Hungarian FM reveals he saw the peace treaty ready to sign between Ukraine and Russia. Here’s why it was never signed.
Remix News | October 10, 2024
In a new interview with Hungarian newspaper Mandiner, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó reveals that he actually saw the finished peace treaty that would have ended the war between Ukraine and Russia. He said that all that was missing were the signatures of the two warring parties. He explains why peace never came, laying the blame firmly on the West.
At the end of March, beginning of April 2022, an agreement was almost reached at the peace talks, known as the Istanbul agreements.
“I saw the document that was almost signed, and which, according to the realities of the time, would have ended the war. What happened? The Westerners came and told the Ukrainians to keep fighting, no agreement should be accepted,” said Hungary’s foreign minister.
The decision to prolong the war, which was backed by the West, has had profound global implications and led to hundreds of thousands of deaths across Russia and Ukraine, along with a catastrophic effect on Ukraine’s birth rate and demographic outlook. It has also fueled inflation and economic certainty across Europe.
Szijjártó noted that although the goal of the EU leaders was to bring Russia to its knees at the beginning of 2022, this has not happened to date. He notes that people are dying on the frontlines every day, while the parties have not come any closer to peace.
According to David Arahamiya, the leader of Ukraine’s ruling party, Ukraine was ready to sign the document when Western leaders saw a draft of the negotiations. The Ukrainian politician said then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson allegedly worked hard to nix the potential peace agreement.
Szijjártó says Hungary backs the China-Brazil peace plan and noted that only three countries, Hungary, France and Switzerland, were invited to the inaugural meeting of the Friends of Peace group organized by them.
Imam to Be Expelled From Italy for Sermons Supporting Hamas – Reports
Sputnik – 09.10.2024
The Italian Interior Ministry intends to expel Bologna imam Zulfiqar Khan from Italy for reasons of national security in connection with his support for Palestinian movement Hamas, the Adnkronos news agency reported, citing Khan’s lawyer.
The imam has repeatedly expressed support for Hamas in the context of the war in the Gaza Strip and praised the militants’ actions during the clashes with Israeli troops, the report said on Tuesday.
The imam was taken to the Bologna police department, Italian media reported. The Interior Ministry’s decision can be appealed in the regional administrative court. His lawyer reportedly called the authorities’ actions a return to a police state and the persecution of opinions.
Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression.”
Khan has lived in Italy since 1995 and held a residency permit that was revoked by the Interior Ministry’s order.
Khan is not the first imam to be expelled from Italy due to his speech. In 2008, Tuirin imam Mohamed Kohaila was deported to his native Morocco for what authorities claimed was inciting “violently anti-Western behavior” after his sermons were secretly recorded. And in 2005, imam Bouriki Bouchta, also from Morocco, was expelled from Italy after he gained notoriety for saying that Osama bin Laden did not commit the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Russian victory will liberate Europe – top French historian
RT | October 9, 2024
A Ukrainian defeat would represent a victory for Europe, French anthropologist Emmanuel Todd has claimed, in an interview with the Italian news outlet Corriere di Bologna published on Tuesday.
According to Todd, who has stressed that he is not an explicit supporter of Moscow, if Russia were to lose in the Ukraine conflict, this would allow “European submission to the Americans to be prolonged for a century.”
The leading intellectual has argued that Europe has effectively delegated the representation of the West to the US and has been paying the consequences ever since. He claims in the interview that nothing can be done to change this fact at the moment due to the ongoing Ukraine conflict, but suggests that its outcome will “decide the fate of Europe.”
“If, as I believe, the US is defeated, NATO will disintegrate and Europe will be left free,” Todd told the outlet, noting that it is unlikely that Russia would be compelled to militarily attack Western Europe after establishing itself on the Dnieper River.
“Russia will have neither the means nor the desire to expand once the borders of pre-communist Russia are reconstituted. The Russophobic hysteria of the West, which fantasizes about the desire for Russian expansion in Europe, is simply ridiculous for a serious historian,” he said.
A number of Western leaders have in recent months raised concerns that if Russia were allowed to defeat Ukraine it would eventually set its sights on other European and NATO countries.
Moscow, however, has repeatedly stressed that it has no intention of attacking any other countries once it accomplishes its goals in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed talk of a ‘Russian threat’ as “nonsense” being peddled by Western governments to scare the European population in order to “extract additional expenses” from them.
EU economy suffering from loss of Russian energy – Orban
RT | October 9, 2024
The EU’s refusal to buy Russian energy has been crippling the bloc’s economic growth, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told a plenary session of the European Parliament on Wednesday.
Orban, whose country currently holds the EU’s six-month rotating presidency, was addressing the parliament in Strasbourg, France.
“EU productivity is growing at a slower pace than that of our competitors. Our share of world trade is declining,” he said.
He added that EU businesses were facing electricity prices that are two to three times higher than in the US. And when it comes to natural gas, “prices are four to five times higher.”
Half of European companies consider the cost of energy to be the main obstacle to investment, according to Orban. In energy-intensive industries that are vital for the bloc’s economy, production has fallen by between 10% and 15%, he claimed.
“Moving away from Russian energy has endangered the European Union’s GDP growth, while significant financial resources had to be redistributed to energy subsidies and the construction of infrastructure necessary for the import of LNG,” Orban said.
The Hungarian PM added that the EU should not be under the illusion that a green transition will solve the problem. He cited study results suggesting that “the share of fossil fuels will not change significantly until 2030.”
The EU declared the elimination of its reliance on Russian energy as one of its key priorities after hostilities in the Ukraine conflict broke out in February 2022. Sanctions imposed on Moscow and the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline in 2022 have led to a dramatic drop in Russia’s gas supplies to the EU. The bloc has turned to the US and the Middle East to replace them with costlier liquefied natural gas.
Russia reportedly accounted for over 16% of the value of natural gas imports into the bloc in the first quarter of this year, down from 40% in 2021. According to estimates by Russia’s Energy Ministry, American LNG is 30-40% more expensive than Russian pipeline gas.
Prior to the Ukraine conflict, Washington had for years been pressuring the EU to cut its dependence on Russian energy.
In June, the EU banned some operations related to LNG of Russian origin, including reloading, ship-to-ship transfers, and ship-to-shore transfers with the purpose of re-exporting to third countries via the bloc. Russian seaborne gas imports into the EU remained permitted via LNG terminals that are linked to the interconnected natural gas network. However, the bloc has stopped short of imposing sanctions on the fuel beyond a ban on trans-shipments, which has yet to come into force.
Former European Central Bank president Mario Draghi said last month that the EU’s global economic competitiveness has been substantially eroded due to the loss of cheap energy from Russia.
German economy in crisis mode as industrial orders plummet
By Liz Heflin | Remix News | October 8, 2024
German industrial orders fell 5.8 percent in August compared to July, a far higher drop than the 2 percent drop anticipated, with economists now warning of a recession and doubting a quick recovery.
The numbers reported by the German Federal Statistical Office amounted to the biggest drop since January of this year, with the German Ministry of Economics announcing that “in view of the continuing weak demand and the deterioration in business sentiment, a significant recovery in the industrial economy in the second half of 2024 is unlikely.”
Jens-Oliver Niklasch, an expert at Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, cited by Money.pl, stated bluntly: “Leading indicators are falling, forecasts are falling, bad news is not stopping. Everything points to a recession.”
Jörg Krämer, chief economist at Commerzbank, describes the data as a “bitter disappointment,” adding that the best-case scenario will be gross domestic product stagnating in the second half of the year.
Of key concern is the data regarding strength, or lack thereof, in the domestic and European economies. While orders from abroad also fell just 2.2 percent, domestic orders were down by 10.9 percent. Orders from eurozone countries fell by 10.5 percent, while orders from other countries actually increased by 3.4 percent.
Experts emphasize that the current situation is a clear signal of a crisis, with key sectors being hit the hardest, including auto manufacturing, mechanical engineering and chemicals.
The Macroeconomic Policy Institute (IMK) predicts gross domestic product will stagnate this year and grow by just 0.7 percent next year, with experts agreeing that the federal government’s expectations of economic growth above 1 percent in 2025 seem unrealistic.
Meanwhile, the German government is expected to need €46 billion to finance welfare benefits, with half of the recipients reportedly being foreign citizens, many of whom came to Germany specifically for its generous welfare system.
The situation is not bad for everyone. Remix News just reported today that Germany is spending some €50 billion annually on housing asylum seekers and war refugees and providing them with benefits, with private security firms earning hundreds of millions across Germany for policing migrant accommodations.
EU airline’s boss wants Chinese to pay for flying over Russia
RT | October 8, 2024
Brussels should establish financial measures to curb competition from Chinese airlines that can freely cross Russian airspace, according to Royal Dutch Airlines (KLM) CEO Marjan Rintel.
Western countries closed their airspace to Russian airlines as part of sanctions imposed after the onset of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. In response, Moscow banned aircraft from “unfriendly nations,” forcing EU planes to reroute, resulting in higher fuel consumption and increased costs.
“Russia’s airspace is closed to European airlines, while Chinese carriers fly over it, which can save two to four hours. You see that reflected in pricing, and consequently, our costs are higher,” Rintel said in an interview with Dutch broadcaster WNL on Sunday.
Rintel suggested that Brussels should intervene to address this competitive imbalance. “Europe can at least explore how we can level the playing field by adjusting pricing or examining other alternatives,” she stated.
In response to rising costs, KLM plans austerity measures aimed at saving €450 million ($494 million) annually, including €100 million ($110 million) by “adjusting” in-flight catering, Rintel noted.
“In the Netherlands, we are facing a tight labor market and rising wage costs, which differs from the situation in France,” she added, referring to KLM’s parent company, Air France-KLM. “Due to a shortage of pilots and technicians, roster changes will occur, and maintenance may need to be outsourced,” she explained.
Last month, Germany announced it was considering halting its daily Frankfurt-Beijing flights due to similar pressures from rising costs and competition from Chinese and Gulf airlines that can fly over Russia. The previous month, British Airways announced it would suspend London-Beijing flights starting in October. Additionally, Virgin Atlantic recently terminated its only China route to Shanghai.
EU Uses Digital Services Act to Probe YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat Algorithms for Censorship Compliance
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 6, 2024
“Illegal drugs” is a very well-defined category in the EU. “Hate speech,” on the other hand, is not. Yet, the bloc is lumping these together as it builds another case for putting even more pressure on major social platforms and demands more data from them.
The EU is doing this via the censorship law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), and is this time targeting YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok. In the tone and nature of the demands, the EU puts them in two groups here: two companies from the US, and one from China.
Previously, the EU launched DSA non-compliance proceedings against TikTok, AliExpress, but also Meta’s Instagram and Facebook.
The EU Commission this week announced that the “request for information” pertains to these tech platforms’ (algorithmic)recommendations, specifically, their design and functioning.
These companies are reminded that the DSA obligates them to “adequately mitigate risks stemming from their recommender systems” – and here we go into the usual list, starting with how recommendations might influence users’ mental health, risks to the electoral process, endanger minors, all the way to what the EU says is illegal content – “such as promoting illegal drugs and hate speech.”
Here, the demand is also to explain what is being done to “mitigate” the harm, as the EU chooses to understand it.
This last demand is addressed to YouTube and Snapchat, which must give the EU “detailed” information regarding algorithmic parameters that decide what is recommended to users.
The emphasis of the pressure being put on TikTok is a little different. Brussels wants to know what the video platform is doing to stop manipulation of elections, media, etc. – again, in terms of the recommendations system.
An EU Commission press release said the deadline to provide this information is November 15, and warns the three companies they might – depending on how the EU likes the answers – become subject to proceedings under the DSA.
The Commission wasted no opportunity to remind YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok that one of the DSA articles means possible fines if they respond to a request for information (RFI) in a manner that is “incorrect, incomplete, or misleading.”
Cheerleaders of EU policies on these matters hope that something of the sort will take root in the US as well, despite the fact that “hate speech,” for example, is not criminalized there.
Chinese airlines grab market share from US and European carriers who have to fly around Russia
Inside China Business | August 15, 2024
US and European airlines are banned from Russian airspace, and so must route around the world’s largest country. This is causing much longer and costlier flights between North America and Europe, and destinations in Southeast Asia. Chinese, Korean, and Indian airlines still enjoy Russian overflight privileges, however, and can thereby offer shorter and less expensive fares. As a result, Chinese carriers are gobbling up markets and gates across international markets. Chinese airlines already operate with 30% lower costs on a passenger-mile basis compared to US- and European-flagged carriers, and their cost advantages only multiply after adjusting for the issues involving Russian airspace.
Resources and links:
Flight maps from Great Circle Maps http://www.greatcirclemap.com) and Reuters, Unfriendly skies:
How Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is redrawing air routes https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRA…
A year into Russian airspace ban, flight costs and lengths are rising https://globalnews.ca/news/9645165/ru…
Flight Radar, Which major airlines are still flying over Russian airspace? https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/wh…
British Airways axes one of its ‘most important’ routes amid Russian airspace ban https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/…
Reuters, British Airways to halt flights to Beijing from Oct. 26 https://www.reuters.com/business/aero…
Reuters, Foreign airlines lose interest in China as domestic carriers expand abroad https://www.reuters.com/business/aero…
Bloomberg, US Airlines Urge Officials to Block Additional China Flights https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl…
Europe buying Russian oil via India at record rates in 2023 despite Ukraine war https://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo…
Reuters, Airbus wins reprieve from Canadian sanctions on Russian titanium https://www.reuters.com/business/aero…
Closing scene, Qingdao Olympic Sailing Center and Lighthouse, Qingdao, Shandong
Germany’s Green Minister Targets Algorithms: Baerbock’s Latest Bid to Suppress Populist Rise
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | October 4, 2024
Even in the world of the EU’s often perplexing politics, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (of the Greens) stands out. And while she may “excel” at political gaffes – a passion for protecting free speech doesn’t seem to be among her strong suits.
Instead, with a seemingly straight face, Baerbock is now joining the legion of politicians urging for even more social media censorship, as a distinctly counter-intuitive way to “protect” democracy.
Baerbock wants the EU to do the heavy lifting on behalf of Germany’s current authorities this time as well, and one of the arguments the minister uses is that what she considers to be “disinformation” is allowing what she calls populist parties to grow in – popularity.
It should be a basic democratic principle that no party or political grouping can stay in power forever, so this kind of underlying “argument” smacks of authoritarian, rather than democratic traditions.
When one strips away Baerbock’s latest rant about fake news, disinformation, and attacks that are “disintegrating our democratic reality” (whatever that may mean) – what is left is the “problem” of the success of the opposition AfD party, and the German authorities’ inability to counter it with meaningful policies, therefore resorting to anything from name-calling, to open censorship.
On Monday, Baerbock turned to the European Commission to ask for “new rules” around what she and her political comrades consider to be disinformation. At this point, even the Commission – the enforcer of the infamous censorship law, the DSA, might have been thinking – “but what more can we do?”
If that was the case, it didn’t last long. As soon as on Wednesday, the EC “summoned” three major social media companies and demanded information about their algorithmic recommendations.
It might just be a coincidence, but algorithms were on Baerbock’s brain the day before, too. Reports say she suggested that Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution team up with the EC, against “algorithms that work against democracy.”
Russia eyeing record energy profits – think tank
RT | October 4, 2024
Russia’s energy revenues may reach record levels this year, buoyed by high export oil prices, according to independent economic think tank the Institute for Energy and Finance Foundation (FIEF).
Oil and gas profits have increased sharply this year, FIEF Director of Research Aleksey Belogoriev told the Far Eastern Energy Forum “Oil and Gas of Sakhalin” on Friday.
Income from oil exports jumped by 63% in January-July this year compared to the same period in 2023, totaling 6.4 trillion rubles ($67.5 billion), the researcher said during the session on the future of Russian energy exports. Gas revenues increased by 13% to 1.2 trillion rubles ($12.6 billion), he added.
“This year’s [oil and gas] revenues will be lower than in the record 2022, becoming the second highest in history,” said Belogoriev.
The expert cited an increase in the average export price of oil, and the relatively low revenue posted in the first half of 2023.
In January, one barrel of Russia’s flagship Urals blend of crude cost an average of $60 per barrel, but prices then gained steadily, reaching $84 in April. In July, Russian crude traded at around $80 per barrel.
The increase comes despite a barrage of sanctions imposed on Russia by the US, the EU and their allies since tensions between Moscow and Kiev escalated to its military operation in Ukraine in 2022.
The restrictions included an embargo on seaborne Russian oil, along with a $60-per-barrel price cap on other types of crude.
EU countries fell short of sanctioning Russian natural gas but started shunning it instead. In response, Moscow redirected its energy supplies to Asia, particularly to India and China, to compensate for the loss of some of the Western customers.
According to the latest data from the Finance Ministry released on Thursday, oil and gas revenues of the Russian budget grew by 49.4% in January-September year-on-year. The ministry is expecting oil and gas earnings to reach 10.99 trillion rubles ($116 billion) this year. In 2022 the Russian budget received 11.586 trillion rubles ($165 billion at the exchange rate at the time) from energy exports.
Russia Boosts Gas Deliveries to Europe, Outpacing US as Energy Crisis Deepens
By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 04.10.2024
Disruption of Russian gas supplies due to Western sanctions on Moscow over Ukraine have left Europe grappling with spiraling inflation and surging energy bills.
Russia has once again overtaken the US in terms of gas supplies to the EU in the third quarter, while taking the highest market share in nine quarters, according to Sputnik’s analysis of data from the Bruegel think tank that specializes in economics.
Over the past three months, Russia has delivered 13.3 billion cubic meters of gas to the European market, compared to 13 billion the country supplied there in the second quarter and 11.5 billion, delivered in 2023 within the same period.
As a result, the share of Russian companies in the EU’s energy imports increased to 19.4% from 17.2% in April-June, reaching a maximum since the second quarter of 2022, the analysis showed.
Russia’s quarterly and annual pipeline gas deliveries to Europe grew by 8% and almost 13%, respectively, while the volume of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports in the last quarter stood at 4.7 billion cubic meters, a 21% increase as compared to the third quarter of 2023.
The US has reduced its LNG deliveries to Europe to 9.5 billion cubic meters, becoming the third-largest LNG supplier after Russia.
Sputnik’s previous review of Eurostat data discovered that EU countries had to pay some €185 billion ($204 billion) extra on natural gas over the past 20 months after cutting themselves off from cheap, Russian pipeline gas amid Western sanctions that were introduced shortly after Moscow began a special military operation in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the EU’s “suicidal” and “absolutely political” decision to halt the purchase of Russian energy supplies would come back to bite the bloc.
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Trans ‘milk’ as good as the real thing – NHS
RT | February 18, 2024
The drug-induced nipple secretions of trans women are as good as mothers’ breast milk for babies, the University of Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust claimed in a letter to campaigners made public in a report by British think tank the Policy Exchange on Sunday.
The healthcare trust’s medical director, Rachel James, argued that the off-label prescription drug cocktail men transitioning to female take in order to produce milk was “similar to the natural hormones which encourage lactation to develop when the baby is newly born.”
“The evidence which is available demonstrates that the milk is comparable to that produced following the birth of a baby,” James wrote in the letter, sent to Children of Transitioners last August.
Biological men who wish to lactate must first take hormones to grow milk glands and then take high doses of either domperidone or metoclopramide to stimulate milk production. Neither drug is approved for this use, though they are occasionally prescribed off-label to biological women who have trouble lactating.
However, domperidone’s own manufacturer, Janssen, warns patients the drug “may cause unwanted side effects affecting the heart in a breastfed baby” and “should be used during breastfeeding only if your physician considers this clearly necessary.” … continue
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