Russia – Page 17 – praag.org

Russia signs second gas contract with China

Russia plans to sign a 30-year gas supply contract with China via the western route, Russian energy giant Gazprom’s CEO Alexei Miller told President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday. The route to supply gas to China via western Siberia may be implemented faster than the eastern route, through which Moscow has agreed to ship the fuel to its Asian neighbor in May.

“Gazprom plans to sign a contract to supply China with 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas via western route over thirty years,” Miller said.

The China-Russia West Route natural gas pipeline project connects gas deposits in Western Siberia and the northwestern part of China via Russia’s Altai region, securing the world’s top energy user a major source of cleaner fuel.

The potential of this route is “enormous”, the Gazprom CEO told the Russian President.

“It is even greater than in Eastern Siberia and, without a doubt, we can increase the volume of gas supplies very quickly via the western route, depending on the growth in demand in the Chinese market,” said Miller.

Gazprom is to sign the 30-year contract with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) in November. The deal will directly link Russia’s huge gas fields to Asia’s booming market for the first time.

Miller also said Gazprom might consider more than doubling the volume of supply.

“We plan to sign a contract for a volume of 30 billion cubic metres for 30 years, though the talks have also looked at other figures for new contracts concluded for the western route. We are looking at the possibilities for supplying 60 billion cubic metres or up to 100 billion cubic metres of gas to China,” Miller told Putin in Moscow.

China and Russia signed a $400-billion gas supply deal in May this year, opening up a new market for Moscow as it risks losing European customers over the Ukraine crisis.

The Russian part of the joint venture pipeline, officially dubbed “Power of Siberia”, will be built by Gazprom with a total investment of $55 billion.

Construction of the China- Russia East Route natural gas pipeline started this month in this eastern Siberian city of Yakutsk.

Source: The BRICS Post

European Parliament ratifies EU-Ukraine Association Agreement

The European Parliament gave its consent to the EU-Ukraine Association agreement, which includes a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA), on Tuesday in Strasbourg. At the same time, the Agreement was also ratified by the Ukrainian Parliament in Kiev. The deal will establish a deep political association and economic integration between the EU and Ukraine and provide for mutual free market access.

MEPs backed the agreement with 535 votes in favour, 127 against and 35 abstentions.

“Through this ratification, Ukraine’s European choice will be institutionalized and will bind the futures of the EU and Ukraine together. Ukrainian society has paid the highest price for its European aspirations, grieving the deaths of numerous people, suffering territorial occupation by Russia and experiencing deteriorating economic conditions. With this ratification, the EU gives Ukraine the strongest sign of support, despite the regrettable proposal to delay implementation of the agreement” said rapporteur Jacek Saryusz-Wolski (EPP, PL) before the vote.

He added that the agreement was “not a definitive goal of EU-Ukraine relations” and stressed that the common future of the EU and Ukraine must now be protected from Russian aggression by introducing “increasingly heavy sanctions until the cost for Russia will be too high to sustain its policy”.

“This is an historic moment”, said EP President Martin Schulz in his address to MPs in the Strasbourg and Kiev chambers via a video link. “The two parliaments freely determined to vote today at the same time on this agreement. This is free democracy, the opposite of directed democracy. The European Parliament has always defended the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine and will continue to do so”, he added.

Just before the Ukraine Parliament ratified the deal, President Poroshenko said “The Ukrainians have reversed the express-train going East, and I hope that also today’s vote will confirm that. Our synchronised ratifications will be a feast, not just for Ukraine but also for Europe because without Ukraine there is no united Europe. I would like to thank Europe for the support it has given us in these difficult times. At the same time I would like to address our government – the EU only asks for one thing in return from us – the reforms. I urge you not to delay them in any way”.

What does the deal involve?

The deal provides both for a political association and for free trade. The political provisions take Ukraine one step closer to the EU, by opening new channels for political dialogue and establishing ground rules for cooperation in areas such as energy, transport, and education. It requires Ukraine to implement reforms and respect democratic principles, human rights and the rule of law.

Among other rules, the deal provides for greater movement of workers, sets targets for establishing a visa-free travel regime and aligning the two sides’ regulatory systems by laying down detailed timetables for Ukraine to transpose parts of the EU acquis legislation into its national laws and put them into effect.

The Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement part substantially integrates the EU and Ukraine markets, by dismantling import duties and banning other trade restrictions, albeit with specific limitations and transitional periods in “sensitive” areas, such as trade in agricultural products. It will also partially integrate public procurement markets.

When will it take effect?

As a result of today’s votes both in the EU and Ukrainian Parliament, the deal will be applied provisionally but the date still needs to be confirmed by the Council. To take full legal effect, the deal has to be ratified by the 28 EU member states. So far, it has been ratified in six member states,, but several years may elapse before the process is completed in all member states.

It was planned to apply the trade rules from 1 November this year, but last Friday 12 September the EU, Ukraine and Russia agreed in talks to delay the provisional entry into effect of the trade rules until 31 December 2015.

The EU Commission says that it will continue to apply EU “autonomous trade preferences” to Ukraine, which in effect opens the EU market to Ukraine unilaterally. A decision to prolong these preferences later would need the backing of the European Parliament. – European Parliament Media Service

However, the French Front National and some other parties voted against the agreement:

Russia signs platinum deal with Zimbabwe

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has signed economic and cooperation deals in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe is in “desperate need of investment,” Thea Fourie, an analyst at IHS Global Insight in Johannesburg, told Bloomberg in an e-mailed statement. Mugabe “has reached out to partners such as China and Russia to fill the gap,” according to Fourie.

Trade bans and economic embargoes were placed on Mugabe and senior members of his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party in 2002 by the US, the EU, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Lavrov signed a $3 billion investment deal with Mugabe that will allow Russian firms to help develop Zimbabwe’s platinum resources.

The Russian foreign minister said it’s important to recognize pluralism in the international community, as well as “the emergence of new, big players, including the African continent, whose interests and voices must be taken into account in world politics.”

The project is the largest single foreign investment in Zimbabwe since it gained independence in 1980.

Mugabe, 90, met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at his rural home in Kutama Village, 130 kilometers north of the capital Harare.

Mugabe said international sanctions have to be approved by the UN.

Washington’s War Against Russia

The new sanctions against Russia announced by Washington and Europe do not make sense as merely economic measures. I would be surprised if Russian oil and military industries were dependent on European capital markets in a meaningful way. Such a dependence would indicate a failure in Russian strategic thinking. The Russian companies should be able to secure adequate financing from Russian Banks or from the Russian government. If foreign loans are needed, Russia can borrow from China.

If critical Russian industries are dependent on European capital markets, the sanctions will help Russia by forcing an end to this debilitating dependence. Russia should not be dependent on the West in any way.

The real question is the purpose of the sanctions. My conclusion is that the purpose of the sanctions is to break up and undermine Europe’s economic and political relations with Russia. When international relations are intentionally undermined, war can be the result. Washington will continue to push sanctions against Russia until Russia shows Europe that there is a heavy cost of serving as Washington’s tool.

Russia needs to break up this process of ever more sanctions in order to derail the drive toward war. In my opinion this is easy for Russia to do. Russia can tell Europe that since you do not like our oil companies, you must not like our gas company, so we are turning off the gas. Or Russia can tell Europe, we don’t sell natural gas to NATO members, or Russia can say we will continue to sell you gas, but you must pay in rubles, not in dollars. This would have the additional benefit of increasing the demand for rubles in exchange markets, thus making it harder for speculators and the US government to drive down the ruble.

The real danger to Russia is a continuation of its low-key, moderate response to the sanctions. This is a response that encourages more sanctions. To stop the sanctions, Russia needs to show Europe that the sanctions have serious costs for Europe.

A Russian response to Washington would be to stop selling to the US the Russian rocket engines on which the US satellite program is dependent. This could leave the US without rockets for its satellites for six years between the period 2016 and 2022.

Possibly the Russian government is worried about losing the earnings from gas and rocket engine sales. However, Europe cannot do without the gas and would quickly abandon its participation in the sanctions, so no gas revenues would be lost. The Americans are going to develop their own rocket engine anyhow, so the Russian sales of rocket engines to the US have at most about 6 more years. But the US with an impaired satellite program for six years would mean a great relief to the entire world from the American spy program. It would also make difficult US military aggression against Russia during the period.

Russian President Putin and his government have been very low-key and unprovocative in responding to the sanctions and to the trouble that Washington continues to cause for Russia in Ukraine. The low-key Russian behavior can be understood as a strategy for undermining Washington’s use of Europe against Russia by presenting a non-threatening face to Europe. However, another explanation is the presence inside Russia of a fifth column that represents Washington’s interest and constrains the power of the Russian government.

Strelkov describes the American fifth column here.

Saker describes the two power groups inside Russia as the Eurasian Sovereignists who stand behind Putin and an independent Russia and the Atlantic Integrationists, the fifth column that works to incorporate Russia in Europe under US hegemony or, failing that, to help Washington break up the Russian Federation into several weaker countries that are too weak to constrain Washington’s use of power.

Russia’s Atlantic Integrationists share the Brzezinski and Wolfowitz doctrines with Washington. These doctrines are the basis for US foreign policy. The doctrines define the goal of US foreign policy in terms of preventing the rise of other countries, such as Russia and China, that could limit Washington’s hegemony.

Washington is in a position to exploit the tensions between these two Russian power groups. Washington’s fifth column is not best positioned to prevail. However, Washington can at least count on the struggle causing dissent within the Eurasian Sovereignists over Putin’s low-key response to Western provocations. Some of this dissent can be seen in Strelkov’s defense of Russia.

Russia, thinking the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, opened herself to the West. Russian governments trusted the West, and as a result of Russia’s gullibility, the West was able to purchase numerous allies among the Russian elites. Depending on the alignment of the media, these compromised elites are capable of assassinating Putin and attempting a coup.

One would think that by now Putin’s government would recognize the danger and arrest the main elements of the fifth column, followed by trial and execution for treason, in order that Russia can stand united against the Western Threat. If Putin does not take this step, it means either than Putin does not recognize the extent of the threat or that his government lacks the power to protect Russia from the internal threat.

It is clear that Putin has not achieved any respite for his government from the West’s propaganda and economic assault by refusing to defend the Donbass area from Ukrainian attack and by pressuring the Donetsk Republic into a ceasefire when its military forces were on the verge of a major defeat of the disintegrating Ukrainian army. All Putin has achieved is to open himself to criticism among his supporters for betraying the Russians in eastern and southern Ukraine.

The European politicians and elites are so deeply in Washington’s pocket that Putin has little chance of courting Europe with a Russian show of good will. I have never believed that this strategy could work, although I would be pleased if it did. Only a direct threat todeprive Europe of energy has a chance of producing within Europe a foreign policy independent of Washington. I do not think Europe can survive a cutoff of the Russian natural gas. Europe would abandon sanctions in order to guarantee the flow of gas. If Washington’s hold on Europe is so powerful that Europe is willing to endure a major disruption of its energy supply as the price of its vassalage, Russia will know to cease its futile attempts at diplomacy and to prepare for war.

If China sits on the sidelines, China will be the next isolated target and will receive the same treatment.

Washington intends to defeat both countries, either through internal dissent or through war.

Nothing said by Obama or any member of his government or any influential voice in Congress has signaled any pullback in Washington’s drive for hegemony over the world.

The US economy is now dependent on looting and plunder, and Washington’s hegemony is essential to this corrupted form of capitalism.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

McDonald’s suffers worst monthly decline in more than a decade

The American fast-food giant witnessed a sharp decline in global profits in August, hit by the closure of its restaurants across Russia and a “rotten meat” scandal in China.

McDonald’s earnings with stores open at least 13 months slid taking a worse-than-expected hit in August, falling 3.7 percent, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based hamburger chain said in a statement on Wednesday. This is the biggest monthly drop since 2003, according to Bloomberg. Market analysts had expected a 3.1 percent drop in earnings.

Across Europe, where McDonald’s brings in a hefty 40 percent of its total earnings, proceeds were down 0.7 percent.

Much of the decline is connected to Russia, where health officials last month closed 12 stores, including the first-ever McDonald’s outlet in Russia, which opened to tremendous fanfare on January 31, 1990 in the center of Moscow, as well as two in Sochi, the host of the 2014 Winter Olympics.

Meanwhile, Russian health inspectors are investigating hygiene conditions at 100 McDonald’s outlets nationwide over alleged issues.The closure of three of its outlets in Moscow came at the same time that Russia introduced a one-year embargo on agricultural products from the United States, the EU, Canada, Australia and Norway, in response to Western economic sanctions over Moscow’s alleged involvement in the Ukraine conflict.

The fast-food giant said it will “do everything it can” to continue operations in Russia.

Last month, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said that Russia has no plans to completely shut down the restaurant chain.

“No one is talking about it at all (a ban on McDonald’s in Russia),” he told reporters. “It has just happened that the inspections were completed at the same time (as the ban on Western goods),” Dvorkovich said.

McDonald’s has 440 outlets and over 35,000 employees in Russia, which ranks among the company’s top seven markets – outside the United States and Canada – according to its 2013 annual report.

The fast-food company sold more than $1.5 billion worth of meals to Russian customers in 2013, attracting one million people daily to its outlets in Russia, according to its website.

At the same time, domestic demand for the food franchise sank for the fourth straight month in August, falling 2.8 percent.

Meanwhile, the company’s Asian markets took a major hit after it was reported that Chinese meat supplier OSI Group LLC was investigated for changing the expiration dates on food, prompting fears among consumers. Sales in the company’s Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa division plummeted 14.5 percent last month.

The poor economic data comes at a particularly hard time for the American hamburger chain, as US fast-food workers have been staging protests demanding higher wages, and the debate over high obesity rates in the United States is causing many consumers around the world to look for healthier food choices.

Shares in McDonald’s, which serves around 68 million customers daily in 119 countries across 35,000 outlets, declined 1.5 percent to $91.09 on Tuesday. The company is scheduled to release third-quarter earnings on October 21.

Source: RT

The Zionist-Anglo-Saxon caliphate vs BRICS

By Peter Koenig

Ever since the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) expressed their unison through the formation of a joint Development Bank – Durban, South Africa on 27 March 2013 – the Zionist-Anglo-Saxon caliphate attempted to divide them. The BRICS constitute some 45% of the world population and close to 30% of global GDP. The BRICS idea is to issue a joint alternative currency, fully detached from the US dollar and its greed economy.

In the meantime a number of other countries would like to join the BRICS, including Argentina, Venezuela, Iran, Mongolia, Malaysia and others, which would result in about one third of the world’s economic output and half of the global inhabitants.

This gives the BRICS a profile of strength surpassing that of the United States and Europe together. China alone is not only already the world’s largest economy, China is also dominating the Asian market of some 4.2 billion people, 60% of the world populations and a combined GDP of about US$ 20 trillion, equivalent to about US$ 25 trillion, when comparing purchasing power with the dollar based US economy of about US$ 17 trillion. Asia registered an average growth rate of almost 8% over the past few years, compared to that of the western world, hovering around 1%.

There is no need for the BRICS to fear US interference – divide to rein – if they are able to solidify their union with solidarity – political and monetary solidarity, as well as common trade policies – and if they have the political will to decouple their economies from the dollar – which is key for the BRICS success.

Sir Obama – here also called the western caliphate – has multiple self-assumed capacities. He creates new caliphates at his service, like the ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Syria); then he bombs them making the world believe they are enemies, condones their beheading of western journalists and clandestinely funds their Middle East crusade for energy and world dominance, a crusade the ISIS are carrying out for the supreme caliphate in the White House.

Washington’s caliphate also has a small army of ‘martyr nations’ fighting (and suffering) for him, like the 28 members of the European Union, led (sic) by a like-minded group of Washington-submissive neoliberal Zionist- Christian puppets. They do what Washington says. Most of them are also pro-forma members of the White House caliphate-driven worldwide war machine, called NATO, and ape the war cries of (the) Fogh (of war) Rasmussen, who is Obama’s master puppet in Europe.

Of course, the caliphate is always ready with sanctions for those who don’t behave, especially sanctions which backfire on others. The latest sanctions on Russia follow a series of billion dollar propaganda of lies and outright falsehoods, demonizing Vladimir Putin and Russia. Interestingly the ‘sanctions’ imposed on Russia by Washington’s supreme warrior – and submissively carried out by his European minions, have been retaliated by Russia by blocking most of agro-trading with Europe, leaving European farmers with rotting vegetables and fruit – billion dollar losses, estimated at a multiple of the ‘sanctions’ costs to Russia.

Neoliberals are short-sighted. They are overwhelmed by greed, instant gratification, and a dream of Full Spectrum Dominance, meaning controlling the world’s resources, money and people. But their caliphate empire is doomed, since lies and deceptions work some of the time with some of the people, but not all the time with all of the people. In fact, the tide is shifting – which is the silver lining of the dark cloud shed by the monstrous, murderous western war machine. The larger of the European minions, Germany and France, and some of the newer ones, Poland, Hungary the Czech Republic, to name but a few, become doubting and hesitating on the way of sanctions. They start feeling the hurt.

The Zionist Anglo-Saxon caliphate needs conflicts and wars in order to survive. Its economy is based on producing weapons and on destruction. World peace would make it collapse.

To attain their objective, the western caliphate is using a thousands-of-year-old wisdom – dividing to rein. By a multi-billion dollar driven worldwide propaganda and lie campaign, Obama and his European bootlickers first confuse the people of nations and continents, distort their common sense, then they drive a wedge between them, between allies, neighbors, common cultures, families – turning friends into foes.

Remember, the dollar is fiat money, not worth the paper it’s printed on. It is produced at will and is called Quantitative Easing (QE), a conveniently confusing euphemism for creating debt held as monetary reserves by nations’ treasuries around the globe.

The same happens with funding of the eternal war machine. Printing money at will has become a pastime justifying wars, mass killings for conquering the world’s resources and people. It will last as long as the rest of the world permits it. It’s already a fading phenomenon. Ten to fifteen years ago close to 90% of the world’s reserves were denominated in US dollars. Today that figure has shrunk to about 60%.

Dividing to rein is precisely what the western caliphate intends to do with the BRICS. Starting with Brazil, Washington attempts through an ugly smear campaign to slander Brazil’s leader, Dilma Rousseff and to defame Brazil’s economy. The former is accused of corruption and nepotism and Brazil’s economy is admonished for runaway private debt that supposedly stands at 80% of GDP. However, the smear-campaigners do not explain that thanks to the increase in private debt Brazil’s GDP has grown by 30% in the last decade. They don’t explain either that Brazil’s foreign debt to GDP ratio stands at less than 57%, compared with that of the US of almost 101.5% and of Germany’s, 82%.

In short, Brazil is doing well. But the presstitute media propaganda masters have managed to lower President Rousseff’s popularity to the point where her re-election in the forthcoming ballot is questionable. Precisely what the Washington caliphate wants.

Imagine an economy-based real contest between the western caliphate and the BRICS. With a GDP of about 30% of the world’s economic output, covering almost 50% of the globe’s population, the BRICS have an average debt to GDP ratio of less than 45 % (2014 estimates) – Brazil (56.8%), Russia (13.4%) India (67.7%), China (22.4%), South Africa (46.1%) – compared to that of the US (101.5%) and of the Eurozone (92.6%).

It is clear that the BRICS have nothing to fear from the western caliphate – and its possible slew of sanctions. However – and this is key – the western Zionist-Anglo-Saxon empire controls the current western monetary system. The FED, Wall Street, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the IMF, an extension of the US Treasury and the FED, as well as the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the central bank of central banks, the privately owned chief manipulator of gold and currencies – hold the western economies hostage. They finance the US/NATO war machine. The western Zionist-Anglo-Saxon controlled financial system has the same objective of Full Spectrum Dominance, as does the supreme caliphate and assassin-in-chief, Obama, who currently serves the western arms manufacturing and banking oligarchy.

It is therefore high time that the BRICS proceed to reality with their intended alternative currency, completely detached from the dollar and the Wall Street clearing system. The economic viability of such an alternative system stands about 2 to 3 times higher than that of the UD dollar.

An interim measure to stop the western bulldozer may be necessary. Russia and China and a number of other countries have already agreed to trade in their respective currencies and, in particular, to trade hydrocarbons in non-dollar denominated moneys, a measure that will considerably lower demand for the dollar, hence, further lower the dollars viability as a reserve currency. Russia and China are poised to issue a common currency, a basket of currencies that may be joined by other countries willing to detach themselves from the fangs of the western abusive monetary caliphate.

On 3 and 4 September, NATO, the military arm of the western caliphate met in Wales, UK – to discuss its raison d’être. By NATO’s own admission, this was the most important meeting since the collapse of the Soviet Union, attended by 60 heads of state, including the 28 NATO members. As expected the focus of the meeting was to demonize Russia, a key member of the BRICS, with lies and slanders that know hardly any competition in the world of deception. The final briefing report is so full of nonsense and unproven accusations – similar to those continuously aped by Fogh Rasmussen – that Russia doesn’t even need to counter them. The NATO declarations drown in their own lies and deceptions.

It is clear, after 65 years of existence and chaotic disasters all over the world, NATO needs a new identity, a new Cold War, or, better even, a new direct war with Russia – for ‘the security’ of Europe. Therefore, the caliphate Obama, in hopefully one of his last unabashed moves, is requesting that Europe ups its ante – that the European members contribute at least 2% of their GDP to NATO – and let the military industrial complex move more weapons into the European NATO bases. In other words, making Europe more vulnerable to Russian defense attacks, putting the peoples of Europe once again in the firing line. The European leaders (sic) seem to be oblivious to such dangers.

However, there is hope. As said by Pepe Escobar, “The real deal this September is not NATO. It’s the SCO’s summit. Expect the proverbial tectonic shifts of geopolitical plaques in the upcoming meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – a shift as far-reaching as when the Ottoman Empire failed at the gates of Vienna in 1683. On the initiative of Russia and China, at the SCO summit, India, Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia will be invited to become permanent members.”

The SCO summit could be the first step towards a new world order – not the notorious “One World Order” proclaimed by the empire of the Zionist-Anglo-Saxon caliphate – but a new direction of the world, away from an usurious, abusive financial and monetary system, away from Washington’s objective of Full Spectrum Dominance – towards a new world of sovereign states.

Peter Koenig is an economist and former World Bank staff. He worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, the Voice of Russia, now Ria Novosti, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe.

NATO, an idea whose time has gone

By Craig Murray.

In the past dozen years, the armed forces of NATO countries, whether operating under the NATO banner or in related ad-hoc coalitions, have killed many hundreds of thousands of people. Of those hundreds of thousands of people, only a few hundred at most ever had any connection to any attack on a NATO country.

Whatever modern NATO has become, a defensive alliance it is not; that fact is beyond rational dispute.

It is also the case that the situation in countries where NATO has been most active in killing people, including Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan, has deteriorated. It has deteriorated politically, economically, militarily and socially. The notion that NATO member states could bomb the world into good was only ever believed by crazed and fanatical people like Tony Blair and Jim Murphy of the Henry Jackson Society. It really should not have needed empirical investigation to prove it was wrong, but it has been tried, and has been proved wrong.

The NATO states as a group have also embarked on remarkably similar reductions in the civil liberties of their own populations during this period. NATO to me is symbolised by the fact that its Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, as Danish Prime Minister blatantly lied to the Danish parliament about Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction. When Major Frank Grevil released material that proved Rasmussen was lying, it was Grevil who was jailed for three years.

NATO’s attempt to be global arbiter and enforcer has been disastrous at all levels. Its plan to redeem itself by bombing the Caliphate in Iraq and Syria is a further sign of madness. Except of course that it will guarantee some blowback against Western targets, and that will “justify” further bombings, and yet more profit for the arms manufacturers. On that level, it is very clever and cynical. NATO provides power to the elite and money to the wealthy.

NATO is by far the largest danger to world peace. It should be dissolved as a matter of urgency.

Craig Murray was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and Rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010. – http://www.craigmurray.org.uk

Warning: Washington and its NATO, EU vassals are insane

By Paul Craig Roberts.

Herbert E. Meyer, a nutcase who was a special assistant to the CIA director for a period during the Reagan administration, has penned an article calling for Russian President Putin’s assassination. If we have “ to get him out of the Kremlin feet-first with a bullet hole in the back of his head, that would be okay with us.”

As the crazed Meyer illiustrates, the insanity that Washington has released upon the world knows no restraint. Jose Manual Barroso, installed as Washington’s puppet as European Commission President, misrepresented his recent confidential telephone conversation with Russia’s President Putin by telling the media that Putin issued a threat: “If I want to, I can take Kiev in two weeks.”

Clearly, Putin did not issue a threat. A threat would be inconsistent with Putin’s entire unprovocative approach to the strategic threat that Washington and its NATO puppets have brought to Russia in Ukraine. Russia’s permanent representative to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, said that if Barroso’s lie stands, Russia will make public the full recording of the conversation

Anyone familiar with the disparity between the Ukrainian and Russian militaries knows full well that it would take the Russian military 14 hours, not 14 days, to take all of Ukraine. Just remember what happened to the American and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian Army when Washington set its stupid Georgian puppets on South Ossetia. The American and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian army collapsed under Russian counterattack in 5 hours.

The lie that Washington’s puppet Barroso told was not worthy of a serious person. But where in Europe is there a serious person in power? Nowhere. The few serious people are all out of power. Consider the NATO Secretary General, Anders Rasmussen. He was a prime minister of Denmark who saw he could rise beyond Denmark by serving as Washington’s puppet. As prime minister he strongly supported Washington’s illegal invasion of Iraq, declaring that “we know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.” Of course, the fool didn’t know any such thing, and why would it matter if Iraq did have such weapons. Many countries have weapons of mass destruction.

According to the rule that anyone who serves Washington is elevated, the cipher Rasmussen was elevated.

The problem with elevating unprincipled fools is that they risk the world for their career. Rasmussen has now put the entirety of Eastern and Western Europe at risk of annihilation. Rasmussen has announced the creation of a blitzkrieg spearhead force capable of blitzkrieg attack on Russia. What Washington’s puppet calls “the Readiness Action Plan” is justified as a response to “Russia’s aggressive behavior in Ukraine.”

Rasmussen’s “lightening spearhead force” would be wiped out along with every European capital. What kind of idiot provokes a nuclear superpower in this way?

Rasmussen asserts “Russia’s aggressive behavior” but has no evidence of it. Russia has stood on the sidelines while Washington’s puppet government in Kiev has shelled and bombed civilian housing, hospitals, schools and issued a constant stream of lies against Russia. Russia denied the requests of the now independent eastern and southern provinces of Ukraine, former Russian territories, to be reunited with Russia. As readers know, I regard Putin’s decision as a mistake, but events might prove me wrong and that is OK with me. For now, the fact is that every act of aggressive behavior is the result of the US and EU support of the Kiev nazis. It is the Ukrainian nazi militias that are attacking civilians in the former Russian territories of eastern and southern Ukraine. A number of regular Ukrainian military units have defected to the independent republics.

Yes, nazis. Western Ukraine is the home of the Ukrainian SS division that fought for Hitler. Today the militias organized by the Right Sector and other right-wing political organizations wear the nazi insignia of the Ukrainian SS divisions. These are the people that Washington and the EU support. If the Ukrainian nazis could win against Russia, which they cannot, they would turn on the West, just as has the Washington-funded ISIS that Washington unleashed on Libya and Syria. Now ISIS is remaking the Middle East, and Washington appears helpless.

William Binney, a former high level official in the US National Security Agency, and colleagues from the CIA and military intelligence services have written to German chancellor Merkel advising her to beware of Obama’s lies at the upcoming NATO summit in Wales. The US intelligence officials advise Merkel to remember Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction” and don’t again be deceived, this time into conflict with Russia.

The question is: who does Merkel represent? Washington or Germany? So far Merkel has represented Washington, not German business interests, not the German people, and not Germany’s interests as a country. Here is a protest in Dresden where a crowd prevents Merkel’s speech with shouts of “kriegstreiber” (warmonger), “liar, liar,” and “no war with Russia.”

My Ph.D. dissertation chairman, who became a high Pentagon official assigned to wind down the Vietnam war, in answer to my question about how Washington gets Europeans to always do what Washington wants replied: “Money, we give them money.” “Foreign aid?” I asked. “No, we give the European political leaders bagfuls of money. They are for sale, We bought them. They report to us.” Perhaps this explains Tony Blair’s $50 million fortune one year out of office.

The Western media, the largest brothel on earth, is desperate for war. The editorial board of the Washington Post, now a trophy newspaper in the hands of Amazon.com’s billionaire owner, ran an editorial on August 31 that projected all of Washington’s (and the Post’s) lies upon Putin.

Amazon.com’s owner might know how to market products on the Internet, but he is hopeless when it comes to running a newspaper. His editors at the Washington Post have made his trophy a worldwide laughing stock.

Here are the mindless accusations against Putin from the editors that the billionaire put in charge of his trophy newspaper:

Putin, bitterly resentful at the loss of power from the Soviet collapse, has “resurrected the tyranny of the Big Lie” in order to reconstitute the Russian Empire.

“Russian sponsored militias in Ukraine” are responsible for the “shoot-down of the Malaysian airliner in July.” The “Russian state-controlled media” lied and misrepresented to the Russian people the party responsible for downing the airliner.

“In the absence of independent and free reporting, few Russians realize that Russian soldiers and armaments are in action in eastern Ukraine, albeit (as in Crimea) in uniforms and vehicles stripped of their identifying insignia and license plates. With no free media, Russians are left to fend for themselves against a firestorm of falsehoods.”

“Mr. Putin’s Big Lie shows why it is important to support a free press where it still exists and outlets like Radio Free Europe that bring the truth to people who need it.”

As a former Wall Street Journal editor, I can say with complete confidence that such extraordinary propaganda posing as an editorial would have resulted in the immediate firing of all concerned. In my days on the Congressional staff, the Washington Post was regarded as a CIA asset. Today the Post has sunk far below this status.

I have seen much media propaganda in my day, but this Washington Post editorial takes the cake. The editorial shows that either the editorial writers are completely ignorant or they are completely corrupt and also assume that their readers are completely ignorant. If Russian military units were in action in eastern Ukraine, the situation would be precisely as Alexander Zakharchenko and Dmitry Orlov describe. Ukraine would no longer exist. Ukraine would again be part of Russia where it was for centuries prior to Washington taking advantage of the Soviet collapse to tear Ukraine away from Russia.

The question before us is: how long will Russia’s patience last with the West’s enormous lies and provocations? No matter how restrained Russia is, Russia is accused of the worst. Therefore, Russia might as well inflict the worst.

At what point will the Russian government decide that Washington’s mendacity, and that of its European puppets and corrupt Western media, render hopeless Russia’s efforts to resolve the situation with diplomacy and unprovocative behavior? As Russia is constantly accused falsely of invading Ukraine, when will the Russian government decide that as Western propaganda has established that Russia has invaded Ukraine and has imposed sanctions and new military bases on Russia’s borders because of the alleged invasion, Russia might as well go ahead and rid themselves of the problem Washington has brought to Russia and invade Ukraine?

There is nothing that NATO could do about it if Russia decides that Ukraine in Washington’s hands is too much of a strategic threat to Russia and reincorporates Ukraine again into Russia where it has resided for centuries. Any NATO force sent would start a war that NATO can’t win. The German population, remembering the consequences of war with Russia, would overthrow Washington’s puppet government. NATO and the EU would collapse as Germany departed the absurd construct that serves Washington’s interest at the expense of Europe.

Once this happens, the world will have peace. But not until.

For those who care to understand how the land of lies works, Washington’s puppet government in Kiev attributes the defeat of its military forces by the Donetsk Republic to the presence in the Donetsk army of Russian military units. This is the propaganda that has gone out to western Ukraine and to the presstitute western media, a collection of whores that echo the propaganda without any investigation whatsoever. However, Kiev has a different story for the IMF. Kiev cannot receive IMF money with which to pay off its Western creditors if Ukraine is at war. Therefore, Ukraine tells the IMF the opposite story: Russia has not attacked Ukraine.

The Western media remains uninterested in any facts. Just the lies. Only the lies.

The Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, Fox “news,” Die Welt, the French press, the British press all plead: “please Washington give us more sensational lies that we can trumpet. Our circulation needs it. Who cares about war and the human race if only we can regain financial stability.”

Justin Raimondo warns that Washington is planting the seeds of World War III.

Putin’s plan for de-escalation in Ukraine should be heeded

Very big doubts arise as to sincerity of Brussels and Washington with regard to the #Ukraine crisis, the minister has noted

The calls presented in the plan of peaceful settlement of the situation in Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin should be heeded in Kiev, Luhansk and Donetsk.

Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov has stated this at a meeting with OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Chairman Ilkka Kanerva on Thursday.

“We do not give up. President Vladimir Putin personally makes great efforts in direct contacts with President Poroshenko to find such ways of cooperation that will allow immediately put an end to bloodshed, remove the threat for the civilian population, ensure solution to humanitarian problems, problems of reconstruction of the destroyed infrastructure, and, of course, ensure the beginning of the negotiating political process,” the Russian minister said.

After such contacts, the Russian president formulated the seven-point initiative that is aimed at helping Kiev’s authorities and the militia of the southeast agree on and take steps in coordination to deescalate the situation, Lavrov said.

“We hope the calls will be heeded first and foremost in Kiev, Luhansk and Donetsk,” the minister said. “We will be ready together with OSCE within the framework of the contact group to help the conflicting parties to move along the path of stabilization of the situation in practice.”

“Decisions of the Council of Europe, UN Security Council, and OSCEsce on Ukraine must be implemented undeviatingly; this applies to investigation of events at Maidan, in Odessa, and Boeing airliner crash,” the Russian foreign minister emphasized.

Very big doubts arise as to sincerity of Brussels and Washington with regard to the Ukraine crisis, the minister has noted.

Lavrov drew attention to the following fact: “There was no lack in peace initiatives. We were actively pushing forward approaches which are sealed in the Geneva Statement dated April 17. We fixed the Berlin Declaration and documents which presuppose an immediate cessation of fire and the start of a respectful inclusive dialogue on a constitutional reform with the participation of all regions. None of those that signed the documents together with us, I mean Ukraine, the United States, and the European Union, are interested, as it seemed to us, in implementing what we reached agreement about. This is very sad.”

“Since both OSCE and the United Nations under the pressure of Western countries refused even to acclaim the Geneva statement, when our Western partners in OSCE blocked the initiative of Didier Burkhalter, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, of course, all that actions, the West’s behavior raises very big doubts as to the sincerity of what is being done by Brussels and Washington,” Lavrov said.

In his turn, Kanerva noted that the crisis in Ukraine’s southeast was impossible to settle by military means, and a political decision should be found. “We have arrived today here not to urge you to do something and not to persuade you to act in a certain way. We do not intend to assume any arrogant or aggressive attitude,” Kanerva said.

“We all are very concerned by the deteriorating situation in eastern Ukraine and on the border between Ukraine and Russia,” he added. “We urge all parties of the conflict not to attempt any further provocations and show a constructive attitude towards what is now happening in Ukraine,” Kanerva stressed. “That is why we believe necessary to prevent the flow of weapons and servicemen, which are now crossing the border. We need to find a secure solution for this crisis, which today became a very acute problem.”

Sergei Lavrov believes OSCE should provide a basis for cooperation in Europe that makes impossible “provocations” like the one staged in Ukraine. “We are always open, all the more so the OSCE indeed plays an important role not only when the fire has already broken out,” the minister said.

“The events in Ukraine are now the main problem, since there is a civil war, and civilians are eliminated,” the minister went on saying. “The southeast is the most hot spot of the Ukrainian crisis, but we shall not forget about the other parts of the country.”

In this regard, Lavrov pointed to the problems experienced by the Hungarians, Romanians, Poles, and which are discussed in Europe “but not aloud”. “That is why we considered the national unity in Ukraine the most important matter of principle,” the Russian minister stressed. He recalled the agreement of February 21, signed by Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and other then-opposition leaders, who are currently members of the ruling coalition.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that the bet made by the United States and some Western powers on the so-called NATO’s victory in the ongoing Ukrainian conflict would ‘lead to nothing good.’

“I am sure that Russia just like many other European countries want the Ukrainian people to win in terms of its multiethnic diversity,” Lavrov said during his meeting with Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjorn.

“Some of our Western partners, unfortunately including most influential player the United States, want NATO to win and want the situation, when the United States dictates its own will for everyone else, to win as well.”

“Nothing good will come out of such concept of exclusiveness, which President (Barack) Obama repeatedly voiced and nothing good comes out of it currently,” the top Russian diplomat said.

The decision of the Council of Europe (CE), the UN Security Council and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) must be fully complied with, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.

He said at a meeting with CE Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland, “We are convinced that the Council of Europe can and should play an active and constructive role in this uneasy period.” “Ukraine is on everybody’s mind, and we are convinced that the decisions, taken by the Council of Europe, the UN Security Council and OSCE should be fully complied with, the same as the agreements made in Geneva, Berlin and other formats.”

“This is so, regarding the investigation of all the crimes, all incidents, be it the Maidan, Odessa events, or the Malaysian Boeing crash, this is also true about the need for an urgent agreement on the unconditional ceasefire and beginning of the inclusive political dialogue,” Lavrov said.

France backtracks furiously on Mistral

The delivery of first Mistral-class helicopter carrier, built for Russia under the 2011 contract, has not been put off yet, as the statement made earlier on Wednesday reflected personal position of President Francois Hollande, a French diplomatic source said Wednesday.

“From the legal standpoint, nothing has changed; the delivery is due November 1. It is a matter of president’s political stance. The head of state said that in the current circumstances, as of today – and if these circumstances do not change – he would not approve delivery of the Mistral,” the source said.

Hollande’s position remains the same, according to the diplomatic source. Russia has to undertake the steps essential to reach a political solution to the crisis in eastern Ukraine to receive the Mistral warships on time.

“The final decision will be made in October following a number of procedures,” the diplomatic source added.

Earlier on Wednesday, the office of President Francois Hollande released a statement, saying that the head of the country concluded that the conditions, under which France could authorize the delivery of the first helicopter carrier are not in place.

Russia and France signed a $1.6 billion deal for two Mistral-class ships in June 2011. The first of these, the Vladivostok, was expected in Russia at the end of this year, with the second, the Sevastopol, due to be completed in 2015.

The completion of the deal was at risk after Western countries imposed sanctions against Russia over its alleged role in the escalation of the crisis in Ukraine.

The Mistral vessels are expected to be deployed by Russia’s Pacific Fleet. They are both capable of carrying 16 helicopters, four landing craft, 70 armored vehicles and 450 soldiers.

Source: RIA Novosti

Let my people go!

The peoples of Europe are suppressed. Don’t fool yourself that living in the EU is good. It is not. The living standard of the average German has fallen in the last 15 years. The living standards of the Greeks, the Spanish and many others have been smashed. The EU is an instrument for the exploitation of the average people to the benefit of the few. And this is why Oligarchs want you to be in the EU: To institutionalize your suffering and exploitation.

For me, as a German with strong liberal views, it is hard to say this, but it is true: The hope for a better Europe today comes from the East.

If Ukraine goes to the West, it will go into the sunset of a declining part of the world.

If you go East, you will go into the sunrise of a rich and prosperous commonwealth.

I wished we in Germany would have the choice.

Make your choice wisely.

Dr. Bernhard Seitz, Stuttgart, Germany

Economic expectations collapse as sanctions hit German consumers

It starts out un-alarmingly. The optimism of German consumers weakens somewhat, according to the forward-looking Gfk survey, conducted on a monthly basis for the European Commission. So the overall index fell to 8.6 for September, from 8.9 in August. It was the first decline since January 2013.

The index bottomed in late 2008 below 2, after a breathtaking crash during the financial crisis. In late 2007, it had hovered above 9. Early 2014 was the first time since the prior bubble that the index broke above 8. And August’s level of 8.9 represented an “extremely optimistic economic outlook,” as Gfk calls it. German consumers have been feeling good, and according to the headline index, they’re still feeling good up there somewhere in the rarefied air above 8.

But beneath the surface, there is serious trouble. Gfk reports that the sub-index of economic expectations, “in light of the intensified state of international affairs, completely collapses.”

It plunged 35.5 points to 10.4. The worst monthly plunge since the beginning of the survey in 1980. In a single month, it nearly wiped out all the gains of the boom of the last 12 months. Gfk cites the escalation of the situation in Iraq, Israel, the Eastern Ukraine, and particularly “the faster rotating sanctions spiral with Russia.”

Since there appears to be no sustainable solution to any of the trouble spots, consumers are showing increased uncertainty about the possible consequences for the German economy, Gfk reports. “Particularly the sanctions against Russia, which have already hit exports noticeably, could become a real danger for the German economy.”

The two sub-indices for income expectations and propensity to spend have been spared so far this type of brutal collapse, though they both fell from their lofty perches. Income expectations hit an all-time record in August. But for September, the index dropped 4.6 points to 50.1. The propensity to spend dropped 1.7 points to 49.3. At these levels, both are still “relatively robust.”

Gfk credits “the continued stable domestic conditions, stable employment levels, good income development, and low inflation” for limiting so far the impact of collapsing economic expectations on income expectations and the propensity to spend.

ECB President Mario Draghi, along with inflation mongers in the new French government, at the Fed, on Wall Street, and elsewhere should take note: inflation, as the report points out repeatedly, is important to Germans. Watch what happens to German consumer attitudes – and spending – if you steal their income and scarce savings one bite at a time.

But dark clouds have already appeared over German consumer spending: Gfk cites the increase in the propensity to save in August as “the first indicator that the consumer will be more careful in the future and that the impulses for the propensity to consume could decline.”

For this still “relatively robust” propensity to spend to continue, “it is necessary from the consumer’s point of view, that the situation in the crisis regions does not escalate further, but that sustainable solutions are found.” Gfk then warns: “If domestic conditions deteriorate significantly in the wake of a possible further escalation, difficult times loom ahead for the economy.”

Given the new economic malaise in Germany [Sanctions Are Eating their Lunch: Russian CEO Begs for Bailout, German Economy Swoons], any decline in consumer spending, which grew at a measly 0.9% last year, could wreak real havoc, not just in Germany, but also in its most critical trading partner France, in Italy, and other struggling economies in the Eurozone. German consumers are infamous for closing their wallets. And if they do it again, after they finally started spending more, they’d quickly prick any remaining hopes for a “recovery” in the Eurozone.

Even the folks at the German Ministry of Finance very belatedly admit that the sanctions spiral caused Germany’s current economic problems.

Source: testosteronepit

Kiev shells clinic and school in Donetsk

At least 11 have been killed in shelling of the Donetsk city in the east of the country by Ukrainian troops, the city residents said on Thursday. Ten people were killed in a culture centre fire as a result of shell explosion. A repair worker of Ukraine’s DTEK energy holding was also killed in the shelling.

The city’s regional clinical hospital was grossly damaged by fire from the Grad multiple rocket launch system late on Wednesday. The number of casualties is being ascertained.

According to local residents, the flights of surveillance drones precede Ukrainian troops’ artillery strikes on social facilities. A day before the shelling they saw a drone hovering over the area.

The local residents fear that artillery fire from the airport area will again be aimed at a hospital.

Ukrainian aircraft have been flying over Donetsk since the early morning on Thursday. Eyewitnesses said a plane dropped a cargo for the Ukrainian security forces, blocked in the airport area and then was performing surveillance flights over the city.

The local residents expect new airstrikes on Thursday. They say the Ukrainian troops are targeting Orthodox Christian holidays, as Thursday is Assumption Day.

During the night, Ukrainian army’s shelling destroyed apartment houses in two city districts and a civil registry office. One shell hit a city school, destroying it beyond repair.

Source: Itar TASS

Galileo flounders on software error

The failure of the European Union’s Galileo satellites to reach their intended orbital position was likely caused by software errors in the Fregat-MT rocket’s upper-stage, Russian newspaper Izvestia reported Thursday.

“The nonstandard operation of the integrated management system was likely caused by an error in the embedded software. As a result, the upper stage received an incorrect flight assignment, and, operating in full accordance with the embedded software, it has delivered the units to the wrong destination,” an unnamed source from Russian space Agency Roscosmos was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

Both the upper-stage and the software for it were developed by a Moscow-based government-owned corporation, the Academician Pilyugin Scientific-production Center of Automatics and Instrument-Making, or the Academician Pilyugin Center.

On August 22, the launch of Galileo’s Full Operational Capability (FOC) satellites aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket took place at the European Union’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The satellites, which are part to the Galileo program, designed to provide a European alternative to the American GPS and Russian Glonass navigation systems, have been placed in a lower orbit than expected.

The Arianespace satellite launch company, the European Space Agency (ESA) and Roscosmos are currently investigating the incident.