Moscow is set for a showdown with Western judges and 1990s Russian oligarchs, over a new ruling enabling the country to refuse to pay what is considered to be the biggest legal settlement in history, over a collapsed oil empire.
The Constitutional Court, one of Russia’s highest judicial authorities, ruled on Friday that the decision of an international tribunal in the long-running dispute over the now-dissolved energy giant Yukos is incompatible with Russian law. The case has been heard by a court in The Hague, which claims jurisdiction under the terms of the Energy Charter Treaty, and awarded the company’s former shareholders a $50-billion payout from the Russian government earlier this year. Moscow claimed a win in November on the other side of the Atlantic, when a US court, which had been hearing the case simultaneously, decided to throw it out.
However, as Russia signed but never ratified the Treaty, which hands powers to international tribunals, the Constitutional Court has now determined it is not bound by the terms of The Hague judgement. The ruling states that, while the country’s government of the day began the process of signing up to the pact in 1994, they did not have the authority to make national laws inferior to international agreements, or to “challenge the competence” of Russian courts. Therefore, the jurists conclude, adhering to the Dutch court’s demands would be “unconstitutional.”
The claimants in the case are oligarchs who lost cash when Yukos, once among Europe’s largest firms, collapsed. They say that a multi-billion dollar tax bill and the arrest of its CEO and founder, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, on fraud charges amounted to state ‘appropriation’ of its assets. However, Russian authorities insist that the shareholders cannot be considered “legitimate,” and that the Dutch judges had steamrolled over the country’s laws against corruption and fraud when ruling in their favour.
As far back as July 2014, The Hague ordered Moscow to cough up $50 billion to compensate the plaintiffs. After exhausting the appeals process in February this year, Russia’s lawyers asked the Dutch Supreme Court to consider the case and overrule the decision. However, at the start of December, it similarly backed the oligarchs.
Russia has insisted that the judgements are “politically motivated,” and in December the country’s Justice Minister, Konstantin Chuychenko, told journalists that the case was part of a “legal war that has been declared on Russia.” He added that “Russia must adequately defend itself and, sometimes, even attack back.”
Now standing at around $50 billion, around the same ballpark as Russia’s annual military budget, the colossal settlement is thought to be the largest award in history. If the country now rejects the bill, it would spark one of the most serious impasses in international legal history, and leave Western states deciding whether to respect Russia’s constitutional ruling, or to enforce the demands by confiscating assets.
Yukos’ former shareholders have already sought to have Western governments take control of Russian property overseas as an insurance policy in case Moscow refuses to pay up. However, in November, a judge in the simultaneous hearing in the US refused that request, saying that “the Russian Federation is a sovereign country with economic tendrils that cross the globe, not an insecure potential debtor that must be required to post security lest there be no assets to seize at a later date.”
Not all countries have taken the same approach, however, and in 2015 Russia’s diplomats slammed France and Belgium for confiscating state cash in overseas banks, and even buildings, to be held as collateral in the case. Moscow again rejected the court’s authority and said their move was “an openly hostile act.” Tim Osborne, a British lawyer representing the former shareholders, said at the time that such seizures were necessary because Russia “has no regard for international law or the rule of law.”
At its height, Yukos produced 20 per cent of Russia’s oil, placing it firmly among the ranks of the world’s most valuable enterprises. It had been formed by the privatization of former state assets after the fall of the Soviet Union, with Khodorkovsky acquiring the assets for a fraction of their worth at an auction that one economist, Andrey Illarionov, called “the swindle of the century.”
Khodorkovsky claims his arrest on fraud charges and the subsequent collapse of Yukos was tied to his political activism and his personal animosity towards Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin, however, claims that the oligarch, once said to be Russia’s wealthiest man, had admitted his guilt to him privately in exchange for a pardon in 2013.
Khodorkovsky insists that he has renounced any claims to his former empire and that, should a settlement be reached in the Yukos case, he would not stand to benefit. However, Russian authorities are said to suspect that a number of claimants have close financial ties to the former oil magnate.
December 27, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics, Russophobia | European Union, Russia |
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Early on December 10, Jean-Bernard Fourtillan, a French retired university professor known for his strong opposition to COVID-19 vaccines such as those presently being distributed in the U.K., was taken from his temporary home in the south of France by a team of “gendarmes” — French law enforcement officers under military command — and forcibly placed in solitary confinement at the psychiatric hospital of Uzès. His mobile phones were taken from him, and at the time of writing, he had not been allowed to communicate with the outside world. The order for his internment appears to have been issued by the local “préfet,” the official representative of the French executive.
The systematic use of psychiatric hospitals in order to silence or punish political opponents became widespread under communism, having started shortly after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917. The method developed under Stalin and then expanded as opposition to the “socialist paradise” came to be considered a sign of mental illness. Under the 1966 penal code of the USSR, repression of dissidents openly targeted those who “spread false propaganda defaming the Soviet State and its social system.”
Fourtillan, a longtime critic of vaccines that use dangerous adjuvants such as aluminum (the 11 compulsory vaccines for newborns in France contain 17 times the maximum dose of aluminum defined as toxic by the World Health Organization), has been vocal during the COVID-19 crisis. He offers “alternative” explanations and warnings regarding the apparition of the SARS-COV-2 virus and the ARN vaccines that work by injecting pieces of virus message ARN with nanolipids with the aim of causing human cells to start fabricating viral particles and to thus trigger an immunological reaction.
In particular, Fourtillan has accused the French Institut Pasteur, a private non-profit foundation that specializes in biology, micro-organisms, contagious diseases, and vaccination, of having “fabricated” the SARS-COV-2 virus over several decades and been a party to its “escape” from the Wuhan P4 lab — unbeknownst to the lab’s Chinese authorities — which was built following an agreement between France and China signed in 2004.
Relations between France and China regarding the project cooled over the years as China put its own interests first, but in 2017, France’s then–Interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, joined the official opening ceremony of the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s P4 lab, together with Yves Lévy, co-president of the steering committee. Lévy is the husband of Agnès Buzyn, who was France’s health minister when the COVID-19 crisis erupted. She was also responsible for signing the decree that banned over-the-counter sales of hydroxychloroquine in France in January 2020.
Is Jean-Bernard Fourtillan’s accusation true? While the Institut Pasteur has verbally announced that it would sue Fourtillan over the accusation, no judiciary action has been forthcoming on that front, and indeed, Fourtillan himself has since lodged a complaint against a spokesman of the Institute for “libel and lies that are prejudicial to the peoples of the world.”
Fourtillan himself has said he hopes legal proceedings will allow him to produce evidence he has built up: he is in fact anxious to debate the issues at stake. Now that he is in a psychiatric hospital, the possibility of this happening — in the interest of discovering the truth — is becoming more remote.
Among the public documents Fourtillan has analyzed and made public are patents for SARS-COV-1, which contains parts of the malaria virus, dating back to 2003. The patents were used by various labs to develop vaccines. Two thousand eleven saw the Institut Pasteur filing a further patent application for “SARS-COV-2,” which was identical to the previous one, according to Fourtillan, who says this was done because commercial exploitation of the first patent started in 2003 and would expire 20 years later, in 2023. According to Fourtillan, four sequences of the HIV virus — responsible for AIDS — were added to the virus, in view of creating further vaccines.
This point was also raised in France last April by Prof. Luc Montagnier, who won the 2008 Nobel Prize for medicine for having discovered HIV in 1983 together with another French scientist, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi. Last April, Montagnier stated that the SARS-COV-2 virus was the result of a human manipulation. He was ridiculed by the mainstream media, but in August, an Italian microbiologist reached the same conclusion: Prof. Joseph Tritto published a book calling the Wuhan virus a “chimera.”
Montagnier, who had worked with a mathematician, described his findings through an analogy. Imagine the coronavirus as a “puzzle” with 30,000 pieces, and then consider several other 9,000-piece puzzles representing HIV-1, HIV-2, and SIV (another retrovirus close to the AIDS virus but targeting monkeys). If three pieces coming from each one of these smaller puzzles were to be found next to each other in the 30,000-piece puzzle, the probability of this having happened naturally would be nil. This is analogous to the presence of parts of the HIV sequence in SARS-COV-2, according to Montagnier.
According to Fourtillan, the present virus causing COVID-19 is this artificial virus. Fourtillan — as well as other researchers of the present crisis — considers this indisputable evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic was planned. He believes that on October 13, 2015, a patent application was filed for a COVID-19 test; this was followed by commercialization in the whole world in 2017 for a whopping 10 billion dollars.
These claims are disputed on the grounds that the reference to the 2015 patent is only part of the later May 2020 patent, also filed by one Richard A. Rothschild, but was quoted as related to the remote diagnosis of COVID-19, enhancing the original patent as it were for the particular case of COVID-19.
Who is right? A sincere, public assessment and debate would lift any confusion or error, voluntary or not, but Fourtillan is now being treated as if he were both dangerous and insane.
Fourtillan gained widespread publicity when a recent film by Pierre Barnérias, giving a voice to critics of the official narrative, became viral in France. In Hold-Up, Fourtillan spoke of his concern that the COVID-19 crisis was fabricated and is being used to impose a dangerous vaccine on the world population.
Fourtillan is himself familiar with patenting procedures, as his résumé shows, having personally filed some 400 patents in the medical field. The French internet medium France Soir described him as follows: “Jean-Bernard FOURTILLAN, Ph.D., Chemical Engineer, Pharmacist, Hospital Pharmacist, Professor of Therapeutic Chemistry and Pharmacokinetics at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacology of the University of Poitiers, Expert Pharmacologist Toxicologist, specialized in Pharmacokinetics.”
Fourtillan’s forced internment made no mention of the COVID-19 controversy, which to date has led to no judicial proceedings, instead being officially linked to a lawsuit that has been opened against him for illegal practice of medicine because of his work on a hormonal patch against neuro-degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, and others affecting motricity, balance, and memory, as well as sleep disorders.
His theory is that pollution, adjuvants such as aluminum in vaccines, and electro-magnetic interference destroy dark matter in the brain through lack of hormones, and he has — successfully, he claims — tested the administration of a hormone patch of valentonin and 6-Méthoxy-Harmalan (sleep and waking hormones), to compensate the damage, on 402 adults, himself included, who accepted the procedure under their sole responsibility and who were warned that the patch was not a drug, but a “technical sample, not for human use.” The procedure costs only a fraction of the price of newly developed drugs for these conditions.
Fourtillan had had a good rapport with the judge charged with the preliminary investigation of the case, Brigitte Jolivet of Poitiers. During his first interrogations at the end of 2019, she appeared to be convinced by his arguments, and the case was proceeding normally.
Last month, Fourtillan, who was staying in the south of France with his wife, was visited by four gendarmes coming from Marseille, who entered his rented cottage and asked for his computers. Although they had no search warrant, Fourtillan handed them over, saying he had nothing to hide, and that on the contrary, he was anxious to have his documents and methods assessed.
He saw the gendarmes leave and hand over his computers to a man in plain clothes in a car nearby.
Days later, his bank accounts and credit cards were suddenly blocked by an authority whose identity was not revealed to him. His pensions were also blocked.
Fourtillan had been summoned to a hearing in the lawsuit concerning his valentonin “treatment” on December 4 in Paris. He did not go, invoking the fact that he now had no way of paying for a train ticket to the French capital.
This information was given to LifeSite by a person who works with Fourtillan on the website http://verite-covid19.com/ and who knows him well — well enough to state that he “is certainly not insane,” having spent time with him recently.
Six days later, on Thursday morning, gendarmes once more came to Fourtillan’s home and asked him to accompany them in order to answer questions about his refusal to join the December 4 hearing in Paris.
Fourtillan agreed readily.
However, from the moment he left his home with the law enforcement officers, he was not able to communicate with his family. One of his lawyers, Marc Fribourg — who has since gone on record saying that Fourtillan is a “conspiracy theorist” — revealed that he was taken to the Uzès psychiatric hospital of Le Mas Careiron, where he has been held since. His other lawyer, who previously commended Fourtillan for the efficiency of his hormonal patches, was not reachable today.
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December 18, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties | Covid-19, European Union, France |
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By Paul Antonopoulos | December 17, 2020
The scandalous refusal of the members of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Željko Komšić and Šefik Džaferović, to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday, indicates what the Republika Srpska has been warning about for years is correct – that BiH is dysfunctional and it is impossible to cooperate with Sarajevo. Their move could also be linked to murmurings in Washington about intentions to destroy the Dayton Agreement that created BiH in 1995. BiH was established as two entities – the mostly Bosnian Muslim-Croatian Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Serbian-dominated Republika Srpska.
It is not the first time that Bosnian Muslim and Croat representatives have changed their minds before an event or meeting. At the beginning of the Bosnian War, Alija Izetbegović, who in 1992 became the first president of the Presidency of the newly independent BiH, withdrew from the Carrington–Cutileiro peace plan on the same day he met U.S. ambassador to Yugoslavia, Warren Zimmermann, in Sarajevo. Zimmermann denies instructing Izetbegović to withdraw from the 1992 Carrington–Cutileiro peace plan, but it is not hard to connect the dots. Because of Izetbegović’s withdrawal from the peace plan, the Bosnian War violently waged on until December 1995.
Sarajevo maintains a policy of constantly toying with agreements to create diplomatic scandals. However, despite the Bosnian Muslims and Croats continually undermining the unity of BiH by opposing the Republika Sprska, Džaferović and Komšić created perhaps their biggest scandal yet by refusing to meet with Lavrov with an undiplomatic excuse that he did not respect BiH institutions – without providing examples. Instead of holding an already scheduled meeting with him, they decided to hold their own press conference at the same time the Russian Foreign Minister spoke with the third member of the Presidency, the Republika Srpaska’s Milorad Dodik.
“With respect to the Russian Federation as a big and powerful country, we will not agree to become a Russian pawn in the Balkans in their games and conflicts with EU or NATO member countries. We expect them to understand and support this,” Komšić said.
It is possible that the Bosnian Muslim and Croat in the Presidency of BiH misunderstood a short statement from the transitional cabinet of U.S. President-Elect Joe Biden about how the work in Dayton is not finished.
Lavrov, as an extremely experienced diplomat, did not violate any protocol and did everything according to international norms and standards. The obvious problem is that Sarajevo does not want dialogue with Moscow. The Bosnian Muslim and Croat representatives could have taken advantage of the Serbs in BiH, who have a historical, ethnic and religious connection with Russia, to benefit all BiH citizens. Instead they decided to create a scandal and once again divide the country along ethnic and religious lines.
The visit of a foreign minister from a larger and influential country is an opportunity for each country to try and explain their views and improve understanding and relations with each other. If such an opportunity is rejected, it sends a negative message, not only because of the lack of desire to improve relations for mutually beneficial cooperation, but also because it fosters suspicions and tensions.
Komšić’s and Džaferović’s refusal to meet with Lavrov is an irresponsible political decision considering Moscow has always had a principled attitude towards BiH, especially as Moscow is one of the guarantors of the Dayton Agreement. Their decision to snub Lavrov is a reflection of their own frustrations against the Dayton Agreement because Bosnian Muslims are not satisfied with it. This is because they have always had the goal of supremacy and domination over all of BiH, while simultaneously sidelining the Serbs. They continually attempt to disempower the Dayton Agreement in order to achieve their goal through a belief that a better functioning system can be achieved through a centralized Bosnian Muslim dominated state that would gain supremacy over not only the Serbs, but also the Croats, who for now are just enjoying an alliance of necessity with Bosnian Muslims.
Lavrov did not comment on the boycott at a media conference and the Russian Foreign Ministry posted a photo of the meeting without mentioning that the other two presidency members were not present. Publicly, Moscow is showing that this is an unimportant issue. However, within the Kremlin, it is likely decisionmakers are contemplating what to make of this snub and how to react at an appropriate time.
The Russian diplomat’s visit to BiH coincided with the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Dayton peace agreement, which although left BiH as an example of why artificial states like BiH result in failure, it did end the bloodshed that Izetbegović instigated for many years by withdrawing from the Carrington–Cutileiro peace plan in March 1992.
Lavrov emphasized on Monday, the other day before his visit to BiH, that the Dayton agreement must not be changed, referring to comments by Western diplomats, Bosnian politicians and Washington that it needs to be changed.
“I would like to say that any attempt to demolish [the Dayton agreement] can cause the most serious risks and consequences,” Lavrov said.
By snubbing the Russian Foreign Minister, it appears that Komšić and Džaferović are attempting to demolish the Dayton agreement so that Bosnian Muslims and Croats can achieve more power in BiH at the expense of the Republika Srpska.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
December 17, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | Bosnia and Herzegovina, European Union, NATO |
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New data out this week indicates that the European Union has suffered aggregate economic losses amounting to over €120 billion due to its policy of imposing sanctions against Russia. That’s according to figures released by the Dusseldorf Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Yet European leaders at an EU summit this week again called for the extension of sanctions on Russia, which will roll on into the middle of next year and probably beyond that date. This lockstep action by the bloc is only leading to more tensions with Russia and taking a political direction to nowhere except more conflict. Those EU sanctions were first imposed in July 2014 over dubious allegations of Russia’s malign involvement in the Ukrainian conflict. Moscow has rightfully reciprocated with counter-sanctions on European exports of agriculture and other goods.
The German Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimates that the entire stand-off has hit EU economies with losses of €21 billion every year. The biggest loser is Germany’s economy which forfeits nearly €5.5 billion a year in bilateral trade with Russia.
Accumulated over six years since 2014 the EU’s sanctions policy against Russia has resulted in a staggering total loss of over €120 billion. And counting.
To put that figure into some perspective, it would be comparable to the combined annual military budgets of Europe’s three biggest economies: Germany, Britain and France.
Or to put it another way, this week the European leaders agreed on a landmark stimulus package worth €1.8 trillion for the 27-member bloc to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. The economic loss to the EU from sanctions on Russia is of the order of 10 per cent of that record stimulus effort.
It is therefore mind-shuddering why the European Union persists in inflicting such untold damage to its own economy through its policy towards Russia.
The EU claims that sanctions are being extended because of the lack of progress in peace negotiations over the Ukraine crisis. Brussels is seeking to blame Moscow for that ongoing frozen conflict, oblivious to the fact that Russia is not a party to the conflict. It is a member of the so-called Normandy Format overseeing the Minsk Peace Accord signed in 2015. Germany and France are also members of the Normandy group. The group has not met since one year ago. So, why is Russia being singled out as the sole responsible for lack of progress in settling the Ukraine conflict?
Secondly, the Ukraine crisis was instigated by a coup d’état against the elected President, Viktor Yanukovych, in February 2014. The coup was orchestrated by the United States and European allies, which ushered in an ultranationalist regime in Kiev with disturbing links to Neo-Nazi factions. Hostility towards Russian-speaking communities in the Ukraine then led to the Crimean referendum in March 2014 appealing for reunification with Russia. It is simply preposterous and cynical for the European Union to blame Russia for subsequent turmoil when the EU is itself directly complicit in fomenting the crisis.
In any case, rigidly applying sanctions is counterproductive to a diplomatic solution. Mutual dialogue is precluded by a policy of recrimination and scapegoating.
The EU sanctions policy is self-defeating and suffused with contradictions. It imposes measures against Russia with seeming insouciance about the huge damage being done to EU businesses, workers and farmers, and it does this without any clear justification. Yet this week EU leaders led by Germany refused to impose sectoral sanctions against Turkey in spite of repeated calls by EU members Greece and Cyprus for such measures as a means of defending their territorial integrity from Turkey’s aggressive gas exploration in the East Mediterranean. So here we have EU members protesting against threats to their sovereignty from Turkey; yet the EU leaders show little resolve to defend the bloc’s external southern borders by taking a tough sanctions line towards Ankara.
There is evidently a strange double-think when one compares the EU’s gung-ho attitude towards Russia over a matter in Ukraine which is not even part of the EU and a matter that is highly contested in terms of the allegations being made against Russia.
How to explain such an irrational, anti-Russia policy by the European Union?
One has to conclude that the EU is slavishly following a policy determined by the United States. The US has imposed its own bilateral sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine, as well as many other equally dubious claims, such as alleged electoral interference. The Europeans are thus deferring to Washington’s foreign policy of hostility towards Moscow, even though the economic losses felt by the Americans are negligible compared with those of Europe due to the latter’s geographic proximity and traditionally much greater trading relations with its continental neighbor.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted this week that the European Union’s policy is “centered on the United States”. Lavrov lamented that the EU under current leadership shows no sign of acting independently from Washington. In effect, the European bloc is a vassal under American tutelage.
Ironically, the antagonism towards Russia from the West is due to Russia’s demonstrative independence.
Says Lavrov in a separate interview: “The West’s awareness that Russia is an independent power has had a cumulative effect. Russia will always prioritize its national interests. It is always ready to harmonize them candidly and equitably with the national interests of any other countries based on international law, but it will never be under someone’s thumb.”
The Russian top diplomat added: “The desire to score propaganda points has dominated the West’s foreign policy for a long time, while overlooking the essence of the problems that need a solution in the interests of the peoples of the respective regions.”
A psychiatrist might opine that European self-harming, irrational antagonism towards Russia – while constantly appeasing an American bully – is a form of self-loathing. The EU’s political class resent Russia because the latter is a constant reminder of the independence and integrity that they are so abjectly deficient in.
December 14, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Russophobia | European Union, Germany |
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The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is authorized to only monitor and verify Iran’s voluntary measures in accordance with the 2015 nuclear agreement, says the Iranian permanent representative to Vienna-based international organizations, stressing that the agency has no right to assess the Iranian nuclear work.
“@iaeaorg sole role is to monitor and verify the voluntary nuclear-related measures as detailed in the JCPOA and to provide regular updates in this regard,” Kazem Gharibabadi said in a post on his Twitter account on Friday, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Any assessment or analysis is out of the IAEA’s mandate, he said.
The Iranian diplomat’s tweet came in response to remarks made by the IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi, who told Sky News that Iran should not follow through on threats to increase uranium enrichment and throw out inspectors.
In the wake of the assassination of top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in late November, the UN nuclear agency chief warned against any further escalation after lawmakers at Iran’s Parliament overwhelmingly endorsed the outlines of a strategic action plan which aims to counteract sanctions imposed on the Iranian nation and safeguard its interests.
“If implemented,” Grossi told Sky News, “these measures would be an even further deviation from the commitments that Iran entered into when it joined the agreement.
On December 1, 251 out of 260 Iranian lawmakers present at the Parliament voted ‘yes’ to the outlines of the draft bill, which will require the Iranian administration to suspend more commitments under the JCPOA.
The plan, among other things, requires the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) to produce at least 120 kg of 20-percent enriched uranium annually and store it inside the country within two months after the adoption of the law.
It also urges the AEOI to start the installation, gas injection, enrichment and storage of nuclear materials up to an appropriate enrichment degree within a period of three months using at least 1,000 IR-2m centrifuges.
France, Germany and Britain, the three European signatories to the JCPOA, said on December 7 that they are worried by the Iranian plan to install additional, advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges at Natanz nuclear facility.
“Iran’s recent announcement to the IAEA that it intends to install an additional three cascades of advanced centrifuges at the Fuel Enrichment Plant in Natanz is contrary to the JCPOA and deeply worrying,” the three governments, dubbed the E3, claimed.
US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled Washington out of the JCPOA in May 2018, and unleashed the “toughest ever” sanctions against the Islamic Republic in defiance of global criticism.
Since the much-criticized exit, Washington has been attempting to prevent the remaining signatories – Britain, France, China and Russia plus Germany – from abiding by their commitments and thus kill the historic agreement, which is widely viewed as a fruit of international diplomacy.
Iran remained fully compliant with the JCPOA for an entire year, waiting for the co-signatories to fulfill their end of the bargain by offsetting the impacts of American bans on the Iranian economy.
But as the European parties failed to do so, the Islamic Republic moved in May 2019 to suspend its JCPOA commitments under Articles 26 and 36 of the deal that cover Tehran’s legal rights.
December 11, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Wars for Israel | European Union, Iran, UK, United States |
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The long-waited “European Democracy Action Plan” has finally been unveiled, but its proposal to sanction alleged purveyors of so-called “disinformation” is extremely worrisome because people (including EU citizens) might have their fundamental rights and freedoms violated if they’re punished for publishing and/or sharing content that’s been arbitrarily flagged as such, and the Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency’s ambiguity about whether this will be imposed against publicly financed Russian international media outlets like RT and Sputnik risks the possibility that their EU employees might be sanctioned for their professional affiliations too.
The EDAP’s Supposed Principles
The “European Democracy Action Plan” (EDAP) has just been unveiled, but instead of reassuring everyone about the bloc’s commitment to human rights in its fight against so-called “disinformation”, it dangerously risks violating them by proposing that alleged purveyors of such arbitrarily flagged information products be sanctioned. The document starts off innocuously enough by explaining the need to “promote free and fair elections and democratic participation; support free and independent media; and counter disinformation”, all of which it’s claimed will be done “in full respect of the fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the Treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as in national and international human rights rules.” Regarding the aforementioned Charter, they note how “media freedom and media pluralism” are “enshrined” in it. The EDAP also condemns the fact that “Smear campaigns are frequent and overall intimidation and politically motivated interference have become commonplace” when describing the threats to journalists’ safety, some of which they note are “even initiated by political actors, in Europe and beyond”, which “can lead to self-censorship and reduce the space for public debate on important issues.”
The Definition Of “Disinformation”
This makes it all the more surprising that the EDAP later goes on to propose sanctions against those who repeatedly spread “disinformation”, which they define as “false or misleading content that is spread with an intention to deceive or secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm”. Although they promise that this will be done “in full respect of fundamental rights and freedoms”, no transparent mechanism is suggested for explaining how they determine the offending individual’s intent for sharing supposed “disinformation”, nor is there any mention of an appeals process for those who are unfairly targeted for the same political reasons that the EDAP’s authors earlier condemned. The document notes that the experiences of the European External Action Service’s (EEAS) East Stratcom Task Force (which, while not mentioned in the text, is the combined foreign and defense ministry of the EU that also runs the defamatory “EU vs. Disinformation” portal which regards any non-mainstream “politically incorrect” viewpoint as Russian and/or Chinese “disinformation”) will play a role in this process, which is extremely disturbing because of how politically motivated that structure’s determinations are.
A Dystopian Task Force For Stifling Free Speech
The EEAS East Stratcom Task Force actually represents everything that the EDAP earlier said that it’s against. To channel the document’s own words, “Smear campaigns are frequent and overall intimidation and politically motivated interference have become commonplace” as evidenced by their hit piece in December 2019 against me personally and occasional “debunking” of OneWorld’s factually sourced analyses (which are personal interpretations of the facts and not representative of a “chain of command from the Kremlin” like they libelously wrote without any evidence whatsoever other than circumstantial speculation). Their labeling of the site as “being a new edition to the pantheon of Moscow-based disinformation outlets” proves that they’ve arbitrarily concluded that the intent of its authors such as myself is to spread “disinformation”, which the EDAP defines as “false or misleading content that is spread with an intention to deceive or secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm”. I never had any such intent since the purpose in sharing my analyses is solely to stimulate “debate on important public issues”, which is a personal mission statement that’s actually in accordance with what the EDAP purportedly says that it wants to protect.
“EU vs. Disinformation” Or “EU + Disinformation”?
From my experience being defamed by the EEAS East Stratcom Task Force’s “EU vs. Disinformation” project, I have no confidence in its capabilities to make independent and accurate determinations but rather suspect that it’s a political instrument wielded by the EU’s foreign and defense ministries to intimidate those who share “politically incorrect” interpretations of “important public issues”. The EDAP says that its anti-disinformation proposals “do not seek to and cannot interfere with people’s right to express opinions or to restrict access to legal content or limit procedural safeguards including access to judicial remedy.” Nevertheless, my right to express my opinion is being infringed upon after my work was defamed as “disinformation” (importantly without anyone from that platform ever making an attempt to contact me beforehand even on Twitter despite them referring to my account there and thus being aware of it prior to the publication of their hit piece), and I have no access to “judicial remedy” after what they’ve done. Based on what the EDAP proposes pertaining to sanctions against alleged purveyors of “disinformation”, OneWorld, its media partners, myself, and/or the other contributors including those who are EU citizens might possibly have such costs unfairly imposed upon them.
Cracking Down On EU Citizens
Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova ominously told the US government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) “in an interview to coincide” with Thursday’s release of the EDAP that “sanctions will should [sic] follow the EU’s cybersanction regime, which was used for the first time this year to freeze assets and introduce visa bans on offenders — primarily Russian, Chinese, and North Korean citizens and companies — that have attacked the bloc.” Just as disturbing was that “she didn’t want to specify at the moment (whether Russian media companies such as RT and Sputnik can be targeted in the future), but added that ‘it can be governmental or nongovernmental actors, whoever will be identified, using very good evidence, that they are systematic producers or promoters of disinformation.’” This confirms what I feared when I read the EDAP, namely that individuals employed by those two companies (including EU citizens among them), as well as people such as myself dangerously defamed by the EEAS East Stratcom’s Task Force and others for allegedly being part of a Russian state “disinformation” conspiracy, might one day wake up to find themselves sanctioned by the EU.
EDAP’s Ambiguities Must Be Immediately Addressed
In order to sincerely abide by its stated principles to respect people’s freedoms, the EDAP must be amended to remove any ambiguities which could allow for the sanctioning of individual people, especially those who might even be EU citizens. After all, its “EU vs. Disinformation” “watchdog” functions more as a politically driven attack dog as proven by my personal experience of having been defamed by them (made all the more incriminating on their part because no attempt was made to contact me for comment on the same Twitter account that they wrote about in their hit piece before publishing it). Everyone has the right to freely express their views even if they’re “politically incorrect”, and it’s practically impossible for a nebulous structure representing the entire bloc’s foreign and defense ministry to confidently determine someone’s “intention to deceive or secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm” whenever they publish, share, or tag someone under such arbitrarily flagged information products. Nobody can be confident in the EU’s ability to combat legitimate instances of “disinformation” when that defamatory label is casually thrown around with reckless abandon without considering the life-changing consequences that it could have for the victims like myself.
Media Literacy Is The Solution To “Disinformation”
The EDAP had it right near the end of the document when it proposed improving everyone’s media literacy like I earlier suggested over the summer after being victimized by a different defamation attack. Instead of violating people’s rights and especially those who might be EU citizens, the bloc should prioritize media literacy in order to cultivate a well-informed populace capable of arriving at their own conclusions about the various information products that they encounter. Falsely labeling something “disinformation” just because a government superbureaucracy like the EEAS can’t tolerate the fact that someone is peacefully sharing a dissident political opinion in line with their UN-enshrined human right to do so seriously discredits the bloc as a whole and raises questions about its stated intentions. Jourova herself said in a speech on the day that the EDAP was unveiled that “We do not want to create a ministry of truth. Freedom of speech is essential and I will not support any solution that undermines it”, yet that very same document that she was promoting does exactly that when it comes to my and others’ freedom of speech, especially those who are EU citizens whether casually involved in what’s wrongly described as “disinformation” or employees of foreign media companies.
Concluding Thoughts
Sanctions are never the solution to combating so-called “disinformation”, media literacy is, as the former is akin to the same state intimidation that the EDAP purports to be against while the latter is proof of confidence in people’s capabilities to independently arrive at their own conclusions. Only a “ministry of truth” would dare to sanction people, including its own citizens (however that would work out in practice despite potentially being illegal under the EU’s own laws since its people’s assets and freedom of movement can’t be seized/restricted without court order), for exercising their freedom of speech by sharing “politically incorrect” interpretations (analyses) of the facts. Quite hypocritically, some in the EU claim that Russia is a “dictatorship”, yet Moscow hasn’t threatened to sanction foreign media outlets, foreign commentators, and even its own citizens through asset seizures and/or travel restrictions for sharing views that contradict the Kremlin’s. In fact, judging by the EDAP itself and Jourova’s ominous hints in her interview with RFE/RL, it can be said that the EU will be much less democratic than Russia if it goes through with its “disinformation” sanctions proposal, thus turning the bloc into a modern-day Soviet Union when it comes suppressing freedom of speech and peaceful dissent.
December 6, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | European Union, Human rights |
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Just weeks after finishing a two and a half year prison sentence for “Holocaust denial,” 92-year-old Ursula Haverbeck has been convicted again by German courts, this time for an interview she gave in 2018 that affirmed her view that Jews were not systematically killed during World War II and that the gas chambers at Auschwitz are a politically motivated lie.
If the federal court’s sentence of one year in Haverbeck’s newest case holds up, Germany will have the dubious distinction of imprisoning the oldest female inmate in the world, a title previously held by American Lucille Keppen, who was incarcerated for shooting her neighbor and was released at age 93.
The German government has been dragging Haverbeck to court for decades for disputing Jewish claims of gas chambers and systematic murder. Haverbeck has famously protested the kangaroo courts that humiliate and defame elderly war veterans using bogus testimony from “survivors.”
Numerous high-ranking Third Reich officials, soldiers and concentration camp workers have disputed the Holocaust narrative since 1945, including Wehrmacht officer Otto Ernst Remer, Auschwitz employee Thies Christophersen, Erich Priebke, Leon Degrelle, and SS soldier Karl Muenter, the latter who died before his “Holocaust denial” trial began at the age of 96.
Haverbeck’s late husband, Werner Georg Haverbeck, was an influential NSDAP member who himself objected to the blood libel against the German people known as die Auschwitz luge (the Auschwitz lie).
The BRD’s legal system has been ruthless with Haverbeck. The nonagenarian, who is a prisoner of conscience, was denied release after serving 2/3 of her prison sentence as is customary in Germany. While the state freed 1,000 offenders early due to COVID last March, Haverbeck was only let out in mid-November.
There is no sign of shame or human rights concerns in the country, with the judge in the latest case stressing that Haverbeck will continue to be punished until she learns to keep her mouth shut. One can only imagine the outcry from liberal NGOs if Iran, China or Russia imprisoned an elderly woman just for questioning the government’s line.
Haverbeck’s powerful spirit has become an inspiration for patriots in Germany and around the world. In 2019, she ran as a European parliamentary candidate from behind bars and received 25,000 votes, which was highly upsetting to the European media establishment. Every year on her birthday, hundreds of Germans rallied outside her detention center demanding her release.
Intellectuals and activists across Europe, the Americas and Japan have expressed dismay over her mistreatment and the lack of freedom in the land that claims to be a “democracy.” At JVA Bielefeld, where Haverbeck was housed, prison officials struggled to process the avalanche of letters and flowers their famous prisoner received throughout her sentence.
For Germany’s oldest prisoner, it’s clear that she will not cower before the wrath of the Jewish groups directing careerist bureaucrats. It’s in the German state’s reputational interest to stop tormenting Haverbeck, yet the West’s religious fear of debate over what occurred during the Second World War continues to take precedent over all other concerns.
December 5, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | European Union, Germany, Human rights |
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Serbian Ambassador to Montenegro, Vladimir Božović, was declared a persona non grata last week and was asked to leave the country. The Montenegrin Foreign Ministry justified its reasoning because of Serbia’s alleged “long and continuous meddling in the internal affairs of Montenegro.” They also claimed that the Serbian ambassador “directly disrespected” their country by highlighting that the 1918 decision for Montenegro to join the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was “liberation” and occurred because of the “free will” of the Montenegrin people.
Montenegro is politically split between those wanting to maintain closer ties with traditional allies like Serbia and Russia, and those who want Montenegro to become a liberal democracy modelled on the West. However, for those hoping to turn Montenegro into a Western-style liberal democracy, they place their hope in President Milo Đukanović. The Montenegrin President since 1991 has held leadership positions in an authoritarian manner, either as prime minister or president. Đukanović is alleged to have strong links to the mafia, was described in 2010 as “mysteriously wealthy” for being one of the world’s richest leaders, and engages in corrupt practises like smuggling, organized crime, and privatizing state assets like the Prva Banka for the benefit of his family.
However, Đukanović’s stranglehold over Montenegro is weakening. The 2020 Parliamentary elections saw an opposition coalition comprising of pro-Serbian, left-wing and right-wing political parties, specifically For The Future Of Montenegro, Peace Is Our Nation, and the United Reform Action Party, win 41 of the 81 seats in the Montenegrin Parliament. The ruling Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro (DPS) and the Liberal Party won 30 seats, officially becoming the opposition after thirty years in power. On Wednesday the new government was elected by 41 out of 81 members of the Montenegrin Parliament.
With the scandalous decision to expel Božović, motivated by the weakening of Đukanović’s political power, the outgoing Montenegrin government unsuccessfully tried to profit politically by provoking artificial tensions with Serbia before the formation of a new government. They were counting on the re-grouping of nationalist forces to back Đukanović’s DPS, an unsuccessful gamble.
Decisionmakers in the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica also made a second gamble. They expected the EU not to interfere in their issue with Serbia and thought Brussels would only silently observe the instability. They were proven wrong as a minor spat between the EU and Montenegro occurred this week. Montenegrin media, which is strongly aligned with Đukanović, got into a polemic with European Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi. They criticized him for not supporting the expulsion of the Serbian ambassador. The EU has no interest in supporting unnecessary hostility towards Belgrade, especially at a time when Brussels is attempting to become the main player in Kosovo and when Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is becoming increasingly friendly towards the EU and NATO.
Serbia’s Foreign Ministry immediately announced its response to the expulsion of Božović. Montenegrin Ambassador Tarzan Milošević was asked to leave Serbia within 72 hours. Although the ambassador was given 72 hours to leave, Várhelyi welcomed Belgrade’s near immediate decision change on expelling him. On Twitter he said:
“I welcome the Serbian Government’s decision to withdraw expelling the Montenegrin ambassador. I call on Montenegro to do the same. Respect for good neighbourly relations and regional cooperation are cornerstones of EU enlargement, and Association and Stabilisation Process.”
Although Belgrade withdrew its demand, European institutions no longer have an understanding for the policies of the Montenegrin authorities. It is extremely uncommon in diplomatic practice for a government that was defeated in recent elections to make such important state decisions during the transition period. At this moment, there is no logic for the EU to unreasonably support hostility against Serbia, especially from a country like Montenegro that is in an advanced stage of EU accession.
Brussels is likely aware that Serbia has the greatest potential out of all the former Yugoslav countries. Any quarrelsome tone directed against Belgrade, which is not related to the Kosovo issue, does not serve EU interests. This is especially important because Podgorica has already announced that they will ignore Várhelyi’s call to withdraw the decision to expel the Serbian ambassador.
Such a mindless action by Montenegrin authorities was accompanied by reactions from the political and media establishment in the country. All of them vehemently demanded that Várhelyi learn about historical events from the beginning of the last century, and that on the basis of such interpretations it can be understood why the Montenegrin kleptocracy makes extreme moves against Serbia.
European representatives do not want to engage in any interpretations of Montenegrin history. Instead, the EU sent an explicit message against the provocative actions by Montenegrin authorities – the interest of the EU in the Balkans is stability. Another important message was sent to Đukanović as well – his anti-Serbian policies have been overcome and he cannot seek his political survival through Serbophobia.
The formation of a new government dealt a major blow to Đukanović’s dominance over Montenegro, and could pave the way for his final ousting from Montenegrin politics in the next presidential election. Although he and his faction expected silence or acceptance from the EU for provoking Serbia in reaction to losing the parliamentary elections, it could be suggested that Brussels’ patience with Đukanović’s authoritarianism, corruption and regional provocations is beginning to end.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
December 4, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Aletho News | European Union, Montenegro, Serbia |
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Landmark legal case would seek to make EU nations “do what scientists say is necessary”
The European Court of Human Rights is prepping to hear a civil case brought against the governments of 33 European nations by six teenage “climate activists.”
The six youth activists are allegedly crowd-funding the campaign, but also have the backing of the Global Legal Action Network NGO. Though the six teenagers are all Portuguese, the case is being brought against thirty-three different nations simultaneously – all 27 EU members, the UK, Russia, Norway, Turkey, Ukraine and Switzerland.
To defend themselves the 33 countries will be asked to explain how their “lack of action” on climate change doesn’t equate to a violation of the human rights of their citizens. If they lose, the countries in question will be legally forced to “take greater action” on climate, or face penalties for missing lower carbon emissions goals etc.
One of the kids, 12-year-old André Oliveira, is quoted in The Guardian as saying [our emphasis]:
It gives me lots of hope to know that the judges in the European court of human rights recognise the urgency of our case. But what I’d like the most would be for European governments to immediately do what the scientists say is necessary to protect our future. Until they do this, we will keep on fighting with more determination than ever.”
The story itself is nonsense of course. Twelve-year-olds do not talk like that. Plus the case originated over 3 years ago, when young André was only nine.
Nine-year-old boys do not see footage of forest fires on the news and decide to sue the European Union. Even if the thought did occur to them, they wouldn’t have the resources, knowledge or wherewithal to actually do anything about it. Not without some pretty all-encompassing adult supervision.
This whole story has the Greta-like whiff of adults using children to mask their agenda. It’s unsavoury, but that’s not really the worst part. The worst part is what this case is aiming to achieve.
Consider the precedents being set here. As the Guardian rightly points out, the ECHR is a standard-setting body, even if the final judgment in this particular case is largely ignored, or considered simply symbolic, it will still sit on the books as a precedent in several ways.
Firstly, there’s the precedent of over-ruling democracy. The governments of these 33 nations were all elected, they (notionally) answer to their electorate, not the EHRC. It’s one thing to prosecute a nation or head of state for actually committing a crime, but bringing a civil case to dictate policy is quite another.
Secondly, there’s the question of state sovereignty. All of the plaintiffs are Portuguese, yet the case is seeking to alter the policy of 32 other nation-states as well. Neither these six Portuguese children, their British lawyers or the Strasbourg-based courts have the right to tell Hungary or Norway or Turkey how to run their country, certainly not when it involves going against the democratic will of the people.
Finally, there’s the tell-tale quote from young André – bolded above.
what I’d like the most would be for European governments to immediately do what the scientists say is necessary”
Granted these are just the words of a child, but he almost certainly was reading something an adult had written. And it’s definitely the aim of the exercise. A government which has policy dictated by what scientists say is necessary.
NOT what is democratically mandated. NOT what is legally permitted. Not even what is morally correct.
What the scientists say is necessary.
Anybody paying attention to the way the world is being run in the wake of the Covid19 “pandemic” should find those words at least a little chilling.
November 30, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | European Union |
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The West’s favorite Russian opposition figure has called for the EU to sanction pro-Kremlin ‘oligarchs’. Alexey Navalny doesn’t appear to be against all ‘oligarchs’ though, just those he feels are supportive of Vladimir Putin.
In a European Parliament hearing last week, the activist argued that the Russian people would welcome punishing the ‘kleptocracy’ that he says has thrived under Putin.
The anti-corruption campaigner was speaking to members of the EU’s Committee of Foreign Affairs during an “exchange of views with representatives of the Russian political opposition.” Despite the title, no members of Russia’s largest opposition parties – the nationalist LDPR, communist KPRF or leftist Fair Russia – were present at the virtual discussion. Instead only pro-Western figures, with almost uniformly similar liberal views, were involved in the event.
They included Vladimir Kara Murza Jr., a lobbyist at the US-government funded Free Russia Foundation, set up to “inform” American policy makers on the country; Vladimir Milov, a former deputy minister of energy, now closely allied to Navalny; and Ilya Yashin, a municipal deputy of the Krasnoselsky district of Moscow. Yashin is the only one of the four who actually holds an elected position.
To be clear, the issue of how many Russian billionaires acquired and spent their wealth is one worth debating, yet this attempt to place Navalny on the side of the Russian people and Putin among a criminal class is simply absurd, given the history.
Putin and the oligarchs
The rise of the 1990s oligarchs is commonly referred to as a “criminal revolution” in Russia. The US-sponsored shock therapy in the post-Soviet period produced disaster privatization where the huge natural resources wealth of Russia ended up in the pockets of a handful of incredibly rich men.
The US was motivated to ensure the legacy of the Soviet Union was permanently dismantled. But the great irony is that extreme socio-economic disparity was the main reason for the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.
The oligarchs seized control over the economy and incrementally asserted dominance over the media and the political system. Capital flight became an immense problem as the oligarchs transferred the wealth to their new residencies in the West rather than investing the money at home. Soon, this became a national security threat as the oligarchs were courted by the US and UK, which meant that Russia was heading toward a quasi-colonial status.
When Putin came to power, he announced that the primary task was to eliminate the oligarchic class. However, seizing all their assets and redistributing it was deemed too revolutionary, extreme and destabilizing. Instead, Putin argued the oligarchs would be held accountable for their crimes in the 1990s if they did not rescind their influence over politics.
Subsequently, oligarchs supporting the elected government were left alone, while the oligarchs seeking to become an alternative pole of political power were held accountable for their crimes in the 1990s. Russia’s richest oligarch with political aspirations, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was arrested in 2003 before he could sell a major share of his oil empire to ExxonMobil and Chevron-Texaco. Western powers dutifully provided eventual exile and protection for defiant oligarchs such as Berezovsky and Gusinsky who were valued for their anti-Kremlin stance.
The US and UK were outraged that “their” Russian oligarchs were pushed out of politics, while a large portion of the Russian people was upset that all oligarchs had not been held accountable, given Russia continues to have a great wealth disparity.
Poverty reduced by half during Putin’s first term alone and a large middle class emerged. Credited for bringing Russia up from its knees and escaping external control, Putin has ever since enjoyed approval ratings that other world leaders can only dream about. However, the West never acknowledged that Putin had prevented Russia’s collapse and instead began demonizing the Russian president as an enemy of the Russian people.
Supporting the Russian people?
The notion that Navalny and the EU will collectively support the Russian people is very flawed. In 1917, Germany brought Lenin into Russia to install a more favorable government that would pull the Russians out of the First World War. Germany’s top army commander reported to its Foreign Office that: “Lenin’s entry into Russia was a success. He is working according to your wishes.”
Indeed, the effort to “liberate” another people from their political leadership has remained the modus operandi for almost every disastrous war in the post-Cold War era.
In Russia, the regime change endeavour is an even more absurd proposition as Putin is extremely popular, while the main opposition is the communists, led by Gennady Zyuganov, and behind them the radically nationalist LDPR, under Vladimir Zhirinovsky, another veteran. Navalny is polling at between one and three percent in Russia, while in the West he is hailed as the face of Russia’s opposition.
Former CIA Director John Brennan wrote in October 2020: “Imagine prospects for world peace, prosperity, & security if Joe Biden were President of the United States & Alexei Navalny the President of Russia. We’ll soon be halfway there.” The eagerness to present Navalny as an “opposition leader,” rather than an activist, suggests he is expected to play the same role as the oligarchs that were courted in the 1990s to advance Western interests.
Sanctions?
Sanctions against Russian billionaires in Europe could be beneficial to Russia by reversing some of the capital flight and having their money invested back home. Indeed, the West should have worked with the Russian government to clean up the disastrous privatization process of the 1990s instead of courting proxies.
However, the collective interest of Navalny and the EU is to reinvent their role as supporting the Russian people, while recasting Putin as the protector of the oligarchs. However, the enduring economic sanctions against Russia have only cemented the view of the EU as a belligerent power. Navalny’s reliance on backing from hostile foreign powers, in the absence of significant domestic support, is not a winning strategy.
Furthermore, after it was revealed that the Magnitsky sanctions were based on fallacies and after the Russiagate conspiracy theory collapsed, it would be foolish to advance more sanctions under the preposterous narrative of Navalny’s poisoning.
The West does not have a Putin problem, but a Russia problem
The West tends to promote and anticipate the downfall of Putin with great optimism due to the expectation of a more “pro-Western” alternative akin to Yeltsin. However, the 1990s were a horrific period in Russian history. The much-neglected reality is that the main opposition parties, the communists and the nationalists, advocate much more hawkish policies toward the West than Putin.
Over twenty years ago, Yeltsin tasked Putin with reforming the state’s foreign policy because the entire “pro-Western” platform collapsed when the West decided to create a new Europe without Russia, and cooperation between the West and Russia was recast in a teacher-student format. So what segment of Russian society is the EU reaching out to and does “pro-Western” imply capitulation?
Which demographic of Russians support the containment policies, NATO and EU expansionism toward Russian borders, and again being relegated to a plaything of the West?
Without an answer to these questions, the efforts by the EU to elevate new “opposition leaders” in Russia will be dismissed by most Russians as an effort to weaken Russia and return their nation to the Western vassal it was in the 1990s.
Glenn Diesen is an Associate Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal. Follow him on Twitter @glenndiesen
November 30, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Russophobia | European Union, Russia, UK, United States |
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By Paul Antonopoulos | November 30, 2020
Trade agreements between the UK and Turkey are “very close,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said during a visit to Britain in July. London’s endeavour to secure post-Brexit trade agreements reflects on the status of its economic relations with Turkey. A UK-Turkey trade agreement is important for both countries, not only commercially, but also geopolitically as it can extend into the Ukraine against Russia, particularly in the Black Sea.
The trade agreement is crucial because the EU’s relationship with Turkey and the UK have deteriorated. Brussels and Ankara clash over the erosion of democratic controls and balances in Turkey, and also because of its increasingly dynamic foreign policy in Libya and the Eastern Mediterranean against Greece and Cyprus. Turkey’s relationship with the U.S. has also intensified, especially since Ankara bought the Russian S-400 missile defense system despite opposition from Washington and NATO. With it appearing imminent that Joe Biden will become the next U.S. President, relations between Washington and Ankara are set to deteriorate further.
This makes the UK one of Turkey’s few remaining friends in the West, and for Ankara a trade deal would signal a close economic and political relationship with a major European power that still wields international influence. For its part, the UK was willing to cultivate a good relationship with Ankara in the context of a “Global Britain” that it wants to build after Brexit.
When it was still a member of the EU, the UK was one of the leading supporters of Turkey’s membership into the bloc. London has also taken a much more discreet stance than other European capitals in condemning President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for the deteriorating domestic situation. When Turkey launched a military operation in Syria in 2019, the UK was initially reluctant to condemn Ankara unlike other NATO members, just like what happened when Turkey intervened in Libya.
It was always inevitable that a post-Brexit UK would have strengthened relations with Turkey, especially as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson often boasts that his paternal great-grandfather, Ali Kemal, was a former Ottoman Minister of the Interior.
Johnson describes the Gülen movement, once allied to Erdoğan but now considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, as a “cult.” He also supports Turkey’s post-coup purges that resulted in the detainment of over half a million Turkish citizens, not only from the military, but also from education, media, politics and many other sectors.
It appears that Johnson’s post-Brexit “Global Britain” has Turkey as a lynchpin for its renewed international engagement with the world, and this poses immense security risks for Russia, especially in the Black Sea.
Erdoğan was outraged when Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suspended arms shipments to Turkey because of its involvement in Azerbaijan’s war against Armenia. This was a major blow to the TB2 Bayraktar drones that are highly valued by Erdoğan as he uses them in his military adventures in not only Libya, Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh, but also in the Aegean in espionage acts against so-called NATO ally Greece. He has even set up a drone base in occupied northern Cyprus to oversee the Eastern Mediterranean.
The so-called “domestically produced” Bayraktar drones have been exposed for using parts from nine foreign companies, including a Canadian one. Although Erdoğan was outraged by Trudeau’s decision, he found a British company to replace Canadian parts. Britain’s decision to be involved in the Bayraktar drone program is all the more controversial considering five of the nine foreign companies involved have withdrawn their support because of Turkey’s role in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Although the growing unofficial alliance for now appears to be in the fields of economics and military technology, alarming reports are emerging that British troops will be stationed in Ukraine’s Mykolaiv Port on the Black Sea.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the BBC that if British troops “land there and stay, we will not mind either. From the first day of the Russian aggression, Britain has been close and provided practical support, and not only militarily.”
Post-Brexit Britain will not weaken its maximum pressure against Russia, and rather it appears to be increasing its campaign. Britain, as a non-Arctic country, is attempting to bully its way into Arctic geopolitics by undermining Russian dominance in the region. However, Britain’s campaign of maximum pressure creates instability on Russia’s vast frontiers, including in Ukraine and the Black Sea.
With this we can see an informal tripartite alliance emerge between the UK, Turkey and Ukraine.
Kiev has formed a venture with Ankara to produce 48 Turkish Bayraktar drones in Ukraine. This also comes as Ukraine’s Ukrspetsexport and Turkey’s Baykar Makina established the Black Sea Shield in 2019 to develop drones, engine technologies, and guided munitions. In fact, Turkey will allow Ukraine to sell Bayraktar drones it produces, which will now contain British parts after several foreign companies withdrew from the drone program. It is not known whether Bayraktar drones can currently be produced because of the mass withdrawal of foreign companies, but we can expect Ukrainian and British companies to eventually fill the voids left behind.
Both Turkey and Ukraine cannot challenge Russian dominance in the Black Sea alone, and it is in their hope that by closely aligning and cooperating that they can tip the balance in their favor, especially if Britain will have a military presence in Mykolaiv Port. Ukraine still does not recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea, Britain maintains sanctions against Moscow because of the reunification, and Turkey continually alleges that Russia mistreats the Crimean Tatars.
Erdoğan uses Turkish minorities, whether they be in Syria, Greece or Cyprus, to justify interventions and/or involvement in other countries internal affairs. Erdoğan is now using the Tatar minority to force himself into the Crimean issue while simultaneously helping Ukraine arm itself militarily. With Turkish diplomatic and technological support, alongside British diplomatic, technological and perhaps limited military support, Ukraine might be emboldened to engage in a campaign against Crimea or disrupt Russian trade in the Black Sea.
It certainly appears that an informal tripartite alliance is emerging between the UK, Turkey and Ukraine, and it is aimed against Russia in the Black Sea to end the status quo and insert their own security structure in the region on their own terms.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
November 30, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Economics | Canada, European Union, Libya, Turkey, UK, Ukraine |
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An Iranian diplomat and three of his compatriots go on trial in Belgium on Friday after being accused of plotting to bomb an opposition rally outside Paris in 2018, in the first such proceedings in Europe.
The diplomat, Assadolah Assadi, who was formerly based in Vienna, and the three others have been charged by prosecutors in Belgium with planning an attack on a meeting of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The exiled opposition group is headquartered in the French capital.
The trial is scheduled to be held on Friday and then Thursday next week, and if convicted, Assadi, 48, faces life in prison. The diplomat, who has not commented on the charges, was arrested while on holiday in July 2018 in Germany, where he had no immunity from prosecution and was handed over to Belgium.
This is the first time an Iranian official has been put on trial in an EU member state for terrorism.
Two of his suspected accomplices, a couple living in Belgium, had also been arrested Belgium, with police saying they had half a kilo of the explosive TATP and a detonator.
Another alleged accomplice, Mehrdad Arefani, 57, is an Iranian poet who had lived in Belgium for several years. He was arrested in France in 2018.
Belgian authorities said in June 2018 that they had thwarted an attempt to “smuggle explosives” to France to attack the meeting, and later that year, French officials accused Tehran’s intelligence service of being behind the operation. Jaak Raes, head of the Belgium’s state security service (VSSE), said in a letter to the prosecutor in February this year that “the attack plan was conceived in the name of Iran and under its leadership.”
France also accused Iran’s intelligence ministry of planning the plot and reportedly expelled an Iranian diplomat in retaliation in October 2018.
The assets of an Iranian intelligence unit and officials were frozen in the European Union.
The Islamic Republic has denied the allegations, saying that the “plot” was a stunt by the NCRI, which is labeled a terrorist group in Iran.
November 27, 2020
Posted by aletho |
Deception | European Union, France, Iran |
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Aletho News 