Stuart Jeanne Bramhall's Blog: The Most Revolutionary Act , page 592
March 12, 2022
US Officials Meet Maduro, Fail to Drive Wedge Between Venezuela and Russia
Mexico City, Mexico – A high-level United States (US) government delegation that visited Venezuela on Saturday failed to produce an agreement with the government of Nicolás Maduro.
News of the delegation was first broken by the New York Times, which described the trip as the highest-level visit by US officials in years. Outlets subsequently reported that no agreement was reached. Caracas had not publicly commented on the meeting at the time of writing.
According to Reuters, the US team was led by White House Latin America adviser Juan González and made “maximalist” demands concerning electoral guarantees. Citing three people familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that the US was seeking new presidential elections, a larger participation of foreign private capital in Venezuela’s oil industry and a public condemnation of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine. The Biden administration representatives reportedly offered Venezuela a temporary return to the SWIFT financial transaction system.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, who directly participated in the meeting, instead demanded broader sanctions relief and the return of foreign assets such as oil subsidiary CITGO. US officials reportedly brought up the cases of US citizens jailed in Venezuela, including six oil executives imprisoned for corruption and two former Green Berets who took part in a failed coup effort.
The meeting in Caracas was the latest US effort to isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin from his allies in the region. US officials told the Times that Washington views Russia’s Latin American allies as a potential “security threat” should the tensions continue to escalate in light of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which has ratcheted up conflict between the US and Russia.
Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations with the US in 2019 after the latter recognized opposition figure Juan Guaidó as “interim president.” The US and its allies refused to recognize the results of the 2018 election that saw Maduro reelected to a six-year term. Washington then proceeded to engage in and support a series of unsuccessful coup plots, ultimately failing to oust Maduro from power.
US strategy toward Venezuela has more recently been focused on isolating Maduro, imposing crippling sanctions on the country’s energy sector and seizing, together with its allies, the country’s assets abroad. In public statements, the Biden administration has expressed its unwillingness to seriously negotiate with Caracas absent new elections.
Nonetheless, due to the failure of the US to successfully install Guaidó as an authority with any real power inside Venezuela, Caracas and Washington have maintained back-channel communications despite the lack of formal diplomatic relations. Guaidó, despite being recognized by the US as the country’s president, was only informed of the high-level delegation the morning of the meeting.
Venezuelan geopolitical analyst Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein told Venezuelanalysis that the leak of the news of the visit of senior US officials was motivated by an effort to drive a wedge between Caracas and Moscow and leave the impression that there was a “chill” in relations between the two countries.
Rodríguez maintained that Washington and Caracas would nonetheless leave the door open to dialogue.
“I believe that there will be continued attempts at rapprochement, especially because the Mexican [dialogue between the Venezuelan government and the opposition] was exhausted,” he said. “The Mexico talks were totally absurd since the opposition was being directed from within the United States, any step they took had to be consulted with Washington. In that sense it is much more feasible for the United States to negotiate directly with Venezuela.”
President Maduro has repeatedly expressed a willingness to negotiate an end to US-led sanctions on the country. The lack of a deal stemming from the visit by the senior-level delegation suggests Venezuela did not find it to be a workable proposal. Reuters reported that US officials agreed to a follow-up meeting.
It would take a considerable reversal of US policy toward the Caribbean nation to get the country to walk away from its Russian ally. Relations between the two countries have only grown in light of US efforts to isolate Caracas. Russian assistance has played an important role in Venezuela’s efforts to attend to the economic crisis in the country, providing support and expertise to the country’s key industries as well as steady investment in Venezuela’s energy sector.
Venezuela likewise recently strengthened its ties with Russia following a visit by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov in February.
Caracas has called for a “peaceful resolution” to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine but has stopped short of condemning the Russian military operation. Venezuela did not vote in the United Nations (UN) General Assembly’s resolution concerning the Russian offensive in Ukraine. The country’s voting rights have been suspended as a result of unpaid UN membership dues due the impact of sanctions.
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March 11, 2022
Lawmakers Push Legislation to Protect Doctors Who Prescribe Ivermectin for COVID
Adrianna Rodriguez
USA Today via Yahoo News
Dozens of state lawmakers push bills that would make it easier for doctors to prescribe ivermectin for COVID-19, even though the anti-parasitic has not been proved effective at preventing or treating the disease.
As of Thursday, at least 26 states have proposed or passed legislation that would increase patient access to the drug, according to a database created by the Federation of State Medical Boards.
Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, chair of the department of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, said the bills “drive (him) nuts.”
“It’s just a serious intrusion into medical practice by people who aren’t doctors and don’t know medical practice,” Emanuel told USA TODAY. “It’s inevitable someone’s going to be harmed, and this is harmful to the country.”
Most of the bills attempt to protect doctors who prescribe ivermectin for COVID-19 against disciplinary action from state medical boards and hospitals. The Federation of State Medical Boards said in a statement sent to USA TODAY it opposes any legislation intended to limit a state board’s ability to protect patients.
“It sets a dangerous precedent and puts the public at risk,” the federation said. “State legislatures are encouraged to work with their state medical boards to uphold existing statutory authority to respond to complaints about the quality of care provided and take disciplinary action against physicians when necessary to protect the public.”
Other proposed bills seek to make ivermectin available over the counter or by standing order, prohibit pharmacists from refusing to refill ivermectin prescriptions or prohibit medical professionals from providing information that would discourage patients from taking ivermectin for COVID-19.
Via https://www.yahoo.com/now/lawmakers-push-legislation-protect-doctors-100209546.html
Chart: How Russia’s Ultra-Wealthy Eclipse Their Country’s Economy | Statista
The U.S. also exhibited an extraordinarily high billionaire wealth at between 14-15 percent of GDP. But despite the fact that the United States is home to around 35 percent of all the billionaires listed on the Bloomberg index, including the top 9 individuals with net worths between $95 billion and $221 billion, Russian billionaires are still richer in comparison to their country’s economic output.
According to The Economist, approximately 85 percent of Russian billionaire wealth can be attributed to the so-called crony sector, where business and political power players work together to share profits and favors. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been known to use this class of the loyal and influential to cement his power for years. Out of the country’s richest mentioned on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Gennady Timchenko of investment firm Volga Group appeares on the UK sanctions list, while Petr Aven of ABH Holdings, Mikhail Fridman of Alfa Group and Alisher Usmanov of Metalloinvest are being sanctioned by the EU.
The U.S. also exhibited an extraordinarily high billionaire wealth at between 14-15 percent of GDP. But despite the fact that the United States is home to around 35 percent of all the billionaires listed on the Bloomberg index, including the top 9 individuals with net worths between $95 billion and…
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Despite Plummeting Cases, Fourth Jab on the Way?
As the conflict unfolds in Ukraine, you’ll notice how swiftly the media is pivoting all our attention onto war and Eastern Europe – just forget about COVID and all the harm that ill-advised pandemic policies have caused citizens. (Remember the Johns Hopkins study which found that lockdowns “have had little to no public health effects” but have “imposed enormous economic and social costs”?)
But many of us will NOT forget – we who have watched our loved ones suffer from the extreme impacts of mandates, socially-acceptable discrimination, job loss, and of course, COVID-19 itself (for which Big Pharma strongly suppressed early and innovative treatments). And we will be watching carefully as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other agencies continue to push for more and more COVID shots … including what might turn out to be a yearly booster shot.
“Follow the Science” or Do They Just Mean Follow the Agenda? FDA Reportedly Looking Forward to Annual COVID ShotsCiting the Wall Street Journal, the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail recently reported that the FDA has laid out possible plans to recommend yet another COVID shot dose for the general public within the next few weeks. Allegedly, the government agency may even end up recommending an annual “booster” shot for most people.
This is despite the fact that local and state officials around the country are dropping vax and mask mandates like hot potatoes and that COVID cases in the U.S. have plummeted by nearly 90% since a mid-January 2022 surge and nearly 50% within just the past few weeks.
In the United States (and certain other countries, like Israel), a fourth dose of the mRNA COVID shot from either Pfizer or Moderna is already available and recommended for some Americans. As the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) note on their website, anyone aged “12 years and older who are moderately or severely immunocompromised should receive a total of 4 doses of COVID-19 vaccine.”
That’s four doses of a novel gene therapeutic in under a year, at least for some individuals (and possibly most individuals soon enough). Remember, this is a drug that:
Was originally sold to the public as the “only way to end the pandemic” and the best way to prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that supposedly causes COVID-19Was quickly found to NOT stop transmission, but (at best) reduce the risk of severe disease, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19 – all of which are extremely unlikely, to begin with for the VAST majority of peopleHas yet to amass any long-term safety data and has triggered a meteoric rise in adverse event reporting to the official U.S. vax safety surveillance systemThis is also a drug that has been shrouded in secrecy by the very agencies tasked with researching its effectiveness and safety.
More and more doses – despite lack of transparency about shot safety evidence
A genuine question: have ANY COVID shot recipients been able to provide true informed consent to their first, second, third, and perhaps fourth dose? We ask this, knowing that the CDC now admits to withholding COVID shot data in fear that it will lead to “misinformation.”
One has to wonder: what does this information contain, exactly? Wouldn’t the public deserve to get as much official information as quickly as possible to make informed decisions about their personal health?
Wouldn’t the public also want to know, for example, that the CDC recently found that booster shots are not beneficial for people between the ages of 18 and 49? Moreover, wouldn’t this information be of the utmost importance to the small but growing number of hospital systems around the United States mandating booster shots for their employees?
Bottom line: why mandate a drug that has not been shown to be helpful? I thought we were supposed to “follow the science.”
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After 33 Years of Failure to Produce Any Vaccine Novavax Targets Children for COVID-19 Vaccine
by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News
Ben Adams of FiercePharma, the marketing trade publication for the pharmaceutical industry, just published an article today announcing that Novavax has unveiled a new “education campaign” for its COVID-19 vaccine that is expected to get an EUA (emergency use authorization) from the FDA soon.
[…]
In reading this press release at FiercePharma today, I found it rather remarkable that they are admitting that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are actually dangerous for children, something the FDA and CDC refuse to acknowledge, as they position Novavax as a better alternative for children.
Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson were quickest off the mark in getting COVID vaccines into American arms, but Novavax is hoping to add another pandemic vaccine to the U.S. mix soon—and it’s pushing new campaigns to get the word out.
The biopharma, which has approvals and authorizations in Europe and around the world, is now on the cusp of a potential green light in the U.S. And with a market comes the need for marketing.
But because it still has no U.S. approval—and it cannot under law advertise to consumers in Europe—Novavax is launching two new global, unbranded vaccine education programs: “We Do Vaccines” and “Know Our Vax.” They’re designed to offer up vaccine information and “explain Novavax’ commitment to vaccine development and innovation,” the company told Fierce Pharma Marketing.
The main message of the campaign is that “people have options when it comes to their vaccine,” Silvia Taylor, senior vice president of global corporate affairs at Novavax, said in an interview. “We want people to understand that we have this vaccine, and that this vaccine is different.”
Novavax knows it has some tough competition—Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines dominate the U.S. market—but the small biotech is eyeing certain market niches: The “vaccine hesitant” who might be leery of the brand-new mRNA tech in Pfizer and Moderna’s shots, and children.
The vaccine contains a version of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein made in the lab as well as an adjuvant, which is a booster ingredient designed to strengthen immune responses to the vaccine.
Novavax is also targeting the pediatric population. There are questions about how well mRNA vaccines work in younger children. There are also safety concerns, notably the rates of myocarditis in young and adolescent boys, who appear to be more at risk from this condition, which can cause dangerous inflammation of the heart.
Taylor believes Nuvaxovid can be a safe and efficacious second choice for children and adolescents outside of mRNA. (Full article.)
I had been led to believe in the past that Novavax was a new company that had never produced a single vaccine, but I dug a bit deeper today and learned that they have actually been around for over 33 years, and have had multiple failures in trying to produce any vaccine at all in the past.
I found an article that was published in some UK publications earlier this month, and here is one that is not behind a paywall:
Novavax closes in on Covid triumph after 33 years of failureLess than a year before the Covid-19 pandemic ravaged the world, Novavax was facing delisting from the Nasdaq. The pharmaceutical company had poured hundreds of millions of dollars into research and development for vaccines — and yet, at 33 years old, was approaching middle age without a single approved shot.
[…]
So how does a company with a 33-year track record of failure, even after receiving an $89 million research grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2015, and then another $384 million from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations in 2020, which is also funded by Bill Gates, get to the point where it introduces its first vaccine for the COVID-19 “virus”?
The same way that Pfizer and Moderna were able to introduce an mRNA vaccine into the market after decades of failing to get an mRNA vaccine approved for HIV/AIDS:
Have President Trump’s administration declare a “pandemic” so that the FDA can start handing out EUAs to Big Pharma to resurrect these old vaccines that could never pass FDA approval without an EUA, and then give them a boatload of money to make it happen.
And that’s what happened in July of 2020 when Trump’s Operation Warp Speed gave Novavax $1.6 BILLION, even though they had failed to produce a single vaccine for over 30 years.
Donald Trump was simply the puppet politician that rubber stamped all this, of course, as the real people who made all this happen were the Wall Street Mega Banks, led by Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase, who bailed themselves out at the end of 2019 to create the cash that was going to be needed to do all this.
[…]
These investment firms, led by Vanguard and Blackrock, will now probably just sell most of their stocks in Pfizer, if they haven’t already, and simply move over to Novavax.
Here’s who owns Novavax according to the Wall Street Journal:
And why not? This playbook worked so well for Pfizer, raking in record profits, why not do it again for another company that cannot produce a vaccine that would pass FDA standards, by issuing an EUA and then targeting the population that has yet to get a COVID-19 vaccine, the “vaccine hesitant” and children.
Apparently, Novavax has a wide appeal for the ignorant masses who are being targeted by this new “educational program” who are eagerly awaiting Novavax to be given an EUA by the FDA so they can rush out and get it.
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Just to let people know I’m moving to Substack and Telegram after several readers informed me I’ve been censored from WordPress Reader feed. The link to my Substack account is https://stuartbramhall.substack.com/. The link to my Telegram channel is https://t.me/themostrevolutionaryact I’ll continue to publish on WordPress as long as I’m able, but if my blog suddenly disappears you’ll know where to find me.
Literature and Music of the New South
Episode 23: Religious Faith in the New South
A New History of the American South
Dr Edward Ayers (2018)
Film Review
Following the Civil War, the US South gave birth to literary and musical traditions that influenced the entire world.
The earliest post-war literature depicted nostalgia around a lost way of life in which both Blacks and Whites were clear about the fixed role they played in society. Especially popular were books written from a Black perspective (by White authors). With the “mass-produced” culture (in the form of dime novels) that arose across the US during the 1880s and 1890s, this literature was just as popular in the North as the South. In fact “local color” fiction was one of the South’s major post-Civil War products. The best known books were Joel Chandler’s Uncle Remus stories first published in 1880. In them, an old slave (Uncle Remus) imparts knowledge to a small white boy through Brer Rabbit fables.
Southern feminist writers Kate Chopin and Ellen Glasgow also published during this period, to be rediscovered during the 1970s women’s liberation movement.
In 1906, Thomas Page published The Clansman, the basis of D W Griffith’s ground- breaking 2015 movie Birth of a Nation. The latter would inspire the 20th century rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan.
Born in 1897, William Faulkner, one of the most celebrated authors of American literature, would come of age during the New South literary renaissance.
According to Ayers the new musical traditions (jazz, blues and country music) largely originated in churches. Much of of this new music was heavily influenced by African music, with its use of syncopated, call and response patterns, improvisation, falsetto voices and rough and slurred voice textures. The southern musical renaissance also benefited from the “mass production” frenzy that lowered the cost of sheet music and instruments (often costing as little as $1 apiece).
In 1897, ragtime became the first global musical phenomenon as former slave musician Scott Joplin incorporate Black church music and folk tunes into popular music.
New Orleans with its brass band-led funeral marches and diverse ethnic makeup was another important source of the new music. In general, new music incorporating significant improvisation was called “jazz,” whereas the moniker blues originated from slurred “blue notes,” played at a slightly different pitch from standard European music.
“Country music” was more a white phenomenon originating with northern “parlor” songs about themes of grief and loss overcome by love (of God). Many popular tunes derived from 18th century English hymns sung at revival meetings. The first country music was recorded in the 1920s.
Both Black and White musicians adapted some of this music as gospel quartets often performed as people waited their turn in barbershops.
Film can be viewed free on Kanopy with a library card.
https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/literature-and-music-new-south
March 10, 2022
United Airlines to let unvaccinated employees return to jobs this month
Leslie Josephs | CNBCUnited Airlines, citing a steep decline in Covid-19 cases, told staff Thursday that it will allow unvaccinated workers to return to their jobs starting March 28, a shift from a company that had one of the country’s strictest inoculation mandates.
Last August, United said it would require U.S. employees to be vaccinated against Covid or face termination. More than 96% of United’s roughly 67,000 U.S. workers were vaccinated, the company said.
In January, CEO Scott Kirby said the company didn’t have any Covid deaths among unvaccinated workers over the past eight weeks, despite a surge in cases of the omicron variant, which has since subsided.
United had said the roughly 2,200 workers who received exemptions on medical or religious grounds would go on unpaid leave or be moved to non-customer-facing roles. For example, unvaccinated flight attendants couldn’t work their regular jobs. Roughly 200 employees were fired for not being vaccinated or having an accommodation and will not be asked back.
A federal judge in Texas upheld United’s vaccine mandate in November after six employees sued to block it two months earlier. But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month ruled that the federal judge must reconsider the injunction the workers sought.
On Thursday, United sought to vacate that ruling and dismiss the appeal because of the lessening severity of the pandemic and its new policy.
“In light of these changed circumstances, plaintiffs’ preliminary-injunction motion is moot, and this Court should vacate the panel opinion and dismiss the appeal,” it in a court filing.
A drop in new Covid cases, hospitalizations and loosening of masking requirements in many cities “suggest that the pandemic is beginning to meaningfully recede,” Kirk Limacher, vice president of human resources, said in a staff note. “As a result, we’re confident we can safely begin the process” of returning staff with exemptions back to their jobs.
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Via https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/10/united-airlines-unvaccinated-workers-can-return-to-their-jobs.html
Amazon Lied to Congress, House Judiciary Panel Alleges in Letter to DOJ
“Amazon repeatedly endeavored to thwart the committee’s efforts to uncover the truth about Amazon’s business practices,” the House Judiciary Committee wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
A U.S. House committee on Wednesday asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate Amazon and some of its executives for possible criminal obstruction of Congress, accusing the e-commerce giant of lying under oath and refusing to provide certain information requested by lawmakers during an antitrust probe.That’s according to The Wall Street Journal, which first obtained a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland by Democratic and Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee.
Signatories said they are alerting the DOJ to “potentially criminal conduct” by Amazon and some of its executives, though the letter doesn’t name specific individuals.
As the Journal reported:
“The letter accuses the Seattle-based tech giant of refusing to provide information that lawmakers sought as part of an investigation by the body’s Antitrust Subcommittee into Amazon’s competitive practices. The letter alleges that the refusal was an attempt to cover up what it calls a lie that the company told lawmakers about its treatment of outside sellers on its platform.”
The alleged lie came, according to the Washington Post, during “sworn testimony to the committee in 2019 about whether it uses data that it collects from third-party sellers to compete with them.”
The newspaper, which is owned by Amazon founder and ex-CEO Jeff Bezos, continued:
“’[C]redible investigative reporting’ and the committee’s investigation showed the company was engaging in the practice despite its denial, the letter said.
“Subsequently, as the investigation continued, Amazon tried to ‘cover up its lie by offering ever-shifting explanations’ of its policies, the letter said.
“Furthermore, ‘after Amazon was caught in a lie and repeated misrepresentations, it stonewalled the committee’s efforts to uncover the truth,’ according to the letter.”
Throughout the investigation, “Amazon repeatedly endeavored to thwart the committee’s efforts to uncover the truth about Amazon’s business practices,” states the panel’s letter. “For this, it must be held accountable.”
The Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), conducted a 16-month antitrust investigation into Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook. The probe resulted in an October 2020 report that criticized all four tech giants and stimulated legislative proposals designed to limit their power.
However, the Journal noted that “lawmakers’ interaction with Amazon has been particularly contentious, according to people involved, and the new letter makes it the only one of the four companies that Judiciary Committee members have accused of illegal obstruction.”
Reuters reported that Wednesday’s “referral to the DOJ follows a previous warning from members of the U.S. committee in October in which they accused Amazon’s top executives, including Bezos, of either misleading Congress or possibly lying to it about Amazon’s business practices.”
According to the Journal, committee members at the time “sent a letter to Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy urging the company to provide “exculpatory evidence” surrounding its private-label business practices.
Lawyers representing Amazon met with legal counsel for the committee following the letter but didn’t produce the requested evidence, saying the investigation Amazon had conducted was privileged information between attorney and client, according to people familiar with the matter.
Wednesday’s letter, the newspaper reported, says that Amazon “has refused to turn over business documents or communications that would either corroborate its claims or correct the record.”
“It appears to have done so to conceal the truth about its use of third-party sellers’ data to advantage its private-label business and its preferencing of private-label products in search results — subjects of the committee’s investigation,” the letter continues.
“As a result, we have no choice but to refer this matter to the Department of Justice to investigate whether Amazon and its executives obstructed Congress in violation of applicable federal law,” adds the letter.
[…]
Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/amazon-lied-congress-house-judiciary-panel-doj/
Sanction Backlash Will Push West to Accept Russian Demands
Moon Over Alabama
For years the U.S. committed policies that have left a lot of countries grumbling. Now, as the U.S. needs support to minimize the consequences of ‘punishing’ Russia, those policies come back to bite. So will the secondary effects of sanctions the ‘west’ has imposed on Russia.
Today one report calls news of US controlled bio-weapon laboratories in Ukraine a ‘debunked conspiracy’ while other news says that Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland tells Senators that she is very concerned that ‘research materials’ from these laboratories could fall into Russian hands. If the ‘research material’ is not weapon grade why is she concerned about it?
That does not fit well with the ongoing anti-Russian propaganda campaign.
Nor do these maps.
The first shows the countries which banned Russian airplanes from their airspace. Russia in turn denied its airspace to operators from those countries. It will cost quite a bit for U.S. and EU airlines as their flight times and cost to and from Asia, which typically fly through Russian airspace, will now increase. Carriers from Asian countries will now easily out-compete U.S. and European airlines on these routes.
biggerThe second map shows those countries which enacted sanctions against Russia. The secondary effects of sanctions are likely to hurt these countries as much as they hurt Russia. The absence of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, Central and South American countries is quite telling.
It does not look like ‘the world’ or the ‘international community’ is backing the ‘west’.
biggerThe U.S. also sanctioned all imports of oil products from Russia. President Biden has blamed Russia for the price increase that will inevitably follow. I don’t believe that mid-term voters will accept that reasoning. European countries can not follow that step as their economies depend of imports of oil and gas from Russia and will continue to do so for years to come.
In a move that must have been quite humiliating for the White House the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the UAE declined to take calls from the U.S. president. They want the U.S. to designate the Houthi movement in Yemen, which they have been unsuccessful to suppress, a terrorist group:
One hopes that the Biden administration does not fall for these disgusting bribery schemes but he has backed himself into a corner, cutting off Russian oil to punish Putin for a humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, with no alternative but to horsetrade with autocrats over the fate of Yemenis a half a world away. If this is geopolitics, heaven forgive us.
I don’t think that the above is the only request the Saudis and UAE leaders will have. They are now in a situation in which they can demand ever more.
Likewise humiliating is the administration’s opening of talks with Venezuela which it had sanctioned all around in its attempt to regime change the country. Caracas has released two U.S. nationals from prison. It is willing to talk. But before providing oil to the U.S. market it will demand the lifting of all sanctions and the return of all its assets the U.S. and UK have confiscated. Biden will have difficulties to find a Congress majority in support of such steps.
The return of the nuclear deal with Iran, which would enable more oil output, hangs in balance as Russia demands sanction exemptions for its trade with Iran.
The U.S. had attempted to press Poland to deliver its old Mig-29 fighter jets to the Ukraine. In Russia’s eyes that would have been a direct Polish aggression against it. Warsaw found a smart way to avoid that. It offered to deliver the jets to a U.S. airbase in Germany. The tar baby would thereby stick to the U.S. itself. The Pentagon declined to accept that. The jet transfer is now most likely dead.
The U.S. and Europe are only starting to feel the secondary consequences of the all out economic war they hastily initiated against Russia. The war will cause recessions not only in Russia but also all over the ‘west’. This while Russia has yet to announce its counter sanctions. There are many steps Russia could take to hurt the ‘west’ by withholding this or that resource. It is likely to start slowly to then increase the pressure step by step.
It seems that there was given no thought at all about the secondary effects the ‘western’ sanctions would have.
[…]
Ukrainian nationalists attempted to cut power to Chernobyl, Russia claims
NWO News
Source: RT
The Russian Ministry of Defense on Wednesday accused “Ukrainian nationalist forces” of committing an “extremely dangerous provocation” by attacking a substation and power lines which provide the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant with electricity. Earlier, Ukrainian authorities claimed that the power cut was Russia’s fault, and could put “Europe in danger.”
“At the moment the Ukrainian side is doing everything possible to avoid the organization of repair and restoration work. In our opinion, this once again confirms the absolutely deliberate and provocative character of the actions of the nationalists,” Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov said during a special briefing.
Pankov said that Russian specialists have ensured that the plant will be powered by backup diesel generators, while Russian Deputy Minister of Energy Pavel Sorokin indicated that the plant could be hooked up to the Belarusian energy grid to ensure power on a permanent basis.
“We would like to emphasize and warn that any disruption of the work of compressor stations, or provocations against them, is the responsibility of Ukrainian authorities. This is their contractual obligation, it is the responsibility of the Ukrainian side,”Sorokin said.
Russian troops took control of the Chernobyl plant within hours of entering Ukraine, two weeks ago, though sporadic fighting has been reported in the days since.
Ukraine’s nuclear energy firm, Energoatom, warned earlier on Wednesday that communications had been lost with Chernobyl, and that the facility “was fully disconnected from the power grid.” With Russian troops operating in the area, the company claimed that Ukrainian repair workers could not get to the plant to restore power.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba declared that once the plant’s backup diesel generators run out, “cooling systems of the storage facility for spent nuclear fuel will stop, making radiation leaks imminent.” This, he said, would put “entire Europe in danger.”
However, the International Atomic Energy Agency said shortly afterwards that there was “no critical impact on safety” at the plant.
“Due to time elapsed since the 1986 Chernobyl accident, the heat load of the spent fuel storage pool and the volume of cooling water contained in the pool is sufficient to maintain effective heat removal without the need for electrical supply,” the IAEA said in an earlier update.
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