Poland, Ukraine and Baltic states fear the pipeline would increase Europe's dependence on Russian gas and provide the Kremlin with billions of dollars of additional revenue to finance a further military build-up on European Union's borders.However, the biggest threat has been from the US, and German businessmen know it. German politicians are increasingly pressuring Merkel to abandon US-imposed sanctions altogether:
"Like Poland, the United States opposes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. We see it as undermining Europe's overall energy security and stability," Tillerson said at a joint news conference with the Polish foreign minister in Warsaw.
"Our opposition is driven by our mutual strategic interests," he said.
Sanctions are "a dead horse one should not ride anymore," Ramelow told Der Spiegel as he pointed out that they did not actually contribute anything to the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis. Ukraine's problems cannot be "solved through a symbolic policy at the expense of our industries," he said. [...]
In December 2017, a study published by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy showed that Germany is de facto Europe's biggest loser from the EU penalties introduced against Russia. German exports to Russia dropped nearly 40 percent with the country losing €618 million ($768 million) each month because of the sanctions.
Units of the Turkish Armed Forces and the forces of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) coordinated tactics to sweep Afrin from battle groups of Kurdish Forces of the Popular Defence Forces (SNA). The military had identified seven major corridors to enter the city from the East. Armoured units of the Turkish Army and fighters of the FSA will move through them. These forces are divided into four major militant groups, took positions near the Turkish border awaiting the order to advance towards Afrin.See:
For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government's mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences. But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January. The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts.The Broadcast Board of Governors, which produces programming like the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, has been prevented from aiming its programming at Americans since the 1970's when the Smith-Mundt Act (which authorized the State Dept. to communicate with foreign audiences via many methods, radio being one of them) was amended to prohibit domestic dissemination of the BBG's broadcasts. This was done to distance the State Department's efforts from the internal propaganda machine operated by the Soviet Union.
Comment: Bezos is happy to reap the profits but Amazon has come under fire for its inhumane treatment of its workers:
- Intolerable working conditions at Amazon's newest warehouse - UPDATE
- Slave labor: Amazon workers in UK treated like 'animals' in exhausting working conditions
- How Amazon censored my book exposing Bill Browder
And considering Bezos' attitude to staff at Amazon, this is a worrying development: