shahed-136 UAVs.
Both Moscow and Tehran repeatedly denied that Iranian drones are used in the conflict in Ukraine. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has confirmed, though, that Tehran did supply a “small number of drones” to Moscow months before the conflict in Ukraine broke out.
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – 12.12.2022
In March 2022, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported that “Europe is the new hotspot” of global arms import. While this development is attributed to the ongoing military conflict between Russia and Ukraine (US/EU/NATO), what’s equally, or even more, important to understand is how most of this European purchase is coming from the US and how the latter has turned the conflict into a money-making machine. The US is responsible for the so-called ‘energy crisis’ in Europe and, by selling expensive US gas to Europe, is making a lot of money. Of course, the US told the Europeans that doing so was necessary to reduce their critical dependence on Moscow. The Europeans, in their bid to ‘punish’ Russia, decided to increase their dependence on the US. This is now turning into an ugly issue, as European powers, as reports in the western mainstream media show, are now directly accusing the US of profiteering from war.
This criticism is based not just on the fact that Europe is buying expensive US gas and the latter is profiting from it. In fact, it is based upon the fact that Europe is now too dependent on the US to prevent its economic collapse. If Europe’s dependency on the US continues to increase, it will only come at the cost of its strategic autonomy.
Secondly, this is not just about gas. If gas is linked to economy, Europe’s increasing military purchase from the US is directly linked to its defence and security, or at least this is how it is being projected. This dependence in the defence field is most easily evident from the German purchase of F-35 fighter jets from the US. While the US is going to make a whole lot of money out of this multi-billion dollar deal, strings attached to this deal show how this deal is a direct reinforcement of European dependency on the US.
Martin Kroell, the President of the Federal Association of the German Aerospace Industry (BDLI), was quoted to have said that Germany, even after purchasing these jets, would not have the rights to maintain and repair these jets in Germany. They will be maintained “in other European countries in the network of the US Armed Forces, or by the US companies Lockheed … this creates a dangerous dependency.”
Let’s not forget that this sale happened, first and foremost, when the US started putting pressure in early 2021, when the Russia-Ukraine conflict began, on European nations to increase their defence capacity. But, using the pressure of this conflict, the US authorities managed to make a deal that did not give much leeway to the German authorities to really protect their interests. As another report confirms, the Germans made an ‘error’ in not demanding the involvement of their own “arms industry in the maintenance, repair, and support of these expensive aircraft.”
This is not Germany alone. Finland, for instance, is another country entering the phase of dangerous dependency on the US. It has already decided to buy 64 Block 4 F-35s for US$9.4 billion. Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Finland has upped its weapon purchase, with, unsurprisingly, most of this purchase coming from the US.
While the conflict in Ukraine has led to many deals worth billions of USD, there is a growing fear in the continent that the US is now trying to start a new crisis with China. Such a conflict would create additional problems for Europe.
But the rhetoric being produced – and effectively used – by the US for Europe is to reduce dependence on China. Europe of course is concerned about this form of geopolitics. As Charles Michael, President of the European Council who recently met Xi, said in a tweet: “The EU promotes its interests and values in the world. With China, engaging openly on all aspects of our relationship is the only way forward.”
China, too, understands that Europe is far from being in agreement with the US over a joint China policy. Therefore, Xi was candid enough to tell the EU last week that the bloc should keep up its investment in China, adding that China and the EU must jointly “oppose de-coupling.”
But while the EU is fighting the US over forcing a policy on the EU vis-à-vis the China question and the economic consequences it could have for Europe in the long term, the US continues to make policies that directly impact the EU economy. The latest irritant is certainly the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which gives tax breaks for components used in electric cars provided they are made in (North) America.
While the EU-based companies could set up factories in the US, this would effectively mean that these companies will add to the US economy more than the EU’s economy. In other words, the EU’s capital will be used to add to the US capital at the expense of the EU’s own economic health.
This pattern is similar to the way the EU capital is being used via expensive gas sales and weapon systems to help the US economy. This is precisely how the conflict in Ukraine has turned out to be a major source of profit for the US state.
What can the EU do? The Europeans are unlikely to be able to break out of this dependency relationship without first developing an independent global outlook. Imagine the economic scenario in the EU if, instead of supporting the US bid to expand NATO, it had taken an independent line. The EU did not take that line. Now, the EU accuses the US of its energy crisis. The question is: can it translate this anger into a concrete policy?
By Ekaterina Blinova – Samizdat – 12.12.2022
Kosovo and Metohija Serb leader Goran Rakic announced on December 12 that a crisis headquarters would be created to provide civilians and the media with first-hand information about the simmering crisis in the north of the region. Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed Albanian leadership of the so-called Republic of Kosovo is urging NATO to step in.
“A standoff in the predominantly Serbian northern Kosovo was sparked by an arrest of a former police officer [Dejan Pantic] accused of attacking a Kosovo law enforcement patrol,” Scott Bennett, a former US psychological warfare officer and State Department counterterrorism analyst, and former Booz Allen Hamilton contractor, told Sputnik.
“Serbian protesters erected barricades over the weekend to stop Kosovo police from entering a town and launching any kind of a terror operation against the Serbian people. Tensions were already running high after Pristina announced snap elections in the area, which were expected to be boycotted by all Serbian parties. On Saturday, Kosovo’s [de facto] President Vjosa Osmani postponed the vote until April,” Bennett continued.
The Albanian population of Serbia’s province of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008. Serbia has de facto not controlled the territory of its southern province since 1999, after the US-led NATO invasion of Yugoslavia, which was the first all-out war in Europe after the Second World War.
Even though the so-called Republic of Kosovo has been recognized by the US and less than half of the international community, Serbia’s territorial integrity is confirmed by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 of June 10, 1999. Hence, there is no state border between them, but just an internal border line.
This summer, tensions erupted around the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo after Pristina decided to impose a ban on the entry of vehicles with Serbian license plates from August 1, 2022. This prompted Serbs, who maintain large communities in northern Kosovo, to hold protests against the move.
Pristina’s initiative was clearly in breach of the 2013 Brussels Agreement. The agreement guaranteed that “there will be an association/community of Serb majority municipalities in Kosovo” with substantial local powers and ties to Serbia. The treaty was negotiated and concluded in Brussels under the auspices of the European Union.
“The Brussels negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina did not bring any positive result for Serbia, but led to the violation of international law, i.e. Resolution 1244, and the Constitution of Serbia,” Dragana Trifkovic, director of the Center for Geostrategic Studies, told Sputnik. “At the same time, the Pristina side did not even fulfill what it committed to in the Brussels agreement. Therefore, the only solution would be for Serbia to announce that it is canceling the Brussels agreement and request that the negotiation process continue in the UN, where it is the place for negotiations if we take into account the fact that the status of Kosovo cannot be resolved outside the framework of the UN Security Council. Attempts by the West to resolve the Kosovo issue outside the framework of international law must be condemned.”
On July 31, 2022 the Russian Foreign Ministry lambasted Pristina and its backers in Brussels and Washington for an attempted expulsion of the Serbian population and Serbian social institutions from Kosovo, calling upon the international community to observe the rights of Serbs in the region.
At the time, the de-facto Albanian authorities of the region backed down, but the conflict erupted again in December.
On Thursday, December 8, the “customs” of the self-proclaimed republic confiscated a batch of 42,000 liters of wine from one of the oldest Serb producers in the village of Velika Hoča in the southwest of the region. The formal reason was that the activities of the manufacturer’s legal entity were frozen during the COVID pandemic. De facto customs officers drove the tank to the wine cellar and poured all sorts of wine into it, thereby actually destroying the high-quality product, which would be impossible to consume if returned.
On December 10, the self-declared republic’s security forces detained 56-year-old former Serb police officer Dejan Pantic on “suspicion of terrorism.” Pantic resigned in November along with other Serbian law enforcement personnel from the self-proclaimed republic’s Interior Ministry. At the time, some Serbs living in Kosovo deliberately withdrew from local government institutions in protest against Pristina’s decision to fine anyone who did not change their Serbian car registration plates to Kosovo ones. Pantic was arrested while trying to enter central Serbia.
Pantic’s arrest prompted Kosovo Serbs to blockade roads and checkpoints on the administrative line between Kosovo and central Serbia. After that, employees of the European Union Rule of Law Mission (EULEX) in Kosovo and KFOR – the NATO-led international force in Kosovo – were dispatched to the barricades. NATO reportedly has roughly 3,700 personnel stationed in Serbia’s province.
The media reported interruptions in Internet and mobile communications. Gunshots were also heard in the north of Kosovo. Eventually, Kosovo’s de facto President Vjosa Osmani announced that local elections scheduled for December 18, 2022 would be postponed until next year.
Meanwhile, Serbia’s President Vucic announced on Saturday that he would make a request to the commander of NATO’s KFOR mission to deploy a 1,000-strong Serbian contingent in the north of Kosovo to protect Serbs under UN Security Council Resolution 1244.
The resolution authorizes Serbia to deploy up to 1,000 military, police, and customs officials to Kosovo’s Orthodox Christian religious sites, areas with Serb majorities, and border crossings, if such a deployment is approved by KFOR’s commander. However, Vucic added that he had “no illusions” that his request would be approved by NATO.
US and Brussels are Behind Kosovo Conflict
According to Bennett, the escalation of tensions over Kosovo was provoked by the US and its Western allies in order to tighten the screws on Belgrade, with whom Russia has a longstanding special relationship, amid Moscow’s special military operation to demilitarize and de-Nazify Ukraine.
“It seems the West, and specifically the United States and its proxies in NATO, are planning a military pivot to open up a new civil war between Serbia and Kosovo, as a means of menacing Russia and opening up a potential new front,” said Bennett. “So expect some kind of a false flag attack where the British-American intelligence services and military mercenaries artificially create a situation – most likely a bombing or massacre – and blame it on Serbia and Russia, to engineer yet another wave of hysterical EU sanctions and NATO military support for Kosovo against Serbia, and by proxy Russia.”
Hysteria has already engulfed Brussels and Pristina, with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell trying to threaten Belgrade over possible attacks on the EULEX and Kosovo’s de facto Prime Minister Albin Kurti urging the West to “punish” Serbia.
“The EU has behaved as a biased side from the beginning,” Professor Stevan Gajic, a research associate at the Institute of European Studies in Belgrade, told Sputnik. “And this was obvious, since the negotiations were basically lowered to the level of the EU from the level of the United Nations. The EULEX was biased. The whole process of Brussels agreements was only a sham in order for Serbia to give up all its state powers that it had. It is only logical that now the EU behaves like this. This might be a provocation. Serbia is very calm, actually trying not to use force to defend its citizens. But it only depends on the Western structures, whether they want to escalate or de-escalate this conflict.”
Gajic noted that nothing has changed in the West’s perception of Serbia over the last two centuries: “[T]he Serbs resisted Hitler’s pact [in July 1941] and we were bombed and consequently occupied,” he noted, referring to Nazi Germany’s occupation and subsequent division of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941 and Serbia’s resistance movement.
“NATO already bombed us twice in the 1990s,” the professor continued. “They bombed the positions of Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Croatia in 1995, and then they bombed Yugoslavia, meaning Serbia and Montenegro, in 1999, directly supporting Albanian separatists and terrorists. Now they are again against the Serbs because they see us as proxies of Russia. And this didn’t start yesterday, but it’s been like that for the last 200 years, at least.”
The West is currently trying hard to sever ties between Moscow and Belgrade by both demanding that Serbia impose sanctions on Russia, and pressuring Belgrade into signing a comprehensive peace agreement with Pristina, which would pave the way to Serbia losing its Kosovo province, according to Trifkovic.
“The request for the introduction of sanctions against Russia is related to this in the sense that the West believes that by severing the ties between Russia and Serbia, it would solve the Kosovo issue much faster in terms of the implementation of the Kosovo independence project,” she explained. “Even if Serbia were to impose sanctions on Russia, which over 80% of the population of Serbia opposes, there would still be demands to sign a comprehensive peace agreement with Pristina.”
In addition to that, the West seems eager to twist Belgrade’s hand into dropping its partnership with Moscow because the US and EU’s anti-Russia sanctions have turned out to be a complete failure, according to Bennett. “Former Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache has said Europeans are bearing the brunt of the crisis, while Moscow’s economy is doing fine,” the former US State Department counterterrorism analyst remarked. The West’s inability to “rein in” Moscow is casting a shadow over its image as leader of the world order.
One shouldn’t be deluded into believing Washington or Brussels’ statements about their intent to maintain peace and stability in Kosovo, according to Bennett. “As we have seen in the past, the promises and agreements made by the West, by the EU, and by NATO are worthless and not to be trusted,” he stressed.
Another telling moment, according to Bennett, is former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recent remarks about the 2015 Minsk Agreements, which deeply frustrated President Vucic:
“President Vucic describe[ed] how amazed, shocked, and disappointed he was to discover that Germany’s former Chancellor Angela Merkel has admitted what many people suspected all along: that the promises made by Germany and France in the Minsk agreements were never intended to be honored, and were instead simply a ruse or lie intended to generate space and time for the Ukrainian military to build up its ability to wage a proxy war against Russian civilians. President [Vladimir] Putin has also commented on the deceitfulness of this grotesque betrayal, but then again, betrayal and monstrous ugliness seems to be fast becoming the main characteristic of the European Union’s character,” Bennett observed.
Meanwhile, there are numerous similarities between the involvement of American politics in Kosovo and Ukraine, said Trifkovic.
She noted that in both cases, the US, as well as other Western countries, supported extremism, fuelled militant nationalism directed against the Serbs and the Russians in Kosovo and Ukraine, respectively. NATO also provided logistical and material support, so the extremists underwent training and received weapons, according to her. Meanwhile, the Western mainstream media actively spread anti-Serbian and anti-Russian propaganda, with numerous Western-funded NGOs joining the media chorus, the Serbian geopolitical analyst pointed out.
“By and large, they created a complex war atmosphere, and they brought to power extremist structures in Kosovo, as well as in Ukraine, which they control and through which they actually rule,” Trifkovic said. “At the expense of that, American and other Western companies [served] their economic interests. In Kosovo and Metohija, the Americans opened the largest military base in Europe, Bondsteel, and I am sure that there were plans to open American military bases in Ukraine as well. In fact, American military bases have surrounded the whole of Russia, and the attack on Serbia in 1999 was only one segment of that process.”
MEMO | December 9, 2022
Turkiye emerged as a critical stumbling block to a complex international plan to deprive Russia of wartime oil revenues as the number of tankers waiting to exit the Black Sea through Turkish Straits continued to rise on Friday, Reuters reports.
Ankara has declined to scrap a new insurance inspection rule it implemented at the beginning of the month, despite days of pressure from Western officials frustrated by the policy.
A total of 28 oil tankers are in a queue seeking to leave the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits, the Tribeca Shipping Agency said on Friday.
G7 wealthy countries, the European Union and Australia agreed to bar providers of shipping services, such as insurers, from helping export Russian oil unless it is sold at an enforced low price, or cap, aimed at depriving Moscow of wartime revenue.
Turkiye’s maritime authority said it would continue to keep out of its waters oil tankers that lacked appropriate insurance letters.
Western insurers said they cannot provide the documents required by Turkiye as it may expose them to sanctions if it emerged that the oil cargoes they cover were sold at prices that exceed the cap.
The Turkish authority said that, in the event of an accident involving a vessel in breach of sanctions, it was possible the damage would not be covered by an international oil-spill fund.
“(It) is out of the question for us to take the risk that the insurance company will not meet its indemnification responsibility,” it said, adding that Turkiye was continuing talks with other countries and insurance companies.
It added the vast majority of vessels waiting near the Straits were EU vessels, with a large part of the oil destined for EU ports – a factor frustrating Ankara’s Western allies.
The ship backlog is creating growing unease in oil and tanker markets. Millions of barrels of oil per day move south from Russian ports through Turkiye’s Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits into the Mediterranean.
Kazakh oil
Most of the tankers waiting at the Bosphorus are carrying Kazakh oil and Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, said on Thursday the US administration saw no reason that such shipments should be subjected to Turkiye’s new procedures.
Washington had no reason to believe Russia was involved in Turkiye’s decision to block ship transits, she added.
The European Commission said on Friday the delays were unrelated to the price cap and Turkiye could continue to verify insurance policies in “exactly the same way as before”.
“We are therefore in contact with the Turkish authorities to seek clarifications and are working to unblock the situation,” a spokesperson told Reuters.
Turkiye has balanced its good relations with both Russia and Ukraine since Moscow invaded its neighbour in February. It played a key role in a United Nations-backed deal reached in July to free up grain exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports.
Relations between NATO allies, Ankara and Washington, have at times been rocky, as Turkiye last month renewed calls for the United States to stop backing Syrian Kurdish forces.
The Biden administration levied sanctions on Thursday on a prominent Turkish businessman, Sitki Ayan, and his network of firms, accusing him of acting as a facilitator for oil sales and money laundering on behalf of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
By Uriel Araujo | December 9, 2022
This week London announced it has ordered thousands of new anti-tank weapons to restock, after sending thousands of its units to Ukraine. Meanwhile, it has been reported that Washington is weighing Kiev’s requests to provide the country with cluster munition warheads. Both the UK and NATO have been almost running out of weapons for Ukraine. Recently, US President Joe Biden has been struggling to maintain his international coalition to support Kiev, but hardly succeeded due to domestic problems (both in the EU and in the United States). The conflict in Ukraine aggravates Europe’s energy crisis and this is one of the very reasons Washington has fueled this conflict.
University of Chicago political science professor John Mearsheimer has written extensively on how NATO’s enlargement policies over the years plus its strategy to move Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit by integrating it into the political West are the very root of the conflict which started in 2014 – and 8 years on, this is still the case.
For almost 8 years, the Donbass conflict was Europe’s forgotten war, even though in April 2021 Kiev escalated the violence there once more, with Washington’s full support. Since 2014, NATO has been aggressively provoking and encircling Russia (even in the Arctic), and its member states have been sending massive arms shipments to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the Washington-led West, including media conglomerates, has white-washed Ukraine’s far-right problem and the blatantly neo-Nazi nature of its Azov Regiment, as well Kiev’s mass killings, its human rights infringements, genocidal policies, and chauvinistic nationalism aimed against ethnic Russians.
For example, on February 18, before the beginning of the current Russo-Ukrainian military conflict (February 24), Kiev started a nasty bombing campaign on Donbass, targetting civilian infrastructure and even a kindergarden in Lugansk. Ironically, the week before that, Moscow had withdrawn its troops from the area near the border, which should have de-escalated tensions – much to no avail.
Up to February 18, in a series of provocations, Ukraine’s military personnel often broke the cease-fire in Donbass and shelled the region so as to instigate the local militias into responding, thus providing a pretext for further Ukrainian aggression while NATO kept sending weapons and mercenaries to Kiev and further fueling tensions. All of that, one can argue, had been escalating to the point of potentially becoming casus belli for Russia. And here we are today. Whether one is critical of Moscow’s decision to launch its military campaign or not, all the above is part of the larger context that one should always keep in mind.
Why then has the US played such a destabilizing role and has supported all that? I’ve written on how the geopolitics of Washington’s strategies is intertwined with geoeconomics and energy interests. The United State’s persistent campaign against Nord Stream and against any Russian-European gas cooperation is part of that. Geoenergetic interests are one of the main issues and driving forces of the 21st century and Washington has been waging a largely unilateral economic war through sanctions and legislative measures.
Its goal has always been to have Europeans buying American LNG, which is more expensive, in fact, even though Russia is quite literally at the “doorstep” of the continent. The truth is that Europe’s energy crisis from the very beginning has served American interests well. In addition, the US-led “Green Agenda” which hampers African energy security quite ironically also hurts European’s own.
One could very well argue then that Washington’s economic war is being waged not only against Moscow, but in fact also against its own European allies. If this sounds far-fetched, one should consider the fact that Biden’s recent aggressive $369 billion subsidies package (which hurts Europe) has been described by French President Emmanuel Macron as an issue that could “divide the West”. EU diplomats have been quoted as saying that the American initiative “changes everything” to the point of making some of them ask “is Washington DC still our ally or not?”. EU industry chief Thierry Breton even stated Biden’s package poses an “existential challenge” to the European economy and industry.
The UK economy is also collapsing over the energy issue, while recession and even depression haunt Europe. Philip Pilkington, an Irish economist famous for his contributions on the empirical estimate of general equilibrium and other fields, has been writing on how post-Nord Stream Europe faces possible deindustrialization. If the high energy costs, related to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, make European industry uncompetitive, Washington’s subsidy package is a nail in the coffin. In this scenario, Europe’s industry might be “wiped out by American rivals”, as Politico journalists Jakob Hanke and Barbara Moens put it. As the US stands ready to absorb European industrial potential, EU countries will face increasing unemployment, inflation and a decrease in living standards. That scenario of course promises social unrest.
In April, defeated French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen promised to pull France out of NATO. As temperatures decrease with the coming winter amid rising energy prices, one should expect European populism and the far-right to gain more and more political influence, as they have been successfully capitalizing on growing popular discontent with NATO and with the EU bloc itself. It is quite unfortunate that, in Europe, opposition to NATO and to suicidal policies has been largely marginalized to the point of almost becoming a monopoly of so-called extremist discourse.
It remains to be seen how European political elites will respond to the new developments, as the reality of an American economic war against their continent becomes increasingly impossible to deny.
By Christopher Black – New Eastern Outlook – 08.12.2022
On Wednesday November 30, Ursula Von der Leyen, the German president of the European Commission, stated that the European Union will set up a specialised tribunal, backed by the United Nations, to investigate and prosecute possible war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine. The French foreign ministry and Kiev regime echoed her remarks.
“We are ready to start working with the international community to get the broadest international support possible for this specialised court,” Von der Leyen said.
That this proposal is the opening scene in a staged drama for the entertainment and manipulation of the western public is apparent from the fact that there can be no “backing” of such a tribunal by the United Nations since only the Security Council has any possible jurisdiction to approve such a tribunal and clearly, both Russia, and China, which can expect the same treatment for itself from the West as Russia, will veto any motion in the Security Council to establish such a body.
If Von der Leyen is intending to rely on a vote in support by the UN General Assembly, then one wonders what her knowledge of the UN Charter is since the General Assembly votes have no legal force. But we can suppose that they may float such a proposal hoping the US and EU can coerce, bully and bribe a sufficient number of servile nations to give their stamp of approval so that they can claim they have the support of the “international community,” that is themselves and the nations under their sway.
The UN Charter does not provide any jurisdiction for the creation of quasi-judicial bodies under Chapter VII, which states that the only means permitted to be used against nations in violation of international law are military and economic, not judicial. The fact that the ad hoc tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the ICTY and ICTR, were created is a sad testimony of how the UN system can be abused. The Security Council had no powers under the Charter to create them and acted outside its powers when it did so, or as lawyers like to say, it acted ultra vires of its powers. That Russia did not veto the creation of these tribunals in the early 90’s can be explained by the fact that Russia had then a government that was weak and under the direct influence of the Americans and other NATO countries. It would never have allowed it if Presidents Putin or Medvedev had been in charge at the time.
The Chinese, however, realised the problem, expressing a willingness to vote for it only with the caveat that the adoption of the resolution should not prejudice China’s position on future resolutions on the subject. On 23 May 1993, when the UNSC was engaged in debate on Draft Resolution 827, which established the ICTY and adopted its statute, the Chinese representative explained his affirmative vote after the resolution was adopted by stating that China disputed the approach for the establishment of the tribunal by way of a UNSC resolution, rather than a treaty, with the latter route being the one China had preferred all along. He explained that, resembling a treaty, the statute should have been “negotiated and concluded by sovereign States and ratified by their national legislative organs. “Otherwise, its implementation would bring problems, unspecified, in both theory and practice.”
Secondly, the Chinese representative expressed the hope that this resolution would be a one-off exercise in setting up an ad hoc institution, and should not constitute a precedent. With that consideration in mind, Resolution 955, which approved the establishment of the second tribunal in 1994, for Rwanda, was obviously not agreeable to China as a repetition of the resolution-based approach, and China abstained in the voting on the resolution.
The fact that these tribunals were illegally created under the UN Charter and so in law do not exist was raised time and again by a number of defence lawyers representing accused at those tribunals. Of course, our arguments were dismissed out of hand and those of us that persisted were threatened with consequences. Nevertheless, as a matter of law the judgements and decisions of the ‘judges” of those tribunals are all invalid and have no force or effect.
And just as the Germans first proposed and pushed for the creation of the ICTY it is again the Germans who are pushing for the creation of another kangaroo court whose sole purposes will be to put out propaganda against Russia, to cover up their own war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine since 2014, and to attempt to justify their aggression against Russia and their support of fascists in Ukraine.
The idea for special war crimes tribunals originated with the United States Department of the Army in the early 1990’s, which alone should tell you something about its true purpose. The rhetoric used to justify such a body to the general public was of course heavily seasoned with concerns for “human rights” the “dignity of the individual”, “genocide” and “democracy,” just as it is now.
In order to accelerate the break up of Yugoslavia into quasi-independent colonies, principally of Germany and the United States, it was necessary to discredit their leaderships. An effective propaganda weapon in such an exercise is of course a tribunal with an international character which the public will accept as a neutral instrument of justice but which is controlled for political ends. NATO has the same objective with regards to Russia now.
Yugoslavia was the first experiment in using a quasi-judicial international body to attack the principle of sovereignty. And as the Americans have learned so well, the best way to get your domestic population behind you as you proceed to break another country, economically and militarily is to get them to hate those in power in that country. The Serb leadership was targeted, and transformed into caricatures of evil. There were comparisons to Adolf Hitler, a comparison used with surprising frequency by the United States against the long list of nations it has attacked in the last 50 years, though sometimes they are just labelled as common criminals, like Manuel Noriega, or mad, like Ghadaffi, if the leader or the country is too small to make the Hitler comparison stick. I think Saddam Hussein was the first to be compared to Hitler, and declared a common criminal and a madman all at the same time. We are hearing the same vile rhetoric about President Putin from western leaders and the mass media, which indicates what their ultimate objectives are.
Again, the European Union, Britain Canada and the USA are targeting another world leader, President Putin, and his government for the same reasons as they did President Milosevic, political ones. In this regard it is important to remember that in a statement to the Secretary-General of the United Nation, Mr. Boutros-boutros Ghali, on January 21, 1994, Antonio Cassese, the first President of the ICTY, made the Tribunal’s political character quite clear when he said in reference to the role of the Tribunal, “The political and diplomatic response (to the Balkans conflict) takes into account the exigencies and the tempo of the international community. The military response will come at the appropriate time.” In other words, the Tribunal is considered a political response. He went on to state, “Our tribunal will not be simply “window dressing” but a decisive step in the construction of a new world order.”
There you have it. Von Der Leyen on behalf of the EU and NATO is proposing the creation of another politically motivated kangaroo court, an illegal tribunal, without any jurisdiction, as part of the continuing US and NATO effort of establishing global hegemony, the construction of their new fascist world order, a tribunal to be used to fabricate indictments, conduct show trials, to propagandise against Russia, its leadership and people, while covering up and excusing their own crimes and justifying their aggression against Russia and the world. This use of what is nothing less than criminality to further more criminality is proof that the EU and NATO have openly adopted the techniques and ideology of fascism.
For once President Putin is “indicted” by this fake tribunal, there will be no possibility that any Western leader or government will be able to negotiate a peaceful resolution of the military conflict with him or any other Russian leader “indicted” with him nor negotiate over Russia’s security concerns. As with President Milosevic, President Putin will be labelled a criminal, and all possibility of negotiation, whether with the USA or EU, on resolution of the military conflict will be permanently blocked. Their intention is to make negotiations a complete impossibility. This means that war will be the only avenue for the resolution of the strategic political issues at stake. This is, in fact, the position of the Kiev regime with their mantra, “No negotiations with a war criminal.” And now it is the position of the EU and NATO. It is clear what their intentions are.
In this regard, Leonid Slutsky, the head of the Russian State Duma stated on December 1,
“The French Foreign Ministry’s statements about the beginning of work with the European and Ukrainian partners for creating a special tribunal for investigating Russia’s actions in Ukraine have no legal basis; this idea has a rather political dimension, the chairman of the State Duma’s international affairs committee.’
“The French Foreign Ministry’s statements to the effect that work has begun on creating an international tribunal for Ukraine have no legal basis and are rather political. There is no legitimate basis for the creation of an ad hoc tribunal. Implementing such an initiative will be impossible without trampling international law underfoot,” Slutsky told the media.
He added, “Preventing the truth about the true background of the Ukrainian crisis from reaching the European and American audiences is a matter of survival for today’s Western politicians in power. Otherwise, their own voters will oust them,”
He rightly pointed out that if an international tribunal is to be created in earnest, “there should be Ukrainian war criminals and their patrons from Washington in the dock.”
“The United States and its NATO allies, since the Second World War, have bombed the territories of more than 20 sovereign states, interfering in their state system and their sovereignty. This is what should be condemned at last. Then there will be far fewer causes for the conflicts like the one in Ukraine,”
And he is right. Once again Russia and the world are up against fascism in all its ugly forms and the more that time passes, the uglier the actions become, and the uglier they become, the more dangerous. But in the West, we see little reaction to all of this. There are few protests on the streets and those only in some EU countries suffering the consequences of their illegal sanctions on Russia.
In the USA, UK, in Canada there are no protests of any real significance; a few individuals here, some there. But the masses go along with the propaganda they are fed every day, even clamouring to be fed even more of the poison that warps their minds and reduces them to compliant automatons; unaware of reality, unconscious of the supporting role they play in the fascist theatre that they are both actors in and spectators of. The West has sunk into darkness, and now, only from the East does light illuminate the world.
Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events
By Lucas Leiroz | December 8, 2022
As the security crisis and energy instability worsen in Europe, mainly in Germany, the unfeasibility of continuing the current European model of automatic alignment with American foreign policy becomes increasingly evident. American rivalry with Russia, passively embraced by European states, seriously violates EU’s interests and places the entire bloc under a serious threat.
Germany is the most economically important country for the EU and at the same time the most dependent on Russia. Without any energy sovereignty and dependent on the partnership with Moscow to supply its internal market, Berlin sought for decades to maintain pragmatic relations with Russia, capable of overcoming any political or ideological rivalries, aiming exclusively at the well-being of the German people and the local economy. But this stance has been completely abandoned.
During the early days of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, Germany was the first country to try to somehow resist American pressure for sanctions, at least as far as energy is concerned. But the Scholz government was absolutely unable to resist pressure from Washington and quickly “surrendered”, favoring the American anti-Russian strategy and harming German interests.
Obviously, without the energy to power its industry, the negative effects have already started to be seen in Germany, but the situation will only get worse as winter gets more severe in Europe. With high energy prices and no prospect of improvement in the short term, as well as under a strong crisis of legitimacy with constant mass protests, the country is truly immersed in a severe crisis which consequences spread beyond national borders, since, with the largest European economy weakened, the whole EU is affected.
However, energy and economy are just some of the problems facing Berlin. The German adherence to American sanctions was not the only anti-strategic attitude taken by the government, which also strived to become one of the biggest arms suppliers for the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev, to the point of causing irreversible damage to domestic military reserves.
Before the Russian operation in Ukraine, military experts already frequently reported the obsolescence of the German military apparatus and its inability to defend the country, whose only hope in a possible conflict situation would be to rely exclusively on the “goodwill” of its NATO partners. Now, with Berlin sending its few weapons to Kiev and with an industry weakened by the energy crisis, unable to continue replenishing stocks, the situation is even more hopeless, placing Germany at a very serious level of subservience to the US.
In fact, on December 8, 2022, Olaf Scholz marks one year in the German government, and, as we can see, his administration so far has been a real disaster for the strategic interests of the German state and the entire EU. To sum it up, it is possible to say that his rise to power marked the decline of any German participation in the proposal of a “sovereign” Europe. Earlier, Angela Merkel was an active advocate of increasing the EU’s political autonomy, despite her close ties with the US. Merkel even became Emmanuel Macron’s main partner when the French president announced in his Sorbonne speech the project of achieving a “European sovereignty”.
As a politically stable and considered for years the “de facto” leader of the EU, Merkel tried to make Germany the economic pillar of a more independent Europe in relation to the US. Macron has emerged as an important ally, considering France’s military power – having even proposed the creation of a European army outside NATO. Thus, both countries together would have the conditions to lead a new shift in the bloc, making it a more “distant” ally of the US, defending its own interests without automatic alignment. But the fragility of the Scholz government prevented any process in this direction.
Scholz’s weakness and unpopularity caused his government to passively accept foreign impositions and escalate participation in the Ukrainian conflict, harming its own economy and people. More than that, Scholz passively accepted the humiliation imposed by the West in the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines. Several intelligence reports point to the involvement of the US, UK and Poland in the sabotage, and even so Germany remains inert and submissive.
These events hindered any idea about “European sovereignty”. Macron’s project for the continent has lost force and today France acts more independently. Germany was unable to play a leading role in managing a new future for the European bloc and has consolidated itself over the last twelve months as an American satellite state, also reflecting its subservience to other European states, economically weaker, which did not have any posture other than increasing the irrational automatic alignment with the US.
As a result, Europe loses the opportunity to become an independent bloc amidst the rise of a multipolar world. At some point in the near future, European leaders will try to reverse the mistakes that are being committed now, but they will find it much more difficult. Weakened, the US-led NATO will become more reactive and aggressive in the future, seeking to retain all zones of influence it still has. And, as Washington has already made clear with the Nord Stream attacks, sabotage and aggression are possible options for forcing Europe to maintain its submissive posture.
Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant.
Samizdat – 08.12.2022
Up to 10 tankers carrying oil from Kazakhstan remain stranded in the Turkish straits of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, the head of the KazMunayGas Kazakh oil and gas company, Magzum Mirzagaliev, said on Thursday.
“As of yesterday, there were 21 tankers there, including six tankers with oil from TCO [Kazakh oil producer]. In general, we estimate that about eight tankers related to Kazakhstan — from eight to 10 — are among those stranded,” Mirzagaliev told reporters.
Mirzagaliev cited the Kazakh Energy Ministry as saying on Wednesday that the delay in the passage of ships through the Turkish straits had already lasted six days at that point. He also recalled the 14-day bottleneck in the same waters last December.
On December 1, Turkey started requiring from oil shippers crossing the Bosphorus Strait and the Dardanelles a letter from an insurer confirming that the vessel is covered by the necessary Protection and Indemnity Insurance (P&I).
On Monday, as the European Union’s sanctions on Russian oil exports by sea went into effect, media reported that about 19 oil tankers were prevented from passing through the Turkish straits.
By Drago Bosnic | December 8, 2022
On November 14, Der Spiegel published a report according to which leaked documents of the German Ministry of Defense indicate that the Bundeswehr is preparing for a war with Russia. The secret draft titled “Operational guidelines for the Armed Forces” was authored by the German Chief of Defense Staff, General Eberhard Zorn. It was written in late September and according to General Zorn, “an attack on Germany can potentially happen without warning and can cause serious damage, even existential. Therefore, the defense capabilities of the Bundeswehr are essential for the survival of the country.” The German Chief of Defense Staff stressed the need for a “mega-reform” of the Bundeswehr, adding that “for approximately 30 years, the focus placed on missions abroad no longer does justice to the current situation, with possible consequences that endanger the system.”
Instead, General Zorn thinks it’s crucial for Germany to focus on “the Atlantic defense of the Alliance,” with the “capacity to provide visible and credible deterrence, to dominate Germany’s military action plan.” In this regard, specifically, “the Bundeswehr must arm itself for a forced war, since a potential confrontation on NATO’s eastern flank has once again become more probable.”
The draft clearly identified Russia as the “immediate threat”. However, the designation makes little sense, as Russia is now over 1,500 km away from Germany, with Belarus, Poland and Ukraine standing between the two countries. While it made some sense for Germany to maintain a large, highly trained military force with constant combat readiness during the (First) Cold War, as the USSR had approximately half a million soldiers in East Germany at the time (in addition to other Warsaw Pact member states), the situation is effectively reversed nowadays.
It’s precisely NATO that’s encroaching on Russia’s western borders, with the crawling expansion including coups and other interventions in various Eastern European and post-Soviet states. This aggression by the political West forced Moscow’s hand, culminating with the February 24 counteroffensive. However, the German plan has already been set in motion and no matter how ill-conceived it is, an analysis of how it could play out is in order. The plan certainly isn’t new, as it has been in the works for well over half a year. Back in early March, the German government announced it would allocate approximately €100 billion to upgrade the Bundeswehr, which has become a mere shadow of what it was during the heydays of the (First) Cold War.
The 2021 budget for Bundeswehr was approximately €50 billion. If Berlin was to increase that by close to 100%, it would put extreme pressure on the struggling German economy. Such a massive upsurge in military spending wouldn’t only take away from other branches of the government, but it would also come at a time when the sanctions boomerang from the failed economic siege of Russia is ravaging all of the European Union. The bloc hasn’t even begun recovery from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s already facing severe economic contraction resulting from anti-Russian sanctions and policies. Much of Germany’s prosperity was based on access to cheap Russian energy, which is now a thing of the past thanks to Berlin’s suicidal subservience to “Euro-Atlantic values”.
In essence, this means that Germany is doomed to massively increase military spending while having significantly fewer resources at its disposal to do so. This doesn’t even factor in how the German people would react to such a momentous foreign (and, to a large extent, domestic) policy shift. As the EU’s largest and most important economy, Germany would also cause shockwaves throughout the bloc if it were to go ahead with such a plan. With Russian energy supplies either gone or effectively unaffordable, any government in power in Berlin would have virtually the entire German private sector against it, with the notable exception of the arms industry, which would be the only one not contracting thanks to increased orders for the Bundeswehr.
On the other hand, even this plan is bound to hit several major snags before it’s even put in motion. The US Military Industrial Complex dominates in NATO, making it the primary beneficiary of German (re)militarization. Domestic weapons production has atrophied significantly in the last 30 years, while the globalization of the world economy led to the rest of it being outsourced to other countries, both in Europe and elsewhere around the globe.
New reports indicate that Berlin’s decision to supply weapons and munitions to the Kiev regime is severely depleting German stockpiles, a problem further exacerbated by the significant slowdown of component imports from China. This is also the result of the German government’s self-destructive push for an economic decoupling of the EU and the Asian giant. Beijing has been extremely patient with the bloc’s subservience to Washington DC, but it seems this patience has now run out.
Another major issue will be the reaction of other EU members. With the notable exception of the clinically Russophobic Baltic states and Poland, the rest of the bloc is extremely concerned with the economic fallout of the failed sanctions war on Russia. As the German economy contracts, the rest of the EU will almost certainly follow suit, causing massive political instability.
At least half a dozen European governments have already fallen, while the neoliberal elites in Brussels are now forced to contend with new anti-liberal political parties in power in several EU member states. This is bound to cause further rifts within the bloc. It will be followed by the general militarization of the EU, which will further erode the already falling living standards and cause more political instability. This will turn Europe into an economically devastated bulwark that serves no other purpose except to contain Russia while the US shifts focus to the Asia-Pacific region.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
By Lisa Pease | Consortium News | September 16, 2013
More than a half century ago, just after midnight on Sept. 18, 1961, the plane carrying UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and 15 others went down in a plane crash over Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). All 16 died, but the facts of the crash were provocatively mysterious. … continue
Aletho News If Americans Knew No Tricks Zone
Aletho News 