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Serbia’s EU ascension dead as Brussels demands Belgrade renounce Kosovo and impose sanctions on Russia

By Drago Bosnic | July 7, 2022

The European Union is adamant that it is a “union of equals” and that the “interests and concerns of all of its current and/or prospective members will be taken into consideration”. Within the EU legal system, this is also made crystal clear by Article 4(2) TEU which states that “the Union shall respect the equality of Member States before the Treaties”. Still, the reality is starkly different. On paper, every member state is equally important. However, nobody truly believes that countries like Luxembourg or Malta could ever be as important and powerful as Germany or France. Worse yet, even France has trouble matching German dominance in the EU, to say nothing of other member states, particularly those in Southern and Eastern Europe.

And then there’s Southeast Europe. Current and prospective EU members there are as overlooked and dismissed as they could possibly be. Greece, by far the most important and powerful member in Southeast Europe is held in perpetual debt enslavement, while Bulgaria and Romania are virtually without sovereignty. And last, the so-called “Western Balkans” or former Yugoslavia (and Albania). This region’s EU perspective is questionable, at best. However, not so much thanks to the region itself. It is the bureaucratic empire that has treated the region as an outright colony, the one it created by destroying the relatively prosperous (and sovereign) Yugoslavia, instead creating half a dozen neo-colonies with little in terms of actual historical heritage and identity, a practice better known as the so-called “nation-building”, which is an expertise of the US and NATO.

The only exception to this is Serbia, the original founding state and by far the most important member of former Yugoslavia. Currently a semi-sovereign state, Serbia has been through a lot in recent decades, particularly since 1991, when the political West placed the country under a decade-long siege, destroying and dismantling Yugoslavia, while doing everything possible to expand the territorial scope of everyone else in the region, at the expense of ethnic Serbs, who have been expelled from nearly all regions of former Yugoslavia. The EU itself was (and still is) instrumental in this, together with the US. To achieve this, the political West has bombed Serbs 3 times in less than a decade, starting with the Republic of Serbian Krajina (1994-1995), Republika Srpska (1994-1995) and Serbia itself (1999).

It was catastrophic for Serbs, with tens of thousands killed, nearly a million refugees being forced out of their millennia-old ancestral lands and the ensuing economic and social devastation, the result of which was decades of stagnation. However, the EU and the US weren’t done with destroying the country. Even this much smaller Serbia was “too big” and “too sovereign” for the political West, so they decided to dismantle it further, causing Montenegro to secede in 2006, as well as supporting the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo (2008), a historically Serbian province with an engineered Albanian majority. Since then, 22 out of 27 EU member states have recognized the narco-terrorist entity. Brussels has tried to convince others to do so as well.

Formally, the EU never set Kosovo recognition as a condition for EU membership, although it did imply it many times since. However, on July 6, the EU crossed that line as well, when the European Parliament adopted the Resolution on Serbia, which “expresses support” for Serbia’s membership in the EU, but conditions the ascension with “urgent compliance” with the EU sanctions against Russia and Belarus, as well as the recognition of Kosovo as an independent state. These two requirements are now set as mandatory for further ascension talks. Top EU bureaucrat for Serbia Vladimir Bilcik emphasized Brussels expects Serbia to fully comply.

“That is why it is important that Serbia moves towards the EU, and not to any other side,” said Bilcik.

The European Parliament also “expressed regret” that five EU member states have not yet recognized the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo and are again invited to do so. While Serbia was criticized for not sanctioning Russia and Belarus, the narco-terrorist neocolonial entity in occupied Kosovo was praised by the European Parliament for aligning with the European Union’s position on sanctions against Russia and Belarus.

Naturally, these terms are absolutely unacceptable to Serbia and can be considered indecent, to say the least. Neither Russia nor Belarus have ever done anything wrong to Serbia. On the contrary, both countries have been adamantly supporting Serbia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and continue to do so. Historically, Serbia has been supported by Russia for centuries. Without the involvement of the Eurasian giant, it’s highly unlikely Serbia would’ve ever gotten its independence, let alone survived numerous brutal invasions and genocides coming from the political West in the last 100 years.

Turning against Russia for the sake of becoming a full colony of a centuries-old enemy could only be described as a mindless stab in the back which no government in Serbia would be able to survive, as it would be tantamount to political suicide. Thus, this resolution by the European Parliament means that Serbia’s EU ascension is effectively dead. Considering that the majority of Serbs don’t want to become part of the EU anyway, all they themselves could say is good riddance.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

July 7, 2022 Posted by | Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Every third Dutch farm to be closed down or expropriated!

Free West Media | July 6, 2022

CO 2 hysteria was so yesterday. In the Netherlands there’s now a nitrogen alarm. Ironically, at a time when the specter of food shortages and hunger is looming, the “Green Deal” of the all-powerful, misanthropic EU has prompted Commissioner Frans Timmermans to demand that ten percent of agricultural land be set aside across Europe.

In order to help this madness prevail, a Dutch “nitrogen problem” has been invented. On this basis, they want to force the livestock farmers – who are named as the main culprits – to give up their businesses. The Dutch “Minister for the Environment and Nitrogen”, Christianne van der Wal, announced that 30 percent of livestock farmers would have to give up their farms. Those affected now have the choice to give up their farms voluntarily and leave, or to pledge never to practice their profession again – only then would they be compensated. Those who do not comply face expropriation by the state. The aim is to reduce nitrogen emissions by up to 95 percent by 2030.

The Netherlands is the world’s fifth-largest exporter of food, exceeded only by the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and China, according to World Bank statistics.

So for at least a third of farmers it is a matter of survival. No wonder, then, that the protest is huge. For weeks, the angry farmers have been blocking roads and marching in front of government buildings to make their displeasure visible. Among other things, the access roads to some supermarkets were blocked. It was also announced that the access roads to the international airport in Amsterdam would be closed.

A few days ago farmers broke through a police barrier with their tractors and sprayed the minister’s house with liquid manure – symbolically the right thing to do because nitrogen is a building block for biological life on earth, the most abundant element in the atmosphere. It needs carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, lightning and bacteria, to provide “reactive” nitrogen. Fertilizer is just the workaround. Unbelievably, the Rutte government is targeting the manure people!

The mainstream media tried to sweep the issue under the carpet as tens of thousands of farmers took to the streets for days to demonstrate against EU regulations and government plans that would ruin Dutch agriculture. The police announced tougher action against the demonstrators, which, however, will probably only result in further escalation.

In Stroe alone, 30,000 farmers from all over the Netherlands came together to demonstrate against the government’s plans. In concrete terms, these plans stipulate that nitrogen emissions must be greatly reduced following a ruling by the highest court. In natural areas, the value is to be reduced by 12 to 95 percent, depending on the area category. According to government figures, this could mean the end for about a third of Dutch livestock farms, but it is much higher, farmers say.

The police meanwhile speak of a “threatening and unacceptable situation”. According to polls, about 45 percent of the Dutch population back the protests. In October, it was still 38 percent.

Shooting at protesters

The police fired shots at a farmers’ protest in Heerenveen on Tuesday evening. According to Facebook group Verzet Friesland, 16-year-old Jouke was shot at by police as he drove off with his tractor.

“The media are shouting that he drove into them, but it is very clear on camera that that was not the case. He just wanted to drive home.” Police opened fired on Jouke. Fortunately he was not injured, but the bullet missed him by two centimetres.

“The photos that are circulating show that the bullet(s) hit the cab of the tractor and missed Jouke by a hair. There was no shooting at tyres or in the air. It is by sheer luck that the police and the ministry responsible do not have a fatality on their conscience,” said lawyer Sietske Bergsma. Dozens of farmers tell the same story of police brutality.

Dutch anti-globalists are praying that this protest be the straw that break the Rutte camel’s back.

July 6, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

EU economies are down on their knees

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JULY 5, 2022

On July 1 at the White House, US President Joe Biden made a startling disclosure that “the idea we’re going to be able to click a switch, bring down the cost of gasoline, is not likely in the near term.” 

American gas exporters have positioned themselves accordingly to fill the gap as Europe turns away from Russian imports. FT reported recently that “US liquefied natural gas producers have announced a string of deals to boost exports as the industry capitalises on shortages that have left Europe with a mounting energy crisis.” 

The deals are so lucrative that Cheniere, America’s leading gas exporter, has taken an investment decision to push ahead with a project that will boost its capacity more than 20 per cent by late 2025, anticipating long-term supply deals and locked in purchases of US gas over the coming decades. The US producers of gas are reportedly running plants flat-out to increase supplies to the EU. 

The US has overtaken Russia for the first time as Europe’s top gas supplier. Although LNG from the US is sold to Europe at much higher costs than pipeline gas from Russia, EU countries have no choice. 

With Russian supply via Nord Stream at just 40% of capacity, and deliveries to be halted completely for annual maintenance on July 11-21, the outlook for near-term Russian gas supply to Europe appears bleak. 

Germany has warned of the risk that Nord Stream gas may not return at all following the maintenance. At any rate, Russian supply to Europe is at record lows and is “set to remain constrained through the third quarter,” per S&P Global.

Germany is heading for a major economic crisis. The head of the German Federation of Trade Unions has been quoted as saying in the weekend, “Entire industries are in danger of collapsing forever because of the gas bottlenecks — especially, chemicals, glass-making, and aluminium industries, which are major suppliers to key automotive sector.” Massive unemployment is likely. When Germany sneezes, of course, Europe catches cold — not only the Eurozone but even post-Brexit Britain. 

Welcome to the European Union’s “sanctions from hell.” The US literally hustled the Europeans into the Ukraine crisis. How many times did Secretary of State Antony Blinken travel to Europe in those critical months in the run-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine to ensure that the door to any meaningful talks with the Kremlin remained shut! And American energy companies are today making windfall profits selling gas to Europeans. Won’t Europeans have the common intelligence to realise they have been had? 

Now, Biden has washed his hands of the gas crisis. He brusquely stated at a press conference in Madrid on June 30 that such premium on oil prices will continue “as long as it takes, so Russia cannot, in fact, defeat Ukraine and move beyond Ukraine. This is a critical, critical position for the world. Here we are. Why do we have NATO?” 

Biden’s counterfactual narrative is that the sanctions against Russia are going to work eventually and a long war in Ukraine would be Russia’s undoing. The US narrative is that if you look under the hood of the Russian economy, it may not be flexible and resourceful enough to develop an entrepreneurial bunker spirit and adopt new business models to neutralise the sanctions. Biden is convinced that the Russian economy is in the grip of industrial mafias that are not very innovative and, therefore, there aren’t many options for Russia under the western sanctions. 

Biden said in Madrid: “Look at the impact that the war on Ukraine has had on Russia… They’ve (Russians) lost 15 years of the gains they made in terms of their economy…  They can’t even — you know, they’re having — they’re going to have trouble maintaining oil production because they don’t have the technology to do it. They need American technology. And they’re also in a simi- — similar situation in terms of their weapons systems and some of their military systems. So they’re paying a very, very heavy price for this.” 

But even if that’s the case, how does all that help the Europeans? On the other hand, President Putin’s strategic calculations with respect to the war remain very much on track. Russian forces made indisputable progress in establishing full control over Luhansk. On Monday, Putin gave the green signal to a proposal from the army commanders to launch “offensive operations.” Five months into the war, Ukrainians are staring at defeat and Russian army generals know it.

Russia didn’t wander into Ukraine unprepared, either. Evidently, it took precautionary steps both before and since the war to shield its economy. And this enables the Russian economy to settle down to a “new normal”. Washington’s options are quite limited under the circumstances. Fundamentally, western sanctions do not address the causes of the Russian behaviour, and therefore, they are doomed to fail to solve the problem at hand. 

To be sure, Putin has some nasty surprises in store for Biden closer to the November mid-term elections. Biden blithely assumes that he controls all the variables in the situation. Schadenfreude is never a rational basis for statecraft. 

Yesterday, the strategically important Kherson region bordering Crimea formed a new government with the First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia’s Kaliningrad region heading the cabinet and Russian nationals among his deputies. Now that HIMARS multiple launch rocket system, contrary to Biden’s promise, is blasting Russian cities, expect some major Russian retaliation. 

The pathway of Russia’s offensive operations is being relaid to include Kharkov and Odessa as well, apart from Donbass. The influential Kremlin politician and chairman of Duma Vyacheslav Volodin said on Tuesday. 

“Some people are asking what our goal is and when all this will end. It will end when our peaceful cities and towns no longer come under shelling attacks. What they are doing is forcing our troops not to stop on the borders of the Lugansk and Donetsk republics (Donbass) because strikes (on Russian regions) are coming from the Kharkov regions and other regions of Ukraine.”

How long does Biden think the Europeans will want to be involved in a protracted proxy war with Russia? Bild reported on Sunday that 75% of German respondents see recent price hikes as a heavy burden, while 50% said they feel their economic conditions are worsening; every second German fears a lack of heating this coming winter due to reduced Russian gas supplies and rising inflation in the European Union. 

Yet, Biden says war will go on “for as long as it takes” and fuel shortage will continue “for as long as it takes.” The European economy is expected to start contracting over the course of the second half of 2022 and the recession may continue until the summer of 2023 at least. 

Analysts at JP Morgan Chase, the US investment bank, said last week that Russia could also cause “stratospheric” oil price increases if it used output cuts to retaliate. It said, “The tightness of the global oil market is on Russia’s side.” Analysts wrote that prices could more than triple to $380 a barrel if Russia cut production by 5m barrels a day.

Putin’s decree last week is ominous — the Kremlin taking full control of the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project in Russia’s Far East. State-owned Gazprom held a 50% plus one share stake in the project and its foreign partners included Shell (27.5%), Mitsui (12.5%), and Mitsubishi (10%). The decree stipulates that Gazprom will keep its majority stake, but foreign investors must ask the Russian government for a stake in the newly created firm within one month or be dispossessed. The government will decide whether to approve any request. 

This will unsettle energy markets further and put more strain on the LNG market, and can be seen as a move to put more pressure on the West by concurrently restricting gas supplies to Europe and creating more demand for LNG in Asia that will draw off supplies currently going to Europe. Sakhalin-2 supplies circa 4% of the global LNG market! 

The only part of the US agenda that is going well seems to be the unspoken part of it: the very same Anglo-American objectives that Lord Ismay once predicted as the rationale behind the NATO’s existence —”to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”  

July 5, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Russia Remains Committed to Ending ‘War Against Journalists’ – Lavrov

Samizdat – 04.07.2022

Moscow is interested in ending the “war against journalists” started by the West, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

“We did not start this war against journalists, we are interested in ending it, but I do not see how the West can stop its outrages, because it has gone too far, it cannot stop now without losing face,” Lavrov said during a joint press-conference with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Carlos Rafael Faria Tortosa.

According to Lavrov, “persecution” of Russian journalists abroad began long ago and recalled that Moscow had warned that a reciprocal response would follow.
“We honestly warned that we would respond reciprocally to the gross violations of the commitments that the West has undertaken,” Lavrov said.

The situation with Russian media in the West has become increasingly tense in recent years. In November 2016, the European Union adopted a resolution stating the need to counter Russian media, with Sputnik and RT regarded as main threats. Western politicians, including US lawmakers and French President Emmanuel Macron, have accused the two news agencies of interfering in elections in the United States and France, albeit without providing any evidence to substantiate the claims. Russian officials have denied such statements as unfounded.

On March 2, the European Union suspended the broadcasting of several Russian media outlets as part of the sanctions against Russia for its military operation in Ukraine. RT, Sputnik and their subsidiaries came under the ban. The TikTok and Instagram* accounts of these Russian outlets have ceased functioning in the EU.

*Instagram is banned in Russia over extremist activities.

July 4, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

The Dutch Farmers’ Protest and the War on Food

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | July 2, 2022

This week, tens of thousands of farmers have gathered from all across the Netherlands to protest government policies which will reduce the number of livestock in the country by up to a third.

In a typical example of media weasel-wording, the press reports on this all headline something like “Dutch farmers protest emissions targets”, but this is a massive lie by omission.

The government policy being protested is a 25 BILLION Euro investment in “reducing levels of nitrogen pollution” true, but it plans to achieve this by (among other things) “paying some Dutch livestock farmers to relocate or exit the industry”.

In real terms, this ultimately means reducing the number of pigs, chickens and cows by about thirty per cent.

That’s what is being protested here – a deliberate shrinking of the farming sector, impacting the livelihood of thousands of farmers, and the food supply of literally hundreds of millions of people.

THE BIG PICTURE

While the scheme is allegedly about limiting nitrogen and ammonia emissions from urine and manure it’s hard not to see this in the broader context of the ongoing created food crisis.

The Netherlands produces a massive food surplus and is one of the largest exporters of meat in the world and THE largest in Europe. Reducing its output by a third could have huge implications for the global food supply, especially in Western Europe.

Perhaps more troubling is how this could act as a precedent.

This isn’t the first “pay farmers not to farm” scheme launched in the last year – both the UK and US have put such schemes in place – but a government paying to reduce it’s own meat production? That is a first.

That it is (allegedly) being done to “protect the environment” makes it a big warning sign for the future. Denmark, Belgium and Germany are already considering similar policies.

The Western world seems to be enthusiastically embracing quasi-suicidal policies.

I mean, paying farmers to reduce the amount of food they produce… while (notionally) threatened with war… in the midst of a recession… facing record inflation as the cost of living spirals.

Does that really make any sense?

That’s almost as crazy as refusing new oil and gas leases while the cost of petrol is going up.

Indeed, in a world beset by a shortage of fertiliser due to sanctions against Russia and Belarus, it would seem almost mad to complain about a manure surplus, let alone try to reduce it.

We’re well past the point where any of this could be considered accidental, aren’t we?

Put it this way – if the collective governments of the Western world were trying to impoverish and starve their own citizens, what exactly would they be doing differently?

July 2, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , , , | Leave a comment

Sanctions can be perceived as casus belli – Medvedev

Samizdat – June 30, 2022

Unilateral sanctions can be perceived as an “act of international aggression” and invoke Russia’s right to self-defense, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has warned.

Speaking at the 10th International legal forum in Saint Petersburg, Medvedev blasted the “cynical practice of unilateral restrictive measures against Russia, the illegality of which has been repeatedly emphasized at all levels.”

This practice is “somewhat akin to a declaration of economic war, as our opponents themselves say,” he added.

“Under certain circumstances, such hostile steps can be perceived as an act of international aggression. And even as a casus belli. In response to them, the state has the right to individual and collective self-defense.”

However, Moscow still holds “weak hope” that the West will abandon its “vicious practices” and “repent of its own stupidity,” Medvedev stated. “It is our hope that our former Western partners will have the courage to admit their strategic miscalculations, which, according to the UN itself, have affected more than 1.5 billion people and provoked a surge in global inflation, food shortages, and the growth of poverty,” he said.

Should such hopes not materialize, Russia “will live” on its own without the West, the ex-president explained. “Today’s world is not at all limited to the borders of Western countries,” he said.

Over the past few years, Russia has repeatedly been subjected to assorted sanctions by the US and its allies. The sanctions pressure began to grow exponentially after Moscow launched its large-scale military operation in neighboring Ukraine in late February. Since then, Russia has been hit by several waves of restrictions, ultimately becoming the most-sanctioned country in the world.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

June 30, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

EU chief can’t find texts with Pfizer CEO

Samizdat | June 30, 2022

The European Commission said it is unable to locate text messages sent between its president, Ursula von der Leyen, and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla during talks for a massive vaccine deal last year, but denied prior charges of “maladministration” from an EU watchdog.

The commission issued a letter on Wednesday stating that an expanded search for the missing messages had “not yielded any results,” following months of dispute between the EU’s executive body and oversight officials. It argued that due to the “short-lived and ephemeral nature” of texts, they typically “do not contain important information” and are therefore rarely stored.

While von der Leyen revealed in an April 2021 interview that she and Bourla privately communicated for several weeks while negotiating a contract for nearly 2 billion vaccine doses, a journalist’s public information request for the texts was later shot down, with the commission claiming it could not find the messages in question.

The denial triggered a rebuke from the European ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, who followed up with an investigation last year and blasted EU officials over poor administration and a lack of transparency, saying that “no attempt was made to identify if any text messages existed.” The ombudsman then urged the commission to “search again,” asking it to broaden its criteria in a way that might actually locate the records.

The commission doubled down in its latest response to O’Reilly, however, insisting it had handled the matter properly and made every effort to find the texts. It reiterated that it does not register material that contains no “important information,” and that such documents “are not kept, and, as a consequence, are not in the possession of the institution.”

“The European Commission is of the opinion that it has not treated this request in a ‘narrow way’ and that the search and handling of documents for the purpose of public requests for access to documents … is justified and follows the established practice,” it continued.

The body added that it intends to “issue further guidance on modern communication tools” in hopes of avoiding similar mix-ups in the future, but nonetheless held that its actions were “in line with the applicable legislation and the relevant case law on access to documents.”

The office of the ombudsman, which published the commission’s letter on Wednesday, declared that the response was “problematic on several points,” and noted that a “full analysis” of the case would follow in the coming weeks.

The controversy over the missing texts is not the first dispute regarding a lack of transparency in the EU’s vaccine dealings, as the commission was sued in April by several MEPs, who claimed the negotiations were overly secretive. Though contracts were eventually published, they were heavily redacted in a way that “made it impossible to understand the content of the agreements,” the lawmakers alleged, insisting secrecy “has no place in public agreements with pharmaceutical companies.”

June 30, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , | Leave a comment

DUBLIN MEP CLARE DALY DROPPING UKRAINE TRUTH BOMBS INTO THE EU PARLIAMENT

June 20, 2022

MEP CLARE DALY: THE EU´S GOAL IS AN ENDLESS WAR IN UKRAINE

June 26, 2022

June 30, 2022 Posted by | Militarism, Video | , | Leave a comment

France to Extend Vaccine Passport Entry Requirement Until March 2023

BY WILL JONES | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | JUNE 29 2022

France is planning to extend its vaccine passport scheme obliging travellers to present proof of vaccination, proof of recovery or negative test results upon arrival at the borders of France until at least the end of March 2023. Schengen Visa News has more.

A leaked draft law published by the French media Atlantico, the authenticity of which has later been confirmed by the French Ministry of Health, shows that the country is planning to set up a border scheme through which travellers over the age of 12 reaching the territory of France, Corsica and overseas territories would have to show proof they are immune [sic] to COVID-19.

The same document also foresees the extension of the SI-DEP computer files results of screening tests and Contact Covid (infected people and contact cases) until March 31st, next year.

According to the Ministry of Health, the preliminary draft bill “will be the subject of discussions, before its presentation to the Council of Ministers, with the political forces”.

The bill comes at a time when the country is experiencing an increase in the number of cases, with a total of 342,504 new cases registered in the last seven days alone and 270 deaths within the same period, data from the World Health Organisation (WHO) show.

The spike in the number of cases has occurred in spite of the vaccination rates in the country. According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), 80.4% of the French population are vaccinated with at least the first dose, 78.1% with the second dose, and 59.2% with a booster or additional COVID-19 vaccination dose.

The bill comes following a vote in the European Parliament last week to approve an EU Commission proposal to renew the EU Digital Covid Certificate for another year.

The EU countries which, like France, still have COVID-19 travel restrictions are Spain, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal and Slovakia.

Have none of them noticed that vaccination does not prevent infection or transmission? Why are they hobbling their economy and undermining freedom by restricting visitor entry for a policy which has not been shown to achieve any benefit at all?

June 29, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Zelensky demands $5 billion “every month” from NATO, cites security in Europe

Samizdat | June 29, 2022

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged the US-led NATO bloc to ramp up support of his country amid the ongoing conflict with Russia, claiming that Kiev’s defeat would result in a “delayed” war between Moscow and the whole West. Zelensky made the remarks as he addressed the NATO summit in Madrid via a video link on Wednesday.

“It’s either urgent aid to Ukraine sufficient for victory, or a delayed war between Russia and you,” Zelensky told NATO leaders.

The country needs both direct military and financial aid, Zelensky stated, adding that some $5 billion a month was needed to cover its budget deficit. Top Ukrainian officials have repeatedly called upon the West to provide financial support.

“Financial aid for Ukraine has no less significance than arms deliveries,” Zelensky said. “We need some $5 billon every month, you know that. And this is a fundamental thing, needed for defense and protection.”

To help Ukraine now end this war with a victory on the battlefield, that is, to give a really strong response to Russia’s actions – this is what we, and the entire alliance, the whole Euro-Atlantic community need.

Once the conflict is over, Ukraine must be provided with a decent place in the Western security architecture, Zelensky insisted, rejecting the prospect of Ukraine remaining in a “gray zone” between Russia and the NATO bloc. “We need security guarantees, and you must find a place for Ukraine in the common security space,” he stressed.

Russia sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, citing Kiev’s failure to implement the Minsk agreements, designed to give the regions of Donetsk and Lugansk special status within the Ukrainian state. The protocols, brokered by Germany and France, were first signed in 2014. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has since admitted that Kiev’s main goal was to use the ceasefire to buy time and “create powerful armed forces.”

In February 2022, the Kremlin recognized the Donbass republics as independent states and demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join any Western military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked.

June 29, 2022 Posted by | Corruption | , , | Leave a comment

EU Told to Prepare for Economic Hammering, Forget ‘Wildly Optimistic’ Plans to Replace Russian Gas

Samizdat – 29.06.2022

Economists on both sides of the Atlantic have recently urged their respective publics to prepare for a recession, and possibly a stagflationary crisis, amid surging inflation and soaring energy costs exacerbated by Washington and Brussels’ moves aimed at dramatically reducing dependence on Russian oil and gas.

The European Union’s plan to replace Russian gas before the end of the current year isn’t only “wildly optimistic,” but will add to the economic woes the bloc is already facing, London-headquartered macroeconomic forecasting consultancy TS Lombard has predicted.

In a recent report, TS Lombard researcher Christopher Granville calculated that the EU imported roughly 155 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas from Russia in 2021, with all of Brussels’ proposed measures to replace it – including diversification of gas sources, heating efficiency measures, solar rooftops, biomethane, etc. account for the equivalent of about 102 bcm of gas, leaving about a third of supplies unaccounted for.

“Apart from implementation timings of commissioning German LNG-receiving terminals, Russia is also an important supplier of LNG, underlining the challenge for Europe of sourcing adequate LNG supplies,” Granville wrote.

Amid EU efforts to source gas from alternative suppliers, including the US, Qatar and Azerbaijan, Granville’s report warned that the EU will be made to “pay more on average for its [non-Russian] oil and gas than its peers. Asian countries will buy more Russian oil at discounted prices… LNG imported by Europe from the US will cost [much] more than the price paid by US consumers owing to transit and liquefication/re-gasification costs.”

Russian officials and European energy company officials have estimated that Russian pipeline gas flowing to Europe has been 40 and 50 percent cheaper than American LNG, and less expensive than all other alternatives, owing to the shorter transit distances, larger volumes, and competitive pricing.

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that Moscow’s “Western colleagues” had “forgotten” the elementary laws of economics by trying to cut themselves off from Russian energy, predicting that the decision would turn Europe into the region with the highest energy costs in the world. This would undermine the EU’s competitiveness vis-à-vis other agglomerations, he said.

“Obviously, together with Russian energy resources, economic activity will also be leaving Europe for other regions of the world. Such an economic suicide is of course the internal affair of European countries. We must proceed pragmatically and primarily from our own economic interests,” Putin said.

Russian natural gas exports to Europe have declined precipitously in recent months as EU bloc countries search for alternatives. The drop accelerated earlier this month after Russian gas giant Gazprom indicated that it would be forced to reduce flows to Europe by up to 60 percent due to problems with the repair and maintenance of German-sourced turbines pumping gas through the Nord Stream 1 network. Germany and Denmark activated emergency measures as supplies dropped. Brussels accused Moscow of artificially throttling exports, with the European commission calling the emergency measures “blackmail.”

Takahide Kiuchi, an economist at the Tokyo-based Nomura Research Institute economic consultancy, warned in a research note Tuesday that if the crisis surrounding the Nord Stream 1 shortfall escalates, Brussels could add gas to the list of other Russian energy supplies that have been banned or semi-banned. This, he predicted, would push the Eurozone into a “sharp slowdown,” and plunge Germany into a recession.

June 29, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Kremlin: Russia’s offensive to end as soon as Ukraine forces lay down weapons

Press TV – June 28, 2022

The Kremlin says Russia will halt its months-long military offensive in neighboring Ukraine as soon as Ukrainian forces surrender.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday that hostilities in Ukraine could end “before the end of today” if Kiev orders the nationalists to lay down their weapons and Moscow’s demands are met.

“The Ukrainian side can end all this before the end of today; an order is necessary for the nationalist units to lay down their weapons, an order is necessary for the Ukrainian military to lay down their weapons; and they must fulfill all Russia’s demands. Then everything will be over before the day ends,” Peskov said.

“Everything else are just speculations of the Ukrainian head of state,” he added. “We are guided by the statements of our President Vladimir Putin that the special military operation is going according to plan and achieving its goals.”

Asked whether the Russian side had any approximate timeframe for the end of the offensive in Ukraine, the Kremlin spokesman responded in the negative.

Peskov made the comment while reacting to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s remark that he would like to end the hostilities before the end of the year.

Zelensky urged world powers on Monday to do their utmost to help end Russia’s offensive before the cold season, also saying that the time was not ripe for holding talks with Russia as Kiev was seeking to consolidate its positions.

In a statement on Monday, the Group of Seven (G7) countries expressed full support for Ukraine in the conflict with Russia, pledging to further tighten sanctions on Moscow.

Addressing G7 leaders at their summit in the Bavarian Alps via video link, the Ukrainian president called for arms supplies and air defenses to gain the upper hand in the conflict.

Since the start of Russia’s military strikes on February 24, the US and its Western allies have been imposing sanctions against Moscow. More than four months after the Kremlin launched its offensive against Ukraine, Russian troops have taken control of nearly the entire Donbass region, focusing their military attention on northeastern Ukraine.

In a separate development on Tuesday, G7 leaders in a statement denounced Russia’s offensive as “illegal and unjustifiable.”

“We, the leaders of the Group of Seven … were joined by the leaders of Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal and South Africa, as well as Ukraine,” they said in their draft final statement. “We re-emphasize our condemnation of Russia’s illegal and unjustifiable war of aggression against Ukraine.”

The G7 leaders also agreed to explore imposing a ban on transporting Russian oil that had been sold above a certain price, ramping up pressure on Moscow over the soaring global inflation and energy shortages fueled by the country’s offensive in Ukraine.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said an oil price cap would ratchet up the existing Western pressure on Russia, stressing that the sanctions would stay until Moscow accepted failure in Ukraine.

“There is only one way out: for Putin to accept that his plans in Ukraine will not succeed,” Scholz told a closing news conference at the three-day G7 summit, adding that the aim of the ban was to tie financial services, insurance, and the shipping of oil cargoes to a price ceiling. “We invite all like-minded countries to consider joining us in our actions.”

The International Energy Agency announced in its June monthly report that the revenues from Russian oil export had soared in May even as volumes had fallen.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Russian gas giant Gazprom could seek to change the terms of its delivery contracts if Western governments implemented a price cap on Russian gas.

June 28, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

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