The Biden administration had previously been as deeply committed to escalation in Ukraine as Senator Lindsey Graham or actor Ben Stiller were, but suddenly even the West Wing is beginning to acknowledge the futility of unreservedly backing Zelensky. Apparently, there are limits, even for the Washington War Machine.
“The issue of creating an international reserve currency based on a basket of currencies of our countries is being worked out,” said Vladimir Putin in June, at a meeting of the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa—grouping.
Russia and China have launched another attempt to develop a “new global reserve currency.” In other words, they are again attacking the dollar.
A “coordinated global challenge taking place to the U.S. dollar… would be the biggest news story in decades,” writes “Tyler Durden,” the pseudonym for in-house staffers at the ZeroHedge site. Durden is “stunned that nobody seems to care that arguably the largest shift on the global macroeconomic playing field over the last half century may be taking place.”
A 33-year-old film featuring a naked secretary and a head-shaped cake turns out to be one of the best explanations of the ideas driving the Russian leader.
It could have been any sleepy industrial town anywhere across the old Soviet Union. A weary out-of-town businessman enters the office of the local factory manager and gets his first hint that things aren’t quite right when he sees the manager’s secretary typing away, completely naked. When the dumbstruck visitor alerts the manager that his secretary is completely nude, the manager looks and dismissively shrugs — “well, so she is” — before continuing with business as usual.
Thus begins the main character’s descent into an increasingly bizarre realm where he, along with the audience, struggles to determine what is real and what is not.
After years of Russiagate conspiracy theories about how the Russians had somehow rigged the 2016 presidential election using Facebook ads, the Senate Intelligence report awkwardly revealed that the Russian operation had focused most of its attention on black nationalists.
The Senate report revealed that “most of the videos” put out by the Russian IRA troll factory on YouTube “pertained to police brutality and the activist efforts of the Black Lives Matter organization” and found that “no single group of Americans was targeted… more than African-Americans” around “race and related issues”.
A Russian court found U.S. WNBA star Brittney Griner guilty of deliberately bringing cannabis-infused vape cartridges into the country, sentencing her to 9 years in prison, Reuters reported.
Griner, who filed a guilty plea, is one of the pre-eminent stars in the WNBA, described by her lawyers as the “Usain Bolt” of women’s basketball, according to Reuters. Prosecutors requested 9 and a half years and a 1 million ruble fine, according to Reuters.
A Russian named Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov has been charged with “orchestrating a years-long foreign malign influence campaign that used various U.S. political groups to sow discord, spread pro-Russian propaganda, and interfere in elections within the United States.” According to a DOJ press release, Ionov was directed by FSB and gained influence with three separate groups in Florida, Georgia and California.
The Biden family made millions when they aligned their financial interest with China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
The Marco Polo site link contains explicit material. It’s been pixilated but some may still find it offensive.
Human rights campaigner Lord Alton of Liverpool told the House of Lords how the Russian military is stealing Ukrainian grain, destroying the country’s agricultural infrastructure and blockading its ports on the Black Sea, preventing exportation via that route.
Meanwhile, 400 million people are said to be dependent on grain imported from Ukraine, sometimes referred to as “the breadbasket of Europe”.
Russia will use its new axis of evil with Iran to exert massive pressure on the world’s democracies
It is two decades since George W Bush coined the phrase “axis of evil” to describe the rogue states that threatened the well-being of the West. And, to judge by this week’s Russo-Iranian summit, an equally deadly alliance is being formed between two states determined to undermine Western values.
The White House claims that President Vladimir Putin has been forced to embrace the ayatollahs because he finds himself totally isolated on the global stage following the invasion of Ukraine. The countries that have so far remained loyal to Moscow – North Korea, Eritrea, Belarus and Syria – can hardly be said to uphold the principles of democratic rule.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s private army, the Wagner Group, is being condemned by the United Nations experts from the Human Rights Council, and independent investigators, for committing war crimes and murdering civilians. The Wagner Group is a Russian mercenary militia that offers its services “for delicate missions abroad,” in exchange for access to the natural resource riches of the host nation.
While the Wagner Group has played a role in Syria and Ukraine, it is on the African continent where its domestic interference and human rights abuses have been most evident.
Both Russia and Iran are under massive international sanctions, both are ruled over by men with near-unlimited powers — and both view the West as an evil, corrupting force. President Putin will find much that is familiar when he arrives in Tehran tomorrow for talks aimed at boosting ties between the two amid the war in Ukraine.
Like you, I did not expect turbines would be on the exam. But the Trudeau government’s decision to waive export restrictions for Russian-owned turbines puts Canada right in the middle of a dispute between Ukraine and Germany over sanctions against Russia. Volodymyr Zelensky is furious, the World Ukrainian Congress is suing Canada, and this all looks more like a preview of coming attractions than like a one-off.
I called Sabine Sparwasser, Germany’s ambassador to Canada, who’s an old acquaintance and has held previous postings in Canada, off and on, since 2003.
Poor countries will suffer massive food shortages due to Russia’s war with Ukraine, which has cut off grain exports from Ukraine. Meanwhile, the world’s second biggest food exporter, the Netherlands, is planning to restrict farming in the name of protecting the environment, which will gravely damage the Netherlands’ highly efficient agricultural sector, and cut the number of livestock by an estimated 30%.
Germany’s largest residential landlord which owns around 490,000 properties is set to impose energy rationing that will cut heating to tenants at night in response to falling gas imports from Russia.
Vonovia “will cut the heating output between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. to 17 degrees Celsius,” reports Reuters, adding that the company hopes the measures will save up to 8% of heating costs.
Residents have already been informed that they will face huge spikes in heating bills as a result of Germany being forced to respond to Russia restricting supplies via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.
Canada has imposed a new round of sanctions on Russia’s media machine designed to puncture disinformation campaigns about the war in Ukraine.
The sanctions target Russian news agencies, TV stations and journalists, including Petr Akopov, who has written approvingly about President Vladimir Putin’s rationale for the invasion of Ukraine, and Tigran Keosayan, a pro-Kremlin television presenter.
