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Sanctions prompt growth for Russian cheese business


Sputnik
Fri, 19 Feb 2016 15:32 UTC
russian french cheese
© Sputnik/ Valery Morev
French cheese has returned to Russia, after an enterprising farmer invited French cheesemakers from Corsica to his farm where they have passed on the secrets of making fine French cheese. French cheese was one of the casualties of the Russian counter-sanctions on food, agricultural products and raw materials from the EU and some other countries that were imposed in August 2014.

While some in Russia have lamented the paucity of Brie, Roquefort and other well-known cheeses, a resourceful farmer in Russia's Lipetsk region has turned the situation to his advantage. "If it's not possible to import French cheese, you can import French cheesemakers instead," Vladimir Borev told Sputnik about his idea.

"I invited French cheesemakers to my farm in the Lipetsk region, who gave lectures and seminars about cheesemaking," explained Borev, who has 18 goats, more than 30 sheep, ten cows and five horses on his farm.

"Every month we make a ton of goat's cheese, which is very popular. There is high demand for it even among French people living in Moscow, there are a lot of customers."

"At the moment we are building a dairy which can produce 12 tons of cheese a month."
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Info

Russian Foreign Ministry has 'no Plan B for Syrian settlement'


RT
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 15:43 UTC
Russian Su-24 bombers
© Dmitriy Vinogradov / Sputnik
Moscow is not discussing alternative plans for a political settlement in Syria, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov has said. The Russian-American peace initiative is going to be formalized through a UN Security Council resolution.

"We're perplexed by our Western partners, the US included, mentioning the existence of some kind of 'Plan B,' Nothing is known on that one, we are considering no alternative plans," Bognanov told the 'Middle East: From violence to security' conference in Moscow.
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Attention

Some sanity for a change: EU Parliament adopts resolution calling for arms embargo against Saudi Arabia over Yemen


RT
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 15:26 UTC
Saudi-led air strike in Yemen
© Khaled Abdullah / Reuters
The European Parliament has adopted a resolution calling for the introduction of an arms embargo against Saudi Arabia over its operation in Yemen, The Greens political group reported on its website.

The resolution calls for an EU-wide arms embargo against the country, until alleged breaches of international humanitarian law in Yemen have been investigated, the group wrote.

"The European Parliament's call for an arms embargo on Saudi Arabia is unprecedented and reflects growing frustration at the conduct of war in Yemen by the Saudi Air Force. Saudi Arabia is a top arms client of the UK and France, and there is evidence that these weapons have been used in gross violations of international law in Yemen, where thousands of civilians have been killed since the start of the war in March 2015," Greens/EFA foreign affairs spokesman Alyn Smith, who led efforts to get the amendment passed, said following the resolution's adoption.
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Gold Coins

Washington warns top banks to avoid new Russian bond issue


RT
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 14:31 UTC
russian bonds
© Andrew Burton / Reuters
The US government has urged major banks not to bid on a potentially lucrative but "politically risky" Russian bond deals, claiming it could undermine international sanctions against Moscow, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Unnamed sources told the media that the caution has been issued by the State Department and the Treasury following questions from some banks whether they were permitted to arrange a bond sale for Russia.

Washington's warnings not to bid on a Russian Eurobond deals won't strongly influence the possibility and cost of their placement, Russian presidential aide Andrei Belousov said on Thursday.

The Russian Finance Ministry has sent a prospectus to 25 Western investment banks and three Russian lenders as it wants to raise $3 billion by issuing Eurobonds. It may become the country's first debt placement on international markets since Western sanctions were rolled out on Russian entities in 2014.

Russia's dollar-denominated 2023 bond now has a yield of 4.53 percent, sliding from 4.9 percent in September 2013 when Moscow raised $7 billion, data from the Financial Times showed.

Comment: Clearly, profits be damned, don't do business with Russia. All common sense has gone out the window.

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Bad Guys

Kerry's Plan B for Syria follows the real goal of the US and Israel: Shatter Syria and Iraq into small pieces


Washington's Blog
Wed, 24 Feb 2016 00:05 UTC
isis in trucks

The West uses its proxy terrorists to further their goal of breaking up Iraq and Syria
The hawks in the U.S. and Israel decided long ago to break up Iraq and Syria into small fragments.

The Guardian noted in 2003:
President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt predicted devastating consequences for the Middle East if Iraq is attacked. "We fear a state of disorder and chaos may prevail in the region," he said.

***

They are probably still splitting their sides with laughter in the Pentagon. But Mr Mubarak and the [Pentagon] hawks do agree on one thing: war with Iraq could spell disaster for several regimes in the Middle East. Mr Mubarak believes that would be bad.The hawks, though, believe it would be good.

For the hawks, disorder and chaos sweeping through the region would not be an unfortunate side-effect of war with Iraq, but a sign that everything is going according to plan.

***
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Wolf

The new global financial Cold War: U.S. using IMF to 'split the world'

Michael Hudson
Counterpunch
Fri, 19 Feb 2016 12:50 UTC
Michael Hudson IMF economy

Michael Hudson
The Guns and Butter Interview

Suppose a country owes money to another nation's government or official agency. How can creditors collect, unless there's an international court and an enforcement system? The IMF and the World Bank were part of that enforcement system and now they're saying: 'We're not going to be part of that anymore. We're only working for the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. If the Pentagon tells the IMF it's okay that a country doesn't have to pay Russia or China, then now they don't have to pay, as far as the IMF is concerned.' That breaks up the global order that was created after World War II. The world is being split into two halves: the U.S. dollar orbit, and countries that the U.S. cannot control and whose officials are not on the U.S. payroll, so to speak. [...] Today we discuss his article, "The IMF Changes Its Rules to Isolate China and Russia."

[...]

Bonnie Faulkner: I'm so happy I was able to be there. That is a conference to remember, for sure. Well, I've been reading your article, "The IMF Changes Its Rules to Isolate China and Russia." It rings an alarming bell about the implications of rule changes at the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, which makes loans to governments. Before we discuss these IMF rule changes specifically, what precipitated these drastic policy shifts at the IMF?

Michael Hudson: There are a number of policy shifts. The first shift was that - In the past the IMF has not made loans to countries that are in default to governments. That's because in the past, the government in question was the U.S. Government. Since World War II almost all international financial bailout or stabilization loans by the IMF and World Bank have involved the U.S. Government, in conjunction with consortia of U.S. banks.
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Quenelle - Golden

Top expert on Maidan's sniper massacre explains fundamental differences between his & Kiev's investigations

Stefan Korinth
Russia Insider
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 10:52 UTC
maidan ukraine
Telepolis: What is the current status of the Maidan sniper investigation by the general prosecutor of Ukraine?
The investigations of the Maidan massacre by the Prosecutor General Office of Ukraine (GPU) soon would reach already-extended time limit allotted for investigations. The GPU claims that they already have conclusive evidence concerning responsibility of the members of the Berkut special police company for shooting the Maidan protesters and for the Yanukovych government ordering this mass killing.

Specific results of this investigation continue to be gradually made public for the first time during an ongoing trial of two Berkut members, who are charged with killings of 39 out of 49 protesters on February 20, 2014. Results of forensic medical and ballistic reports, testimonies of eyewitnesses among protesters, and even some videos from the investigation files presented during the trial support major findings of my Maidan massacre study [latest updating Sept 2015, presented to American Political Science Association-APSA, weblink below], specifically that at the very least, the absolute majority of these 49 protesters were killed from the Hotel Ukraina and other Maidan-controlled buildings. But these major revelations have not been reported by the mainstream media in Ukraine and the West, even though all proceedings of the trial are open, streamed live, and their recordings are available on YouTube.

Comment: The Maidan sniper massacre initiated so many tragic events in Ukraine's history, including an ethnic cleansing, a rise in neo-Nazi gangs, the loss of Crimea, and an all-out economic collapse. Each of them seemed designed, in their own way, to draw Russia in and trap her in a Ukrainian quagmire. It didn't work, so those responsible quickly 'washed their hands' of the mess and walked away, leaving Ukraine to die:
To be brief, it has begun. Indeed the fighting in Donbass has resumed. More precisely, the firing of weapons prohibited by the Minsk agreements. Again, after dark, Donetsk, Gorlovka, Makeyevka, Yasinovataya feels the charm of the "truce". If before we were informed of the shelling on the outskirts of the city by daily summaries from Basurin, now we hear for ourselves that there is almost nothing left of the ceasefire.

Is the war in Ukraine starting up again? Illegal shelling moves from outskirts to the cities on eve of Defender of the Fatherland Day


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Bad Guys

As backwards as it gets: New York Times accuses Putin of waging 'hybrid war' against West

David Rudge
Russia Insider
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 09:35 UTC
Putin new York Times
© AP/Mark Lennihan/Salon

Vladimir Putin
One of the abiding mysteries of Western commentary of Russia is the extent to which Western media believe the nonsense they publish about Russia.

My own belief is that most of the time they do believe it, but every so often something comes up which makes me wonder.

I was thinking of this when I was reading the latest paranoid reflections of Maxim Trudolyubov in the New York Times.

In a long tirade about Vladimir Putin's wicked "hybrid war" against the West, Trudolyubov inserts this remarkable sentence:
"By using its total control over the Russian news media to sow confusion in the West, Mr. Putin has managed, in the words of the journalists Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss, to "weaponize" information."

Comment: Russia is waging hybrid war?

Good!

It's about time at least one state stood up for humanity against The Beast.

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Jet5

The Syrian Army scores major strategic victories in Latakia, Aleppo, Homs


Sputnik
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 09:17 UTC
Syrian Army
© Sputnik/ Iliya Pitalev
The Syrian army and air force, backed by the popular units, destroyed terrorists' defense lines in the northern Latakia province leaving many militants killed and wounded, Iran's Fars news agency reported.

"Several militant positions and their military grid were severely damaged during Syrian jets combat sorties over the village of Ma'ar Baya in Latakia province," the sources on the ground confirmed.

Government forces also attacked terrorists' positions in other key provinces across the country.

In Aleppo province the Syrian army took back several key areas in fierce battles fought along the strategic Khanaser highway.

Comment: Further reading:

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Bad Guys

Libya is close to a failed state: Secretary John Kerry says


RT
Thu, 25 Feb 2016 04:02 UTC
Libya
© Reuters
Libya, post-NATO.
Libya risks becoming "a failed state" if the UN-brokered unity government flops, Secretary John Kerry has said. While Libya remains broke and insecure five years after NATO's 2011 military intervention, Kerry believes "a wealthy nation" can rebuilt itself. The remarks by the head of the Department of State came during his second visit to Capitol Hill seeking to defend a proposed $50 billion foreign aid budget for 2017, the last of the Obama administration. While he focused mostly on recent developments in Syria, Kerry's attention was briefly shifted to Libya. When asked if "Libya is a failed state," he replied: "It's close."

"We have been working really hard for the last months, particularly, to bring together the government in Tripoli," Kerry told the House Appropriations Committee on Foreign Operations. "We have a Prime Minister designate, we have a government now; we have a couple of outliers that are resisting that effort. If they cannot get themselves together, yes it will be a failed state." Since the 2011 ouster and killing of its long-term leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has essentially been "torn apart" by two factions based in opposite sides of the country that simultaneously claim power. After an election in 2014, an Islamist-dominated body settled in Tripoli in the west, while an internationally recognized legislature is based in the eastern city of Tobruk.

Comment: Before NATO's 2011 military intervention and killing of its long-term leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi:
1. There was no electricity bill in Libya; electricity was free for all its citizens.
2. There was no interest on loans, banks in Libya are state-owned and loans given to all its citizens at zero percent interest by law.
3. Having a home [was] considered a human right in Libya.
4. All newlyweds in Libya received $60,000 dinar (U.S.$50,000) by the government to buy their first apartment so to help start up the family.
5. Education and medical treatments was free in Libya. Before Gaddafi only 25 percent of Libyans were literate. Today, the figure is 83 percent. Read the rest of the 16 Things Libya Will Never See Again.

See also: NATO Slaughter: James and Joanne Moriarty expose the truth about what happened in Libya

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