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Medvedev delivers 'personal message' from Putin to Xi


RT
Wed, 21 Dec 2022 07:58 UTC
xi medvedev
The top officials met on Wednesday to discuss ties between their two ruling parties, which they lead
Dmitry Medvedev, the former president of Russia and current deputy chair of the Security Council, met with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday during a visit to Beijing.

Medvedev's office said that during his meeting with Xi he delivered a personal message from Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Russian media. Xinhua said it contained friendly greetings and best wishes to Xi, who asked his guest to convey his response in kind to the Russian leader.

In a brief statement about the nature of the meeting, Medvedev said he and his Chinese host discussed intra-party cooperation, among other things. Xi was re-elected as secretary general of the Communist Party of China in October. Medvedev leads the ruling United Russia party.

Comment: This comes a day or so after Putin, press secretary Peskov, and Defense Minister Shoigu, and Foreign Minister Lavrov were in Belarus meeting with Lukashenko:


One would imagine that if these meetings were simply to talk general business relations, or to pass on 'best wishes', it could be done over the phone, or even at a later date, and so one wonders whether these talks were much more critical than is being let on:



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Arrow Down

German officials blame gas shortage on consumers, warn 'people will feel the cost of the energy crisis hard'

P Gosselin
No Tricks Zone
Tue, 20 Dec 2022 17:18 UTC
Candle Light
© No Tricks Zone
Here's a winning political strategy the German government is using: Just blame the voters for the problems you've created. If their mastermind green plans don't work, it's the citizens' fault!

Germany energy site Blackout News here reports that this seems to be precisely the strategy German officials are using. "Now it's the consumer's fault if gas isn't enough."

One percent gas reserve drop in a single day

Although that it is well-known to the vast majority of people, it seems to be a surprise to the German officials that citizens would turn up the heat to remain comfortable during the wintertime, especially since the mercury dipped well below freezing during much of December.

And this was also the case on December 12th when the gas storage level in German gas storage facilities dropped by more than one percent. This did not please Klaus Müller [Green Party], head of the German Federal Network Agency, who went on the air on ZDF morning television and admonished consumers to be careful with their gas consumption, even if it's bitter cold outside, "otherwise we won't get through the winter with the storage reserves".
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Bullseye

President of Croatia tells PM to go fight in Ukraine, calls EU politicians 'most incompetent of our generation'

Julia Shvytkina
Klymenko Time
Tue, 20 Dec 2022 19:00 UTC
croatia parliament
In Croatia Parliament voted against participation in the EU mission for the training of the Ukrainian military. About it 16 December reported edition Associated Press.

Comment: This translated article has been edited for clarity.


In Croatia, Parliament voted against participation in the EU mission for the training of the Ukrainian military.

Ignored the opinion of the President

The publication explains that Parliament tried to circumvent the decision of the President Zoran Milanovic who did not previously support the mission. In his opinion, Croatia should offer Ukraine only humanitarian aid.

"The vote in Parliament took place after the President of Croatia had previously refused to sign the proposal, saying it was not in line with the Constitution," - says the publication.

Comment:


Andrew Korybko provides some context for the political situation in Croatia in his January 2022 article What explains the Croatian President's criticism of NATO's anti-Russian policies?
[...] it's now a lot easier for observers to understand why President Milanovic is so strongly against NATO's anti-Russian policies. He envisions his country potentially surpassing even Serbia as Russia's most reliable Balkan partner since Zagreb has influence within the US-led West by virtue of its joint membership in the EU and NATO that Belgrade obviously lacks, which is very attractive to Moscow.

President Milanovic, however, is presently experiencing very powerful pushback from the diplomatic faction of the Croatian "deep state", which is a term for collectively referring to a country's permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies. Politico reported that the same Foreign Minister that praised relations with Russia said that "the president does not speak for Croatia, but for himself. We are and will remain a loyal member of NATO. Everything we do, we do in consultation with our partners." The outlet also reported that Croatian troops already returned from Poland.

What's happening is that Croatia's presently very Russian-friendly president might have gone too far in his condemnation of NATO's anti-Russian policies, so much so that his country's comparatively less but nevertheless still arguably Russian-friendly Foreign Minister felt compelled to set the record straight in order to avoid provoking its much closer Western allies.

It's also important to note that Politico reminded their readers that "although the president serves as commander in chief of the Croatian military, NATO deployments are handled by the defense ministry, with the approval of parliament."
See also:

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Brick Wall

Supreme Court orders Title 42 will stay in place

Joshua Young
The Post Millennial
Mon, 19 Dec 2022 00:01 UTC
immigrants supreme court title 42
On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a stay on the lifting of Title 42, which gave officials the ability to expel illegal immigrants over health concerns and was set to expire on Wednesday.

According to the Texas Tribune, "Immigration officials have used the health order more than 2 million times to expel migrants." The ruling comes after a lawsuit filed Monday from nineteen GOP-led States asked to keep the rules in place as a measure to stave off the impact of Biden's border crisis, which has seen 2,378,944 encounters with illegal immigrants in the 2022 fiscal year and 1,659,206 in 2021.

Comment: See also:

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Attention

Nightmare fall of the United States

Greg Hunter
USA Watchdog
Wed, 21 Dec 2022 03:41 UTC
Martin Armstrong
Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong said just before the 2022 midterm elections that voter fraud and cheating will set up a very troubling 2023. Armstrong is predicting "a major turning point in January of 2023." Armstrong explains, "The computer (Socrates program) is showing that January is going to be the major turning point for the entire year of 2023. . . . The currencies are rallying against the dollar, and that should go into early January and then after that, this thing looks like death warmed over. Perhaps it is the insanity of handing Patriot missiles over to Ukraine. I know Ukraine very well, and I am telling you they will use them offensively and not defensively. They will use them to attack Russia. Their whole objective is to expand the war."

Armstrong says Biden Administration economy killing policies will, ". . .only increase inflation, and this is an endless nightmare. In all honesty, I hope the Republicans move to impeach Biden. I am not even sure Biden is aware of all the things taking place. It is the people behind him that are doing this. They are the ones writing these agendas, and they are a bunch of climate zealots, and they have no idea what they are doing. . . . This is getting to be insane, and I think you are going to see that January is going to be a very, very big turning point . . . with the Republicans in the House, they will probably start impeachment proceedings and a lot more investigations."

Armstrong thinks, "The U.S. dollar will be going up . . . Gold and all other tangible assets will also go up in value" right along with "interest rates and inflation going up" too.
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Putin

Putin responds to 'land grab' claims


RT
Wed, 21 Dec 2022 01:18 UTC
Vladimir Putin, Alexander Lukashenko
© Sputnik / Pavel BednyakovRussian President Vladimir Putin meets Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk, Belarus, on December 19, 2022.
The Kremlin has absolutely no plan or interest in "swallowing" Belarus, Russian President Vladimir Putin told journalists on Monday, following talks with President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk.

Moscow only seeks further economic integration with its neighbor and closest ally, and those who say otherwise are simply seeking to stall this process, the Russian leader added.

"It is simply not viable," Putin insisted. Russia's discussions with Belarus, which have intensified recently, and have nothing to do with a potential takeover, the Russian leader explained. "It is about coordinating economic policies, as is done in many other integration associations," he said.

"Everything else is nonsense," Putin maintained, adding that all the claims about the potential "swallowing-up" come from "ill-wishers seeking to stall our integration process." Those making such claims simply do not want to be faced with "effective and dangerous" competitors on the world markets, the president said.

Comment: Sanctions against Russia 'boomeranged' - Lukashenko

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TV

Biggest-ever censorship campaign against Russian media orchestrated by West — diplomat Maria Zakharova


TASS
Tue, 20 Dec 2022 17:28 UTC
Zakharova
© Russian Foreign Ministry/TASSRussian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova
The collective West has unleashed the biggest-ever totalitarian censorship campaign against Russia's mass media, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday.

At a news conference on Monday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for developing the rules of responsibility for social networks with regard to their content. He said that he would be shocked to see freedom of the press be jeopardized. "Would he be shocked if he saw it? Hasn't he seen it already? Or maybe he does not want to see it. Or maybe he isn't allowed to see it. Or maybe they have not shown him," she wrote on her Telegram channel.

Comment: Musk's revelations on Twitter show that not only are citizens of the West prevented from seeing reports from other countries, but scandals in their home countries are hidden from them by Big Tech working on behalf of their government.

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Sherlock

Best of the Web: TWITTER FILES: Twitter Assisted Pentagon's Covert Online Propaganda Campaign

Lee Fang
The Intercept
Tue, 20 Dec 2022 21:16 UTC
pentagon
© The Intercept
Twitter executives have claimed for years that the company makes concerted efforts to detect and thwart government-backed covert propaganda campaigns on its platform.

Behind the scenes, however, the social networking giant provided direct approval and internal protection to the U.S. military's network of social media accounts and online personas, whitelisting a batch of accounts at the request of the government. The Pentagon has used this network, which includes U.S. government-generated news portals and memes, in an effort to shape opinion in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, and beyond.

The accounts in question started out openly affiliated with the U.S. government. But then the Pentagon appeared to shift tactics and began concealing its affiliation with some of these accounts — a move toward the type of intentional platform manipulation that Twitter has publicly opposed. Though Twitter executives maintained awareness of the accounts, they did not shut them down, but let them remain active for years. Some remain active.
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Putin

Putin sets priorities for security services


RT
Tue, 20 Dec 2022 21:16 UTC
putin
© Alexei Druzhinin / Sputnik / Kremlin Pool via AP
President Vladimir Putin has praised the members of the security agencies for their courage and selfless service in protecting Russia's constitutional order and territorial integrity from external and domestic threats - and listed a wide range of challenges they must focus on.

In a video address published by the Kremlin on Tuesday, Putin expressed his best wishes to the Federal Security Service (FSB), Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Federal Protective Service (FSO), and the Main Directorate of Special Programs (GUSP) on their professional holiday of December 20.

"Today's rapidly changing global situation and the emergence of new threats and challenges impose high demands on the entire system of Russia's security agencies," he said, urging the agencies to use their experience and potential "to the fullest," especially in the newly-incorporated regions of Russia.

"The situation in the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, and the Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions is extremely complicated. But the people who live there, Russian citizens, are counting on you and your protection. And your duty is to do everything in your power to ensure their safety and respect for their rights and freedoms," Putin said.

"Fighting terrorism remains one of the key priorities for all security services... Crowded places, strategic facilities, as well as transport and energy infrastructure must be under special control," Putin added.
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Nuke

The death of arms control

Scott Ritter
Energy Intelligence
Tue, 20 Dec 2022 18:55 UTC
bombs
The US and Russia have stopped all substantive cooperation in the field of arms control, in terms of both implementing existing treaties and negotiating future agreements. There is little likelihood that this cooperation will resume any time soon, leaving both nations locked in a potential nuclear arms race unconstrained by the limits of arms control treaties. The potential for nuclear conflict is greater, as a result, than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

In the early moments of the Biden administration in February 2021, the US was able to agree with Russia a five-year extension to the New Start treaty with only two days remaining before it expired. New Start, negotiated by the Obama administration in 2010, represents the last remaining strategic arms control agreement in place between the US and Russia. The US, during the Trump administration, withdrew from the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019, while the administration of George W. Bush had withdrawn from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty in 2002.
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