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Putin vs. Big Pharma: The ultimate smackdown

Is Putin plotting to purge the pill peddlers? If so, we have some suggestions.

By Riley Waggaman | OffGuardian | July 12, 2022

Is Vladimir Putin preparing to cleanse Russia of Big Pharma shills (his entire cabinet)? Some seem to think so and there is certainly evidence that some kind of anti-shill crackdown is coming.

Let’s explore this intriguing news item together.

Take the wheel, TASS :

Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticized foreign drug companies for pushing their products through local medical institutions and via doctors in Russia using their deep-pocketed resources.

“Unfortunately, foreign pharmaceutical companies attracted some heads of our medical institutions, and medical workers in 30 regions. And they pushed their medicines [on to the Russian market], paying quite a lot of money for it. We saw that under just one scheme they doled out 500 million [rubles],” he said at a meeting with Yury Chikhanchin, Head of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service.

Putin noted that such practice also exists in the EU and worldwide.

“They do it everywhere. They do it in Europe and overseas too. This is how they operate,” he said.

Chikhanchin responded by saying his agency was working with the FSB to root out gratuitous Big Pharma grifting.

First of all: At the very least Putin deserves a golf clap for saying rude things about Big Pharma. No one loses points for doing that. So we salute you, Vladimir Putin. Keep it up.

At the same time: talk is cheap. If you’re going to launch a Novichok rocket at Big Pharma for “pushing their products through local medical institutions” (as TASS summarized) in 30 regions… this doesn’t exactly sound like the cleansing enema that Russia so desperately needs.

If Putin is sincere about expelling degenerate pill pushers from Russia, how far is he willing to go? Because in order to have a meaningful impact he’ll have to go pretty far. All the way, actually.

You need to cut the head off the snake. And the snake lives in Moscow. The snake has wrapped its slimly reptile-bod around various federal ministries. The snake is suffocating Russia at the highest levels of government.

That’s just a fact.

Maybe it’s time for a “performance review” at the Ministry of Health? (source)

If tomorrow the FSB announces it bagged the deputy director of a village clinic in Potato-Patch, Yakutia, this will not qualify as a successful crackdown on Big Pharma’s nefarious influence in Russia. It will qualify as a massive fail.

So which Big Pharma Strumpets should be Gitmo’d by the FSB? We’re so glad you asked.

All of the Important Russians who partied with Tedros and Big Pharma at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum — straight to the gulag for some desperately needed rehabilitation.

And of course, no Big Pharma smackdown would be complete without frog-marching Madame Arbidol to the most remote Siberian penal colony. Sorry, we don’t make the rules.

Russia’s largest pharmaceutical firms also need to be put in the crosshairs. As we saw with Sputnik V, Russian drug companies enthusiastically collaborate with western pharmaceuticals to create horrific poisons for the masses. And the Russian government is invested in this gross cooperation — which is slightly discouraging?

Furthermore, the worst medicine-related grifting involves government contracts. And also: a lot of the pill peddling and unethical contracting is done legally.

As Tsargrad explained in an article unpacking Putin’s comments:

Putin demanded action against Western pharmaceutical companies that bribe our doctors. Tsargrad examined the problem and found out that this bribery is most often completely legal. To change the situation, you need to change the laws. […]

The peculiarity of Russia lies in the active participation of the state in the market of medical services. It is more profitable to get a big contract and relax than to work painstakingly with doctors, although this is not neglected either. Therefore, our “favorite” form of illegal cooperation of pharmaceutical companies with the heads of institutions and officials is to ensure victory in the auction.

So, for example, at the end of 2019, the head doctor of the republican oncological dispensary of the Ministry of Health of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania was caught red-handed while receiving a bribe on an especially large scale. A few days before that, the head physician of the Penza Regional Oncology Center received a five-year sentence (as did the director of the pharmaceutical company who gave him the bribe). There are other precedents, many of them. […]

Of course, the problem raised by Chikhanchin and Putin concerns not only Western companies — the domestic pharmaceutical industry has adopted the worst habits of its “big brothers” and interacts with medical personnel no less successfully.

That sums up the situation pretty well, we think.

We welcome any and all efforts to make Russian healthcare less scammy and more healthy.

But let’s not forget that after two years of “public health measures” — two years of non-stop grifting and murderous lies — Russia now finds itself in a very, very deep hole — a hole dug by the Russian government. Go figure.

A population decline of more than 1 million people in 2021. The largest decline in decades. (source)

We should add that there are rumors on the Russian interwebz that several high ranking officials are under investigation as part of this alleged Big Pharma crackdown. We haven’t found anything substantial to support this claim but… fingers crossed?

Let’s see what the FSB cooks up. It’s 2022. Anything is possible.

Even atonement.

Riley Waggaman is your humble Moscow correspondent. He worked for RT, Press TV, Russia Insider, yadda yadda. In his youth, he attended a White House lawn party where he asked Barack Obama if imprisoned whistleblower Bradley Manning (Chelsea was still a boy back then) “had a good Easter.” Good times good times. You can subscribe to his Substack here, or follow him on twitter or Telegram.

For those who don’t follow Riley on Telegram, he has recently been purged from PayPal – no doubt because he’s wrong about everything, and no threat to the establishment at all.

July 12, 2022 Posted by | Corruption | | Leave a comment

WHO Wants To Run the World?

By Paul Frijters, Gigi Foster, Michael Baker | Brownstone Institute | July 11, 2022

In Geneva in late May at the 75th meeting of the WHO’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly (WHA), amendments to its International Health Regulations (IHRs) were debated and voted upon. If passed, they would grant the WHO the right to exert unconscionable pressure on countries to accept the WHO’s authority and health policy actions if the WHO decides that there is a public health threat that might spread beyond a country’s borders.

As Ramesh Thakur, the second man at the UN for years, noted, the amendments would mean “the rise of an international bureaucracy whose defining purpose, existence, powers and budgets will depend on outbreaks of pandemics, the more the better.”

This is the first clear instance of a globalist coup attempt. It would subvert national sovereignty worldwide by putting real power into the hands of an international group of bureaucrats. It has long been suspected that the authoritarian elites arisen during covid times would try to strengthen their positions by undermining nation states, and the this 75th jamboree is the first solid evidence of this being true.

What an opportunity then to see who is in the conspiring club. Who drafted the amendments? What was in them? Which individuals supported them or spoke out against them?

WHO were the conspirators?

The amendments on the table at the May WHA meeting had been transmitted to the WHO by the US Department of Health and Human Services on January 18, circulated by WHO to its member states (‘States Parties’) on January 20 and formally introduced to the WHA on April 12.

The proposals, according to an announcement on January 26, were co-sponsored by 19 countries plus the European Union. Even if some co-sponsors had little direct involvement in drafting them, they all would have approved in principle the overarching goal of tightening up the WHO’s authority over member states in the face of a public health event.

Loyce Pace, the HHS’s Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs – the leading US official nominally responsible for the proposed amendments – arrived at the Biden administration fresh from a stint as executive director of an advocacy organization called the Global Health Council.

That council receives funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its members include Eli Lilly, Merck, Pfizer, Abbott Labs, and Johnson & Johnson. You get the idea. Via one of the foxes-turned-chicken-guard, it appears the HHS ‘worked closely’ on these amendments with large pharmaceutical companies, who will be chomping at the bit for a more proactive (read: profitable) response to any public health emergency, real or imagined.

So the conspiring club consists primarily of the US government and its Western allies in lockstep with Big Pharma, and they are looking to undermine both the sovereignty of their own governments and that of other countries, presumably with the idea that the Western elites would do the running.

What was in them? A blizzard of acronyms and euphemisms

To understand what the US proposed at the WHA, we need first to understand how things have worked in the WHO to this point.

The IHRs in their current form have been in force as international law since June 2007. Among other things, they impose requirements on countries to detect, report and respond to ‘public health events of international concern,’ or PHEICs. The WHO Director-General consults with the state where a possible public health event has occurred, and within 48 hours they are meant to come to a mutual agreement on whether or not it actually is a PHEIC, whether or not it needs to be announced to the world as such, and what counter-measures, if any, should be taken. It’s essentially an early-warning system on major health crises. This is a good thing if it’s run by people you can trust and if it has checks and balances to rein in expansionary tendencies.

The proposed amendments would greatly strengthen the power of the WHO relative to this baseline, in a number of ways.

First, they lower the threshold for the WHO to declare a public health emergency by empowering its Regional Directors to declare a ‘public health event of regional concern’ (PHERC, italics ours) and for the WHO to put out a new thing called an ‘intermediate public health alert.’

Second, they permit the WHO to consider allegations about a public health event from non-official sources, meaning sources other than the government of the state concerned, and allow that government only 24 hours to confirm the allegations and a further 24 hours to accept the WHO’s offer of ‘collaboration.’

Collaboration is essentially a euphemism for on-site assessment by teams of WHO investigators, and concomitant pressure at the whim of WHO personnel to enact potentially far-reaching measures such as lockdowns, movement restrictions, school closures, consumption of medicines, administration of vaccines and any or all of the other social, economic, and health paraphernalia that we have come to associate with the covid circus.

Should the state’s government acceptance of the WHO’s ‘offer’ not be forthcoming, the WHO is empowered to disclose the information it has to the other 194 WHO countries, while continuing to pressure the state to yield to the WHO’s invitation to ‘collaborate.’ A non-collaborating country would risk becoming a pariah.

Third, the proposal includes a new Chapter IV, which would establish a ‘Compliance Committee’ consisting of six government-appointed experts from each WHO region tasked with permanently nosing around to ensure the member states are complying with IHR regulations.

There are more crossings-out of the existing IHR language and new language added in, but the flavour of what the US-led alliance is shooting for is a WHO that can unilaterally decide whether there is a problem and what to do about it, and can isolate countries that disagree.

Compliant WHO member states could act as a supporting cast in the isolation effort, through the distribution of their own health budgets and their ‘health-related’ policies, which would include travel and trade restrictions. The WHO would become a kind of command-and-control center for globalist agendas, pushing the produce of (Western) Big Pharma.

Why and how would this work?

We learned during covid times why it would make sense that the US and its allies are insisting on these amendments.

Lowering the bar for declaring a global (or regional) public health threat triggers a huge opportunity for Western pharmaceutical companies. As legal experts have observed: “WHO emergency declarations can trigger the fast-track development and subsequent global distribution and administration of unlicensed investigational diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.

This is done via the WHO’s Emergency Use Listing Procedure (EULP). The introduction of an ‘intermediate public health alert’ in particular will also further incentivise the pharmaceutical industry’s move to activate domestic fast-track emergency trial protocols as well as for advance purchase, production and stockpile agreements with governments before the existence of a concrete health threat to the world’s population has been detected, as is already the case under WHO’s EULP via the procedures developed for a ‘pre-public health emergency phase’.”

You can bet that the WHO ‘expert teams’ sent in to make on-the-ground assessments, under the banner of ‘collaboration’ with the host country experiencing the health event, will be chock-a-block with operatives from the CDC and who knows what other Western agencies, all poking around potentially sensitive facilities that a host government might justifiably claim a sovereign right to keep to itself. Likewise with the ‘Compliance Committee’ proposed by the US under the new Chapter IV of the IHRs: its government-appointed members have an open-ended brief, enshrined in international law, to be busybodies.

In layman’s terms, the WHO would be turned into an international thug, with its member states offered the role of backyard gang members.

As a bonus for Western elites, the proposals are a sneaky form of rewriting history. By cementing authority within an international organisation to determine the existence of public health crises and direct potentially draconian emergency responses, Western governments would get to enshrine and legitimise their own extreme responses to the covid outbreak, as we have pointed out previously. Their backsides would thereby be given some protection from legal challenges.

The refusniks: Developing countries

The proposals were pushed primarily by Western countries: the US was joined by Australia, the UK and the EU in arguing for passage. The resistance was led by developing countries who saw it as a colonialist ambush in which their ability to set policy and respond to health threats in a manner commensurate with their domestic situations would be overridden.

Brazil reportedly went so far as to threaten to withdraw from the WHO, and the African group of almost 50 countries, along with India, argued that the amendments were being rushed through without adequate consultation. Russia, China and Iran also objected.

Failure on the first try, but the US and its allies in the West will get more shots to push it through.

How do we expect them to do this? Well, when a proposal gets bogged down inside a giant bureaucratic machine like the WHO, the inevitable response is to set up committees to work in the background and circle back with a new set of proposals to be presented at a future meeting. True to form, a ‘working group’ and ‘expert committee’ are being assembled to accept member state proposals on IHR reform by the end of September this year. These will be ‘sifted through’ and reports will be prepared for review by the WHO’s executive board in January next year. The objective is to have a fresh set of proposals on the table when the WHA convenes for the 77th time in 2024.

Not all was lost

Salvaging something from the fact that the WHA failed to get a consensus around its biggest agenda item, the US and its allies got a small victory on the point of when they can try again – though in their desperation they needed to violate the IHRs’ own rules to accomplish it. Article 55 of the IHRs states unambiguously that a four-month notice period is required for any amendments.

In this instance, revised amendments were presented on May 24, the same day that the first lot were rejected. These were discussed, further amended on May 27 and then adopted on the same day. The approved amendments halve the two-year period for any (further) approved amendments to the IHRs to take effect. (The IHRs that came into force in 2007 were agreed to in 2005 – but under the new resolution, anything agreed to in 2024 would come into effect in 2025 rather than 2026.)

Yet, what was achieved in terms of fast-tracking the force of new amendments was lost in slow-tracking their implementation. Nations would have up to 12 months – double the previous suggestion of six months – to implement any IHR amendments that newly enter into force of law.

State of play

Where is all this going?

If the WHO takes the reins on decisions about what constitutes a health crisis, and can pressure every country into a one-size-fits-all set of responses that it, the WHO, also determines, that’s bad enough. But what about if its invitation to ‘collaborate’ with countries is backed up with teeth, such as sanctions against those who demur? And what about if it then broadens the definition of ‘public health’ by, for example, declaring that climate change falls under that definition? Or racism? Or discrimination against LBTQIA+ people? The possibilities thereby opened up for running the world are endless.

A global ‘health’ empire would bring huge harms to humanity, but a lot of power and money is pushing for it. Don’t think it can’t happen.

Paul Frijters is a Professor of Wellbeing Economics at the London School of Economics: from 2016 through November 2019 at the Center for Economic Performance, thereafter at the Department of Social Policy

July 11, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Over 300 Trucks From Kaliningrad Region Queue at Border With Lithuania

Samizdat – 11.07.2022

KALININGRAD, Russia – More than 300 trucks are queuing at the Russian-Lithuanian border attempting to exit the Russian exclave region of Kaliningrad, with another 200 trucks awaiting entry into the region, Kaliningrad customs service said on Monday.

“As of 9 a.m. on July 11, in the past 24 hours employees of Chernyshevskoe checkpoint processed 200 heavy trucks heading to the Republic of Lithuania and 298 trucks arriving to the territory of the Kaliningrad region. Departure from the Russian Federation is expected by 310 vehicles, entry – by 200 trucks,” the custom said.

Kaliningrad trucker drivers complain about spending days in queues, while lacking access to basic necessities.

“People [truck drivers] basically have no food, not everyone can buy it in stores, and you still have to drive to them, not everyone has euros. No toilets, no showers, they just stand in the woods in Lithuania and wait,” one of the truck drivers told Sputnik.

Queues of trucks at the Russian-Lithuanian border in Kaliningrad region at Chernyshevskoye checkpoint appeared in late June and since then their intensity has been escalating. On June 23, 150 trucks were waiting to leave the region, on June 25 their number increased to 250 trucks. Kaliningrad custom service said that the number of trucks allowed out of the region decreased because of the breakdown at Lithuanian customs.

The European Union banned Russia-registered trucks in early April but made an exemption for those transiting to Kaliningrad, which is located on the Baltic Sea coast. The current restrictions on the transit of Russian goods, announced by Lithuania, apply to all transit of goods sanctioned by the EU. Lithuanian Railways notified the Kaliningrad region’s railway of halting the transit of a number of goods subject to EU sanctions on June 18.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia is considering various options for responding to Lithuania’s “unfriendly” move. Kaliningrad Region Governor Anton Alikhanov said that the restrictions would not affect transit of oil products at least until August 10 and that the region would mobilize its ferry fleet to compensate for railroad cargo cuts.

July 11, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

U.S. Drug-War Hypocrisy in Russia

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | July 11, 2022

The drug-war hypocrisy of President Biden and the mainstream press are on full display in Russia, specifically in the case of Brittney Griner, the renowned W.N.B.A. basketball star. Griner was caught with a small amount of hashish oil in her luggage upon arriving in Russia to play for a Russian basketball team during the offseason. She has been detained by Russian authorities for drug-war violations since February 17 of this year. She faces a possible 10-year jail sentence.

Imbued with their extreme anti-Russia animus, Biden and the mainstream press have gone ballistic, accusing Russian authorities of illegitimately detaining Griner. They have been maintaining that Russian authorities should release her immediately and permit her to return to the United States without any further delay.

For example, here is an editorial from the Los Angeles Times entitled “Free Brittney Griner,” in which the Times writes, “We don’t know if Griner brought contraband into Russia or if she’s being framed by an adversarial government with an unjust legal system. At this point, it really doesn’t matter. This punishment does not fit the alleged crime, and it’s clear that Griner is essentially a political hostage. She must be freed.”

Consider this op-ed in the New York Times in which a Times sports columnist named Kurt Streeter repeatedly repeats the phrase “141 days,” to depict what he considers to be an excessively long period of time for Griner to be held on drug charges.

Meanwhile, after these pieces were written, Griner decided to plead guilty to the charges. So far, there is no allegation by either newspaper that the Russians forced her to plead guilty. 

For his part, Biden is steadfastly maintaining that despite Griner’s guilty plea, the Russians are still holding Griner illegitimately. Unfortunately, he failed to provide any explanation for his reasoning, most likely because he doesn’t have one. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre confirmed this when she stated, “We believe that the Russian Federation has wrongfully detained Brittney Griner, and she is in intolerable circumstances right now. We are going to do everything that we can — the president has this top of mind — to make sure that we get Brittney home safely.”

Of course, there is one great big elephant in the room that none of these people dares to confront and address: drug laws. Russia has drug laws, just like the United States does. 

Now, think about that: Russia is an authoritarian state, one that has drug laws as part of its legal structure. In fact, think about China, a totalitarian communist state, one that also has drug laws as part of its system. 

Given such, what does that say about the United States, given that it too has drug laws as part of its system. In fact, both the federal government and the state governments have brutally enforced drug laws for decades, as thousands of people who have been prosecuted and incarcerated can attest.  

Streeter laments, repeatedly, that Griner has been in jail for “141 days.” Sure, three months is a long time, given that no one should should ever be detained at all for possessing drugs. But what Streeter omits from his lamentations is that 141 days is nothing compared to the years-long and decades-long jail sentences that American citizens have received at the hands of not the Russians but rather at the hands of their very own government officials — just for possessing or distributing drugs.

Just a few weeks ago, a festival organized by a group called the Rainbow Family was held in a national forest in Colorado. A U.S. magistrate popped in and opened up a makeshift courtroom in the middle of the forest. And guess why he did that. So that he could arraign people who were charged with possession of marijuana and other minor offenses. You can catch a photograph of this guy in this Washington Post article. He is quoted as saying, “Have you ever been in a more beautiful courtroom?”

It’s worth noting that Griner is black. Why is that important? Because it helps to remind us of the racist nature of America’s drug laws. The people who are serving the longest jail sentences here in the United States for drug-war violations are black. In fact, America’s drug war is without a doubt the most racist government program since segregation. 

The Wall Street Journal, citing NORML, states that Griner’s possession of a small quantity of hashish oil would have been legal in Arizona and 18 other states. That’s only partially true. It’s legal under state law, but not federal law. The federal government continues to make possession of illicit drugs, including marijuana and hashish oil, illegal in every state, just as Russia does. 

There is, of course, another lesson to be learned here. The more that the Pentagon, by itself or through NATO, incites foreign crises or creates official enemies in order to justify the continuation of its massive and ever-increasing taxpayer-funded largess, it makes it much more unsafe for Americans to travel overseas. 

Brittney Griner’s arrest and detention for drug-war violations in Russia puts a needed mirror on America’s war on drugs. The best thing U.S. officials could do to help others around the world who are victimized for drug-war violations is by ending its own drug-war tyranny here at home. That means legalization of all drugs, both at the federal and state levels. It also means immediately releasing every person from every state and federal prison who has been incarcerated for a non-violent drug offense. It’s always best to lead by example, as compared to engaging in hypocritical tirades against foreign regimes that are enforcing the same drug-war tyranny that U.S. officials are enforcing here at home.

July 11, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Stocks of Western-supplied missiles destroyed in Ukraine – Moscow

Samizdat | July 11, 2022

Russian warships have destroyed stocks of US-supplied ammunition, by striking arms depots in Ukraine’s central Dnepropetrovsk Region with Kalibr cruise missiles, the defense ministry said on Monday.

“Stores of ammunition for US-delivered HIMARS multiple rocket launchers and M772 howitzers, as well as for 2S7 Pion self-propelled guns have been destroyed,” Defense Ministry spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov said during his daily press briefing.

Konashenkov added that Russian aircraft hit the bases of “nationalist battalions and foreign mercenaries” in the eastern city of Kharkov, killing around 250 fighters and destroying up to 25 military vehicles.

The US promised this month to supply Kiev with four additional HIMARS launchers, bringing the total number sent to Ukraine to 12. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov called them a “game-changer” on the battlefield.

Last week, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that it had wiped out two HIMARS launchers and two ammunition depots. The Ukrainian military dismissed the report as “fake,” insisting that the US-made launchers were inflicting “colossal” damage and casualties on the “occupying forces.”

July 11, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

India to boost Sakhalin-1 oil output

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | JULY 10, 2022

After Sakhalin-2, Moscow also plans to nationalise Sakhalin-1 oil and gas development project by ousting US and Japanese shareholders. But Moscow will make an exception for India so that OVL which holds 20% stake will remain & continue to work. Moscow grapevine is that while Rosneft will continue to hold controlling share, more Indian companies may be inducted to replace US & Japan and thereby also ensure a sales market in India.

The Sakhalin-1 is located off the coast of Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East. It comprises three offshore fields — namely, Chayvo, Odoptu, and Arkutun-Dagi. Until recently, the Sakhalin-1 project was operated by a Russian subsidiary of the American major ExxonMobil known as Exxon Neftegaz, which owns 30% of the shares. In addition, 20% is owned by the Russian state, 30% by the Japanese company Sodeco, and 20% by the Indian ONGC Videsh. Whereas Sakhalin-2 specialises in the export of liquefied natural gas, Sakhalin-1 is in the export of Sokol oil.

The capacity of Sakhalin-1 is quite impressive. There was a time before OPEC+ set limits on production level, when Russia extracted as much as 400,000 barrels per day, but the recent production level has been about 220,000 barrels per day. The abrupt departure of the Americans following the US sanctions against Russia has caused the production to plummet to just 10,000 barrels. Russians hope that with the replacement by more Indian companies, the production level can be restored to the previous level. Indeed, the hope is that Indian ONGC Videsh will pull up the production level of Sakhalin-1 project relatively quickly by bringing in own technologies.

The overall trend of nationalising the holdings of American, British, Japanese and European capital in Russia’s strategic sectors of economy is crystallising as the new policy — the Russian version of India’s AatmaNirbhar Bharat (“Self-reliant India” campaign.) Cleansing of the Russian economy, freed of Western capital, is expected to accelerate in the period ahead. India has seamless opportunities here to make investments and reap windfall profits. In strategic terms, India’s energy security will also be guaranteed for decades to come.

Moscow was well aware of the predatory character of Western capital in Russia’s oil sector — a legacy of the Boris Yeltsin era — but had to live with the exploitation as it didn’t want to antagonise other potential western investors. But that is history now. The souring of relations with the West to almost breaking point rids Moscow of such archaic inhibitions.

Indeed, the new policy to replace western capital from the commanding heights of Russian economy is not without risks, but Moscow is confident that it is on the right track and must do what it takes. Also, the decrease in production in the Sakhalin-1, unless addressed soon, may negatively affect the very characteristics of the oil fields in the Russian Far East, if the oil recovery factor decreases over time and a lot of oil is left to remain in the reservoirs.

The development of the fields had depended on Western equipment and technologies. Now Russia has lost both. On the other hand, the departure of the Americans will leave Russia with no easy route but to have its own technologies.

On balance, however, Americans stand to lose heavily too, as the production sharing arrangements dating back to the Yeltsin era had been forced out of the Russian government when it was in dire economic straits during the transition from the Soviet period and was in no position to negotiate optimal deals. Come to think of it, something like 262 such so-called production sharing agreements (PSAs) were squeezed out of the Russian government by western oil companies by the time Yeltsin retired.

After coming to power in 1999, President Vladimir Putin set about the mammoth task of cleaning up the Aegean stables of Russia’s foreign collaboration in the oil sector. The “decolonisation” process was excruciatingly difficult, but Putin pulled through it and got rid of as many as 260 (out of 262) PSAs. In fact, Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2 are the very last remaining two PSAs harking back to post-Soviet Russia’s decade of humiliation under Yeltsin.

Any surprises why the Biden Administration hates Putin so much and wants him out of power in Moscow?

Legend is that when the Soviet Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev paid his pathbreaking visit to India in 1955, then Prime Minister Nehru, amongst other “talking points”, referred to Soviet Union’s great reservoir of expertise in the oil sector, while complaining that the West refused help for anything in India’s state sector.

The folklore is that Khrushchev instinctively reacted in positive terms to Nehru’s request for help and no sooner than his return to Moscow, deputed a famous Soviet expert / geologist to India to prospect for oil — whose fame was such that he could apparently smell oil lying untapped deep in the bowels of the earth! Thus was born the ONGC in 1956, which is now heading for Sakhalin Island on a similar mission!

July 10, 2022 Posted by | Economics | , , | Leave a comment

Biden is Right… Inflation Crisis Is Not Inevitable, So End the Reckless U.S.-Led Warmongering

Strategic Culture Foundation | July 8, 2022

It’s rare for Strategic Culture Foundation to find itself in agreement with pronouncements made by American President Joe Biden. This week, Biden asserted once again that economic inflation and recession hitting the American economy are “not inevitable”. He is correct – at least in part. Although not for reasons that he would ever admit.

Of course, Biden is trying to obscure the grim reality of economic crisis that is afflicting not just the American economy but also the European Union. Inflation of living costs for ordinary citizens in the U.S. and EU are at record highs not seen in decades. There is a sense of calamity in social conditions from mass poverty amid grotesque super-rich inequality. A major input to the general inflation is the soaring price of energy.

The global impact is causing food prices to escalate putting millions of people at risk of hunger, especially in Africa and other low-income nations.

The impending crisis is on an unprecedented scale. Yet, it is not inevitable. But what is making it unavoidable is the warmongering policy of the U.S. and its European NATO allies towards Russia and China. This week saw outlandish American and British efforts to label China along with Russia as an existential threat to “global peace”. The bitter irony of these two rogue Western states casting aspersions on any other nation is too much for words.

The world is being thrown into chaos, insecurity and uncertainty by reckless stoking of war in Ukraine by the Western powers who are funneling tens of billions of dollars-worth of military weapons to that country. This week saw US-supplied HIMARS artillery hitting cities in the Donbass breakaway republics. Where are the Western efforts to mediate a diplomatic end to that war? There are none. Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated this week that Moscow would like to find a long-term peaceful settlement. The harsh and despicable truth is that the U.S. and its Western allies are incapable of seeking a political solution. They are willing to fight to the last Ukrainian.

Blaming Russia for that conflict is a fallacy. The war has been deliberately stoked by the United States and its NATO accomplices as part of their geopolitical objective of subjugating Russia and China to their hegemonic agenda.

Western sanctions against Russia have created a global energy crisis that is boomeranging on the economies of the United States and Europe as well as the wider world. Biden is trying to scapegoat Moscow for imposing price hikes and taxes on his nation. The reality is it is his administration and its European lackeys who are imposing hardships on their own citizens from a madcap policy of warmongering.

There is a straightforward way out of the abysmal situation. The U.S. and its NATO allies should halt all weapons supplies to the Nazi regime in Kiev. They should also reverse the draconian economic sanctions on Russia. They should pursue diplomatic relations to end the conflict in Ukraine that they have instigated. They should normalize relations with Russia and China instead of relentlessly pushing Cold War-style confrontation.

But that is unlikely to happen under prevailing circumstances. Because the United States and its NATO minions have locked themselves into a deceptive paradigm of hostility. This, in turn, is because of futile ambitions for hegemonic dominance and intrinsic opposition to the emergence of a multipolar world.

Demonizing and antagonizing Russia and China is the real agenda for U.S.-led global imperialism. That criminal policy is covered up with cynical and absurd claims about defending “rules-based order” and democracy in Ukraine, Taiwan and elsewhere.

Nevertheless, the Empire of Lies is running out of credibility and false pretexts. What is becoming more and more evident is the awful reality. The U.S.-led collective West is one predicated on warmongering to preserve its waning global power and privileges.

Russia and China have repeatedly appealed for the existence of a multilateral global order that is consistent with the vision of the United Nations that was set up in the aftermath of World War Two. The United States and its imperial surrogates have continually attacked and undermined that vision with unilateral violations of international law and the sovereignty of countless nations. The U.S. avowed “rules-based order” is synonymous with war, war, war. Decades of relentless U.S.-driven wars – albeit under specious guises and pretenses – prove that.

Today we are witnessing the historic endgame playing out. The current war in Ukraine is but one malignant manifestation.

When asked how long Americans (and presumably Europeans) will have to endure economic pain, Biden retorted, “As long as it takes”. As long as it takes for what? To defeat Russia, China and whomever other nation the U.S.-led imperial axis deems necessary to be subjugated? That’s not going to happen. Those days are over.

Russia and China are too strong militarily and economically for the U.S.-led axis to vanquish. The world is being driven to war, potentially a catastrophic one, by American death throes in the face of reality. In the meantime, American, European and other peoples are being assailed with economic misery as a result of this criminal warmongering for the sake of empire. That is, the crumbling, bankrupt empire of U.S.-dominated Western capitalism and its imperial roguery.

The appalling state of world affairs is not inevitable. But due to the depraved and implacable pursuit of hostility towards Russia and China by the U.S. and its servile European elite, the world is – for now at least – held hostage by these psychopathic Western politicians and their corporate paymasters. That, however, is changing as people realize more and more the real nature and perpetrators of their captive condition.

The giant Western charade is no longer sustainable. From European colonialism to American imperialism, the charade has indeed had a long run. Now, though, it is in tatters from its own inherent corruption and lies. The ignominious downfall this week of Boris Johnson, Britain’s clown prime minister, is just a bit-part of the collapsing Western axis of evil. That collapse is inevitable.

July 9, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia calls out American goal in arming Ukraine

Samizdat | July 9, 2022

The US government is aiming to protract the armed conflict in Ukraine for as long as possible, and it is for this purpose that Washington is providing Kiev with four more HIMARS units, the Russian embassy in Washington claimed on Friday.

The diplomatic mission’s statement went on to suggest that the planned delivery of additional multiple launch systems is intended to make up for growing casualties among Ukrainian forces.

It dismissed the Pentagon’s claim that such weapons are being used by Kiev for defensive purposes.

The Ukrainian military and “nationalist groups are deploying US-supplied weapons to destroy cities of Donbass,” the statement insisted.

The Russian diplomats claimed that the “Ukrainian Armed Forces are constantly deliberately targeting residential areas of Donetsk,” including parts of the city where there are no Russian troops. As a result of this, “civilians are dying,” according to the embassy.

“The goal of the Russian Federation is to put an end to the terror of the Kiev regime,” the embassy proclaimed, adding that “Washington with its actions is not bringing peace closer, but on the contrary, is encouraging the Ukrainian authorities to commit new blood crimes.”

Earlier on Friday, a senior Pentagon official revealed that the “White House will be announcing” a new round of military aid for Ukraine, which would include, among other things, four high-mobility artillery rocket systems, HIMARS, and additional ammunition for those units.

The US Department of Defense official stressed that these weapons are “especially important and effective in assisting Ukraine and coping with the Russian artillery battle in the Donbass.”

When asked by a journalist about the total number of HIMARS units that Ukraine would have after receiving the new four ones, the Pentagon representative said Kiev would have 12 such systems at its disposal.

They went on to rebut Russia’s claims that its forces had managed to destroy some of the HIMARS units Washington had previously supplied.

“That is not correct,” the unnamed DoD official insisted, adding that the “Ukrainians have those systems and are making use of them.”

He also revealed that the $400 million package would include 1,000 rounds of 155 millimeter high-precision artillery ammunition.

July 9, 2022 Posted by | War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine seeks to block return of gas turbine to Russia

Samizdat – July 8, 2022

The Ukrainian government is pressuring Canada not to return a gas turbine to Russia that could boost the supply of Russian fuel to Germany, Reuters and a Ukrainian news site have reported. Kiev argues the precedent would erode anti-Russia sanctions.

Previously, Russian gas monopoly Gazprom reduced the flow through the Nord Stream pipeline to 40% of capacity, claiming that Germany failed to return a Siemens gas turbine from maintenance in Canada. The crucial piece of equipment had become stuck due to Ottawa’s sanctions against Russia.

According to sources in the Ukrainian government cited on Thursday and on Friday by Reuters and the Ukrainian news website Evropeyskaya Pravda, Kiev was informed that Canada had decided to return the turbine. Officials in Ukraine argued that it was a bad move.

“If, God forbid, this decision is approved, we will undoubtedly appeal to our European colleagues that their approach must be reassessed,” a source in Ukraine’s Energy Ministry was quoted as saying by Reuters. “Because, if countries do not follow decisions they have agreed about sanctions, how can we talk about solidarity?”

Both outlets said Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko had lobbied Canada not to return the turbine, claiming that Russia could ramp up gas supplies to Germany. The Ukrainian newspaper said the minister had sent a two-page letter to his Canadian counterpart, Jonathan Wilkinson, on June 22, in which he explained that more Russian gas could be pumped through Ukraine.

Kiev is concerned that by bowing down to what it considers Russian energy blackmail, Canada would set a bad precedent for the Western sanctions regime.

Germany activated the second phase of its gas emergency plan after Russia reduced supplies through Nord Stream. Berlin reportedly asked Ottawa to return the turbine before 10 days of scheduled maintenance starts on the pipeline next week.

July 8, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , , | Leave a comment

West is ‘artificially’ blocking Russian grain exports – Lavrov

Samizdat | July 8, 2022

Western countries are contributing to the global food crisis by hindering Russian grain exports, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

The minister referred to the issue of Ukrainian grain being unable to leave the country’s ports due to the military conflict in the region, and to subsequent concerns over global food security, when speaking at the G20 foreign ministers meeting in Indonesia.

“Statistics clearly show that the grain locked in Ukrainian ports represents less than one percent of world production, so it has no real impact on food security. All that is required is for the West to stop artificially blocking our supplies to those countries that have ordered our grain,” Lavrov said, as quoted by the TASS news agency.

Russia, with Turkey’s help, is ready to ensure the safe passage of convoys to the Mediterranean Sea and then to buyers’ markets, Lavrov said, adding that some Western countries seek to complicate the process.

“The problem is that our Western colleagues are eager to create an international monitoring mechanism for this process, with the participation of NATO forces. We understand their intention very well,” he explained.

Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter, is expecting to harvest a record amount of grain this year. The country said earlier this week that it has started selling its grain to “friendly” nations, for rubles.

The global grain market has been badly affected by the disruption of exports from Russia, Ukraine and other major wheat producers, such as India and Kazakhstan. The latter two have banned wheat exports to ensure food security at home. The developments have led to a spike in grain prices and warnings of a global food crisis.

July 8, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | 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

Israeli agency told to quit operations in Russia as ties hit new low

Press TV – July 6, 2022

The Russian Justice Ministry has asked an Israeli agency to wind down its operations in Russia as the two sides’ ties hit a remarkable new low.

The Jerusalem Post reported the development on Tuesday, citing the “Jewish Agency,” which purportedly handles the affairs of the Jewish people on the Russian soil.

“The order was given in a letter received from the Russian Justice Ministry earlier this week. Officials in the Jewish Agency confirmed that the letter was received,” the report said.

The agency, it added, was trying to coordinate a response in consultation with the Israeli regime’s foreign ministry and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet’s office.

‘Dramatic order’

The paper described the order handed to the agency as “dramatic.”

It cited a “senior diplomatic official” as making the following remarks concerning the order and Tel Aviv’s potential response to the move.

“Russia is saying the Jewish Agency illegally collected info about Russian citizens… We will bring up the Jewish Agency [with Russian authorities] and address it in an organized way. It will be taken care of at the embassy level.”

“We don’t totally understand the reasoning,” the source claimed.

The daily also said cessation of the agency’s operations in Russia would mean that the Jews would no longer be able to “escape” the country and make their way to the occupied territories.

Relations between Russia and the Israeli regime have gone through dire straits on several occasions since 2018.

The ties were hit with what observers rate as a major crisis in September 2018, when a Russian Il-20 military plane was mistakenly shot down by Syrian air defenses when it was preparing to land in Russia’s Hmeimim airbase in Latakia Province in northwestern Syria. The Syrian S-200 missile defense system was responding to a wave of strikes by four Israeli warplanes.

Moscow blames Tel Aviv for the incident, which killed all the 15 people on board the plane, saying the Israeli warplanes had deliberately “created a dangerous situation” that led to the crash. The Russian military also said the ill-fated plane was used as a cover by the Israeli air force, and that Moscow reserved the right to give a due response.

Tensions flared again between the two sides over the Israeli regime’s recurrent airstrikes against Syria last month after the regime targeted the Damascus International Airport. Russia subsequently summoned the Israeli ambassador to the country, expressing “serious concern” over the strikes that targeted the civilian facility.

And in May, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins, triggering strong reactions from Tel Aviv. The Israeli foreign ministry said Lavrov’s comments were “ghastly,” and stated that it had summoned Russian Ambassador to Tel Aviv Anatoly Viktorov for “a tough talk” over the statements.

The Russo-Israeli ties have also been suffering as a result of Tel Aviv’s siding with the West over Ukraine, where Russia has been engaged in a special military operation since February, as well as the occupying regime’s agreement with the European Union to supply natural gas as an alternative to Russian energy imports.

July 6, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

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