Challenging the western monetary system, the Eurasia Economic Union is leading the Global South toward a new common payment system to bypass the US Dollar.
The Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) is speeding up its design of a common payment system, which has been closely discussed for nearly a year with the Chinese under the stewardship of Sergei Glazyev, the EAEU's minister in charge of Integration and Macro-economy.

Through its regulatory body, the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), the EAEU has just extended a very serious proposal to the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) which, crucially, are already on the way to turning into BRICS+: a sort of G20 of the Global South.

The system will include a single payment card - in direct competition with Visa and Mastercard - merging the already existing Russian MIR, China's UnionPay, India's RuPay, Brazil's Elo, and others.

That will represent a direct challenge to the western-designed (and enforced) monetary system, head on. And it comes on the heels of BRICS members already transacting their bilateral trade in local currencies, and bypassing the US dollar.

This EAEU-BRICS union was long in the making - and will now also move toward prefiguring a further geoeconomic merger with the member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The EAEU was established in 2015 as a customs union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus, joined a year later by Armenia and Kyrgyzstan. Vietnam is already an EAEU free trade partner, and recently enshrined SCO member Iran is also clinching a deal.

The EAEU is designed to implement free movement of goods, services, capital, and workers between member countries. Ukraine would have been an EAEU member if not for the Maidan coup in 2014 masterminded by the Barack Obama administration.

Vladimir Kovalyov, adviser to the chairman of the EEC, summed it all up to Russian newspaper Izvestia. The focus is to establish a joint financial market, and the priority is to develop a common "exchange space:" "We've made substantial progress and now the work is focused on such sectors as banking, insurance, and the stock market."

A new regulatory body for the proposed joint EEU-BRICS financial system will soon be established.

Meanwhile, trade and economic cooperation between the EAEU and BRICS have increased 1.5 times in the first half of 2022 alone.

The BRICS share in the total external trade turnover of the EAEU has reached 30 percent, Kovalyov revealed at the BRICS International Business Forum this past Monday in Moscow:

"It is advisable to combine the potentials of the BRICS and EAEU macro-financial development institutions, in particular the BRICS New Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), as well as national development institutions. This will make it possible to achieve a synergistic effect and ensure synchronous investments in sustainable infrastructure, innovative production, and renewable energy sources."

Here we once again see the advancing convergence of not only BRICS and EAEU but also the financial institutions deeply involved in projects under the China-led New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The Federation Council, Russia's upper chamber of parliament, supported a bill that imposed a complete ban on LGBTQ, pedophilia, and sex-change 'propaganda' in the country on Wednesday.

The legislation on the "protection of traditional values" was backed unanimously by all 153 senators present at the session of the chamber, with no abstentions or opposition. Last week, the legislation passed through the State Duma, Russia's lower chamber of parliament, receiving unanimous support there as well.

The bill, which is now set to become law after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed off on it, outlaws the respective 'propaganda' in books, movies, media, and advertising. The new rules, however, do not apply to video games, as lawmakers agreed this field would require separate legislation. Roskomnadzor, Russia's media watchdog, will be tasked with monitoring media content for illegal propaganda and blocking offensive material available on the internet.

The US is pushing its European allies to take a harder stance towards Beijing as it tries to leverage its position on Ukraine to gain more support from Nato countries for its efforts to counter China in the Indo-Pacific.

According to people briefed on conversations between the US and its Nato allies, Washington has in recent weeks lobbied members of the transatlantic alliance to toughen up their language on China and to start working on concrete action to restrain Beijing.

US president Joe Biden identified countering China as his main foreign policy goal at the start of his administration, but his efforts have been complicated by the focus on Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February.

But with Russian president Vladimir Putin's invasion in its 10th month, Washington was making a concerted effort to push China back up Nato's agenda, the people said.

"Ukraine's unquestioned strategic center of gravity is its western corridors to the Polish border where the vast majority of its war support enters the country. Their operational center of gravity is their resupply lines emanating eastwards from Kyiv to Ukraine's various frontline positions. Without those two corridors, it would be nearly impossible for Kyiv to sustain wartime operations for more than a few weeks. Putin, therefore, may calculate the best use of those 218,000 additional troops will be to launch a three-pronged axis to cut both of those supply routes." Lt. Colonel Daniel L. Davis, Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and Contributing Editor at 1945

"I want to emphasize again that all tasks of the special military operation... will be unconditionally fulfilled." Russian President Vladimir Putin

Another day of large-scale missile attacks on Ukraine's hobbled energy infrastructure has plunged much of the country into darkness. The relentless attacks — which continued through the night and into the early morning hours — have intensified dramatically as Russian combat troops continue to join their units along the perimeter in preparation for a major winter offensive. Russian President Vladimir Putin has waited patiently for the Zelensky regime to grasp the gravity of their situation and press for bilateral negotiations. But the Ukrainian president has stubbornly rejected diplomacy at every turn opting instead to fight til the bitter end. He is fully supported in that decision by his backers in Washington who see the conflict as an opportunity to weaken Russia so it cannot obstruct US plans to "pivot" to Asia. The transformation of Ukraine into a frigid, uninhabitable wastelands is largely the result of Washington's voracious geopolitical ambitions. This is from a post at the website Moon of Alabama:

Whitney Webb of UnlimitedHangout.com joins James once again, this time to discuss her new, epic, 900-page, two-volume tour de force, One Nation Under Blackmail. In this conversation, Webb and Corbett dive into the sordid tale of Epstein and his compatriots and begin to unravel the incredibly complex web of the intelligence/organized crime/blackmail syndicate.

The State Duma has adopted a bill on the "protection of traditional values" at a second reading.

Russia's State Duma has taken another step towards a complete ban of 'LGBTQ propaganda' in the country. The relevant legislation was approved by the lower house of parliament following a second reading on Wednesday. It introduces significant penalties for the distribution of materials promoting non-traditional relations, pedophilia, and gender reassignment.

The bill "on the protection of traditional values" is widely seen as a follow-up to a 2013 law, which prohibited the spread of LGBTQ materials among those under 18. If enacted, the law would ban this kind of 'propaganda' among "both minors and adults," according to a statement issued by the Duma. It would apply to "the media, the internet, literature and cinema."

China's military has said that its forces have "followed and warned away" the American guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville after it approached the Nansha [also called the Spratly] Islands in the South China Sea early on Tuesday.

The arrival without prior Chinese authorization of the US warship near the islands, which Beijing considers to be part of its territory, was a "serious violation of China's sovereignty and security," the country's military spokesman Tian Junli declared.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said the alliance is set to expand its presence across Eastern Europe, from the Black Sea to the Baltics, hoping to send a "clear message" to Russia as fighting rages on in Ukraine.

Speaking in Romania on Monday ahead of a two-day NATO summit, Stoltenberg told reporters that Europe is facing the "greatest security crisis in a generation," stressing the need to bolster areas of "strategic importance" in retaliation for Moscow's ongoing offensive.


"In response to Russia's aggression, NATO is reinforcing its presence from the Baltic to the Black Sea. We have set up new battlegroups, including the one led by France here in Romania," he said. "Fighter jets from Canada also help to keep your skies safe and US Patriot missiles boost your defenses. This sends a clear message that NATO is here. We will do what is necessary to protect and defend all allies."

The UAE has opened a new military air base under the guise of civilian air port in Yemen. The Al-Makha airport in Yemen's Taiz governorate will reportedly serve as an Emirati logistics hub for military operations across the region, the Cradle Magazine reported.

The new airport will replace the Emirati military base in Eritrea, which the UAE dismantled last year amid growing tensions with the US. The African base was used by the Emirati armed forces to launch air and sea operations against the Houthis in Yemen.

According to information shared on Twitter and published by the Cradle, in September and October, a number of the UAE's C-130 Hercules military cargo planes landed at Al-Makha airport, indicating its role as a logistical supply center. The 3 km-long airport is designed to receive military cargo planes with a loading capacity of up to 130 t.

A non-binary senior US nuclear official has been charged with stealing a suitcase at an airport.

Sam Brinton, 35, became the most prominent gender-fluid person in the US government in June, overseeing the disposal of nuclear waste.

The appointment of the MIT graduate, who uses the pronouns "they" and "them", was hailed at the time by diversity campaigners.