Puppet MastersS


Fire

The European Union is again close to a meltdown

Bruce Wilds
Advancing Time
Thu, 23 Jun 2022 18:30 UTC
Europe in meltdown
The Ukraine conflict is taking a toll on the Euro-zone and it could result in finally pushing it over the edge. Everything flowing from Russia's incursion poses a big negative for the region which is already struggling. When you couple soaring energy prices with stagnate growth and a growing trade balance with China you have the recipe for disaster. This is also apparent on the inflation front.

According to Reuters, the Euro-zone inflation rate surged to yet another record high in May. Inflation accelerated to 8.1% in May from 7.4% in April. A big part of the problem is that it is no longer just energy pulling up the headline figure. Looking past the headline figure, we find excluding food and energy prices, inflation rose to 4.4% year-on-year from 3.9%. This puts pressure on the European Central Bank to increase rates further. The timing of such a move is horrible in that Europe's dust-up with Russia has brought to the forefront just how weak Europe is.

Lurking in the background is the strong possibility that the Ukraine conflict will drag on and Russia could completely cut off gas to Europe. Currently, it appears Russia intends to keep Europe from filling storage, this will substantially increase Russia's leverage in the winter months. Already talks of gas rationing are being floated if we see further cuts to Russian gas supplies. In the past three months, Russia cut off supply to several European countries that refused to pay for gas in rubles and has also substantially reduced the flow through the Nord Stream. This has cut off supplies to France and reduced flows to Germany by some 60 percent.
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Eagle

Best of the Web: The end of the European colonial powers, the tyranny of physics

Tom Luongo
Gold, Goats 'N Guns
Thu, 23 Jun 2022 00:00 UTC
clown mushroom cloud
I sat down last weekend for a long chat with Alexander Mercouris of The Duran and Crypto Rich to discuss the rapidly evolving situation in Europe. Long time readers know that I've been handicapping the collapse of the European Union for years.

That idea isn't based on my personal antipathy for Eurotrash commies and eugenicists, though it is quite large. In fact, the deeper we go into 2022 the more that antipathy rises to near unquenchable levels. The sheer arrogance and stupidity of Europe's leadership is nothing short of breathtaking.

Today we are looking at a situation where an entire continent's leadership is in the process of committing ritualistic suicide and yet is obsessed with portraying these self-inflicted wounds to the world as Russian President Vladimir Putin's fault.

A common trait among all malignant narcissists is the inability to take any responsibility for their own actions, seeking to always shift blame onto someone else. You see this behavior in children. And it only manifests itself in adulthood because the parents refused to put any boundaries on the child or inflict any consequences on them.
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Colosseum

G7 nations worried about global economic crisis - Scholz


Reuters
Sun, 26 Jun 2022 23:46 UTC
G7 meet 2022
All leaders of the Group of Seven rich democracies are concerned about a looming economic crisis as growth slows and inflation soars, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said after a working session on the global economy at this year's annual G7 summit, APA reports citing Reuters.

"All members are concerned about the crisis we are confronting - falling growth rates in some countries, rising inflation, raw materials shortages, disrupted supply changes - these aren't small challenges," Scholz said in a televised statement.

Comment: They're so concerned that they also found the time to make obnoxious jokes about nudity, and about Putin:



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Bad Guys

NATO to change Russia's status to 'threat', Baltic nations & Poland to request massive military build up


RT
Sat, 25 Jun 2022 18:14 UTC
NATO OTAN
© Sputnik / Alexey VitvitskyHowever, Kiev wants the bloc to acknowledge its role as a "cornerstone" of European security
Ukraine has accepted that NATO membership is off the table, and will not take any further steps toward joining the US-led military bloc, Igor Zhovkva, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, told the Financial Times on Saturday. Nevertheless, Kiev wants a say in NATO's policy making.

The bloc's leaders are set to meet in the Spanish capital of Madrid next week. During two days of meetings and consultations, the organization will unveil its Strategic Concept - a document that outlines its mission and stance toward perceived threats, including China and Russia.

Zhovkva told the Financial Times that Zelensky's government wants NATO to acknowledge that Ukraine is "a cornerstone of European security," and to reaffirm its partnership with Kiev, first established in 1997.
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Pirates

NATO thinks peace negotiations will resolve conflict in Ukraine, but West will continue to send weapons


RT
Sat, 25 Jun 2022 12:07 UTC
Ukraine US commando military
© Nicole Tung / The New York TimesFILE PHOTO: Ukrainian soldiers in the recaptured village of Novopil, May 25. A secretive operation involving U.S. Special Operations Forces hints at the scale of the effort to assist Ukraine's still outgunned military.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine will probably end with a negotiated settlement, but that does not mean the West should stop sending arms to Kiev or reduce sanctions pressure on Moscow, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Saturday.

"Most likely, this war will end at the negotiating table," Stoltenberg told the Spanish newspaper El Pais, acknowledging that an outright military victory was not on the cards.

"Our responsibility is to ensure that Ukraine is in the strongest possible position and to help it remain a sovereign and independent European nation," he said.
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Gear

EU forced to step back into the coal age - media


RT
Sun, 26 Jun 2022 18:15 UTC
Boxberg coal fired power plant germany
© Patrick Pleul/Getty ImagesThe Boxberg coal-fired power plant in Lusatia near Germany's border with Poland.
Several members of the bloc have announced emergency plans to boost 'dirty fuel' usage amid the shortage of Russian gas

A number of EU countries have launched emergency plans aimed to lower and ration the use of natural gas and resurrect coal-fired power production, Business Insider reported on Tuesday.

This week, Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands announced that coal-generated power could help them cope with an energy crisis in the coming winter. German Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck said the country made a "bitter" decision to restart coal power plants.

Comment: Live by sanctions, die by sanctions. The EU has done this to itself.

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Chess

Great Game 2.0: The defunct British Empire 'strikes back' in Ukraine and Eastern Europe

Konrad Rękas
Global Research
Fri, 24 Jun 2022 00:00 UTC
Brit flag
© truepublica
Geopolitics is a game on a fixed chessboard in which not only the main players change, but also colours of the pieces, and the rules themselves are fluid. Although basic mechanisms remain unchanged, and some scenarios come back years or even centuries later to remind us that Game of Thrones is invariably played in front of our eyes, usually too distracted to notice its outlines. Once again, British agents appear in Eastern Europe and the Central Asia persuading the natives to wage war against Russia in order for Britain to regain its dominant position, initially in Europe, and ultimately also in the Middle East. The Great Game continues.

Distribution of roles

Only people who cannot recognise changes in international politics may still think that the Ukrainian game is being played by (only) Russia and the United States. Not at all. Of course, the American hegemon still keeps general control over the entire geopolitics of the Western hemisphere, but its choking economy forces the division of tasks. The reality is that if the US does not focus on the Chinese question, it will not only lose its (already broken) primacy of the World's first economy, but also will be dethroned as the most important centre of global capital, which is already considering whether to change the side supported.
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Bullseye

Best of the Web: Western officials admit Ukraine is crawling with CIA personnel

Caitlin Johnstone
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com
Sun, 26 Jun 2022 00:00 UTC
Ukraine flagCIA
© Unknown
The New York Times reports that Ukraine is crawling with special forces and spies from the US and its allies, which would seem to contradict earlier reports that the US intelligence cartel is having trouble getting intel about what's happening on the ground in Ukraine.

This would also, obviously, put the final nail in the coffin of the claim that this is not a US proxy war.

In an article titled "Commando Network Coordinates Flow of Weapons in Ukraine, Officials Say," anonymous western officials inform us of the following through their stenographers at The New York Times:
As Russian troops press ahead with a grinding campaign to seize eastern Ukraine, the nation's ability to resist the onslaught depends more than ever on help from the United States and its allies — including a stealthy network of commandos and spies rushing to provide weapons, intelligence and training, according to U.S. and European officials.

Much of this work happens outside Ukraine, at bases in Germany, France and Britain, for example. But even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some C.I.A. personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the massive amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces, according to current and former officials.

At the same time, a few dozen commandos from other NATO countries, including Britain, France, Canada and Lithuania, also have been working inside Ukraine.

Comment: The US buys time with bogus explanations in order to accomplish its goals and subvert public reaction.

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Gold Bar

G7 to ban Russian gold in a 'strike at the heart' of Putin's war effort


RFE/RL
Sun, 26 Jun 2022 00:00 UTC

Comment: Going on past form, this means gold is going to spike in value (which really means the dollar and euro are going to fall further)...


gold bars
© Reuters
Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized democracies gathering for a two-day summit in the German Alps on June 26 will announce a ban on new imports of Russian gold to boost sanctions, according to British and U.S. officials.

Wealthy Russians have been purchasing gold bullion recently to ease the sting of international financial punishments put in place since Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24, the British government said in a statement.

"The measures we have announced today will directly hit Russian oligarchs and strike at the heart of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's war machine," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in the statement. London said Russian gold exports totaled more than $15 billion last year.

Comment: Who else is in 'banning Russian gold' mood?
According to a statement by the UK government:
"This measure will have global reach, shutting the commodity out of formal international markets" and delivering a 'huge impact' on Moscow's potential to generate revenue across the world, adding that "the step is underpinned by London's central role in the metals trade."
Shipments between Russia and London have been reduced to almost zero. The London Bullion Market Association, which sets the standards for the market, removed Russian gold refiners from its accredited list in March.

Earlier this week, Reuters reported that EU leaders are considering gold as one of the targets for the next round of sanctions on Russia. The agency's source, however, did not clarify whether the move would hit exports of gold, imports, or both.

The measure announced by London will apply to gold leaving Russia for the first time, and the US Treasury is expected to issue a ban on Tuesday as quoted by Bloomberg.

While Western sanctions have largely closed off European and US markets to gold from the world's second-biggest bullion miner, the G7's move is expected to completely sever Russia from the world's top two trading centers, London and New York.

According to UN Comtrade data, as cited by the agency, the $15 billion in Russian gold that arrived in London last year made up 28% of UK gold imports. Russia still has the option to sell the precious metal directly to refineries, or look for new buyers, such as China, India, and the Middle East, which have not supported the sanctions and are not part of the G7.


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Stock Down

US must endure 'pain' to fix inflation - IMF


RT
Sun, 26 Jun 2022 05:44 UTC
Georgieva
© AP/Jose Luis MaganaFILE PHOTO: IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. Money that is now being invested in defense and weapons could have boosted economic development, Kristalina Georgieva has said.
The United States may have to endure economic "pain" in order to rein in rampant inflation, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Friday, noting that a downturn might be the "necessary price to pay" for recovery.

Speaking to reporters during a Friday press conference, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva predicted a rough ride for the US economy, which is experiencing decades-high inflation with soaring prices for a number of staple goods. After the IMF slashed its growth forecast for the US by nearly a full percentage point, down to 2.9%, she said:
"Success over time [in lowering prices] will be beneficial for global growth, but some pain to get to that success can be a necessary price to pay."
Georgieva added that the United States faces a "narrowing path to avoiding a recession," but that tackling inflation must be the "top priority," even if it means an economic slow-down.

Comment: Shedding its mask, the US economy has become a financial plague requiring isolation.

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