Puppet MastersS


Attention

Hungary comments on Ukraine's NATO and EU bids


RT
Sat, 25 Mar 2023 10:57 UTC
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto
© Global Look Press / Attila VolgyiHungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto says Kiev's alleged plans to blow up Russia's Druzhba oil pipeline are a direct threat to Budapest.
Budapest will not support Kiev's membership due to discrimination against minorities, the foreign minister has insisted.

Hungary will not agree to Ukraine joining NATO and the EU as long as Kiev continues to discriminate against ethnic Hungarians living in Transcarpathia, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has stated.

Szijjarto added that he raised the issue at a meeting with the UN assistant secretary general for human rights, Ilze Brands Kehris.

Up to 99 Hungarian primary and secondary schools are in danger of being closed in Ukraine due to the nation's education law, Szijjarto said. "I made it clear to Ilze Brands Kehris... that Hungary will not be able to support Ukraine's transatlantic and European integration [bids] under any circumstances as long as Hungarian schools in the Transcarpathia region are in danger," the minister posted on Facebook on Friday.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Quenelle - Golden

'Those who play with fire will perish': China warns US that trip by Taiwanese president could lead to 'serious confrontation'

Orange Wang
South China Morning Post
Thu, 30 Mar 2023 06:54 UTC
Tsai Ing-wen Taiwan
© APTaiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen arrives in New York on Wednesday. She is scheduled to stop by California before beginning a 10-day trip to Central America.
Past transits by Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen through the US were "mistakes" and the precedent will not restrain Beijing's response to her current visit, China's senior envoy to Washington warned as Tsai arrived in New York on Wednesday.

Xu Xueyuan, chargé d'affaires at Beijing's embassy in the US, also sounded an alarm about another "serious confrontation" in the rival powers' relations if a planned meeting between Tsai and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy were to take place.

Xu conveyed those messages at a press conference on Wednesday a few minutes after Tsai landed in New York as a stopover en route for her 10-day trip to Central America. Tsai is also expected to visit Los Angeles during her return trip next week where she is expected to meet McCarthy, a California Republican.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Newspaper

Saudi partners with China-led SCO, in latest move reflecting growing ties with multipolar alliance


Al Jazeera
Wed, 29 Mar 2023 12:00 UTC
china saudi arabia
© Lintao Zhang/APChinese President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hands with Saudi King Salman during a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China . Saudi cabinet approves decision at a meeting chaired by King Salman in a move that could grant Riyadh dialogue partner status in the bloc.
Saudi Arabia has agreed to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a "dialogue partner", state media reported on Wednesday, the latest indication of closer political ties with China.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization was established in 2001 as a political, economic and security organisation to rival Western institutions.

Besides China, its eight members include India, Pakistan and Russia, as well as four central Asian countries - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Iran joined SCO as a permanent member last year.
Read More...
Newspaper

China, Brazil strike deal to ditch dollar for trade


The Straits Times
Wed, 29 Mar 2023 23:51 UTC
brazil Jorge Viana
© REUTERSBrazilian politician/engineer Jorge Viana speaks at the Brazil-China Business Seminar, in Beijing, on March 29, 2023.
China and Brazil have reached a deal to trade in their own currencies, ditching the US dollar as an intermediary, the Brazilian government said on Wednesday, Beijing's latest salvo against the almighty greenback.

The deal will enable China, the top rival to US economic hegemony, and Brazil, the biggest economy in Latin America, to conduct their massive trade and financial transactions directly, exchanging yuan for reais and vice versa instead of going through the dollar.

"The expectation is that this will reduce costs... promote even greater bilateral trade and facilitate investment," the Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency (ApexBrasil) said in a statement.

Comment: This is particularly notable considering President Lula's evident allegiance to the establishment and its agenda: Brazil's Lula warns that poor families who don't vaccinate their children will not receive financial aid

See also: Color Revolution? Massive wave of protests against new Netanyahu government sweeps across Israel

Read More...
Red Flag

EU approves law to end sales of new CO2-emitting cars by 2035

Kate Abnett
Reuters
Tue, 28 Mar 2023 21:12 UTC
Paris petrol stations
© REUTERS/Gonzalo FuentesQueues stretch at Paris petrol stations
European Union countries' energy ministers gave final approval on Tuesday to a law ending sales of new CO2-emitting cars in the EU in 2035, after Germany won an exemption for cars running on e-fuels.

The law will now enter into force. It will require all new cars sold to have zero CO2 emissions from 2035, and 55% lower CO2 emissions from 2030, versus 2021 levels.

The European Commission has pledged, however, to propose additional rules allowing sales of new combustion engine cars that only run on e-fuels to continue after 2035, after Germany demanded this exemption from the ban.
Read More...
Bullseye

West's labeling of Russia as 'imperialist' disgusts most Africans - senior diplomat to RT


RT
Tue, 28 Mar 2023 20:47 UTC
Oleg Ozerov
© Nina Zotina; RIA NovostiDeputy Director of the African Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry Oleg Ozerov
African countries are beginning to recognize their own national interests and are breaking away from the Western-dominated world order, Oleg Ozerov, the head of the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum has claimed in an exclusive interview to RT.

Speaking to RT host Oksana Boyko, Ozerov noted that African-Russian relations have been on a significant upswing in recent years and that Russia is treating its African partners in a dramatically different manner than Western countries, which have retained a colonial mindset in their dealings with the continent.

This mindset "manifests itself in the form of patronizing attitudes, lecturing and moralizing, insisting that the Western model alone should be accepted as a gift from the gods by our African friends" the diplomat explained, adding that this "aura of arrogance" is backed by a desire to keep African nations dependent and subservient to the West.
Read More...
Boat

Bellingcat and mouse game reveals advance Russian intelligence of Nordstream attack operation

John Helmer
Dances with Bears
Tue, 28 Mar 2023 00:00 UTC
3 ships
© UnknownTop: Syzran • Below left: Aleksandr Frolov • Below Right: Yaroslav Mudry
The NATO intelligence publicity department known as Bellingcat has just produced new NATO-sourced evidence of an elaborate cat-and-mouse game which the navies and air forces of Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Poland, and the US played against Russian forces in the Baltic Sea off Bornhom Island in the week before the detonation of explosives on the Nord Stream gas pipelines last September 26.

Cat and mouse is also the game the NATO propaganda agencies are now playing.

The aim of the intelligence, published last week by the quasi-state German media platform called T-Online, and in the Danish offshoot of Bellingcat known as Oliver Alexander, is to accuse the Russian Navy of the pipeline attack, using a mini-submarine and deep-sea divers. This is based on NATO and US identification and tracking of a six-vessel Russian flotilla several days before the explosions - an intelligence vessel, a deep-sea operations vessel, two tugs, and heavily armed anti-ship and anti-submarine frigate and corvette.

Comment: The only explanation that will float is the truth.

Read More...
Footprints

Here's why Human Rights Watch deliberately only scratched the surface in exploring Ukraine's use of banned 'petal' mines

Eva Bartlett
Source
Tue, 28 Mar 2023 22:10 UTC
landmine
© Viktor Antonyuk/SputnikA PFM-1 anti-personnel land mine is seen in a field near the town of Artyomovsk (Bakhmut) Donetsk People's Republic
The American NGO begrudgingly acknowledges one of Kiev's war crimes, but not without smearing Russia along the way...

Since Ukraine dropped thousands of mines on the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in July, 104 people have fallen victim to the internationally-banned PFM-1 'petal' (otherwise known as 'butterfly') devices. Nine of them are children. Of which three died.

Among the most recent civilians to be injured, on March 19, were two 60-year-old men. On February 26, a woman in her sixties was wounded in her neighborhood. On February 14, a teenager stepped on a petal mine near a school. These are just a few documented examples from recent weeks.

The first wave of over 40 victims came within the first few weeks after Ukrainian forces deployed the mines over Donetsk en masse in July 2022, and the number has more than doubled since. Since then I, along with other reporters on the ground, have documented their lingering presence and the civilian victims.

NGO reports... selectively

After signing the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty in 1999, Kiev was obligated to destroy its stockpile of 6 million PFM-1s. It denies using them, but abundant evidence incriminates Kiev in this particular war crime. While the West has yet to turn its attention to the victims of the petal mines in the Donbass, reports of Ukraine using them elsewhere have emerged.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Nuke

US politicians 'held captive by their own propaganda' - Moscow


RT
Mon, 27 Mar 2023 18:17 UTC
bomber
© Ben Birchall/Getty Images/PA ImagesUSAF nuclear-capable B-52 bomber
The American establishment still buys into the "dangerous delusion" of a preventative nuclear first strike, Russia's security chief has said...

US politicians are "held captive by their own propaganda" and still believe that Washington could deliver a fatal nuclear 'first strike' against Russia, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, has said.

That Cold War-era strategy, however, is nothing but a "dangerous" and "short-sighted" delusion nowadays, Patrushev said in an interview with the newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta published on Monday.
"Held captive by their own propaganda, American politicians for some reason remain confident that in the event of a direct conflict with Russia, the US is capable of delivering a preventive missile strike, after which Russia will no longer be able to respond. This is a short-sighted delusion, and a very dangerous one."
The 'first strike' strategy dates back to the early days of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the US. Its proponents believe that achieving a certain advantage in nuclear warheads and means of delivery would allow a preemptive strike on an adversary without suffering an equally destructive retaliation. The concept was among the primary reasons behind the Cold War-era arms race, with both sides fearing a first strike at various points.
Read More...
Arrow Down

Key Asian bloc looking to dump dollar and euro - media


RT
Wed, 29 Mar 2023 09:06 UTC
money
© NuPhoto/Getty ImagesDollar and the Euro
The ASEAN economic union reportedly wants to protect transactions from "possible geopolitical repercussions"...

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is set to discuss dropping the US dollar, euro, yen and pound sterling from transactions and moving to settlements in local currencies, according to the news magazine Tempo.

An official meeting of ASEAN finance ministers and central bank governors kicked off on Tuesday in Indonesia. A regional grouping that aims to promote economic and security cooperation among its members, ASEAN includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The report stated:
"Efforts to reduce dependence on major currencies through the Local Currency Transaction (LCT) scheme will be discussed. This is an extension of the previous Local Currency Settlement (LCS) scheme that has already begun to be implemented between ASEAN members."
Indonesian President Joko Widodo has urged regional authorities: "
Abandon Visa and Mastercard payment systems and start using credit cards issued by local banks. Moving away from Western payment systems is necessary to protect transactions from "possible geopolitical repercussions."
Read More...