The Cradle | November 22, 2022
The EU parliament announced on 21 November its decision to sever ties with Iran. The announcement comes in response to the Islamic Republic’s recent decision to place sanctions on the European governing body, which has been slapping its own sanctions against Tehran throughout the ongoing unrest in the country.
“We will not look away from those who look to us from the streets of Iran. Iran must stop its oppression of legitimate protests. In response to Iran’s [sanctions] on members of the European Parliament, [it] will no longer engage with Iranian authorities,” President of the EU parliament, Roberta Metsola, said in a statement via Twitter with the popular Iranian protest slogan “Women, life, freedom” written in Persian at the end of the tweet.
At the opening of its November plenary session on the same day, Metsola said that there would be “no direct contact” between the parliament and Iranian officials “until further notice.”
As Iran continues to face large waves of violent riots – which have resulted in the deaths of several members of the security forces and the destruction of public property – western media has framed the response by authorities as nothing more than a brutal crackdown on peaceful protestors.
In addition to the propagation of misinformation by mainstream, western European media, the EU has repeatedly placed several rounds of sanctions against Iran.
Accusing European states of interventionist policies and “supporting terrorism and violence” on Iranian soil, Tehran on 26 October announced the implementation of its own sanctions against several individuals and institutions associated with the EU.
Earlier that month, the Islamic Republic had sent several letters to European diplomats warning them that the aggressive EU sanction policy against Tehran could result in a “rupture” of relations between them.
As European, Saudi, British, and US media outlets lead the misinformation campaign against Tehran, violent attacks against the country’s security personnel are on the rise, and internationally-backed armed separatists continue to push for the illegal overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 21, 2022
How the world appears all depends on whether your gaze is firmly focussed on the hub of the wheel, or alternatively, were you to watch the wheel’s rotation around the hub – and the bearing it follows – you would see the world differently.
Looked at from a DC-centric perspective, all is still: Nothing (as it were), is moving geo-politically. Was there an election in the U.S.? Well, certainly there is no longer an ‘Election Day’ event as the new mechanics of ballots vs in-person voting, commencing up to 50 days earlier, and ploughing on, weeks after, has become far removed from the old notion of having ‘an election’, and an aggregate macro outcome.
From this ‘centric’ viewpoint, the Midterms change nothing – stasis.
So many of Biden’s policies were already in stone anyway – and beyond the ability of any Congress to change in the short run.
New legislation, if there were any, could be vetoed. And should the election ‘month’ end with the House controlled by Republicans and the Senate controlled by Democrats, there might not be any legislation at all, because of partisanship and an inability to compromise.
More to the point, Biden anyway can rule for the next 2 years through Executive Order and bureaucratic inertia – and not need the Congress at all. In other words, the composition of Congress may not matter that much.
But now, turn your gaze to the rotation around the ‘hub’, and what do you see? The rim spinning wildly. It seizes more and more traction on the ground and has clear directionality.
The biggest pivot around the hub? Well probably, President Xi of China travelling to Riyadh to meet Mohammad bin Salman (MbS). The wheel rim here digs deep for a firm grip on bedrock, as Saudi Arabia makes its pivot toward the BRICS. Xi likely is going to Riyadh to seal the details of Saudi’s accession to the BRICS and the terms of China’s future ‘Oil Accord’ with Saudi Arabia. And that may be the beginning to the end to the petrodollar system – as whatever is agreed in terms of the Chinese mode of payment for oil will mesh with Russo-Chinese plans eventually to move Eurasia onto a new trading currency (far away from the dollar).
Saudi Arabia gravitating BRICS-wards means other Gulf and Mid East – states such as Egypt – leaning BRICS-wards also.
Another pivot: The Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said after this week’s explosion in Istanbul: “We do not accept the condolence message of the U.S. Embassy. We understand the message that was given to us, we received the message that was given to us”. Soylu then dismissed the U.S. condolence as akin to “a killer being first to show up at a crime scene”.
Let’s be clear: The minister just told the U.S. to go sc**w itself. This unleashing of raw anger comes just as Turkey has agreed to join with Russia to establish a new gas hub in Turkey and is participating with Russia in a massive oil and gas investment and co-operation deal with Iran. Turkey too, is veering BRICS-wards.
And, as Turkey veers away from one ‘hub’, much of the Turkic sphere will take Turkey’s lead.
These two events – from Xi’s meeting with MbS’ thumbing his nose at the U.S., to Turkey’s fury at the terrorism in Istanbul – clearly dovetail together to mark a strategic Middle East pivot – both in terms of energy and monetary frameworks, towards the unfolding Eurasian free trade sphere.
Then comes the news from last Thursday: Iran says that it has developed a high-precision hypersonic missile. General Hajizadeh said the Iranian hypersonic ballistic missile can reach more than five times the speed of sound and, as such, it will be able to breach all present systems of anti-missile defence.
Simply put: Iran essentially already is a nuclear threshold state (but not a nuclear weapons state). The remarkable technical achievement of producing a hypersonic high-precision missile (which still eludes the U.S.), is a paradigm-changer.
Strategic nukes make no sense in a highly mix-populated, small Middle East – and now, there is no need for Iran to move towards becoming a weapons state. So, what would be the point to a complicated containment strategy (i.e. the JCPOA), oriented towards hindering an outcome that has become overtaken by new technology? A hypersonic ballistic missile capacity makes tactical nukes redundant. And hypersonic missiles are more effective; more easily deployed.
The problem for the U.S. and Israel is that Iran has done it – it has leaped beyond the JCPOA containment cage.
On top of that, a few days earlier, Iran also announced that it had launched a ballistic missile, carrying a satellite into space. If so, Iran now has ballistic missiles capable of reaching, not only Israel, but Europe too. Furthermore, Iran is reported to soon receive 60 SU-35 aircraft, as just one part to its rapidly evolving relationship with Russia, sealed last week with Nikolai Patrushev (Russia’s Security Council Secretary) in Tehran.
Again, to be clear, Russia has just acquired a highly potent kinetic force multiplier; access to Iran’s sanctions-busting rolodex of contacts and strategies, and a full partner to Moscow’s big play of Eurasia becoming a commodities super-oligopoly.
Simply put, as Iran enlists as a force multiplier to the Russia-China axis, so too will Iraq, Syria, Hizbullah and the Houthis slip along a somewhat similar trajectory.
Whilst the European ‘security architecture’ remains still frozen in a tight NATO, anti-Russian grip, West Asia’s security architecture is dissolving away from the old U.S. and Israeli-led hard polarisation of a Sunni sphere vs Shi’i Iran (i.e. the so-called Abraham Accords), and is re-forming around a new security architecture being shaped by Russia and China.
This makes sense. Turkey prizes its Turkic civilisational heritage. Iran clearly is a civilisational state, and MbS plainly wants his kingdom to be widely accepted as one, too (and not as just a U.S. dependency). The point of the SCO format is that it is ‘pro-autonomy’ and is opposed to any singularity of ideology. In fact, by being civilisational in concept, it becomes anti-ideological and opposed to tight binary (with us, or against us) alliances. Membership does not require endorsement of each other partner’s particular policies, provided they do not impinge on others’ sovereignty.
In effect, the whole of West Asia – to one degree or another – is being lifted up into this evolving Eurasian economic and security paradigm.
And, simply said, since Africa is already enlisted into the China camp, the African component to MENA is trending strongly Eurasia-wards, as well. The Global South’s affiliation too, largely can be taken for granted.
Where does this leave the old ‘hub’? It has Europe fully in its control. For now, yes…
However research published by France’s École de Guerre Economique suggests that whilst Europe has, since WW2, “lived in a state of the unspoken” in respect to its full-spectrum dependency on Washington, as Russia sanctions take their catastrophic effect on Europe, “a very different state of affairs takes hold”. Consequently, politicians, and the public alike, struggle to identify “who truly is their enemy”.
Well, the collective view, based on interviews with French intelligence experts (i.e. the French Deep State) is very clear: 97% percent consider the U.S. to be the foreign power that “most threatens” the “economic interests” of France. And they see it as a problem that must be resolved.
Of course, the U.S. will not easily let Europe go. Nonetheless, if parts of the Establishment can speak thus, then something is moving and afoot, beneath the surface. The report underlines naturally that the EU might have a trade surplus of 150 billion euros with the U.S., but the latter would never willingly allow this to translate into ‘strategic autonomy’. And any gain in autonomy is achieved against the constant backdrop of – and more than offset by – “strong geopolitical and military pressure” from the U.S. at all times.
Could the Nord Stream sabotage have been the straw that broke the camel’s back? In part, it was a trigger, but Europe hides its diverse old hatreds and long-nursed vindictiveness under ‘a Brussels lid of easy money’. But this pertains only so long as the EU remains a glorified ATM – states insert their debit-cards and withdraw cash. The concealed animosities are repressed, and monetarily lubricated into quiescence.
The ATM however, is in trouble (economic contraction, de-industrialisation and austerity cometh!); and as the ATM withdrawals’ window winnows down, so too the lid holding down the old animosities and tribal feelings will not hold for long. Indeed, the demons are rising – and are readily visible even now.
And finally, will the Washington ‘hub’ hold? Does it retain the resources to manage so many stress-test events – financial, systemic and political – all arriving synchronistically? We must wait to see.
In retrospect, the ‘Hub’ is not ‘on the move’. It has moved already. It is just that so many are stuck seeing an ‘empty space’ that once was occupied by something past, but which somehow still somehow lingers on, in visual memory, as a ‘shade’ of its earlier solidity.
By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – 21.11.2022
It is said not in vain that one man’s problem is another man’s opportunity. And the military action in Ukraine against Russia, unleashed by the US and NATO, has clearly demonstrated this. Every day there is more and more evidence to show what huge dividends the US tycoons are reaping from the policies that the current President Joe Biden is pursuing for their benefit alone. Suffice it to say that Washington has already made tens of billions of dollars from the military actions it has unleashed in Ukraine. Not to mention the distraction from US domestic issues in financial, economic and politico-racial fields, that the White House is using against this backdrop.
The US instigated this armed conflict, a conclusion that most political analysts are now coming to. Its aim is to force Europe to submit to US sanctions against Russia and stop buying cheap Russian natural gas. Washington can now sell huge quantities of liquefied gas to Europe at its own prices, and there is no price cap on US hydrocarbons, unlike Russian hydrocarbons, and it is unlikely there will be one. Europe’s economy has suffered a blow, and vast wealth has migrated from Europe to the US, allowing US leaders to maintain their dominant position in the EU.
Ensuring control over Europe is a major strategic imperative for the US. Since the EU has a population of 450 million, while the US population is only 330 million, and their economies are comparable in size, the EU is theoretically in a position to break free from the US and assert itself as an equal or greater superpower on the world stage. A truly independent Europe would prefer to make mutually beneficial trade deals with Russia, China and the rest of Eurasia, pushing back the US and ending US imperial domination of the planet.
It is only natural that the US does not want this to happen. By implementing its divide-and-conquer strategy, Washington is preventing Europe from achieving the cohesion and economic strength that would enable it to free itself from the US occupation that has persisted since after the World War II. Inflation in Germany reached double digits in October for the first time since 1990. Italy is also experiencing the highest inflation in 40 years. The rest of the Eurozone is also suffering. The source of the European crisis is the rise in energy prices caused by US sanctions against Russia. Businesses that produce goods and services have to pay more for energy, and they pass the costs on to consumers. Now most of the extra money paid for what has become ultra-expensive energy goes straight into US coffers. This is the main reason why the euro is falling against the dollar. Furthermore, the dollar has historically been strong in times of panic or uncertainty, and the US has a habit of deliberately provoking panic and uncertainty by organizing wars and crises, of which there have been many examples.
The EU is not an ally of the US, but a coalition of vassal states that have been under US military and economic occupation since the end of World War II. The US committed a holocaust against Germany during and immediately after that war, bombing entire cities where only civilians lived, starving millions of German prisoners of war and civilians during the first few years of the occupation. The mainstream media and academia, owned by the Americans and their satellites, fabricated a story of a mythical World War II victor that essentially turned reality upside down and portrayed the US as a generous rebuilder of Germany through the Marshall Plan. But the reality is that the Marshall Plan was only implemented after the Morgenthau Plan to kill millions of Germans had done its bloody work.
The US is far from being a generous ally. Instead, it has always been and remains a selfish occupier of Europe. The current US-induced destruction of Europe, based on depriving EU countries of cheap energy in order to damage them economically and subjugate them politically, could be called the new Morgenthau Plan. Nevertheless, the United States may have to provide aid packages or loans to help the EU escape hunger and frost this winter. If this happens, the motives will not be altruistic. Instead, Washington will seek to prevent Europeans from overthrowing the US occupation and exercising control over their own destiny.
Before the hostilities unleashed by the US in Ukraine, Russia provided the lion’s share of Europe’s cheap energy imports. However, by artificially supporting the armed conflict, which is now in its ninth month, Washington has broken this partnership, and gas is no longer flowing through Nord Stream. Businesses across Europe are not just limiting their energy consumption. They are shrinking or moving to other continents. Europe, according to economists, may well be on the way to de-industrialization. Eurozone industrial activity fell to its lowest since May 2020. The October PMI from S&P Global signaled a looming recession, falling in November and becoming the fourth monthly reading below 50, indicating an economic slowdown. In its latest analysis of the energy crisis in Europe, published on November 3, the IEA said the EU could face a shortfall of up to 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas during the summer of next year to replenish its gas storage capacity.
In a report entitled “Never Too Early to Prepare for Next Winter: Europe’s Gas Balance for 2023-2024” the IEA warns that the safety cushion provided by current storage levels, as well as recent lower gas prices and unusually mild temperatures, should not lead to unduly optimistic conclusions about the future. A look at the IEA report shows that the European Union will face a major challenge in meeting its energy needs in the coming years. Given the high costs of transporting gas over long distances, Russia could still make a significant contribution to solving this problem. With the world’s largest oil and gas reserves, Russia could provide Europe with the energy it desperately needs if it were not for persistent US sanctions. Unlike oil, natural gas is difficult to transport in large volumes and is therefore exported either by pipeline or by conversion into liquefied natural gas (LNG), but this is expensive and requires large investments. Russia does not currently have the infrastructure to export large volumes of LNG to Europe. Given current experience and looking to the future, European governments should clearly see the huge negative impact that sanctions against Russia have had and will have on global energy security. More should therefore be done to help curb US self-serving agendas and negotiate a multipolar world.
By constantly unleashing wars, the United States always reaps huge profits and the military-industrial complex comes first, as one would expect. It is not surprising that the US military budget is equal to that of the rest of the world combined. And this is further clear evidence that Washington does not want to live in a world where all contentious issues are resolved at the negotiating table, but aims only at military actions.
But lately, all of a sudden, the energy complex, whose owners are making exorbitant profits from oil and gas supplies, mostly to Europe, has become the most profitable sector in the United States. It is only natural that many people became interested and it was primarily the military who were concerned and who simply “pressed” Joe Biden. And now the US President has suddenly become “interested” in these huge sums and has decided to “clip the wings” of the oil and gas industry by imposing an additional tax on the profits of the owners of the energy complex. The simple conclusion from this is that unleashing Ukraine on Russia will continue at an accelerated pace, and Europe will be completely deprived of Russian gas. Even the gas coming through NATO member, Turkey.
By starting any military conflict, the US is not aiming to win. Above all, it is to destabilize the region so that it cannot be a US competitor for decades to come.
Today, a large proportion of the world’s elite keep their reserves in the EU. Naturally, the US will not completely destroy it. But if US companies gain a foothold and dominate the European market, it will force Europe to become even more involved in the Ukrainian conflict, to abandon Russian oil and gas completely, and it will be a huge prize for Washington to implement a policy of solving all issues only through war.
Skyrocketing fossil fuel energy prices are are driving the deforestation of Europe as citizens try to keep warm
By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | November 18, 2022
It’s easy to argue that the “green” movement is causing much more environmental harm than good. High energy costs are leading to poverty, which in turn leads to less investment in environmental protection and nature conservation.
Biodiversity-rich forests are being cleared away to make room for wind parks and people are increasingly burning wood to stay warm as an alternative to natural gas and heating oil.
Blackout News reports on how forests in Romania have been falling victim to illegal logging as the energy crisis has propelled the demand for firewood and pellets to rocket speed. “In Romania, entire nature reserves are disappearing as a result.”
“The sharp increase in demand for firewood, wood chips and pellets has also caused prices for these fuels to rise sharply, making them extremely lucrative for the illegal trade,” writes Blackout News. A lack of transparency and traceability are making the problem impossible to manage.
Blackout News cites a 2021 European Commission study showing Europe’s wood industry lacks transparency and that the demand for wood for heating has more than doubled in the past twenty years. Austria alone is reported to have imported approximately 120,000 tons of pellets from Romania last year. Europe’s CO2 reductions through the burning of biomass are costing its biotope dearly. Few are talking about this. What good will reaching zero CO2 emissions be if Europe’s forests end up being sacrificed and barren?
Greenpeace Romania says illegal logging is particularly bad in Romania and that more than half of the wood processed into pellets there comes from illegal logging in Natura 2000 areas. While authorities record an annual logging volume of 18 million cubic meters, “experts assume that another 20 million cubic meters of wood are illegally felled there each year and disappear without any evidence.”
One problem hindering the crackdown on illegal logging in Romania is rampant corruption in control bodies and government agencies. Penalties for the import of illegally logged timber “are also shockingly low”.
As long as Europe continues its efforts to eliminate fossil fuels and create energy shortages, prices will skyrocket and keep boosting the demand for wood as a source of energy.
Strategic Culture Foundation | November 18, 2022
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has been caught telling bare-faced lies about a missile strike on Poland this week. Even the United States and NATO backers of the Kiev regime have repudiated initial claims blaming Russia. The missile came from the Ukrainian military as NATO acknowledges, yet Zelensky continued to assert that it wasn’t from his forces. It is clear that the deadly attack was a deliberate provocation by the Kiev regime to escalate the war into an all-out NATO-Russia conflict, even if that meant World War Three.
The Kiev regime’s proclivity for staging provocations is well documented, albeit assiduously covered up by the Western media. Further cover-up is bursting at the seams owing to the manic and utterly criminal conduct of the Neo-Nazi regime.
In nearly nine months of this conflict, which began on February 24 when Moscow launched its special military operation to end non-stop deadly provocations against ethnic Russians in the Donbass region, the NATO-backed Kiev regime has engaged in countless other criminal provocations. Those provocations include carrying out massacres like the one at Bucha at the end of March, shelling the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, and plotting to detonate a dirty nuclear bomb. As our weekly editorial on October 28 headlined: “Dirty Nuke Bomb Fits Kiev Regime’s Record of Foul Tricks and Corruption”.
The Kiev regime was born out of a dirty trick. The Maidan Square sniper massacres in February 2014 against Ukrainian civilians and police officers culminated in a coup d’état.
It was fitting too that this week saw a Dutch court blaming Russia for the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner in 2014. The real culprits for the crime – in which 298 people onboard were blown out of the sky – were the Kiev regime forces who tried to blame it on Russia-backed Donbass separatists.
All such dirty tricks are purposed to criminalize Russia for “atrocities” and to escalate the war by invoking even more military support from the United States and its NATO partners. The Western states and their pliant corporate media have totally indulged in this propaganda to demonize Russia, if not at times author it.
This week, when the missile hit the village of Przewodow in the Lublin region of eastern Poland – killing two civilians – on November 15, the Kiev regime immediately blamed Russia. The comic-actor-turned-president Zelensky said it was an “act of terrorism” and an attack on NATO, thus justifying the bloc’s collective defense clause. His foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba clamored for NATO to impose a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine and to supply F-15 and F-16 fighter jets.
The hysterical claims, much like the missile itself, completely overshot credibility. There were no Russian air strikes anywhere near the Ukraine-Poland border area at the time. Video footage of munition fragments also quickly indicated that it was an S-300 air-defense missile that was fired by the Kiev regime’s forces.
Remarkably, however, Zelensky’s incendiary claims were promptly rebutted by U.S. President Joe Biden, the Pentagon and other NATO leaders. They firmly said the missile that struck Poland was not a Russian weapon but rather it came from a Ukrainian air-defense battery which, it was claimed, missed its target, accidentally landing on Polish soil.
But even that benign account does not hold water. For a start, the Russian military was not targeting the area with their precision-guided missiles. There were no incoming Russian rockets whatsoever. So what was the Ukrainian S-300 aiming at? The fact that the S-300 was fired westwards toward Poland shows that the act was a deliberate one to hit the neighboring country and a member of NATO.
The rapid rejection of the Kiev regime’s claims by the United States and other NATO powers not only exposes Zelensky and his cabal as liars. It also inadvertently exposes them as criminal provocateurs who are willing to kill civilians for propaganda and political expedience.
Are Washington and its European vassals perhaps beginning to realize that they have created a Frankenstein monster in Kiev whose criminality and corruption know no bounds? The United States and its imperial minions certainly want to undermine and subjugate Russia in a grand scheme of geopolitical control, but even the arrogant would-be hegemon must realize that World War Three is an insane no-win prospect. The Kiev regime has milked the U.S. and the European Union for all their worth and created a fabulous money racket for the NATO military-industrial complex. But this regime’s desperation and its reckless attempts to incite World War Three appear to have become too much even for its Western patrons.
It seems significant that lately, Washington appears to be coaxing the Kiev regime to enter into a peace process with Russia. The U.S. top military commander, General Mark Milley, who is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has urged Kiev to “seize an opportunity for peace”.
Separately, astute independent American military analysts, such as Scott Ritter and Douglas Macgregor, have pointed out that Russia has the decisive upper hand in the conflict. As the war drags on over winter and beyond, the real danger is that the NATO and transatlantic alliance will collapse from the stresses and strains ensuing from devastating economic repercussions. That is why the United States and NATO leaders appear to be feeling the pressure to extricate from the war, or at least to tamp it down.
It was notable that the Kiev regime angrily lashed out at any suggestions of opening a peace dialogue with Moscow.
This would explain why the Zelensky cabal decided to raise the stakes by firing a missile at Poland. The selected target of Przewodow village would have been a tacit concession to limit the casualties, although making the deliberately murderous act no less despicable or unconscionable.
The trouble is the cabal has become so corrupt and wanton that it didn’t sufficiently think through its obvious criminal plan. The missile strike ended up backfiring spectacularly to blow up the regime’s criminality.
The question is: what will the NATO sponsors do about their Neo-Nazi construct in Kiev? The regime is patently out of control and liability for the Western powers. They know they can’t win a conventional war against Russia never mind a nuclear conflagration. So, will we see Zelensky and his cronies being taken out, in one way or another, having become too problematic for their foreign masters?
History shows that the Western powers have used Nazis and fascists in the past as their proxies against the Soviet Union and other adversaries, only for these powers to eventually be compelled to liquidate their proxies when their usefulness expires or becomes overbearing.
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.
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | November 10, 2022
The conversation is exploding across Europe as politicians and media raise the alarm about record excess mortality rates in 2022. Why are so many non-Covid related deaths happening now?
The Highwire with Del Bigtree | November 10, 2022
Obstetrician, Dr. James Thorp, and Postpartum Nurse, Michelle Gershman, speak out about unprecedented elevation of reproductive and pregnancy complications that have been reported that directly coincide with the Covid-19 vaccine rollout.
Press TV – November 15, 2022
Permanent Representative of Syria to the United Nations, Bassam Sabbagh, says Israel must join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and eliminate its stockpile of nuclear weapons in order for a nuclear-weapon-free zone to be established in the Middle East.
Speaking at the Third Session of the Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and other Weapons of Mass Destruction in New York, Sabbagh lambasted Western countries, particularly the United States, for their generous support of the Israeli regime.
He argued that the approach has emboldened the regime to possess and develop more such munitions and to refuse to subject its nuclear facilities to international supervision, which have posed serious threats to regional peace and security.
He also complained that the tenth Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons failed to introduce practical steps that would guarantee the effective implementation of the 1995 Middle East Resolution, which serves as a fundamental pillar in supporting the non-proliferation regime on the regional level.
The senior Syrian diplomat said Damascus supported the UN General Assembly resolution as a path parallel to the implementation of the Middle East Resolution, and not an alternative to it.
“Ever since the adoption of the resolution, Syria has cooperated with regional states participating in the conference to achieve their common goals. The progress made by the conference indicates the sincere and serious efforts made by participating countries, and reveals, on the other hand, the disregard of Israel and the United States for the international will. This practice goes hand in hand with their obstructionism to create a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction,” Sabbagh noted.
“Syria considers establishment of a Middle East free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction as an important measure on the path of disarmament, empowerment of the non-proliferation regime, and a serious contribution to the protection of regional and international peace and security,” he said.
“Syria is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and tabled a draft resolution in 2002 and 2003 aimed at establishment of a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction. The United States, however, aborted that initiative to protect Israel,” the Syrian diplomat said.
Israel, which pursues a policy of deliberate ambiguity about its nuclear weapons, is estimated to possess 200 to 400 nuclear warheads in its arsenal, making it the sole possessor of non-conventional arms in West Asia.
The illegitimate entity has, however, refused to either allow inspections of its military nuclear facilities or sign the NPT.
What has emboldened Tel Aviv to accelerate its nuclear activities, according to observers, is the support from the United States and Europe, the two parties most critical of Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 14, 2022
Spot the problem here: First, the EU has lost Russia as a partner, yet the EU insists to maintain trade with China. Two, China, though, must bend to our EU ‘rules’ on how it configures its economy. Thirdly, China too, must accept to be ‘castigated’ by the likes of Olaf Scholtz and Charles Michel for ‘not having put an end to Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine’. Fourth, we, the EU, anyway do not intend to depend on you. And fifth, clean up your human rights abuses!
Wow! Well, the initial reaction might be a spell back at the Academy on the art of diplomatic discourse, as being one idea. Nonetheless, the sheer number of non-sequiturs to this stance is startling. Firstly, the rest of the world is not greatly interested in EU leaders’ woke thought-code (the Chinese simply cancelled EU Chief Michel’s proposed speech to a gathering in Beijing). Europe has lost Russia; It will likely lose China. And probably, it will find itself excluded from the colossus, free-trade area unfolding in Eurasia – as the blocs differentiate into separate trading spheres.
Where does this leave that bruited EU ambition to be a global player? … Perhaps the EU’s thought-code culture might be the problem to its ambitions.
You (the EU) have not thought this through: You are now a dependent appendage of the U.S. economy – a prop to maintaining America’s exalted spot in the global system – at a time when its predatory economic model of money-printing at zero interest has been holed by an iceberg (known as accelerating inflation). American industry needs a captive market in a world that is fast seceding into two separate spheres. You have ‘elected’ to fill that role.
Containing China is America’s explicit goal. And that means blocking the European continent from moving closer to Asia to form the world’s biggest free trade zone. Washington had to stop that (i.e. sabotage Nord Stream) in order to preserve Europe as a captive market, and what remains of dollar ‘privilege’.
As an American dependency, Europe is perceived as having conceded not only economic, but political agency too. Simply put, the EU has lost its cheap-energy business model with the ‘I stand with Ukraine’ woke thought and speech codes, and now finds that it is impotent politically. Why would ‘others’ deal with the courtiers, when they can go directly to the ‘Command’ in Washington?
Furthermore, the culture block the EU adopts prevents it from bringing the Ukraine war to a political end. Rather, what it does is bake-in escalation.
Here is the problem: You bought into liberal America’s notion of a coercive process of induced government dysfunctionality – that is to stay, the state of mass psychosis that any weaponised dysfunctional state of society can produce. And it’s been a success (on its own narrow terms).
The bigger message is that ‘induced dysfunctionality’ marching in lockstep, and using culture block tactics to suppress any dissenting opinions, can and does produce a society that can be ruled over (made compliant through unpleasantness and applied pain) – without having to govern (i.e. make things actually work).
And induced compliance has proved its use for implementing all sorts of other ideological schemes that the public would otherwise never accept.
Weaponised dysfunctionality was trialled during the recent pandemic. The public was persuaded to accept systemic degradation of the economy. Western leaders regularly have expressed a pleasant surprise at the degree of public compliance achieved during the lockdowns. Of course, it was only made possible by ‘woke mobs’ on social platforms impugning the motives of anyone questioning ‘the Science’, the scale of emergency, or the long-lasting toxic effects on the real economy. Cultural roadblock was imposed.
The same process is evident today: The EU is in (another) ‘emergency’ because it made a strategic misjudgement over its Russia sanctions. The political class thought the effects of EU sanctions on Russia offered a ‘slam dunk’ outcome: Russia would fold in weeks, and all would return to how it was before. Energy would flow freely to the EU again; things would go back to ‘normal’.
Instead, Europe faces economic melt-down from astronomic fuel costs.
Yet, some leaders in Europe – zealots for the Green Transition – quietly embrace this sanctions ‘failure’ and the resulting economic mayhem caused by spiking energy prices – weaponising it as a strategic asset to accelerate Green Transition. European authorities actively encourage this pathological approach, believing that the pain incurred will force compliance on their societies to embrace de-industrialisation, accept carbon footprint monitoring and the Green Transition; and too, to bear prospective monumental Transition costs.
Yellen explicitly celebrated the financial pain (dysfunctionality) precisely as serving to accelerate ‘The Transition’ (like it or not) – even were that to push the citizen out of employment, and to the cusp of society.
Here then, is the problem: Some in the EU political class may hope for an intensification of the war on Russia, seeing in it all sorts of benefits – in extending centralised control over member-states and facilitating new means of printing money (mutualised debt instruments) ostensibly to fund Ukraine.
Sure – but there are fears for societal breakdown in Europe too. The problem? The EU cannot bring Ukraine to a deal.
The point is that the EU has framed the Ukraine conflict in absolute victim-vein terms, in line with woke cultural tropes: A revanchist Russian leader, dreaming of former empire, illegally, and without provocation has invaded and seized territory from its neighbour, whilst committing heinous war crimes in so doing. The perpetrator must face a humiliating defeat – otherwise, if he gets an inch, he will take a mile. And the global order will be ‘toast’.
The ‘online mob’ has been steered, through ‘influencers’, to insist that U.S. Realist Camp’s support for a negotiated settlement is tantamount to taking Russia’s side: rushing to denounce all voices – from Bill Burns’ (then U.S. ambassador and now CIA chief) celebrated 2008 telegram ‘Niet means Niet’ warning that any NATO takeover of Ukraine means war; to Prof Mearsheimer, Kissinger, or Elon Musk – as dangerous ‘Putin apologists’. Musk now faces a security probe.
The logic is stark: This shrinks the Overton window to only those advocating the total defeat of Russia and an end to Putin’s ‘regime’ – even if it risks WWIII. It is the ‘slash and burn’ stance, favoured by the U.S. and allied EU neo-cons.
So, we have Washington saying it has no interests, per se, in Ukraine – beyond supporting Kiev in recovering its territory. The Biden Administration says it is guided by the wishes of the Ukrainian people.
Do you still not see the problem to which this logic takes us? It is a Potemkin Village position. All façade and nothing ‘behind’ or around it. The conflict in Ukraine is not itself ‘a unique thing’, but a ‘thing’ of two leaves. At one level, Ukraine is a ‘state’ among surrounding states; and at another level, it is itself an actor. A ‘player in events’ – an owner indeed, of a certain history.
What the Potemkin ‘approach’ does is to artificially free-up some sort of abstract ‘clearing in the wood’ amidst the density of trees, in which the visible thing – Ukraine – is to be positioned, and set before the western spectator public, stripped naked of surrounding context; stripped of history and of the fact of itself being a conscient player in an extended drama.
The Realists have been culture blocked. Their motives impugned.
The title to this play – ‘America has no fundamental interests in Ukraine, and is but an innocent, called up upon the stage by an act of brutal villainy’ – is an obvious fraud. As is the corollary that the EU must therefore support the ‘war’ as Ukraine is victim.
Plainly said, the U.S. is pursuing a bi-partisan geopolitical strategy to quash China’s meteoric rise and preserve America’s dominant role in the world order. Can there be any doubt about that? No, none. For two decades U.S. foreign policy has centred around its ‘pivot to Asia’.
Washington’s real interests in Ukraine thus must be understood not as a war of values – as the EU has it – but rather as a cruise-missile launched at China, not Russia. In gist, the ‘high road’ to collapsing Beijing is perceived in DC to pass through a weakened Moscow. The NATO response to Ukraine is intended as ‘a letter’ to China, concerning Taiwan. And the comprehensive sanctions on Russia are a missive to the rest of the world to not trifle with America’s absolute primacy.
But if this latter context is absolutely ‘off the table’, through culture block and the only agenda item being the sham Potemkin Village construct, then what is there to talk about?
The matter then must inexorably be settled by events – not talk. Who has the potential for escalatory dominance? Russia has many – and various – options. Ukraine has only one. Pushing more troops at the contact line and suffering heavy losses. What does the West have: WWIII?
Can you see now why your peace efforts have come to naught? Actually, President Xi explained the situation courteously, yet pointedly, to Chancellor Scholtz during the latter’s day trip to Beijing: Having lectured Scholz on the evanescent quality of Trust in any political relationship (a quality that Xi said should be nurtured), he emphasised the need for Europe to avoid an ideological approach to relations.
Rough Translation: You (Scholz) have destroyed your relationship with Russia; you have pursued a bloc-orientated ideological policy, and this has been to your disadvantage. Do not think you can do the same with China.
(Or with the rest of the world, Xi might well have added).
By Felix Livshitz | RT | November 15, 2022
New research published by France’s Ecole de Guerre Economique has revealed some extraordinary findings about who and what the French intelligence services fear most when it comes to threats to the country’s economy.
The findings are based on extensive research and interviews with French intelligence experts, including representatives of spy agencies, and so reflect the positions and thinking of specialists in the under-researched field of economic warfare. Their collective view is very clear – 97 percent consider the US to be the foreign power that “most threatens” the “economic interests” of Paris.
Who is your true enemy?
The research was conducted to answer the question, “what will become of France in an increasingly exacerbated context of economic war?” This query has become increasingly urgent for the EU as Western sanctions on Moscow’s exports, in particular energy, have had a catastrophic effect on European countries, but have not had the predicted effect Russia. Nor have they hurt the US, the country pushing most aggressively for these measures.
Yet, the question is not being asked in other EU capitals. It is precisely the continent-wide failure, or unwillingness at least, to consider the “negative repercussions on the daily lives” of European citizens that inspired the Ecole de Guerre Economique report.
As the report’s lead author Christian Harbulot explains, ever since the end of World War II, France has “lived in a state of the unspoken,” as have other European countries.
At the conclusion of that conflict, “manifest fear” among French elites of the Communist Party taking power in France “strongly incited a part of the political class to place our security in the hands of the US, in particular by calling for the establishment of permanent military bases in France.”
“It goes without saying that everything has its price. The compensation for this aid from across the Atlantic was to make us enter into a state of global dependence – monetary, financial, technological – with regard to the US,” Harbulot says. And aside from 1958 – 1965 when General Charles de Gaulle attempted to increase the autonomy of Paris from Washington and NATO, French leaders have “fallen into line.”
This acceptance means aside from rare public scandals such as the sale of French assets to US companies, or Australia canceling its purchase of French-made submarines in favor of a controversial deal with the US and UK (AUKUS), there is little recognition – let alone discussion – in the mainstream as to how Washington exerts a significant degree of control over France’s economy, and therefore politics.
As a result, politicians and the public alike struggle to identify “who their enemy” truly is. “In spheres of power” across Europe, Harbulot says, “it is customary to keep this kind of problem silent,” and economic warfare remains an “underground confrontation which precedes, accompanies and then takes over from classic military conflicts.”
This in turn means any debate about “hostility or harmfulness” in Europe’s relations with Washington misses the underlying point that “the US seeks to ensure its supremacy over the world, without displaying itself as a traditional empire.”
The EU might have a trade surplus of 150 billion euros with the US, but the latter would never willingly allow this economic advantage to translate to “strategic autonomy” from it. And this gain is achieved against the constant backdrop of – and more than offset by – “strong geopolitical and military pressure” from the US at all times.
I spy with my Five Eyes
Harbulot believes the “state of the unspoken” to be even more pronounced in Germany, as Berlin “seeks to establish a new form of supremacy within Europe” based on its dependency on the US.
As France “is not in a phase of power building but rather in a search to preserve its power” – a “very different” state of affairs – this should mean the French can more easily recognize and admit to toxic dependency on Washington, and see it as a problem that must be resolved.
It is certainly hard to imagine such an illuminating and honest report being produced by a Berlin-based academic institute, despite the country being the most badly affected by anti-Russian sanctions. Some analysts have spoken of a possible deindustrialization of Germany, as its inability to power energy-intensive economic sectors has destroyed its 30-year-long trade surplus – maybe forever.
But aside from France’s “dependency” on Washington being different to that of Germany, Paris has other reasons for cultivating a “culture of economic combat,” and keeping very close track of the “foreign interests” that are harming the country’s economy and companies.
A US National Security Agency spying order sent to other members of the Five Eyes global spying network – Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK – released by WikiLeaks, shows that since at least 2002 Washington has issued its English-speaking allies annual “information need” requests, seeking any and all information they can dig up on the economic activities of French companies, the economic and trade policies of France’s government, and the views of Paris on the yearly G8 and G20 summits.
Whatever is unearthed is shared with key US economic decision-makers and departments, including the Federal Reserve and Treasury, as well as intelligence agencies, such as the CIA. Another classified WikiLeaks release shows that the latter – between November 2011 and July 2012 – employed spies from across the Five Eyes (OREA) to infiltrate and monitor the campaigns of parties and candidates in France’s presidential election.
Washington was particularly worried about a Socialist Party victory, and so sought information on a variety of topics, “to prepare key US policymakers for the post-election French political landscape and the potential impact on US-France relations.” Of particular interest was “the presidential candidates’ views on the French economy, what current economic policies…they see as not working, and what policies… they promote to help boost France’s economic growth prospects[.]”
The CIA was also very interested in the “views and characterization” of the US on the part of presidential candidates, and any efforts by them and the parties they represented to “reach out to leaders of other countries,” including some of the states that form the Five Eyes network itself.
Naturally, those members would be unaware that their friends in Washington, and other Five Eyes capitals, would be spying on them while they spied on France.
It was clearly not for nothing that veteran US grand strategist and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once remarked, “to be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.”
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.
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.
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By Dr. Joseph Mercola | March 30, 2021
In 2000, everything about Bill Gates’ public persona changed. He morphed from a hardnosed and ruthless technology monopolizer into a soft, fuzzy and incredibly generous philanthropist when he and his wife launched the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.1
It was a public relations coup. May 18, 1998, the U.S. Justice Department, in collaboration with 20 state attorneys, filed an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft.2 At that time, the company was 23 years old and was ruling the personal computer market. The Seattle Times described the fallout from the antitrust lawsuit:3
“The company barely escaped being split up after it was ruled an unlawful monopolist in 2000 for using its stranglehold on the PC market with its Windows operating system to cripple competitors, such as Netscape’s Navigator Web browser.”
How would the world be different today if the company had been split? Yale law professor George Priest described the antitrust lawsuit as “one of the most important antitrust cases of its generation.”4 In 2002, a court settlement placed restrictions on Microsoft to curb some of its practices for five years.
It was later extended twice and then expired May 12, 2011. The lawsuit had a dramatic effect on “the emergence of an entirely new field called IP (intellectual property) antitrust,” Iowa law professor Herbert Hovenkamp told the Seattle Times.5
Later, large sums donated from the foundation made the news multiple times, including $9.5 million to GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccines), a second $7.5 million to GAVI and $6.8 million to the World Health Organization in 2017.6
By June 2020, in the middle of a global pandemic, the Gates Foundation’s donations totaled 45% of WHO’s funding from nongovernmental sources.7 Once mainstream media’s attention was no longer on Gates’ antitrust activities and focused on the philanthropist actions of the foundation, Gates publicly turned his attention to vaccinating the world, long before COVID-19.8
Event 201: A Preplanned Pandemic
In a deep dive into the Gates Foundation’s charitable donations, The Nation found there were $250 million in grants to companies where the foundation held corporate stocks, including Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Sanofi and Medtronic. The money was directed at supporting projects “like developing new drugs and health monitoring systems and creating mobile banking services.”9 … continue
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