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In lengthy interview with the Berliner Zeitung, Seymour Hersh offers more intriguing details about Nordstream attack

eugyppius: a plague chronicle | February 15, 2023

It’s been a week since Seymour Hersh released his Substack exclusive about How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline. The mainstream German press have responded with uniform scepticism. Most reports followed the example of the wire services, in leading with the blanket denials of American officials and noting that the story was well-received in Moscow. A few operations, like the state media outlet Tagesschau, attempted a more comprehensive debunking, in this case by asking experts to pick holes in the details of Hersh’s story – with less than impressive results. The other major tactic has been to attack Hersh’s credibility, along similar lines as the American press. The latest headline here is that Bob Woodward thinks Hersh’s story is bunk, and because Woodward is also a famous American journalist, that means checkmate for Hersh, or something.

The biggest development is an interview that Hersh gave to the Berliner Zeitung. It was published yesterday and contains many new details. For example, Hersh tells his interviewer that the plan was to detonate “eight bombs … near the island of Bornholm in the Baltic sea,” of which only “six…went off.” This is the first confirmation we’ve had anywhere of an obvious point, namely that the operation wasn’t fully successful, and that this is the only reason that Pipe B of Nord Stream 2 escaped intact. He’s also more explicit on the involvement of Denmark and Sweden, saying “I was told that they did what they did [to facilitate the planting of explosives] and they knew what they were doing and they understood what was going on, but maybe nobody ever said ‘yes.’”

Hersh also provides more operational detail:

[T]there was a decompression chamber, and we used a Norwegian submarine hunter. Only two divers were used for the four pipelines. One problem was how to deal with Baltic Sea surveillance. The Baltic is monitored very thoroughly, there’s a lot of freely available data, so we took care of that, there were three or four different people for that. And what was done then is very simple. For 21 years, our Sixth Fleet … has been conducting [BALTOPS] … [F]or the first time in history, the NATO exercise in the Baltic had a new programme. It was to be a twelve-day exercise to drop and detect mines. A number of nations sent out mine teams, one group dropped a mine and another mine team went out to find it and blow it up.

So there was this period of time when things were exploding, and during that time the deep-sea divers could operate and attach the mines to the pipelines. The two pipelines run about a mile apart, they’re a little buried under the silt on the seabed, but they’re not difficult to get to, and the divers had practised it. It only took a couple of hours to place the bombs …

[T]hey did it towards the end of the exercise. But at the last minute, the White House got nervous. The president said he was afraid to go ahead. He changed his mind and gave new orders, so they had the ability to detonate the bombs remotely at any time. You do it with normal sonar, a Raytheon product by the way, you fly over the spot and drop a cylinder. It sends a low-frequency signal, you could say it sounds like a flute, you can set different frequencies.

The fear, however, was that the bombs wouldn’t work if they stayed in the water too long. This is actually what happened with two of the bombs. So there was concern within the group about finding the right way, and we actually had to turn to other intelligence agencies, which I’ve deliberately not written about.

There were still active explosives on the sea bed as the pipes were leaking their gas, which explains why partially complicit Denmark and Sweden closed the whole area and denied all access, until they themselves had removed everything.

Hersh also clarifies further the chronology of Biden’s order, and appears to suggest that at least some of those involved believed they were planting explosives only as part of a negotiating tactic, and that they’d never be used. (How this is to be harmonised with Hersh’s insistence that the sonar trigger was a last-minute plan, I can’t imagine):

Joe Biden decided not to blow them up back in June, it was five months into the war. But in September he ordered it done. The operational staff, the people who do “kinetic” things for the United States, they do what the president says, and they initially thought this was a useful weapon he could use in negotiations. But at some point, after the Russians invaded and then when the operation was completed, the whole thing became increasingly repugnant to the people who were doing it. These were people who worked in top positions in the intelligence services and were well trained. They turned against the project, they thought it was crazy.

Shortly after the attack, after they had done what they were ordered to do, there was a lot of anger about the operation and repudiation among those involved. That’s one of the reasons I learned so much. And I’ll tell you something else. The people in America and Europe who build pipelines know what happened. I’ll tell you something important. The people who own companies that build pipelines all know the story. I didn’t get the story from them, but I quickly learned that they know.

Elsewhere, Hersh says that the discontent with Biden’s attack is specifically within the CIA, where participants in the operation are “appalled that Biden decided to expose Europe to the cold in order to further a war he will not win.”

As I said before, it seems obvious that what happened to Nord Stream is an open secret in security and government circles, and that the truth simply can’t be acknowledged, because nobody in the German government wants to live with the political consequences. The only really interesting detail that all the debunkings have in common, is their refusal to address what I see as the central problem with Hersh’s story. As I said before, he says divers planted explosives at a point where the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines run just one mile apart from each other. This only describes the location of the second cluster of explosions on 26 September. The first explosion hit Pipe A of Nord Stream 2 well to the south, at a point where the two pipelines are perhaps 15 km apart.

This detail appears particularly important, in light of flight data which seems to confirm Hersh’s account that a Norwegian P8 dropped a sonar buoy into the Baltic northeast of Bornholm sometime around 4am on the morning of 26 September. Crucially, this data has the P8 arriving too late to trigger the first Nord Stream 2 explosion, which happened at 2:03 am local time. It looks for all the world like somebody organised two totally separate operations, involving two separately triggered pipeline attacks, and that Hersh’s source only knows about one of them.

February 15, 2023 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘US troops should withdraw’ if implicated in German pipeline sabotage

Free West Media | February 12, 2023

The chairman of the AfD parliamentary group, Tino Chrupalla, has called for investigative committees to be set up in connection with the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Both the Bundestag and the EU Parliament must investigate whether the US and Norway had actively participated in blowing up the pipelines, he said.

The well-known US investigative reporter Seymour Hersh quoted insider sources involved in the planning of the attack on German and European infrastructure.

Chrupalla called for an investigation into the claims: “The suspicions of the Pulitzer Prize winner must be investigated.” All the serious questions must now be “answered by committees of inquiry”. The Bundestag has “a right to know what knowledge the federal government had”.

The AfD boss underscored that such an inquiry should establish whether government officials were involved in the planning. “Were government officials privy to the planning of the attack?”

Biden, but also Scholz, Greens exposed

According to Hersh, after some “wobbling” Olaf Scholz decided to be on the American team. He was referring to a meeting between the German Chancellor and US President Joe Biden on February 7 last year. At the joint press conference, the American head of state said about the then imminent war in Ukraine: “If Russia invades, there will be no more Nord Stream 2. We will put an end to this.”

LNG deliveries from the US  have increased by 143 percent from the previous year which has been a catastrophe for the climate, critics argue. “The biggest hypocrisy in decoupling Europe from Russian oil and gas supplies concerns environmental policy. The production and transport of LNG from the USA results in a CO2 footprint that is twice as large as that of conventional Russian gas,” according to Le Monde Diplomatique.

The sabotage act to enforce the “rules-based international order”, furthermore triggered a massive release of methane causing major damage to the environment, to marine life, including to dolphins, whales and plants. This fact has been of no interest to various EU Green party supporters nor to Greta Thunberg.

The AfD parliamentary group leader pointed out that the US had attacked an ally: “Has the leading power of NATO carried out an attack on our country’s vital critical infrastructure in European waters?” If so, one would have to question whether the alliance guarantees security in Europe or rather endangers it. The withdrawal of all US troops should be the consequence.”

According to Chrupalla, all the findings of national authorities should be laid out before the European Parliament: “The European states must not put up with such violent interference. They are even less allowed to participate in it.”

Norway profits from German loss

Until Wednesday, the investigative journalist had always been known as “a legend” in leading German media screeds – as a famous sleuth successfully uncovering numerous American state crimes. Since his [Nord Stream] revelations, he has become “controversial” however.

The treatment of the Hersh revelations in German mainstream media – either totally ignoring them or blaming the Kremlin – will most probably give the already low credibility of the “leading outlets” their final deathblow.

Moreover, it appears that Germany’s most trusted “ally” had no difficulty in persuading Norway as a member of the European “community of values” to take part in a criminal endeavour in order to sell its energy exports to Germany much more profitably.

But in order to do so, Norway became actively involved in an act of terrorism, breach of international law, as well as a breach of the United Nations Charter.

When US Special Forces covert actions in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras included mining the coast of Nicaragua to stop locals from fishing and other marine activities, the case was successfully brought to the International Court of Justice in June 1986. This means that the International Court of Justice, which was established by the UN Charter, has jurisdiction in this case, legal scholars believe.

Following the sabotage, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden launched separate inquiries into the attack, further highlighting the disunity of EU members. Sweden was reportedly the first to leave the planned joint investigation team; Denmark followed suit. To date, no European country has made its findings public.

Hersh’s revelations are especially a challenge for conservatives and right-wing Atlanticists. Because if Hersh’s comprehensive account of the events, which is based on high-ranking sources in Washington, is correct, then “there can be no other consequence than the demand for the withdrawal of all American troops and military bases from Germany,” according to Wolfgang Hübner, a long-standing city councilor and parliamentary group leader of the Bürger für Frankfurt (BFF).

Legal hurdles for team Biden

The executive branch under Biden may have unilaterally decided to wage war on Germany, but there are many legal problems associated with their project, such as the failure to inform Congress or even the powerful congressional Gang of Eight.

According to Hersch, the US Navy performed the destruction of a foreign government’s property at the direction of President Biden. Claiming that they were just following orders would not go far in court, since bypassing Congress is evidently illegal.

Specifically, the Gang of Eight includes the leaders of each of the two parties from both the US Senate and House of Representatives, and the chairs and ranking minority members of both the Senate Committee and House Committee for intelligence as set forth by 50 U.S.C. § 3093(c)(2).

It is also telling that US military service chiefs did not raise the alarm when the Biden team decided to blow up Nord Stream.

Well before Hersch’s report, Norwegian investigative reporter, Alf R Jacobsen, had written a detailed analysis of the Nord Stream sabotage. In October 2022, Jacobsen challenged the idea of Russia’s involvement in the blasts. According to him, Hersh’s piece is credible.

February 12, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, False Flag Terrorism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

EU sanctions blocked Nord Stream repairs – company

RT | February 1, 2023

Norway’s Equinor on Wednesday revealed that it was the government in Oslo and EU sanctions that blocked it from responding to a request for assistance in dealing with the damage to Nord Stream pipelines. The Baltic Sea pipelines delivering Russian natural gas to Germany were damaged by sabotage in September, which Moscow blamed on the West.

“The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has stated that work on the pipelines would be in breach of the Norwegian sanction regulations – and by extension the EU sanction regulations,” Equinor said a statement emailed to Reuters.

Equinor is the Norwegian oil company that administers the Pipeline Repair and Subsea Intervention (PRSI) Pool, established by Oslo to deal with leaks and ruptures. The Swiss-based operators for Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 are among the 72 members of PRSI, and sent requests for assistance in October, shortly after both pipelines were damaged by undersea explosions.

Because PRSI “adheres to current legislation related to sanctions,” it “notified NS1 and NS2 (operators) that we were not able to do work as requested,” Equinor said in the statement.

Nord Stream 2 AG told Reuters that it had filed a request for support to inspect the damage, “as a full member of the PRSI Pool,” but was turned down. Its sister company, which operates the original Nord Stream, said in early October that the survey vessel it attempted to charter was waiting for permission from the Norwegian government.

The original Nord Stream was inaugurated in 2011, and supplied Russian natural gas to Germany and the rest of the EU while bypassing Ukraine and Poland. The second pipeline, which would have doubled the volume of gas deliveries, was finished in 2021 but Berlin refused to certify it for operations even before the conflict in Ukraine escalated. The US had sought to block the second pipeline’s construction with sanctions and vowed it would prevent it from becoming operational.

On September 26, 2022 both strings of NS1 and one string of NS2 were damaged in a series of powerful undersea explosions. As NS1 was pressurized at the time, a large quantity of gas was released into the Baltic Sea.

Washington insinuated that Moscow was behind the blasts, while Russia pointed the finger at the West for the “act of terrorism.” Sweden, Denmark and Germany launched an investigation into the explosion, but refused to share the results with Russia. Anonymous EU officials have since leaked to the US media that there was “no evidence” to suggest Moscow was behind the sabotage. Russia’s energy company Gazprom was allowed access to the site only once, in late October.

While the German gas company Uniper has estimated it would take 6-12 months to repair the pipelines, it is unclear whether Berlin even wants to do so.

February 1, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Western Intelligence Services Played Key Role in Staging Mass Riots in Iran: Moscow

Samizdat – 09.11.2022

MOSCOW – Western intelligence services played a key role in organizing mass riots in Iran and spreading further disinformation about the situation in the country, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said on Wednesday.

“We note the key role of Western intelligence services in organizing mass riots in Iran and the subsequent dissemination of misinformation about the situation in the country through the Persian-speaking Western media controlled by them. We perceive this as blatant interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state,” Patrushev said at a meeting with Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) of Iran Ali Shamkhani in Tehran, as cited by the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper.

On September 16, a series of protests against the current political regime of Iran broke out throughout the country. Riots were ignited by the reports of the death of a 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by morality police for wearing a hijab improperly.

Amini was detained by Iran’s morality police in Tehran on September 13 for wearing an “improper” hijab, an offense punishable by prison. The woman was sent to one of the FARAJA centers belonging to the police department and military intelligence for an explanatory conversation. In the center, Amini reportedly had a heart attack, after which she was immediately taken to hospital where the young woman passed away on September 16.

Tehran said that the weeks-long mass riots were planned from abroad and summoned the ambassadors of the United Kingdom, Norway, and the charges d’affaires of France in Iran in late September. The European diplomats were given a note of protest in connection with anti-Iranian media reports and calls to overthrow the Iranian government.

November 9, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Norwegian PM for restoration of contacts with Russia: “Nothing good in isolation”

By Ahmed Adel | October 26, 2022

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said that Western countries should not isolate Russia and should instead establish direct communication with Moscow to resolve the exceptionally difficult situation in Ukraine. However, Norway, a NATO member, is also one of the leading countries to oppose Russia through sanctions and support for the Ukrainian military.

“There is nothing good in isolating Russia. It is alarming that today we have so few contacts and direct communication with Russia,” Store told the Norwegian parliament on October 25.

This is an especially surprising statement since Norway has donated 4,000 M72 anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, as well as an air defence system, 22 self-propelled artillery vehicles, long-range rocket artillery and armoured vehicles. Norway will also donate the Black Hornet micro-drone system and Hellfire missiles, and will also train Ukrainian soldiers in Britain.

Although Norway is following Washington and Brussels in supporting Ukraine and acting hostile to Moscow, perhaps there is a realization setting in Oslo that the war will not end with the Ukrainian military capturing Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporozhye from Russia. By coming to such a conclusion, the only realistic option left is to call for direct communications with Russia, something the West cut in the false belief that sustained isolation and economic pressure would make Moscow capitulate and end its military operation in Ukraine.

This was of course a naïve belief since the Kremlin has for years attempted to resolve the situation in Donbass through negotiations and discussions, something that Kiev, with the West’s support and backing, never supported. Moscow was forced to take matters into their own hands to protect the Russian-speaking minority from Kiev’s fascistic policies. Although Moscow has taken the military approach, it is still open to honest and open dialogue, but of course with different demands since the situation on the ground has significantly changed.

According to the Norwegian prime minister, the lack of dialogue with Moscow undermines the possibility of reaching a peaceful settlement in Ukraine. He also added that the current political situation was the most difficult since World War II, and it is for this reason as well that communication channels must reopen.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned the West that Russia could not be isolated, and this is reflected in the fact that several major countries, including China, India and Brazil, have vocally opposed the idea of imposing unilateral sanctions on Moscow and called for the continuation of dialogue in the interest of peaceful world development.

Sanctions against Russia have led to disruptions in logistical and financial operations and to a spike in energy prices worldwide, pushing many European governments to resort to contingency measures. At the same time, Brussels has been looking for alternatives to Russian natural gas as it has pledged to end its dependence on energy supplies from Russia, thus making Norway all the more important to the EU.

The Scandinavian country is now the EU’s leading natural gas supplier, overtaking Russia. It is not forgotten that the Nord Stream pipelines leaks corresponded with the opening of a new pipeline from Norway to Poland. Although Norway is being heralded as a saviour for energy-struggling Europe, it has been criticised for essentially war profiteering.

“There is no question that the fallout from the war is making Norway richer. The state is a major player in the oil and gas industry. All told, Oslo expects to bring in about $109 billion from the petroleum sector this year — $82 billion more than in 2021. Much of that will go to the country’s sovereign wealth fund, a national nest egg worth more than $1 trillion,” The Washington Post reported.

Andreas Bjelland Eriksen, state secretary at the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, denied that Norway is profiting off the war, stressing that high energy prices “hurt Norway too.” He noted that gas exports to Europe are up 8 percent year over year. “Europe sees that, and it sees that we are a good partner,” Eriksen added.

In this way, Norway has essentially become a big winner from the war in Ukraine as it has now become the main supplier of natural gas to Europe despite charging astronomical prices. However, this is not reflected on ordinary citizen life as Norway is not immune from the effects of the self-sabotaging anti-Russia sanctions.

Complementing the higher electricity bills arriving every month, Norwegians are also experiencing higher prices for almost everything else. State statistics bureau SSB (Statistics Norway) recently reported an 11.3 percent rise in transport costs, a 12.1 percent rise in food and non-alcoholic drinks, an 8.7 percent rise in hotel and restaurant bills and a 7.6 percent rise in prices for household items and maintenance. Norway’s biggest bank, DNB, also reported that its customers are now spending much less money on expensive items.

It is for this reason that Norway, despite making record profits in the energy sector, wants dialogue with Moscow to reopen so that there can be an alleviation in the cost-of-living crisis and other sectors of the economy. Nonetheless, Oslo itself makes little contribution to peace efforts as it maintains anti-Russia sanctions and continues to train, fund, and supply the Ukrainian military.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

October 26, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Norwegian Schools Are Disseminating Government-Approved Covid Misinformation

BY KATHRINE JEBSEN MOORE | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | AUGUST 26, 2022

Who needs conspiracy theorists when you’ve got school books teaching children that Covid vaccines are “95% effective”?

This autumn, a new school book was introduced for the ninth grade in Norway. Fabel 10 was revised in 2021/22, but has only now been introduced in schools across Norway. Not only does the book overstate the effectiveness of the novel mRNA vaccines, it decries anyone questioning that as conspiracy theorists.

One excerpt reads:

Since the Covid pandemic broke loose, Covid deniers and vaccine sceptics have spread disinformation about coronavirus through social media. They claimed among other things that COVID-19 was no more deadly than the flu, that the vaccine was dangerous, and that restrictions were unnecessary. On Saturday March 20th 2021, 200 Covid deniers gathered in front of the Parliament. They burnt face masks to show that they thought they were unnecessary.

This short paragraph is easily debunked. Readers of the Daily Sceptic know that Covid now has an infection fatality rate about the same as influenza. We also know that side effects from the Covid vaccines – both the mRNA and the viral vector vaccines such as AstraZeneca’s – are more common than for other tried and tested vaccines. Remember when the Pandemrix vaccine rollout was halted because of a link to rare instances of narcolepsy? Multiple studies show Pfizer and Moderna’s Covid vaccines increase the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis in especially younger males – the demographic who make up precisely half the readership of Fabel 10. The German Government even admits that as many as one in 300 doses of the mRNA jabs produce serious injury. Compared to the danger that Covid poses to most people, does that make vaccines worth having?

And as for restrictions, a new consensus is gaining momentum. Whereas back in 2021, when the book was written, it was mainly agreed that lockdowns and other Covid restrictions were necessary to halt the spread, and countries with low Covid fatalities would credit these non-pharmaceutical interventions for their comparatively low excess mortality, studies later proved them incorrect. Lockdowns and excess mortality were not correlated. Whereas back in the early days of the pandemic, only a few, brave voices spoke up about their concerns, now even Rishi Sunak, who helped implement Britain’s lockdowns, admit they were detrimental to overall health and the economy and did little to stop infection. Yet in Norway, pupils are stuck in the reality curated more than a year ago, a reality that has now been revealed to most as bonkers.

And those 200 “Covid deniers” who burnt face masks deserve praise for being a tiny minority speaking up for science at a time where “the science” became an allegory for anything the authorities wanted us to do without having to prove why.

The book also states that vaccines are “95% effective against COVID-19 infections”. This is clearly nonsense, and doesn’t need further debunking. We all know of multiple-jabbed people getting infected several times over, and that infection rates in highly vaccinated countries went through the roof after the vaccine rollout.

Perhaps the book will serve as a test to pupils old enough to gather information from multiple sources. Some might agree with what they’re presented with, while others will see through this Government-approved misinformation. But that’s not really the sort of education you want in a free, democratic country. The book doesn’t invite 14-15 year-olds to question or discuss – it presents them with all the (wrong) answers. That’s bad enough in itself, but what’s worse is it tells them to ridicule those who don’t agree. The chapter on Covid and conspiracy theories could have been a great opportunity to teach children about academic freedom, online censorship, tolerance, debate, dissent and freedom of speech. Instead, it serves straight-up, Orwellian newspeak to young minds in a way the CCP would be proud of.

August 27, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , | Leave a comment

Turkey to host gymnastics summit after Norway refused to allow Russians

Samizdat | July 29, 2022

The dates of the International Gymnastics Federation’s (FIG) 2022 Congress have been confirmed after Turkey stepped in to host the event. The event was moved from original host Norway after it refused to allow Russian and Belarusian delegations.

The Congress will take place on November 11 and 12 in Turkey’s largest city, with the development coming following approval from the FIG’s Executive Committee.

Turkey will now host the Congress for the second year running, with Antalya receiving last year’s gathering which saw Morinari Watanabe elected for a second successive term as the FIG’s president.

Istanbul saved the day after the FIG announced earlier this week that its previous choice of Sandefjord in Norway could no longer host the congress.

This came as a result of political pressure, with the Norwegian Gymnastics Federation pulling out after recommendations from Norway’s Ministry of Culture and Equality plus the Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports (NIF) to block the attendance of Russian and Belarusian officials.

In a statement on Friday, the FIG apologized for the change and said it was “aware of the challenges caused by this unforeseen situation for all the national Gymnastics federations that were already duly registered for this Congress.”

“The FIG is very sorry for the inconvenience, and can only thank the delegations again for their understanding and valuable collaboration,” it added.

Russia and its ally Belarus have been frozen out of many international sports since the military operation in Ukraine was launched in late February, with numerous federations banning their athletes, teams and clubs following an International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommendation to do so.

These bans have sometimes extended to officials too, but delegations from the two countries have been allowed to take part in congresses such as those held by FIFA in football as well as the FIG.

Nellie Kim of Belarus is one of three FIG vice-presidents, while Russia’s Vassily Titov is a board member. Both countries have officials on various FIG committees.

As opposed to Norway and its Scandinavian neighbors, Turkey has been friendlier towards Russia while also playing an active role in mediation efforts between the country and Ukraine.

July 29, 2022 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Norway and Russia settle Svalbard cargo dispute

Samizdat | July 7, 2022

Moscow and Oslo say they have settled a dispute regarding cargo shipments to Russian mining settlements on Norway’s Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, according to a statement released by the Norwegian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday.

The statement comes after a week of tension between Moscow and Oslo, after Norway halted two cargo containers destined for Russian miners living on the archipelago on June 15, citing sanctions imposed on Moscow over its conflict with Ukraine.

Russia insisted that Norway’s “unacceptable” ban on supply deliveries was depriving Russian miners of “critical” goods, including food, medical equipment, building materials, and spare parts. Moscow threatened “appropriate retaliatory measures” if the issue was not resolved.

The Norwegian Foreign Ministry now claims that the containers were blocked because they were being transported on Russian vehicles, which were banned from bringing cargo over the Russian-Norwegian border. However, it noted that there would be no issue if these containers were brought to the miners using Norwegian vehicles instead.

After having a “good dialogue” with the Russian side, the ministry stated that the two containers with supplies were already on their way to Svalbard via a Norwegian ship.

Sergey Gushkin, a Russian consul based in Svalbard, also confirmed that the two countries had found a workaround to the situation and stated that the supplies were expected to reach the Russian miner settlement of Barentsburg on Friday.

Home to less than 3,000 residents, the Svalbard archipelago is located about halfway between the Arctic circle and the North Pole and belongs to Norway. One of the largest settlements on the archipelago is Barentsburg – a mining town primarily inhabited by Russian nationals.

The town relies on a single ship that ferries goods from Tromsø to the islands every 10 days. Previously, Russian supplies were brought by truck from Murmansk and loaded onto the ferry. However, Norway has held up the supplies at the Storskog border crossing with Russia.

Svalbard has been a flashpoint of diplomatic tensions between Moscow and Oslo before, when Norway tightened entry requirements following the 2015 visit of a senior Russian official under EU sanctions on account of Ukraine. Russia protested that such behavior violated the 1920 treaty that established Norwegian rule over the islands.

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

Norway-Russia Tensions Escalate Over Sanctions Impacting Arctic Islands

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | July 6, 2022

The latest point of confrontation between NATO and Russia is the Svalbard archipelago, located midway between Norway and the North Pole. Moscow claims Oslo is restricting trade with the island’s hundreds of Russian residents. A top member of the Russian legislature is now calling for Moscow to leave its agreement with Oslo that resolved the territorial dispute over the far-northern archipelago.

During a discussion about Norway restricting trade to the islands in the Russian Duma, the body’s speaker, Vyacheslav Volodin, requested the head of the chamber’s international affairs committee to look into “denouncing” the treaty. The agreement was signed in 2010.

In June, a shipment of goods to a Russian-operated mining colony on Svalbard was turned back. Moscow claimed the move by Oslo deprived the miners of needed food and medicine. “Norwegian authorities are trying to leave Russian miners without food, which is inherently immoral. This violates human rights and the principles of humanism,” said Russian Senator Konstantin Kosachev.

Konstantin went on to claim that Norway’s blocking of shipments violated international agreements. Oslo disputed the accusations saying it had not broken treaties and was legally enforcing sanctions. The shipment was “stopped on the basis of the sanctions that prohibit Russian road transport companies from transporting goods on Norwegian territory,” Norway’s Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said.

Huitfeldt noted there were potential options to allow the Kremlin to supply the miners without violating sanctions. The Russian Foreign Ministry promised Moscow would take “retaliatory measures” in response, though did not elaborate on what that might entail.

July 6, 2022 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Arctic Council Decisions Made Without Russia to Be Illegitimate – Ambassador to US Antonov

Samizdat – 09.06.2022

WASHINGTON – Russia is concerned about plans to resume the work of the Arctic Council without its participation and warns that decisions made in this format will be illegitimate, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said.

Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the United States earlier announced their intention to resume work in the Council on a limited basis – within the framework of projects that do not involve Russia.

“Such a step cannot but cause concern not only for Russia as the current chairman of the Council, but also for the entire international community interested in the further sustainable development of this region. We state that this unique format of interstate interaction continues to be politicized,” Antonov said.

“Decisions on behalf of the Arctic Council, made without our country, will be illegitimate and violate the principle of consensus stipulated by its governing documents,” he warned.

The work of the Council was suspended on March 3 in light of the events in Ukraine.

June 9, 2022 Posted by | Russophobia | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Norway to track all food purchases

Free West Media | June 5, 2022

Statistics Norway plans to capture several million daily receipts from food stores, signalling a new era in state data collection. Privacy advocates as well as supermarkets question this move.

Such a collection will signal a new shift in data collection and surveillance for the SSB, as the agency now seeks to force private companies and not just public ones to comply with state oversight. Given the rise in identity theft in Norway, many have grave concerns about the need for increased data collection.

Statistics Norway (SSB), the state-owned entity responsible for collecting, producing and communicating statistics related to the economy, population and society at national, regional and local levels, now also wants to know where what Norwegians buy and where they shop, according to a report by NRK.

In Norway every citizen is linked to their fødselnummer (birth number), and thus the SSB is well-informed about what individuals earn, their taxes due and their criminal records.

But it appears that the SSB does not yet know enough about their subjects. it has ordered Norway’s major supermarket chains NorgesGruppen, Coop, Bunnpris and Rema 1000 to share all their receipt data with the agency. Nets, the payment processor that is responsible for 80 percent of transactions related to supermarket purchases, will also need to provide data.

“A link between a payment transaction made with a debit card and a grocery receipt enables SSB to link a payment transaction and receipt for more than 70 percent of grocery purchases,” SSB said in an assessment.

Privacy advocates and the retail industry rejected the proposal.

Why is SSB doing this?

SSB claims they want “a less time-consuming way” of collecting and analysing data on household consumption in order to design an appropriate tax policy, adjust social assistance and child allowance payments.

In 2012, Norwegian households had listed household purchases in a paper booklet, but according to the SSB the survey was time-consuming and error-prone. This prompted discussions on whether the state could take advantage of tracking digital footprints left by consumers.

“When the purchases are linked to a household, it will be possible in the consumption statistics to analyze socio-economic and regional differences in consumption, and link it to variables such as income, education and place of residence,” the SSB said. They claim that they are only concerned about regional data, but NTNU researcher Lisa Reutter underscored how the public sector was being digitised and was using more and more data.

Reutter is among those concerned with the state’s thirst for increased data collection. “When we increase the public administration’s ability to classify, predict and control citizens’ behaviour using large amounts of digital data, the balance of power between citizen and state is shifted,” she said.

Pushback from retailers

The biggest player in Norwegian grocery retail, NorgesGruppen said they would appeal the decision and ask the Norwegian Data Protection Authority for guidance, according to NRK.

Payment processor Nets said they share concern “about the collection and compilation of data that may be problematic and intrusive for the individual citizen.”

Coop spokesperson Harald Kristiansen also expressed his reservations about this plan. While Coop believes that the SSB may be acting in good faith, the company will nevertheless consider appealing the order.

Data collection in supermarkets is nothing new, however. Many consumers already make available all their purchase data to supermarkets and other retailers in the form of loyalty programs and cards.

While consumers are offered discounts, supermarkets in turn gain access to valuable information about individual purchasing habits and preferences.

But the big difference between these loyalty programs and the SSB proposal is that supermarket loyalty programs are optional.

June 5, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

Norway responds to Polish demand for shared energy revenues

Samizdat | May 23, 2022

Norway has made it clear that it’s not going to give in to Poland’s demand for it to share its growing profits from the oil and gas trade with either Warsaw or Kiev.

On Sunday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki claimed that Norway would earn an extra €100 billion ($106.9 billion) from energy sales this year due to a spike in oil and gas prices caused by the conflict in Ukraine and international sanctions on Russia.

“They should share these excess profits. It’s not normal, it’s unjust. This is an indirect preying on the war started by [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” the PM insisted, adding that Oslo shouldn’t necessarily send its money to Poland, but to Ukraine.

Morawiecki also urged young Poles to shame their Norwegian “friends” over the massive gas profits online to push the country into sharing the wealth.

However, Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister Eivind Vad Petersson questioned Morawiecki’s calculations on Monday.

He explained that excess oil and gas revenues go into the country’s pension fund, also known as the Oil Fund, which was established in 1990 to make sure that this wealth serves the current and future generations of Norwegians.

“Although petroleum revenues have increased as a result of the war in Ukraine, the value of the fund has fallen,” Vad Petersson pointed out.

Since the start of the year, the pension fund has lost 550 billion Norwegian krone (around $56 billion) due to turbulence on the stock market, the diplomat said.

“The Norwegian economy and Norwegian consumers are also being hit by higher prices for electricity and petrol,” he added.

Also on Monday, the Polish government, which is a strong backer of Kiev in its conflict with Moscow, announced the termination of its natural gas supply contract with Russia without waiting for its expiry at the end of 2022.

“After 30 years, it can be stated that relations in the gas industry between Poland and Russia have ceased,” Piotr Naimsky, Polish commissioner for strategic energy infrastructure, said about the move.

Russian gas giant Gazprom had already stopped supplying gas to Poland in April after Warsaw refused to switch to ruble payments for deliveries. The new rules for so-called “unfriendly countries” were introduced by Moscow in response to sanctions and the freezing of Russian foreign assets.

May 23, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

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