Society's ChildS


Attention

Germany alarmed at number of pro-Hitler security personnel


RT
Fri, 13 May 2022 21:15 UTC
Crowd
© Sean Gallup/Getty Images'Heil Hitler'
A German government investigation has revealed that more than 300 members of the country's security agencies have links to "right-wing" extremism, including officers who were found to have joined in "Heil Hitler" chants and Nazi salutes.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement on Friday:
"We will not allow our democratic constitutional state to be sabotaged from within by right-wing extremists. Every case of extremism must have clear consequences."
She added that Berlin will exhaust all current legal options to deal with extremists in the country's security ranks, and she will propose legislation to help "remove enemies of the constitution from the public service more quickly."

The probe examined 860 suspected cases of extremist behavior dating as far back as July 2018 and revealed "concrete evidence" against 327 employees of security services at federal and state levels. Germany's military intelligence service (MAD) was most rife with offenders, with 83 employees found to have been involved in activities "against the free democratic basic order," the report said. The federal police ranked second, with 18 such employees.

Comment: Right-wing extremism has been 'established and encouraged' in Ukraine. The West, due to its own motives and actions, shall inherit the consequences.

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Arrow Up

European gas prices forecast to triple


RT
Sun, 15 May 2022 12:05 UTC
parkbench
© BigNewsNetwork.comThe long cold winter
A "perfect winter storm" may be forming in Europe, as the continent seeks to limit Russian gas flows, analysts at Rystad Energy said in a press release this week. They added there might be not enough LNG to replace Russian gas during the freezing weather. The price of gas in the EU was projected to soar to $3,500 per 1,000 cubic meters.

According to the report, last year Russia sent 155 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas to the continent, providing more than 31% of its gas supply.
"Replacing a significant portion of this will be exceedingly difficult, with far-reaching consequences for Europe's population, economy, and for the role of gas in the region's energy transition."
By shunning Russian gas, Europe has destabilized the entire global LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) market, which began the year with a precarious balance after a tumultuous 2021, Rystad explained. The decision to sharply reduce reliance on Russian gas and LNG from current levels of between 30-40% will transform the global LNG market, it added.

Comment: The West shows how little people matter compared to punishing Russia.

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Bizarro Earth

Russia to halt electricity exports to Finland over failure to pay & without giving reason - UPDATE

Anna Pruchnicka
Reuters
Fri, 13 May 2022 07:37 UTC
Gas pipe gasoducto
© Sputnik
Russian state-owned utility Inter RAO (IRAO.MM) will stop exporting electricity to Finland from Saturday because it has not been paid, the company's Finnish subsidiary said on Friday.

Inter RAO has not received payments for electricity sold via pan-European power exchange Nord Pool since May 6, the subsidiary said, without giving any reason.

"This situation is exceptional and happened for the first time in over twenty years of our trading history," RAO Nordic, said in a statement.

Power imports to Finland will be halted from 1 a.m. local time on Saturday (2200 GMT on Friday) "for the time being," Finnish grid operator Fingrid said in a separate statement, citing RAO Nordic.

Comment: So, rather than openly admit that it was going to refuse to pay for the electricity it uses in rubles, as per the new contract, and which it knew about weeks in advance, Finland simply stopped payments without notifying Russia: UPDATE 14/05/2022: Russia doesn't bluff:
Electricity supplies from Russia to Finland were halted on Saturday, RAO Nordic said in a statement, explaining that it had received no payment for power provided to the country in May.

"Unfortunately, we are forced to note that for the volumes which have been sold on the Nord Pool exchange since May 6, funds have not yet been credited to our bank account," said the company, which is a subsidiary of Russian state energy corporate Inter RAO.

The firm expressed hope that the situation would be resolved and trade could resume. RAO Nordic had reportedly been trading on the Nord Pool exchange for more than two decades.

"We hope that the situation will improve soon and the electricity trade with Russia can resume," the corporation said.

On Friday, Finland's transmission system operator Fingrid said there was no threat to electricity supply in the country as a result of the move. The grid company added that electricity imported from Russia accounted for around 10% of the nation's total consumption.

"The lack of electricity imports from Russia will be compensated for by importing more electricity from Sweden and by generating more electricity in Finland," said Reima Paivinen, Fingrid's senior vice president of power system operations.

In April, it announced plans to reduce electricity imports from Russia in cross-border connections, saying it would import more from Sweden instead. At the same time, analysts say that cutting electricity purchases from Russia would increase Finnish power prices by 30%.

The country's media also reported that Russia could stop providing Finland with natural gas on Friday over the nation's bid to join NATO. Russia has not confirmed the reports.
That 10% shortfall from Russia seems to be having an out-sized effect on Finnish power rates. Some good old-fashioned price gouging going on? Yay capitalism!

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X

India halts wheat exports as "food security at risk"

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Sun, 15 May 2022 05:00 UTC
india food export
India prohibited wheat exports effective immediately, saying the nation's food security was under threat, partly due to heatwaves that damaged yields in the country and disruptions to global grain markets in the Black Sea breadbasket region.

The notice was published in the government gazette by the Directorate of Foreign Trade on Friday. It read, "there is a sudden spike in the global food prices of wheat arising out of many factors, as a result of which the food security of India, neighboring and other vulnerable countries is at risk."

India said it was still committed to exporting wheat to "neighboring and other vulnerable developing countries which are adversely affected by the sudden changes in the global market for wheat and are unable to access adequate wheat supplies."

The move by the world's second-largest wheat producer comes as food protectionism runs rampant worldwide as countries limit or restrict exports of food staples to rein in domestic prices.
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Stock Up

JPMorgan says Russia's economy is stronger than expected and will only suffer a shallow recession despite sanctions

Harry Robertson
Business Insider
Tue, 10 May 2022 17:40 UTC
moscow
© Westend61/Getty ImagesFinancial flows in Moscow suggested the slowdown has not been as bad as expected, JPMorgan said.
The Russian economy has so far fared better than expected under tough sanctions and is likely to suffer only a shallow — although drawn-out — recession , according to JPMorgan.

The Wall Street bank said business sentiment surveys from the country "are signaling a not very deep recession in Russia, and therefore imply upside risks to our growth forecasts," in a note sent to clients last week and released publicly Monday.

The US and its allies slapped tough economic sanctions on Russia in late February after Vladimir Putin's troops invaded Ukraine. The stringency of the measures prompted forecasters to predict a dramatic slowdown in Russia's economy.

In March, JPMorgan forecasted that Russian gross domestic product would contract 35% quarter-over-quarter in the second quarter, and 7% for the year. The IMF expects Russia's economy to shrink 8.5% in 2022.

Yet the bank told clients last week that the country's economy is in better shape than expected, judging from business surveys and high-frequency indicators such as electricity consumption and financial flows.

Comment: So much for sanctions putting the hurt on Russia.... and instead we get:

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Eye 1

Goldman Sachs-backed firms buy entire Florida community for $45M

Selim Algar
New York Post
Wed, 11 May 2022 18:47 UTC
america homes
© WESH2Fundrise Interval Fund and Growth eREIT VII, backed by Goldman Sachs, bought up an entire rental home community in Brevard County, Florida last month
A pair of Goldman Sachs-backed ventures gobbled up an entire rental home community in Florida last month for a cool $45 million, according to reports.

Fundrise Interval Fund and Growth eREIT VII picked up 87 single-family properties in Brevard County as part of an ongoing southern spending spree.

Fundrise previously snatched up a 120-unit development in Pensacola and has been pouring money into other rental developments in states like South Carolina and Mississippi.

Comment: "You will own nothing and be happy.":

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MIB

NSA says 'no backdoor' for spies in new US encryption scheme

Katrina Manson
Stripes
Fri, 13 May 2022 12:00 UTC
Rob Joyce
© David Paul Morris/BloombergRob Joyce, senior advisor to the Director for Cybersecurity National Security Agency, at the 2018 Aspen Cyber Summit in San Francisco on Nov. 8, 2018.
The U.S. is readying new encryption standards that will be so ironclad that even the nation's top code-cracking agency says it won't be able to bypass them.

The National Security Agency has been involved in parts of the process but insists it has no way of bypassing the new standards.

"There are no backdoors," said Rob Joyce, the NSA's director of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency, in an interview. A backdoor enables someone to exploit a deliberate, hidden flaw to break encryption. An encryption algorithm developed by the NSA was dropped as a federal standard in 2014 amid concerns that it contained a backdoor.

The new standards are intended to withstand quantum computing, a developing technology that is expected to be able to solve math problems that today's computers can't. But it's also one that the White House fears could allow the encrypted data that girds the U.S. economy - and national security secrets - to be hacked.
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Bizarro Earth

Head of humanitarian association says Europe is turning into a dictatorship after France confiscates charity funds for children of Donbass

Avis Krane
Essence of Time
Sat, 14 May 2022 22:01 UTC
Emmanuel Leroy
Emmanuel Leroy can be seen wearing the red tie.
On May 14, Emmanuel Leroy, head of the French humanitarian association Save the Children of Donbass, said that Europe and France in particular are turning into dictatorships that trample on fundamental rights and freedoms.

Earlier, Leroy said that French customs confiscated funds collected by the humanitarian association for children of the DPR and LPR, intended for paying for transportation to Russia. The confiscation was explained by a ban on the import of funds into the Russian Federation.

"I have all the evidence that it was a purely humanitarian mission. And if tomorrow they put me in jail for humanitarian aid, then I will just be a holy martyr in the name of a noble cause. People must understand that Europe and France in particular are turning into dictatorships and trampling on basic democratic rights and freedoms," Leroy said.
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Attention

Nancy Pelosi-aligned dark money nonprofit has been out of compliance in California for months, filings show

Joe Schoffstall
Fox News
Fri, 13 May 2022 09:16 UTC
Pelosi HMF
© House Majority Forward/Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty/KJNSpeaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
A dark money nonprofit aligned with House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi has been delinquent in her home state of California for months and has been threatened with possible suspension or revocation, state filings show.

The delinquency means that the Pelosi-affiliated group, House Majority Forward, has been barred from soliciting or accepting contributions in the Golden State, where many major Democratic donors live.

While it is impossible to determine if the nonprofit raised money in California since it fell out of compliance, the group reported having a San Francisco-based fundraiser on its payroll on its most recent tax forms.

House Majority Forward first received a warning from California's attorney general's office in June 2021, saying the group had failed to submit all required documents and must do so within 60 days. In January, the California AG office sent another letter to House Majority Forward saying it's "listed as delinquent" for failing to submit the required reports.

A delinquent nonprofit in California cannot operate or accept money in the state as it remains out of compliance.
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Arrow Down

Truckload van spot-rates are crashing at an unprecedented pace

Craig Fuller
Zero Hedge
Fri, 13 May 2022 09:35 UTC
trucks
© Freightwaves CEOTrucking the highways
Over the past four days, the deterioration in truckload van spot rates has accelerated, falling over $.02 per mile per day on the FreightWaves National Truckload Index Linehaul Only ([fuel removed] 7-day moving average (SONAR NTIL.USA). In the past seven days, van truckload spot rates fell by $0.011/day and $0.007/day in the prior three weeks.

The acceleration in the rate of decline is remarkable, especially considering the time of year. May and June are normally considered among the busiest times of year for truckload volumes and the early summer months rival the holiday retail season in terms of peak spot rates.
FreightWaves chart
The blue-shaded area is the National Truckload Index Linehaul Only (NTIL) which is based on an average of booked spot dry loads from 250,000 lanes and 10,000 daily spot market transactions. The NTIL is a seven-day moving average of spot rates net of fuel.
The phrase "100 days of summer" is used in the trucking industry to describe the time of year when beverages, construction, and summer goods all surge. This year, the market is doing the opposite.

Comment: The significant downturn in trucking is just one facet of inflation, consumer demand and supply issues - and this is just the beginning.

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