Puppet MastersS


Bullseye

'Insufficient grounds': Switzerland backtracks and will release $6.3 billion in frozen Russian assets

Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi
Reuters
Thu, 12 May 2022 09:04 UTC
Swiss-franc
© REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann1,000-Swiss-franc banknotes lie in a box at a Swiss bank in Zurich, April 9, 2019.
The Swiss government on Thursday reported 6.3 billion Swiss francs ($6.33 billion) worth of Russian assets frozen under sanctions to punish Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, a drop from early April as around 3.4 billion francs in provisionally blocked assets were released.


Comment: To 'punish' Russia for defending itself against Western belligerence.


The figure marked a decrease from roughly 7.5 billion Swiss francs in funds the government reported frozen on April 7. Government official Erwin Bollinger pointed to fewer funds -- 2.2 billion francs -- newly frozen than those that had been released.

"We can't freeze funds if we do not have sufficient grounds," Bollinger, a senior official at the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) agency overseeing sanctions, told journalists.


Comment: What changed? Russia suddenly didn't deserve to be 'punished'? Could it be that Switzerland's leadership can see that stealing the finances of a global super power will destroy confidence in its already extremely shady banking sector, which also happens to be a major source of revenue for its economy? Investors everywhere have been taking note of the growing incidents of theft - with other examples being Venezuela's gold and Afghanistan's Central Bank billions - and are realizing that the West cannot be trusted.


Comment: Not only is the West sanctioning itself out of the global economy, it's also destroying whatever was a left of its reputation as a reliable and profitable business partner: Sanctions? Russian wheat still in high demand from exporters amidst looming global shortage

Also check out SOTT radio's: NewsReal: USA vs Russia: Could Proxy War in Ukraine Escalate to Nuclear Conflict?



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Bad Guys

EU to give another €500 million worth of military support to Ukraine, French minister vows to 'support Ukraine until victory'

Vyomica Berry
WION
Fri, 13 May 2022 04:17 UTC
ukraine tank kiev
© AFPA Ukrainian tank rolls along the main road of Kyiv. Expressing confidence in an embargo on Russian oil, Borrell said the military support would be for heavy weapons such as tanks and artillery and take the bloc's aid to about 2 billion euros.
Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said on Friday that the bloc will provide an additional 500 million euro military aid to Ukraine.

Expressing confidence in an embargo on Russian oil, Borrell said the military support would be for heavy weapons such as tanks and artillery and take the bloc's aid to about 2 billion euros.

"A new impetus for military support. (It will be) more pressure on Russia with economic sanctions and continuing the international isolation of Russia and countering misinformation," he told reporters on the sidelines of the G7 foreign ministers meeting in northern Germany.

Comment: RT reports:
UK looking for Soviet weaponry to prop up Ukraine

British defense officials and diplomats are actively seeking to procure old Soviet-made and Russian-made weaponry worldwide to funnel it to Ukraine, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace has said.

"Large parts of the [Ministry of Defense] and defense attachés around the world have been looking," Wallace told reporters in Washington on Wednesday.

Russian officials are trying to do the same, the minister claimed, insisting that Moscow has been running out of its war stock. "Sometimes we've bumped into the Russians looking, by the way, in some countries, looking also for some of their resupplies because ... they're running out fast," he claimed.

Soviet-made weaponry is the best choice to prop up Kiev in its fight against Moscow, given that the Ukrainian forces are familiar with such hardware, Wallace explained.

"If you really want to get it to the Ukrainians tomorrow morning so they can continue to fight ... find what they're trained on, find what they need."

Apart from pouring in Western-made weaponry, multiple European nations have sent old Soviet-made weapons to Ukraine amid the ongoing conflict emptying the stockpiles left from the Cold War era. The US sent in Mi-17 helicopters it had procured for Afghanistan but never delivered due to the abrupt collapse of the Western-propped government last year.

The UK has been among the top supporters and suppliers of Kiev, pouring thousands of anti-tank missiles into the country ahead of the large-scale Russian military operation launched in late February. London has also approved an additional package of heavy weaponry for Kiev, which includes anti-aircraft weapons, assorted missiles, drones, and various armored vehicles.

Moscow has repeatedly urged the West against "pumping" Kiev with weaponry, with top officials admitting the conflict has already turned into a "proxy war" waged by NATO against Russia. The continuous supply, however, will only prolong the conflict rather than change its outcome, Moscow has warned.

Russia attacked the neighboring state following Ukraine's failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow's eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered Minsk Protocol was designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.

The Kremlin has since demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force.


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Георгиевская ленточка

Austrian ex-FM states the obvious: Russia is a vital part of global economy


RT
Fri, 13 May 2022 21:41 UTC
St.Basil Orthodox Cathedral and Minin & Pozharskiy Moscow
© numbeos/GettySt.Basil Orthodox Cathedral and Minin & Pozharskiy monument in Moscow, Russia.
Claims by high-ranking officials that the Russian economy is crashing are completely inaccurate, according to former Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl, who spoke to RT about the global crisis.

She explained that the Russian economy is an important part of the global economy, especially though not exclusively due to its role in the supply of commodities. These include not only oil and gas, but also uranium, important metals, and other materials that are crucial for the world economy.

Comment: Switzerland appears to be the first European country to hedge on the U.S.-decreed sanctions package:
The Swiss government on Thursday reported that 6.3 billion Swiss francs ($6.33 billion) worth of Russian assets have been frozen under the country's sanctions.

The report said the figure indicates a decrease from the roughly 7.5 billion Swiss francs (over $7 billion) in funds the government reported frozen on April 7.

A senior official at the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) agency overseeing sanctions, Erwin Bollinger, pointed to fewer funds (over $2 billion) newly frozen than those that had been released. "We can't freeze funds if we do not have sufficient grounds," Bollinger told journalists.

Switzerland's bank lobby estimates that the country's banks hold up to $213 billion of Russian wealth. Its two largest lenders, UBS and Credit Suisse, each hold tens of billions of francs for wealthy Russian clients, it says.

Data shows that Credit Suisse alone froze around 10.4 billion Swiss francs ($10 billion) of Russian clients' money through March as part of sanctions imposed on Moscow over its military operation in Ukraine.

SECO officials said on Thursday that banks and asset managers can provisionally freeze funds, though the funds needed to be released if they could not establish that the assets were directly owned or controlled by a sanctioned individual.

"The amount of assets frozen is not a measure of how effectively sanctions are being implemented," Bollinger said, adding that asset freezes were not the most important measure "by far" in the wide-ranging package of sanctions.


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Whistle

Whistleblowers: FBI targeted parents using terrorism tools despite Biden AG's testimony that they didn't

Ari Hoffman
The Post Millennial
Thu, 12 May 2022 12:23 UTC
Garland
© The Washington Post/Getty ImagesUS Attorney General Merrick Garland
Republican Reps. Jim Jordan (OH) and Mike Johnson (LA) sent a letter to the US Attorney General claiming that whistleblowers have come forward and revealed that the FBI has labeled dozens of investigations into parents who protested schools' COVID policies with a threat tag, created by the FBI's Counterterrorism Division, despite Merrick Garland having previously claimed that it never happened.

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X

China censors zero-Covid debate after WHO criticizes policy

Matthew Walsh
HKFP
Wed, 11 May 2022 00:00 UTC
Xiayi testing
© AFPCovid testing • Xiayi, Henan Province, China • May 10, 2022
China's censors scrambled to wipe out online debate over its zero-Covid strategy on Wednesday after the World Health Organisation (WHO) criticised the country's hardline approach to crushing the virus.

China is the last major economy glued to a zero-Covid policy and enforces some of the most stringent virus controls anywhere in the world.

Those restrictions have trapped most of Shanghai's 25 million people in a lockdown with no clear end date, while Beijing has also gradually corralled many of its residents indoors as it battles its biggest outbreak since the pandemic began.

On Tuesday WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged China to change tack, saying the approach "will not be sustainable" in the face of new fast-spreading variants. The intervention prompted China's army of internet censors to race to snuff out his comments.
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Shopping Bag

US consumer prices spike even worse than expected


RT
Wed, 11 May 2022 17:40 UTC
Inflation
© iStockInflation Spike
Prices of consumer goods continue to soar across America, the latest official print of the Consumer Price Index confirmed on Wednesday, showing price growth at 8.3% over the last 12 months as of April. This marks the eleventh straight month of inflation registering over 5% and exceeds the 8.1% expected by economists polled by Dow Jones, cited by CNBC.

The sharpest cost increases came in the categories of shelter, food, airline fares, and new vehicles, and while the index for energy declined, the American Automobile Association revealed on Tuesday that the price of gasoline had hit record highs.

Making matters worse, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that average hourly earnings for workers declined 2.6%, if adjusted for seasonal factors and inflation, since last April. With inflation at its highest rate in 40 years on top of so many other benchmarks presaging economic turbulence and no clear solutions emerging from the White House, Americans are reporting higher rates of financial anxiety than in previous years.

While Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) have categorically refused to shoulder any of the blame for the price spikes that have Americans more worried about their finances than they have been in years, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tentatively acknowledged on Tuesday that the generous stimulus spending by the administration of President Joe Biden might have helped unleash the steep inflation currently gripping the US.

Comment: Shall we also factor greed, planned disintegration of society and the crumbling quality of life as we know it? The perfect financial storm...

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Chess

Russia outlines shift on Ukraine's EU bid


RT
Fri, 13 May 2022 19:31 UTC
lavrov
© Sputnik/Russian Foreign Ministry
Moscow has revised its stance on Ukraine's bid to join the European Union because the once purely economic organization has become a purveyor of hostile policies with a global outreach, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.

He was explaining why his country which had previously been amenable to the prospect of Ukraine becoming a member of the bloc, has now made a U-turn on the issue. Lavrov said Kiev's accession could pose a greater risk to Moscow than previously believed.

"The EU is turning from the constructive economic platform that it was originally meant to be into an aggressive militant player that has ambitions stretching far beyond the European continent," said the foreign minister.

Lavrov cited rhetoric used by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during her visit to Japan earlier this week. She praised Tokyo for siding with Western nations that have imposed economic sanctions on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine, and expressed a desire for the EU to play a more active role in the Indo-Pacific region.
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Attention

Exposing the 'Digital ID is a human right' Scam

Derrick Broze
The Last American Vagabond
Fri, 13 May 2022 18:52 UTC
A major component of the Great Reset-Technocratic Agenda is the implementation of a worldwide digital identity scheme. One of the first steps to realize this goal is to convince the public that digital identity programs are a "human right" worth fighting for.
Digital ID
© The Last American Vagabond
Why is the push for digital identity absolutely vital to the Technocrats visions?

The world of 2030 — the one in which the World Economic Forum imagines "you will own nothing and be happy" — depends on an all-encompassing digital id program. This digital ID will allow a track and trace society where the authorities can see every purchase and every move you make.

One could argue much of society has already handed over this data with the ubiquitous use of credit cards which track purchases, and phones which log GPS data. However, the digital ID scheme will also be linked to a digital wallet holding the local Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), the digital currency of governments which will be needed for all legal transactions. Eventually, this digital ID and the digital wallet will be connected to, and impacted by, your individual social credit score.

As I have reported since March 2020, these initiatives were already in the works prior to COVID-19. However, it was the beginning of the COVID-19 panic that allowed governments around the world to push further towards their vision of Technocracy. For example, we have been told that use of cash should be greatly reduced or eliminated altogether because of reports claiming COVID-19 spread through dirty old money. This conveniently leads into the calls for digital currency programs such as CBDCs.

Of course, we see the push for "contact tracing" apps to track the alleged spread of disease, and vaccine passport/health passport apps have begun to acclimate the public to carrying a digital ID card with them everywhere they go. The vaccine passport is simply a gateway to a digital identity which has already been in the works in the United States, to one degree or another, since at least 2005 with the passing of the controversial REAL ID Act.
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Dominoes

Anti-Russian sanctions will prompt new world order - Medvedev


RT
Fri, 13 May 2022 18:59 UTC
globe
© Getty Images / Image Source
The severe sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and its allies over the conflict in Ukraine will change the existing world order, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has claimed.

Medvedev, who is now the deputy chairman of his country's Security Council, took to Telegram on Friday to point out possible effects of the restrictions that hurt not only Russia, but also those who impose them and the international community as a whole.

A number of "global supply chains" are going to be destroyed by the sanctions, risking "a major logistical crisis," the official wrote, adding that some Western airlines may also go broke due to being unable to use Russian airspace.

The energy crises in the states that have slapped "self-harming" sanctions on Russian oil and gas will worsen, with energy prices continuing to grow, he predicted.
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Nuke

Empire of bioweapon lies

Pepe Escobar
Strategic Culture
Fri, 13 May 2022 17:03 UTC
An ongoing U.S. bioweapons program in Ukraine was one of the Top Three reasons that led to the launch of Operation Z, Pepe Escobar writes.

BioHazard
© Public Domain
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow / Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, / You cannot say, or guess, for you know only / A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, / And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, / And the dry stone no sound of water. Only / There is shadow under this red rock, / (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), / And I will show you something different from either / Your shadow at morning striding behind you / Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; / I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land: I. The Burial of the Dead, 1922
This glimpse of "fear in a handful of dust" already ranks as one the prime breakthroughs of the young 21st century, presented this week by Chief of Russian Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Protection Force Igor Kirillov.

The provisional results of evidence being collected about the work of U.S. bioweapons in Ukraine are simply astonishing. These are the main takeaways.
  1. U.S. bioweapon ideologues comprise the leadership of the Democratic Party. By linking with non-governmental biotechnology organizations, using the investment funds of the Clintons, Rockefellers, Soros and Biden, they profited from additional campaign financing - all duly concealed. In parallel, they assembled the legislative basis for financing the bioweapons program directly from the federal budget.
  2. COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna, as well as Merck and Gilead - of Donald "known unknowns" fame, and affiliated with the Pentagon - were directly involved.
  3. U.S. specialists tested new drugs in the Ukraine biolabs in circumvention of international safety standards. According to Kirillov, acting this way "Western companies seriously reduce the costs of research programs and gain significant competitive advantages."
  4. According to Kirillov, "along with U.S. pharmaceutical companies and Pentagon contractors, Ukrainian government agencies are involved in military biotechnology activities, whose main tasks are to conceal illegal activities, conduct field and clinical trials and provide the necessary biomaterial."
  5. The Pentagon, Kirillov pointed out, expanded its research potential not only in terms of producing biological weapons, but also gathering information on antibiotic resistance and the presence of antibodies to certain diseases among the population in specific regions. The testing ground in Ukraine was practically outside the control of the so-called "international community".
These findings, amply documented, suggest a vast "legitimized" bioweapon racket reaching the highest levels of the American body politic. There's no doubt the Russians plan to thoroughly unmask it for the benefit of world public opinion, starting with a War Crimes Tribunal to be set up this summer, most probably in Donetsk.

An ongoing U.S. bioweapons program in Ukraine was one of the Top Three reasons that led to the launch of Operation Z, side by side with preventing an imminent NATO-managed blitzkrieg against Donbass and Kiev's desire to re-start a nuclear weapons program. These are Top Three red lines for Russia.

The strength of the collected evidence may directly correlate with what was largely interpreted as a carefully measured Victory Day speech by President Putin. The Kremlin does not bluff. It will certainly privilege the meticulous presentation of - bioweapon - facts on the ground over grandstanding rhetoric.
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