Danish Justice Minister Under Fire for Pushing Encryption Ban While Using It
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | August 31, 2024
The unprecedented case of the attack on Telegram via the arrest of Pavel Durov – and the nature of the charges against him – has clearly emboldened not only the lovers of censorship (such as the EU) but also the enemies of encryption (the EU).
Encryption itself has long been in the crosshairs in the bloc, but also in various individual countries in Europe individually, and others around the world. This push to undermine encryption – despite it being the key component of security, and privacy online – is habitually justified as necessary for law enforcement to do its job.
Now EU member Denmark is trying to come for end-to-end encryption, and not only Telegram, but also Signal, WhatsApp, and others. In this particular instance, Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard’s preferred course of action would be to just block these apps (perhaps as a stopgap measure) rather than taking the much longer path of building encryption backdoors.
Judging by reports in the Danish press, Hummelgaard wants to use this moment to further increase pressure on encrypted services, unsurprisingly giving “fighting crime” as the reason.
And while Hummelgaard considers such services as “safe havens” for criminals (it’s the same as saying states are safe havens for criminals because criminals operate in them), a large number of Danish MPs use encrypted apps – according to an investigative report in frihedsbrevet.dk, at least 70. (The country’s parliament has 179 seats).
To make matters even more absurd, Hummelgaard was (or still is) one of them.
And now those perplexed by his idea to block encrypted messengers are calling for him to “lead by example” and make his own messages publicly available – if that is, private communications are an evil that justifies resorting to blocking apps.
Reports quote Danish Reddit users making this suggestion, with one sarcastically noting that this shouldn’t be a problem – “surely he has nothing to hide, and therefore nothing to fear?”
The push around the world to get encrypted apps to “cooperate” by allowing the authorities to expand mass online surveillance to them as well, is defended by those sympathetic toward such policies as the need for “transparency” and “accountability.”
EU Tightens Grip on Telegram With New Probe Following France Arrest
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | August 31, 2024
The EU is putting additional pressure on Telegram, after one of its member countries, France, arrested the platform’s co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov.
The EU has launched an investigation into the number of users the platform has in the bloc, and whether the number reported by Telegram is correct.
The importance of this is the EU’s ability to censor using the Digital Services Act (DSA), which applies services with over 45 million users.
In February, Telegram said that their number is 41 million, but the EU has chosen precisely this moment to start looking for ways to determine if this reporting was accurate – or, more likely, try to prove that it isn’t.
The EU Commission’s Joint Research Center is tasked with the job, while there are “ongoing talks with the app” regarding the way it arrived at its figure, the Financial Times writes, without expanding on the “ongoing talks” point.
EU Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier is quoted as saying that the EU “has a way” to determine whether Telegram’s reporting is true, using “our own systems and calculations.”
If the result of the investigation is that Telegram had lied, that is, that the number of users is 45 million or more – the EU will “unilaterally” declare it a very large platform, subject to the sweeping censorship rules contained in the DSA.
Saying that the decision can be made unilaterally and based only on the EU’s own investigation using its own agency to audit these figures means that the bloc is giving itself the right to, in an untransparent way, declare a platform the subject of the DSA.
One of DSA’s key purposes is to enforce the EU’s policy of even more tightly controlling the social media space, and a provision in the law states that those considered to be very large platforms must “disclose” what they are doing to counter “disinformation” and “misinformation.”
The Financial Times says that globally, Telegram has close to 1 billion users, with Asia as the largest market, and that in an interview with the publication earlier in 2024, Durov said the number of users is “roughly proportionate” with the size of different markets or continents.
Masochistic Naivete: Another Great Danger
NewZealandDoc | August 28, 2024
Long covid may or not be a chimera, but the long reach of covid certainly isn’t, as I have learned from an unexpected situation that involved the gratuitous remarks of a covidian doctor here that created difficulties for me. I am hopeful, however, of a positive resolution to this unnecessary development.
This incident merely strengthened my belief that the enemy we are up against, large and small, local and global, is unprincipled, lawless, low, and, given the measures unleashed against the world in the name of protecting us from a danger they created in the first place — dangers heaped upon dangers! — murderous.
If ever I believed in the trustworthy authority of the major media, having grown up on Time, Life, Newsweek, ABC, CBS, NBC in my early youth, and, later, on The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books et al. in my later years, that belief has been smashed into a thousand pieces as I watched all of them drop the veneer and flash the biceps of complete and utter fraudulence in our faces, day in, day out, relentlessly. I now ignore them completely.
If ever I believed in fair play and the rule of law, the inconstant application of justice has shaken some sense into me. What kind of system inveigles a Reiner Fuellmich into an arrest and incarceration, or deceptively seduces the founder of Telegram into an apprehension? Need I mention the numerous illegitimate legal attacks against a former President of the United States, still ongoing? Need I mention the attempt to murder him in the cold light of day? Should I hark back yet again to New Zealand’s use of stormtroopers to invade and disperse the Parliament Protests of 2022?
Should I mention the UK arrests for social media expressions of free speech, or the many and multifarious ways that Big Social Media have censored those whose political inclinations or opinions had been targeted by the governments they had a right to criticize? It has become nearly comic to listen to and watch presenters on YouTube who resort to code words to evade algorithms that would punish their channels?
Dare I refer to the unnecessary wars and the horrific numbers of the dead in the Ukraine and the Middle East, promoted so enthusiastically by the ‘liberal’ so-called democratic Left in the United States, not to mention the openly authoritarian EU?
By the strange contorted logic of our ‘now’, universal inoculation, active armed conflict, and perpetual fear of pandemics mark the road to … to the well-regulated world ordained by some occult globalist racketeers for their own benefit.
Given all of the above, one would think that any vestiges of naivete would be gone as we figure out a way to save ourselves. It’s an interesting word, ‘naive’ — coming as it does from the Latin nativus, and meaning, essentially, being innocent or artless as a newborn babe in the corrupt and devious system devised by humankind to regulate itself. When we use the phrase ‘I wasn’t born yesterday’ we’re saying we’re not naive.
Yet I can’t count how many times so many friends have expressed astonishment at each new depredation and each miscarriage of justice, and how so many still have faith in a legal system that has been commandeered by our enemies. I can’t count how many times people will say, about the latest jab-implicated adverse event, ‘this will turn the tide!’ Or how many game-changers there have been that have only resulted in the game going on with even more ferocity against our cause.
While I believe that it is very important for us to continue to report truth, it is equally important for us to know what we are up against. To know that facts are hardly guaranteed to change the minds of the sleepwalkers around us.
It is destructively naive to believe that simply by being virtuous we will win the day, or that the courts will come to our rescue because of our well-prepared evidence, or that martyrdom will be glorious.
General Patton is reputed to have said that ‘no dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country.’
As Irregulars against Established Power we must fight smart, and fight to live, and we by no means can count on the System to assist us. We must recognize the murderous intensity of our enemy, the rigged judicial system, the coopted media, and adjust our strategies.
Or else.
Emanuel E. Garcia, M.D.
August 2024
EU Rejects Legitimacy of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro – Foreign Policy Chief Borrell
Sputnik – 30.08.2024
The European Union rejects the legitimacy of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
“We cannot accept the legitimacy of Maduro as the elected president. He will remain president de facto, but we deny democratic legitimacy based on results that cannot be verified,” Euronews quoted Borrell as saying after an informal foreign ministerial meeting in Brussels.
Presidential elections in Venezuela were held on July 28. The next day the National Electoral Council declared Nicolas Maduro president-elect for 2025-2031. On July 29, protests started in Venezuela, protesters clashing with the police. Over 2,000 people were detained. Violent unrest in Venezuela lasted one day after the elections, after which the government restored control over the situation on the streets.
US and European lawmakers in charge of foreign affairs matters issued a joint statement claiming opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez won Venezuela’s presidential election and vowing to hold Maduro accountable if he refuses to relinquish power. Moscow said the Venezuelan opposition must admit defeat in the elections. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned third countries against supporting attempts to destabilize the situation inside Venezuela.
Hungary May Defect – Part Nineteen of The Anglo-American War on Russia
Tales of the American Empire | August 29, 2024
Most Europeans know the United States provoked the conflict in Ukraine, profits from banning Russian oil and gas, and remain uneasy about the mysterious destruction of the Nordstream pipelines. The American government promoted a mindless NATO expansion strategy that caused a disastrous war and weakened NATO nations, who were pressured to donate billions of dollars and much of their military equipment to Ukraine, even though it isn’t a member of the NATO alliance.
Eastern European states were excited to join NATO and the European Union economic block, called the EU, but were soon pressured to boost military spending to buy American weaponry, accept foreign migrants, host foreign troops, and donate money and arms to a lost cause in Ukraine. Profitable trade and tourism with Russia sharply declined while energy costs soared, causing economic decline.
The people of some European nations have already decided that joining NATO and the EU was a bad idea. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban openly states his dislike of EU mandates to allow mass immigration and continued trade sanctions on Russia. EU leaders denounce Orban and threaten sanctions because they can abuse Hungary since it is landlocked and surrounded by Ukraine and EU members.
But if Russian troops reach Ukraine’s western border, Hungary may defect. Conquered Ukraine would become a close Russian ally and allow access to energy pipelines to import cheap Russian oil and gas, and permit rail and road access to Russia and all of Asia. There are several neighboring nations who may also defect from the American empire. This explains why NATO is considering sending forces to secure western Ukraine to keep its vassal states captive.
________________________________
Related Tale: “The Destruction of Libya in 2011”; 
• The Destruction of Libya in 2011
“Slovakia, Hungary say Ukraine has halted Lukoil’s Russian oil transit”; Jason Hovet; Reuters; July 18, 2024; https://www.reuters.com/business/ener…
“Kyiv Will Face Retaliation”; EU nation Slovakia has issued an open threat to Ukraine amid war with Russia. Slovakia said it would take retaliatory measures against Ukraine if Kyiv continues to stop Russian oil transiting via the Druzhba pipeline.; “Times of India”; July 25, 2024; • ‘Kyiv Will Face Retaliation…’: NATO…
“MEPs call to strip Hungary’s EU voting rights amid Orbán’s ‘peace missions’”; Steb Starcevic; Politico; July 16, 2024; https://www.politico.eu/article/lette…
Related Tale: “The Destruction of Yugoslavia”; • The Destruction of Yugoslavia
Related Tales: “The Anglo-American War on Russia”; • The Anglo-American War on Russia
Establishment Voices Attack Telegram Over Free Speech Protections in Wake of Founder’s Arrest
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | August 27, 2024
Legacy media and some establishment figures are busy justifying the arrest of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov, attacking the platform, but also making not-so-veiled threats aimed at other platform owners.
Ukrainian-born former member of the US National Security Council Alexander Vindman, who played a key role in the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump, took to X (calling it “Twitter”) – to warn the social site and its owner Elon Musk that there could be “broader implications” in the context of the Durov arrest.
To Musk specifically, Vindman’s extraordinary message, which reads very much like a threat, is that he “should be worried.” As ever, the accusation is that X is allowing “misinformation” – that is, not censoring enough. And the implication is that unless that happens, there could be more arrests.
In one post Vindman went through the Democrat keywords (mentioning “MAGA tech bros,” “weirdos,” referring to Trump as “sexual predator”) and expressed admiration for the EU’s way of “enforcing content moderation” – ostensibly, as opposed to his adoptive country.
Former Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt was also on X to reiterate how EU elites see, and treat the issue of free speech while throwing around dramatically-worded accusations: “Telegram sits at the center of global cybercrime… Free speech is not without responsibilities!”
It follows that other platform owners could face a situation similar to Durov’s.
Officials who no longer hold formal office often serve to express some extreme points of view that those in government would rather not say publicly, and other handy mouthpieces are always legacy media outlets.
Thus the Guardian sees Telegram as a platform for “information and disinformation” about the war in Ukraine, but then goes on to brand it as the favorite app of “racists, violent extremists, antisemites” – this is the Guardian giving life to claims made by a pro-censorship group.
Europeans and the war again, and the Washington Post decided to disseminate the accusation originating from a senior EU security official that Telegram is “a primary platform for Russia to disseminate disinformation in Europe and Ukraine.”
According to CBS, the same is true of another war: “Encrypted messaging apps like Telegram and WhatsApp have been a huge source of misinformation and disinformation in the Israel-Hamas war. Misinformation experts say it’s because they are difficult to moderate.”
And the New York Times decided to hand-pick several of the worst examples among the hundreds of millions of Telegram users, to vilify apps in general and argue in favor of censorship.
Durov arrest shows ‘upside-down’ West – Serbian leader
RT | August 26, 2024
Charges against Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France show that the West has abandoned the values it championed just a few years ago, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said.
The 39-year-old Russian was detained by French authorities on Saturday, after arriving in Paris from Azerbaijan by private jet. Durov also has the passports of France, the UAE and St. Kitts and Nevis.
Speaking on a newscast on Monday evening, Vucic said that Durov’s case was “interesting” and compared him to the persecution of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.
“Back in 2018, when Russia put some mild legal pressure on him, some 26 groups from the West signed a petition to the Russian state to stop violating his freedom. Fast forward five or six years, and it’s perfectly normal [for them] to have him arrested and want to shut down Telegram in the West,” Vucic said.
“Everything has gone topsy-turvy, reality itself has been changed to fit their interests.”
France on Monday revealed the laundry list of preliminary charges against Durov, accusing the Telegram mogul of “facilitating” alleged illegal activities on his platform – ranging from drug dealing and money laundering to child pornography – by refusing to cooperate with French investigators going after an unnamed third party.
President Emmanuel Macron has defended the arrest, insisting that charges against Durov were “in no way a political decision.”
X owner Elon Musk, American journalist Tucker Carlson and Silicon Valley investor David Sacks have denounced Durov’s arrest as an attack on the freedom of speech.
Snowden, a whistleblower who revealed the extent of NSA spying on Americans and foreign leaders back in 2012, has accused France of holding Durov “hostage” in order to access private communications on Telegram.
Vucic brought up Durov’s situation in the context of the US and the EU criticizing Serbia for allegedly persecuting political opposition. According to the Serbian president, the EU routinely beats up and arrests protesters by the hundreds, while Belgrade is far more tolerant of outright riots.
“It’s all upside-down!” Vucic said. “When you allow the greatest of liberties, you’re a dictator. The fewer freedoms exist, the more they speak about them.”
Durov’s arrest represents a new level of desperation from western elites
By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 26, 2024
The arrest of Pavel Durov marks a new low point on the scumline of the side of the bath – the tub being western democracies and the line being their desperation to stay in power at the costs of controlling social media. Durov, who owns Telegram and lives in Dubai, could be in jail for months and possibly years on the trumped-up charges which the French state has conjured up simply because he refuses to allow any government to have a back door into Telegram. He has fought this tooth and nail for years with the west, in particular the U.S., playing every dirty trick in the book to get access to the platform for its own nefarious purposes – to destroy opposition figures, their strategies etc. – rather than what it is dressed up to be, identifying terrorists and international criminals.
As the UK ponders how its own state has sunk to a new totalitarian level in recent days with the arrest of its citizens who merely like a posting on a social media platform, the West has arrested this French Russian dual national genius who is charged with the crimes of those criminals active on Telegram. And so charges of terrorism and trafficking in minors, drugs and whatever else they can find on the platform will be made against him as someone abetting in the crimes. Of course, the same rules will not be levelled against Elon Musk who surely has criminals on his platform or for that matter any of the other social media platforms.
But how many of these platforms are also taking the same stand as Durov? We are led to believe that most of them aren’t but in light of his arrest we should assume that many of them have already allowed some sort of access to them for the deep state. Elon Musk likes to brag about his refusal to comply with the EU’s demands that he “moderates” who he allows onto X, adding that other social media platforms accepted the deal offered to him by Brussels: comply with our requests and we grant you some leniency on future antitrust fines. This offer, which he claims was happily accepted by other platforms is as close as you can get to the EU offering a brown envelope stuffed full of cash to a man in a pub. It’s a bribe and gives a clue as to how anti-democratic the EU is and how it operates in the shadows.
The French arrest however goes deeper in that we can assume that it was not France operating alone to nab Durov. We can assume that the FBI and CIA had probably pushed Macron to do this appalling dirty work but perhaps also Israel had a hand in it. Just recently, Netanyahu complained that data which was stolen from the government was being exchanged on Telegram and asked Durov to step in and retrieve it. He got no reply. Did Mossad have a hand in the arrest of Telegram’s boss? It seems credible given that it is hard to believe that Durov would fly into French airspace eyes wide open. Was it a kidnapping operation to get his plane and his pilot to land in Paris? French TV channel TF1 said Dubai-based Durov had been travelling from Azerbaijan and was arrested at around 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) on Saturday 24th of August but did not state whether the plane’s ultimate destination had been France.
The details around the arrest are very sketchy, but according to Reuters, Durov, whose fortune was estimated by Forbes at $15.5 billion, said some governments had sought to pressure him but the app should remain a “neutral platform” and not a “player in geopolitics”.
Another question which arises from the arrest is whether it is an international effort by western countries led by the U.S. – with Israel very much part of it – to test the waters for other arrests. Pundits have been dismissed as conspiracy theorists for weeks now suggesting Elon Musk will be arrested at some point, or charged in his absence, by UK authorities for some of the more controversial posts he has made about the political situation in the UK, or even by the EU which appears to have started a legal battle with him after he refused to respond to two letters sent to him by a French European Commissioner. Perhaps even the Democrats in the U.S. might play the same card given that Musk has lost all credibility as a neutral player in U.S. politics after he has so openly supported Trump who has promised him a position in a new government if he were to enter the Oval Office. There is no such thing really as free speech. It comes at a very high price for those who want to protect and cherish it and now France will test the political landscape to see how the arrest of Durov will affect Macron’s ratings. The French president has used outstandingly poor judgment in the past in calling for parliamentary elections immediately after EU ones which gave so much power to far-right groups, so he seems to be good at falling on his own sword. He may well have factored that Durov does not have the popularity of say Assange who didn’t stir so much political anger when he was banged up for years in a filthy, dank cell in the UK on trumped up charges from the U.S.
What is especially worrying is that locking up powerful people who have huge followings on the internet is becoming a trend which people are getting used to. The war between those who want to control the perceived truth and those who hold the actual one is hotting up. Scott Ritter, Andrew Tate, Richard Medhurst all arrested within days of one another, while Musk himself shuts down Egyptian comedian Bassem Youseff who had 10m followers on X. What we are witnessing is a new level of desperation that western elites are more afraid than ever after wasting hundreds of billions of dollars in Ukraine and starting a world war in the Middle East that voters have no confidence any more in their decision-making, as they, the public, struggle more and more to pay for groceries or even heat their houses. It’s a new milestone in the blind dogma of elites to resort to tactics which we would have scorned China or North Korea for using just a few years ago. It’s a new level of panic which we haven’t seen before.
Telegram CEO Durov’s Arrest Shows West Unleashing Witchhunt Against Truth-Tellers
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 25.08.2024
Pavel Durov’s arrest is part of a broader crackdown on truth-seekers and freedom of speech in the West. According to Hong Kong-based political analyst Angelo Giuliano, Western elites are attempting to exert total control over the media narrative, as he explained to Sputnik.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested shortly after landing at Bourget airport near Paris late on Saturday and taken into custody by the French authorities.
“There is actually an oppression of journalists and freedom of speech in the West and especially in the EU,” Angelo Giuliano, a Hong Kong-based political and financial analyst, told Sputnik, commenting on Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s arrest in France.
Giuliano also pointed to the FBI’s raid on the home of Scott Ritter, a former United States Marine Corps intelligence officer, and mentioned that late Chilean-American journalist Gonzalo Lira died while in Ukrainian custody.
The analyst also drew attention to the arrest of independent journalist Richard Medhurst by British police on August 15 at London’s Heathrow Airport. The journalist known for his critical coverage of the US, British and Israeli role in the ongoing bloodshed in Gaza, was arrested under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act (2000).
When it comes to Durov, the Telegram founder is accused of allegedly enabling criminal activities through insufficient moderation of the platform, the French press claims, adding that he faces up to 20 years behind bars.
In his April interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson, Durov suggested that he is a target for Western intelligence services. He said that US cybersecurity officials previously attempted to create a backdoor in his app. Durov stressed that such a backdoor would enable tighter government control over social media platforms.
“I wouldn’t be surprised that they would try to get their hands on Telegram, to strike a deal with Telegram saying, well, we release you, you give us a price and maybe we can buy you,” Giuliano said, presuming that the arrest serves as a sort of “bargaining chip.”
Freedom of speech has become very “inconvenient” for the West, according to the pundit: “What they say clearly at the EU is that they need to control the narrative, because that’s everything. The narrative you control controls the mind of the people.”
Giuliano noted that just three years ago, Durov became a French citizen, indicating that the Telegram founder was in good standing with the French government. In 2023, French media reported that Paris had chosen “an exceptional and highly political procedure” to grant Durov citizenship.
This abrupt shift in the French authorities’ stance has raised questions, Giuliano pointed out.
The pundit suggests that Durov’s arrest rings alarm bells for people like Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk: “Keep in mind that Elon Musk hasn’t actually complied with EU regulation, and in reality he would be de facto also another target.”
The arrest of the Telegram CEO is “really a red flag overall for journalists and for whoever is actually spilling the truth, inconvenient truth,” Giuliano concluded.
Top Russian MP urges France to release Telegram founder Durov
RT | August 24, 2024
Russia must demand the immediate release of Telegram founder Pavel Durov who has been reportedly detained in France, Deputy Speaker of the Russian State Duma Vladislav Davankov has said.
According to French media, the 39-year-old dual Russian-French national was detained on Saturday at the Paris-Le Bourget airport. The French authorities reportedly believe that the lax moderation rules and encryption technology had allowed the widespread use of the Telegram messager by criminals.
Writing on Telegram in the early hours of Sunday, Davankov defended Durov’s record. “Hardly anyone else has done more for the development of digital services in Russia and the world,” he argued.
“We need to get him out of there. I have urged Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to appeal to the French authorities to release Pavel Durov from custody,” the politician wrote on Telegram. “His arrest could be politically motivated and used to gain access to personal information of Telegram users. We cannot allow this.”
In case Paris refuses to release Durov, “everything must be done to transport him to the UAE or Russia – if he agrees, of course,” the politician said.
He dismissed the allegations against Durov, saying that illicit activity can be found on all messaging platforms. “But nobody arrests or jails their owners. And it shouldn’t happen this time.”
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday that the Russian Embassy in Paris was working on a response to the situation with Durov.
Durov was born in St. Petersburg. In 2006, he founded the social media platform VK, often described as ‘Russia’s Facebook.’ In 2013, he launched Telegram, which currently has more than 950 million monthly active users.
Durov left Russia in the mid 2010s and has mostly lived in the UAE. He became a French national in 2021.
Telegram founder Durov arrested by French police
RT | August 24, 2024
The founder of the messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, has been detained after he arrived in Paris on a private jet, local broadcaster LCI has reported.
Durov, who obtained a French passport in 2021, was arrested at Paris-Le Bourget Airport at around 8pm local time, the outlet said on Saturday.
His jet arrived in the French capital from Azerbaijan. The 39-year-old had been accompanied by a woman and his bodyguard, it added.
According to LCI, the French authorities issued an arrest warrant for the tech entrepreneur as part of a preliminary investigation. Paris believes that Telegram’s insufficient moderation, its encryption tools and alleged lack of cooperation with police could make Durov complicit of in drug trafficking, pedophilia offenses and fraud, it said.
Broadcaster TF1 claimed that Durov is going to appear before a judge tonight. He could be facing up to 20 years in prison, it added.
Tale of two pipelines… Europe loses, China gains from Russia’s strategic gas supply
Strategic Culture Foundation | August 23, 2024
The Power of Siberia pipelines transporting natural gas from Russia to China were back in the news this week, as was the ill-fated Nord Stream pipeline, the Russian-European counterpart.
First, it was announced the Power of Siberia 2 was on track for completion this year. When operational, the new pipeline will augment existing trans-Siberian delivery to China, bringing the total gas supply from Russia to 100 billion cubic meters per year.
That awesome gas supply figure is significant. For not too long ago it was projected that the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines would have a combined capacity to deliver 100 bcm to Europe. Alas, that energy project was sabotaged in September 2022 when the gas pipes were blown up on the Baltic seabed. Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh and other writers have provided the most compelling account of the sabotage. It was carried out by American military and CIA operatives with the approval of President Joe Biden. See our weekly editorial published on September 30, 2022, days after the incident in which we outlined strong evidence inculpating Washington.
It was an audacious act of international state terrorism carried out by the Americans to destroy the decades-old energy trade between Russia and Europe. In particular, Germany’s postwar economic prowess was powered by relatively cheap and abundant Russian hydrocarbons. Now, the United States has stepped in as a supplier of much more expensive Liquefied Natural Gas to Europe.
Incredibly, no serious investigation has been carried out by European states to find the culprit. Russia, which was the main owner of the multi-billion euro project, has offered to cooperate with European states to investigate the blast, but all of Moscow’s offers have been rebuffed.
You could hardly make this criminal farce up. For years, the Americans enviously griped about Russia being the strategic energy supplier to Europe. With the escalation of the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine in February 2022, the Americans and their European NATO lackeys had a convenient pretext for blowing up the Nord Stream pipes.
The net result is that Germany’s economy – once the powerhouse of the European Union – has been dragged to its knees from the loss of its vital energy input from Russia. Germany is teetering on recession and its famed export-led industries are no longer competitive.
Yet despite this blatant crime, the political establishments in Germany and other countries directly affected by the Nord Stream vandalism – Sweden and Denmark – remain pathetically beholden to Washington. Two years after a huge transgression against Europe and Russia by the obvious culprit, the European authorities have dissembled and procrastinated.
Last week, Germany issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian diver whom it claims was involved in the undersea attack. This is a variant of previous claims in the American media that the Nord Stream sabotage was carried out by Ukrainian operatives. This narrative is absurd and an obvious distraction from the real story. There is no way that such a difficult operation could have been achieved by a bunch of amateurs. The Nord Stream sabotage required state-level expertise. The Americans also had an imperative motive – to force their way into the lucrative European energy market.
All of this is a tragicomedy. Russia’s fair and advantageous services have been perversely spurned by Europeans under the malign spell of American overseers. The European governments and media can’t even muster the courage or independence to conduct a proper investigation into the wanton destruction of their economies.
However, Russia has not been deterred or undermined. Far from it, unlike Germany and other recession-hit European states, Russia is growing at a robust rate. A large part of the benefit stems from the Russian energy trade now being directed to Asia.
China is gaining where Europe lost. The expanding Power of Siberia projects represent the loss of Nord Stream.
The foolishness of the European political class is stunning. By slavishly following the self-serving American hegemonic policy, the Europeans have fueled a war in Ukraine, the biggest war on the continent since World War Two. This conflict threatens to devastate the European Union.
The stupid European leaders have shot their countries in the foot. Instead of embracing a mutual partnership with Russia, they have opted for the American agenda of confrontation for which they are paying dearly with economic and political ruination.
European citizens know that their interests have been betrayed by elitist leaders who are in hock to American overlords.
There is a tangible sense of poetic justice. Russia’s strategic energy resources – the most prodigious on Earth – are fueling the expansion of an Eurasian economic juggernaut and the multipolar paradigm. This is leading to the accelerated demise of Western unipolar dominance.
The Americans and Europeans fret about the rise of China and Eurasia and how they will not be able to compete economically. A large part of the Western demise is caused by its own foul play and duplicity.
The tale of two pipelines, the Power of Siberia and Nord Stream, speaks volumes.
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From the Archives
The Geopolitics behind the War in Yemen (I)
By Mahdi Darius NAZEMROAYA | Strategic Culture Foundation | 30.03.2015
The United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia became very uneasy when the Yemenese or Yemenite movement of the Houthi or Ansarallah (meaning the supporters of God in Arabic) gained control of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa/Sana, in September 2014. The US-supported Yemenite President Abd-Rabbuh Manṣour Al-Hadi was humiliatingly forced to share power with the Houthis and the coalition of northern Yemenese tribes that had helped them enter Sana. Al-Hadi declared that negotiations for a Yemeni national unity government would take place and his allies the US and Saudi Arabia tried to use a new national dialogue and mediated talks to co-opt and pacify the Houthis.
The truth has been turned on its head about the war in Yemen. The war and ousting of President Abd-Rabbuh Manṣour Al-Hadi in Yemen are not the results of «Houthi coup» in Yemen. It is the opposite. Al-Hadi was ousted, because with Saudi and US support he tried to backtrack on the power sharing agreements he had made and return Yemen to authoritarian rule. The ousting of President Al-Hadi by the Houthis and their political allies was an unexpected reaction to the takeover Al-Hadi was planning with Washington and the House of Saudi. … continue
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