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Fri, 31 Mar 2023
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Germany now addicted to US LNG - German MP


RT
Sun, 26 Mar 2023 10:26 UTC
LNG tanks
© Getty Images/fmajor
Opposition politician laments ecological and economic effects of losing access to Russian energy...

The sabotage of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines has turned Germany's dependence on Russian natural gas into an addiction to liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the US, a member of the German Bundestag, Andrej Hunko, has said.

Germany has paid heavily for last year's explosions on the pipelines, which were built to deliver cheap natural gas from Russia, The Left party politician told China's Global Times newspaper in an interview on Thursday. He noted:
"The sabotage left Berlin without an option to "choose which gas is better and cheaper and which is ecologically better. Before, it was a decision under political pressure, whether to use gas or not. But now there is no infrastructure to use gas, and this is the biggest impact."
Germany used to meet up to 40% of its demand with gas from Russia. Last year, Berlin managed to reduce its reliance on the fuel from the sanctioned country by replacing it with imports of LNG from the US, "which is by far more expensive and worse from an ecological point of view," according to Hunko.

Comment: The power to dictate eliminates the power to choose.

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Putin

Russia outproducing West's ammunition supplies to Kiev - Putin


RT
Sun, 26 Mar 2023 08:33 UTC
Giatsint-S
© RIA Novosti
Russian Giatsint-S self-propelled gun in Donetsk Region
The country is boosting its defense production capacity at a rapid pace, the president has said...

Russia is set to drastically increase its munitions production, President Vladimir Putin has said, adding that Western arms shipments to Kiev will only delay the inevitable outcome of the Ukraine conflict.

In an interview with Russia 1 TV aired on Saturday, Putin was asked to comment on Western plans to support Ukraine with a million additional artillery shells.

While describing the amount as "very considerable," the president stated that according to Moscow's data, the US is currently producing 14,000-15,000 artillery shells a month, while the Ukrainian military uses up to 5,000 shells each day. "Next year... [the US plans] to produce as much as 42,000, and 75,000 in 2025."

However, Putin said that Moscow's forces have been using far more munitions than Ukraine, and that the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff "even had to introduce certain limitations."
"Russia's output level and its military-industrial complex are developing at a very fast pace, which was unexpected by many. While multiple Western countries will provide Ukraine with munitions, the Russian production sector on its own will produce three times more ammunition for the same period of time."
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Crusader

UN finally sounds alarm over Ukraine's crackdown on churches


RT
Mon, 27 Mar 2023 17:48 UTC
Church in Ukraine
© church.ua
Kiev's actions targeting the largest religious denomination in the country "could be discriminatory"

The Ukrainian state may be discriminating against the nation's largest religious denomination, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), the UN's human rights watchdog said in a report published on Friday. The government of President Vladimir Zelensky is currently in the process of kicking UOC monks out of their homes.

The apparent mistreatment of the church, which has historic links to the Russian Orthodox Church, was highlighted in a report released by the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). It cited several draft laws submitted to the Ukrainian parliament as well as the actions of the SBU, Ukraine's domestic security agency, against the clergy.

Comment: Ironic that Zelesnky has turned on one of the institutions created to support his regime. The intrigue to splinter Ukraine's Orthodox wing from Mother Russia was the work of years.

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Bullseye

UN mission accuses EU of aiding crimes against humanity in Libya


Al Jazeera
Mon, 27 Mar 2023 12:00 UTC
libya
© Anadolu Agency
The report was based on interviews with hundreds of people, including migrants and witnesses
Fact-finding mission says state security forces and armed militia groups have committed a wide array of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

United Nations investigators say there is evidence that crimes against humanity have been committed against Libyans and migrants stuck in Libya, including women being forced into sexual slavery.

The investigators commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council also faulted the European Union for sending support to Libyan forces that they say contributed to crimes against migrants and Libyans.

Comment: See also: Putin calls for closer ties with Arab states, resolution of conflicts in Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Palestine

And check out SOTT radio's interview from 2017: The Truth Perspective: Libya Ruined: Interview with Sheikh Khalid Tantoush - Introduced by Jim & JoAnne Moriarty

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Quenelle - Golden

Russia possesses weapons capable of wiping out any enemy, including US — Patrushev


TASS
Mon, 27 Mar 2023 13:47 UTC
Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev

FILE PHOTO: Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev. It was stressed that the view held by US politicians that Russia won't be able to retaliate against a US pre-emptive nuclear strike is a short-sighted and dangerous stance
Russia possesses advanced unique weapons capable of wiping out any enemy, including the United States, Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev said in an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily on Monday.

"Russia is patient and does not intimidate anyone with its military advantage. However, it possesses advanced unique weapons capable of destroying any enemy, including the United States, in case of a threat to its existence," the security chief said.

The view held by US politicians that Russia won't be able to retaliate against a US pre-emptive nuclear strike is a short-sighted and dangerous stance, Patrushev stressed.

Comment: Some commentators are speculating that the weapons Patrushev is referring to could be the SARMAT missile, which, back in 2016, Russia Behind The Headlines notes as:
A new ballistic missile with a destructive power 2000 times greater than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is being tested near the Ural Mountains before it enters service with the Russian Strategic Forces. Armed with 10 independently steerable warheads - and numerous decoys - a single RS-28 'Sarmat' intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) can end all human life in an area as large as Texas. According to one US writer, the 100 ton behemoth makes America's 39 ton Minuteman look like a "rocket propelled toothpick".

The western media, for once, is spot on. The 'Sarmat' is the son of the SS-18 'Satan' - the NATO codename for the nearly 50 year old RS-36, which is currently the most powerful missile in existence. The Sarmat will not only have stealth features but can travel vast distances - exceeding 11,000 km - so that it can be launched over either the North or South Poles, creating huge certainty in the enemy's mind. These features make it an extremely useful weapon of strategic deterrence.
That said, there are a variety of other weapons, both officially acknowledged, and not, that he, and his colleagues, may have in mind:


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Arrow Down

Why Crashing Banks Will Usher in Central Bank Digital Currency

Dr. Joseph Mercola
Mercola.com
Mon, 27 Mar 2023 00:00 UTC
CBDC and the FED
Three large banks failed in a single week in March 2023, and the ripple effect could easily take down the entire banking system, although government officials insist the banking sector "remains strong" and that the problems faced by these banks "do not appear to be widespread."1

Cascading Domino of Bank Failures

The cascading bank failures began March 8 with the shut down and liquidation of the crypto bank Silvergate Capital.2 As reported by Government Executive:3
"During 2022, Silvergate's deposit base grew dramatically, almost doubling its assets to $210 billion. But the bank did not have either the administrative capacity or market demand to lend out all of the money, as banks normally do.

So, it invested the excess deposits in Treasury bonds and mortgage investment products. But the bond purchases became a problem as the Federal Reserve began to raise interest rates to address inflation."

Comment: All of the above is to say nothing of: Ellen Brown: The Looming Quadrillion Dollar Derivatives Tsunami

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Toys

'Show some respect': Estonia's PM objects to Russians laughing about West's failing sanctions efforts on the internet


Mriya
Sun, 26 Mar 2023 22:51 UTC
Kaya Kallas

Prime Minister of Estonia Kaya Kallas
"The approval of each package of sanctions against Russia is a complex process that involves all EU members. It takes weeks, months to approve new sanctions. Nevertheless, Russians allow themselves to joke on the Internet about each new package of sanctions, they openly mock our work. I ask them to take this seriously and show at least some respect" .

Comment: Four days ago Reuters reported that Estonia's PM rejected easing the sanctions:
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas on Thursday spoke against any weakening of sanctions against Russia under a deal to export Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, and called for the G7 to tighten its oil cap to squeeze Russia's revenue more.

"We know that Russia is earning less from the oil... we see the economic sanctions, including the oil price cap, are having an effect on the Russian economy and their ability to fuel the war machine," she said on arriving to talks among the EU's 27 national leaders in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.


Maybe Russia is making a bit less from selling oil, but citizens of the West are paying up to 3 times the cost for gas, and their governments have been threatening them with rolling blackouts all winter. Meanwhile the West has hypocritically and humiliatingly resorted to buying Russian energy from intermediaries.


"We should continue with that," she said, adding that Estonia would agree to raise the cap again should oil prices rise. She spoke against any weakening of sanctions against Russia as sought by Moscow in the grain deal talks.

"We shouldn't weaken the sanctions," she said, adding Russia could still use 18 ports for its agri-food exports to third countries and that only a dozen-or-so of Russian banks were targeted by Western sanctions.
See also:

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Sheeple

The Season is Here

James Howard Kunstler
Clusterfuck Nation
Fri, 24 Mar 2023 00:00 UTC
UnkSam
© Getty Images
"Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." — Samuel Johnson
Of course, the newspaper USA Today chose transgender activist Leigh Finke for its Women of the Year award because in the USA of the here-and-now (today, for instance), boundaries are a thing of the past, and if a woman of the year happens to come with the "package" that signifies male-of-the-species, you'd better ignore that incongruity and go along with the gag — or prepare for the punishments that will rain down until your morale improves.

The transgender movement has crystalized into the Party of Chaos's favored instrument for enforcing its ethos of unreality on a population obdurately stuck on thinking in categories, on making hateful distinctions between things. Better to live in a protective miasma of undifferentiated sensation than a cruel state based on pattern recognition where one is incessantly prompted to understand how objects and life-forms around us differ, where things begin and end, and what all that means relative to your own supposed amorphous existence.

Mattias Desmet, Belgian author of the 2022 book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, proposed that a political faction subject to "mass formation psychosis" — the group hysteria that sets the scene for tyranny — would demand that the public swallow a cavalcade of increasingly absurd ideas in order to soften up their brains, so as to make it easier for leaders (influencers) to push them in any desired direction. I would propose that we have probably achieved peak brain-softening in this land.

Comment: Interview with James Howard Kunstler here.

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Bizarro Earth

'One Health', ESG & 'Sustainable Development': Inside the WHO's 'Pandemic Treaty'

Simon Elmer
Off Guardian
Mon, 13 Mar 2023 00:00 UTC
WHO icon
© WHO
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is the One Ring to Rule them All, and its written goal, inscribed in fiery letters along both sides of its band, is the Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response Treaty. Fashioned by the Dark Lord of the Twenty-first Century, the United States of America, in its own iteration of Mount Doom, it only appears to yield US sovereignty to an external organisation.

In reality and practice, as this article will show, the Treaty will give Washington increased power over the G20 nations — the holders of the other 'rings' — and through them the rest of the Western World: not only its people but also its animals, its eco-systems, its resources. This, and not the health of the globe, is its dark purpose.

THE CIVIL WAR

The World Health Organization, which since January 2020 has received $782 million in grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is a corporate-funded and lobbied agency of the United Nations without legal jurisdiction over the populations of its 194 member states — to which it acts, at least in principle, in an advisory role.

But that's going to change soon.

On 3 March 2022, as lockdown regulations were revoked across Europe and NATO declared its proxy war on Russia, the European Council adopted a decision to authorise the opening of negotiations for an international Treaty on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response. Under the terms of this Treaty, the member-states of the World Health Organization will be legally bound to implement restrictions on human rights and freedoms — such as further lockdowns, mandatory face masking, compulsory gene therapy, a system of digital identity and programmes of surveillance and censorship — all on the judgement of the WHO.

Comment: Distracted by internal political issues, Ukraine war, the banking collapse, gender wars...the insidious global takeover of 'health' without option is nearly upon us, all largely funded and directed through one man:



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Pistol

UN Rights official concerned over summary executions of POWs by both Russia, Ukraine


RFE/RL
Sat, 25 Mar 2023 00:00 UTC
Bogner
© social media
The head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner
The United Nations has expressed deep concern over what it says were summary executions of prisoners of war (POWs) by both Russian and Ukrainian forces on the battlefield.

The head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner, said at a press conference in Kyiv on March 24 that her organization had recently recorded killings by both sides.
"We are deeply concerned about...summary execution of up to 25 Russian prisoners of war and persons [out of action because of injury] by the Ukrainian armed forces, which we have documented. This was often perpetrated immediately upon capture on the battlefield. While we are aware of ongoing investigations by Ukraine authorities into five cases involving 22 victims, we are not aware of any prosecution of the perpetrators."
Almost half of the 229 Russian prisoners of war interviewed by members of the mission claimed torture or ill-treatment, according to Bogner.

Bogner also expressed deep concern over the alleged executions of 15 Ukrainian prisoners by Russian armed forces after their capture. She said the Wagner mercenary group was responsible for 11 of those killings.

Comment: See also:

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