Vladimir Putin recently made comments on the seriousness of global conflicts that can lead to nuclear conflict. Patriots worldwide should pay close attention as the globalists build their dangerous nuclear arsenal.
In stark contrast to attempts in numerous western countries to stifle free speech online, Russian President Vladimir Putin defended Internet freedom during a conference...
A prominent Swedish lawmaker asserts that Hungarian billionaire George Soros's influence on European politics and policies make him "one of the most dangerous men,"
The Russian president claims his country's attitude "to the LGBT community is absolutely calm and unbiased".
Vladimir Putin has responded to criticism from Sir Elton John on the
Russian leader's attitude to LGBT rights by saying the singer is
mistaken.
Sir Elton accused Mr Putin of duplicity after the
president criticised the West for emphasising lesbian, gay, bi-sexual
and trans culture over "traditional family values".
Mr Putin told a news conference: "I deeply respect him, he is a
musical genius and we all love his performance, but I believe he's
mistaken."
Sir Elton and the filmmakers of his biopic Rocketman
have hit out at a Russian distributor's decision to censor scenes from
the new movie featuring gay sex and drug use.
The Russian
president said his country's ban on what he called LGBT "propaganda" was
aimed at protecting children from aggressive proselytising by the LGBT
community.
"Let a person grow up first before making a choice," Mr Putin said. "Let the children in peace."
Dear President Putin,
I was deeply upset when I read your recent interview in the Financial Times.
I
strongly disagree with your view that pursuing policies that embrace
multicultural and sexual diversity are obsolete in our societies. pic.twitter.com/wNG3imaR2r
He claimed: "Our attitude to the LGBT community is absolutely calm and unbiased.
"This part of the community aggressively enforces its point of view on others," he added.
The
music legend said he was "deeply upset" by Mr Putin's interview with
the Financial Times in which the Russian president said liberalism "must
not be allowed to overshadow the culture, traditions and traditional
family values of millions of people".
Addressing Mr Putin directly, Sir Elton wrote on Twitter: "I strongly
disagree with your view that pursuing policies that embrace
multicultural and sexual diversity are obsolete in our societies.
"I find duplicity in your comment that you want LGBT people to 'be happy' and that 'we have no problem in that'.
"Yet
Russian distributors chose to heavily censor my film Rocketman by
removing all references to my finding true happiness through my 25 year
relationship with David and the raising of my two beautiful sons.
"This feels like hypocrisy to me."
Human
rights groups have said Russia's laws targeting the LGBT community have
increased the hostility members face and made it more difficult for
them to seek support.
One part of Russia, the mostly Muslim
republic of Chechnya, saw a crackdown in 2017 during which more than 100
gay men were arrested and subjected to torture, with some of them
killed, according to activists.
Earlier this year, human rights
activists said Chechnya was carrying out a new crackdown in which at
least two people died and about 40 people were detained. Authorities in
Chechnya denied the claims.
The "worst case" trade war scenario was avoided in Osaka on Saturday when Trump agreed to restart trade talks with Xi, holding off new tariffs on Chinese exports, and signaling a pause in the trade hostilities between the world’s two largest economies; Trump added that while existing tariffs would remain in place the
US president eased restrictions on Huawei as part of what is now the
second ceasefire between the two superpowers in two months, removing an
immediate threat looming over the global economy even as a lasting peace
remains elusive.
"We had a very good meeting with President Xi of China, excellent, I
would say excellent, as good as it was going to be," he said. "We
discussed a lot of things and we're right back on track and we'll see
what happens", Trump told reporters after an 80-minute meeting with
Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a summit of leaders of
the G-20 major economies in Osaka, western Japan.
“We’re holding back on tariffs and they’re going to buy farm products,” he said vaguely at a news conference, without giving any details of China’s future agricultural product purchases. “If
we make a deal, it will be a very historic event.” He gave no timeline
for what he called a complex deal but said he was not in a rush. “I want
to get it right.”
Whereas Trump and top admin officials alleged that Beijing had
reneged on provisions of a tentative trade deal, it was not immediately
clear if Xi agreed to return to previous agreements as part of the new
truce.
Trump, however, did relent on one of the major sticking points, saying U.S. firms would be allowed to sell components to Huawei, the
world’s biggest telecom network gear maker, where there was no national
security problem. The president said the U.S. commerce department would
meet in the next few days on whether to take it off a list of firms
banned from buying components and technology from U.S. companies without
government approval.
"I like our companies selling things to other people, so I allowed
that to happen," Trump said. “We’re talking about equipment where
there’s no great national security problem with it.” In recent months,
the Trump administration has been lobbying allies around the world not
to buy Huawei equipment, which the U.S. says could be used for Chinese
espionage.
Huawei was delighted by the news on its verified Twitter account:
“U-turn? Donald Trump suggests he would allow #Huawei to once again
purchase U.S. technology!”
Predictably, China also welcomed the step. “If the U.S. does what it
says, then of course, we welcome it,” said Wang Xiaolong, the Chinese
foreign ministry’s envoy for G20 affairs.
Trump said he had not yet decided how to allow U.S. companies to
continue selling to Huawei or whether to remove the tech giant from the
Commerce Department’s entity list. He said he would meet with advisors
next week to determine how to proceed.
U.S. microchip makers also applauded the move. “We are encouraged the
talks are restarting and additional tariffs are on hold and we look
forward to getting more detail on the president’s remarks on Huawei,”
John Neuffer, president of the U.S. Semiconductor Association, said in a
statement. Recently, Broadcom warned of a broad slowdown in demand as a
result of Huawei sanctions and slashed its revenue forecast.
And yet, it was not clear how long the exemption would last. Trump
said he had agreed with Xi to wait until the very end of trade talks to
resolve broader issues around Huawei, including Washington’s lobbying
campaign against allies buying its 5G equipment.
“Huawei is a complicated situation,” Trump said. “We’re leaving Huawei toward the end. We’ll see where we go with a trade agreement.”
The concession will likely draw criticism in Washington where
national security hawks have urged Trump not to ease any pressure
against Huawei. The company has long been the target of concern at the
Pentagon and intelligence agencies in part over what the U.S. claims are
its close ties to the Chinese military.
Huawei is one of few potent levers we have to make China play fair on trade.
If President @realDonaldTrump backs off, as it appears he is doing, it will dramatically undercut our ability to change China’s unfair trades practices.https://t.co/rja8CDs2T4
By agreeing to weaken restrictions on #Huawei, Trump not only undermined his own government, he undermined the entire argument #Huawei is a real national security threat. #facepalmhttps://t.co/BzuM8QA0Na
In exchange for his Huawei concession, Trump said Xi Jinping had promised to buy “tremendous” amounts of U.S. agricultural products. “We’re
going to give them a list of things we’d like them to buy,” Trump said
at a news conference following the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan.
However, as Bloomberg notes, the first indications the second fragile
truce will collapse soon is that the Chinese official media reports said
only that the U.S. president hopes China will import more American goods as part of the truce, without an actual confirmation it will do so.
For now, however, the second truce, after a similar ceasefire was
announced on December 1 at the Buenos Aires G-20 summit, has been
achieved, offering relief from a nearly year-long trade standoff in
which the countries have slapped tariffs on billions of dollars of each
other’s imports, disrupting global supply lines, roiling markets and
dragging on global economic growth.
In a lengthy statement on the two-way talks, China’s foreign ministry
quoted Xi as telling Trump he hoped the United States could treat
Chinese companies fairly. On the issues of sovereignty and respect, Xi
said that "China must safeguard its core interests."
“China is sincere about continuing negotiations with the
United States ... but negotiations should be equal and show mutual
respect,” the foreign ministry quoted Xi as saying.
Trump had threatened to extend existing tariffs to almost all Chinese
imports into the United States if the meeting brought no progress on
wide-ranging U.S. demands for reforms.
The return to the negotiating table ends a six-week stalemate that has unnerved companies and investors, and
at least temporarily reduces fears that the world’s two largest
economies are headed into a new cold war, which they still are but only
after the current stalemate ends allowing the S&P to rise above
3,000 in the the meantime. Because, as Bloomberg notes, it’s
unclear how they can overcome differences that led to the collapse of a
previous truce reached at the G-20 in November.
* * *
While Trump and Xi were all smiles at their press briefing, the bad
blood between the two leaders behind the scenes is clearly still there.
Xi spent much of the summit’s first day Friday promising to open up the
Chinese economy, and attacking the U.S. (without naming it) for its
attack on the global trading system. As Bloomberg reported, Xi took a
"not-so-subtle swipe" at Trump’s “America first” trade policy in remarks
to African leaders on Friday, warning against “bullying practices” and
adding that “any attempt to put one’s own interests first and undermine
others’ will not win any popularity.” Xi also called out the U.S. over
Huawei and said the G-20 should uphold the “completeness and vitality of
global supply chains.”
For now, however, there is optimism.
“Returning to negotiations is good news for the business community
and breathes some much needed certainty into a slowly deteriorating
relationship,” said Jacob Parker, a vice-president of China operations
at the U.S.-China Business Council. But "now comes the hard work
of finding consensus on the most difficult issues in the relationship,
but with a commitment from the top we’re hopeful this will put the two
sides on a sustained path to resolution,” he said.
Others were more skeptical, and warned the pause - just like the first ceasefire - will not last.
“Even if a truce happens this weekend, a subsequent breakdown of
talks followed by further escalation still seems likely,” Capital
Economics said in a commentary on Friday, quoted by Reuters.
The United States says China has been stealing American intellectual
property for years, forces U.S. firms to share trade secrets as a
condition for doing business in China, and subsidizes state-owned firms
to dominate industries. Meanwhile, China has said the United States is
making unreasonable demands and must also make concessions.
The talks collapsed in May after Washington accused Beijing of
reneging on reform pledges. Trump raised tariffs to 25% from 10% on $200
billion of Chinese goods, and China retaliated with levies on U.S.
imports.
The U.S.-China feud had cast a pall over the two-day G20 gathering,
with leaders pointing to the threat to global growth. In their
communique, the leaders warned of growing risks to the world economy but
stopped short of denouncing protectionism, calling instead for a free,
fair trade environment after talks some members described as difficult.
* * *
Finally, global markets will breathe a sigh of relief on news of the
resumption in U.S.-China trade talks, even as an official deal remains
elusive, and there is no indication of how the two countries will bridge
the most difficult aspect of a feud that has emerged beyond simple
trade and now affects most aspects of US and Chinese life.
The flip-side is that with trade talks back on, the Fed will feel far
less pressure to ease in July, and since in June stocks exploded higher
on hopes that the Fed will cut rates as much as 50bps next month, such a
reversal in US-China relations could potentially prevent Powell from
capitulating, and leave the Fed on hold, an outcome which would lead to a
sharp drop in US capital markets. Indeed, in recent weeks, the S&P
has returned to record highs, treasury yields have tumbled to their
lowest level in years. The Japanese yen, a traditional beneficiary of
flight to quality, has gained, while the U.S. dollar has slipped across
the board, including against China’s yuan.
A municipality in Southern France called Gallargues-le-Montueux
yesterday SUPPOSEDLY broke the all-time temperature record in France
(for all months). But it turns out – as I expected – that it is a total
fake.
Gallargues-le-Montueux lies in the Occitaine
administrative region of France, the southernmost part of the country.
It is a village of 3,500 people. According to the official readings the
village recorded a peak temperature of 45.7 degrees yesterday. In the
same day Nimes a city of 150 thousand people 25 kilometers northeast
recorded temperatures around 42. Same level was recorded in Montpellier,
a city of 300 thousand, 40 kilometers southwest.
So far, a
convincing story. Yes? But Marseille (850 thousand), one hundred
kilometers southeast, only had around 30 degrees. Same for Barcelona,
350 kilometers south. And Nice, 250 kilometers East, also had only 30
degrees.
Considering that the little bit bigger radius gave
those vastly cooler temperatures, the story sounds fishy. On what kind
of active volcano is the area between Montpellier and Nimes to have such
enormous heat when everything a bit further around is seasonally
normal?
I was monitoring the situation in France, because I had
been alerted about the mainstream media's hysterics about a coming
record heatwave, which did not at all tally with the forecasts I could
check in www.gismeteo.com.
I have several posts on this topic on my wall for the past few days.
Therefore, I was checking the news as they came in. The BBC announced
yesterday (28 June) that France would have record temperatures. The news
was adorned with an image with all France (and most of Western Europe)
painted in red inferno hellfire and with 43 and 45 degrees splashed all
over it. This was incomprehensible in view of what the real weather
forecasts said. And in fact Paris had yesterday only 30-31 at peak.
Something had to explain the volcano heat effect in the Montpellier –
Nimes area and its record breaking Gallargues-le-Montueux. My hunch was
that it was quite hot there, let’s say about 35 degrees. When it is 35
degrees it is not an abnormal summer temperature, but for most people it
will feel really, really hot. So, it will be quite easy to announce
that it was in fact 40, or 42. Which they did for Montpellier and Nimes.
Then you choose a small municipality like Gallargues-le-Montueux and go
on and announce that they made the record. There are so few people
there, and most are pensioners, who are suffering from the heat anyway,
that it will be a piece of cake to say they made the record 45.7. Nobody
will contest that as they felt so hot anyway. (And they will be pleased
to get their village in to the annals of national history). It would
have been different in Montpellier and Nimes with the hundred thousands
of people. Very big chance that too many had been making their own
measurements, so you would just press the real 35 up to 40 – 42, but
stay clear from records. Not to speak about Paris. - And BTW, wouldn't
it stand to reason, that the bigger cities would have a higher
temperature than the small villages?
A friend of mine just sent
me proof positive that this is how it happened. But it was worse yet. My
friend sent me a video from realclimatescience.com who specializes in debunking the climate hoax.
In the video, Tony Heller made some shocking exposures about this
particular hoax. Turns out that the measurements are recorded from a
thermometer on top of a tile roof directly exposed to the sun. The video
has photo proofs, which I copied in the images below. (The photos are
not from the same day, but they show the location of the thermometer).
Heller gives another photo (below) of a thermometer by a highway a
couple of miles off, also directly exposed to the sun. I hope the reader
understands that a thermometer directly exposed to the sun, does not
show the temperature of the air, but the temperature of the heated
thermometer. – I suppose the Montpellier and Nimes readings where
obtained in the same way, and this through globalist secret services
special operations. Operations which could not cover the bigger cities
around: Barcelona, Marseille and Nice, which therefore were spared the
supposed heatwave.
More, being close enough, you can additionally tweak the results, never mind the actual readings.
This was a special propaganda false flag operation, where the Western
propaganda media, foremost the BBC, prepared the ground a couple of days
in advance. Then they delivered the false heat record as explained
above.
This is all done in order to prop up the general climate
hoax, where climate change (formerly known as global warming) is blamed
on human emissions of carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels.
And not surprisingly, Greta, the Swedish wunderkind of climate science,
was there right on cue to announce on social media (that is, the PR
team of the Greta trade mark) that this record had been made and that it
is all cause of humans “burning fossil fuels.” Greta TM’s post also
copied below.
Russian President has slammed European leaders for allowing immigrants to “kill, plunder and rape” with impunity.
In an interview with the Financial Times
just ahead of the G20 summit, the Russian leader slammed Western
leaders’ attempt to destroy ‘traditional family values’ and warned that
liberalism was dying: “[Liberals] cannot simply dictate anything to anyone,” Mr Putin told the newspaper.
Putin added that liberalism conflicted with “the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population,” and criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel for allowing millions of refugees to spill into Germany in 2017.
“This liberal idea presupposes that nothing needs to be done.
That migrants can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their
rights as migrants have to be protected.”
Dailymail.co.uk
reports: He added: ‘Every crime must have its punishment. The liberal
idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests
of the overwhelming majority of the population.’
The G20 – the countries with the largest and fastest-growing
economies – are meeting in Osaka, Japan today and tomorrow and posed for
the famous ‘family photo’ of world leaders, including Britain’s Theresa
May, China’s Xi Jinping, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Salman and their
host, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The leaders of the G20 meet in Osaka, Japan.
The first major meeting was between Donald Trump and the Russia’s
leader where the US President hailed their ‘very, very good
relationship’ with Russia’s leader, adding: ‘It’s a great honour to be
with President Putin’.
An extraordinary moment then followed their handshake as Trump told
Putin: ‘Don’t meddle in the election, please,’ with a smile on his face,
turning to grin at the Russian leader.
In sharp contrast, Mr Putin faced a far frostier head-to-head with a
grim-faced Theresa May as the two shook hands this morning. The Prime
Minister is due to demand he takes responsibility for the nerve agent
poisoning of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury last year and tell him to hand
over the Novichok assassins sent by the Russian state to kill their
former agent.
Outgoing
British Prime Minister Theresa May looks miserable as she poses for
photo standing next to Russian President Vladimir Putin
Mr Putin has reserved special praise for Donald Trump for trying to
stem the flow of migrants and drugs into the US, just before the men met
today.
Vladimir Putin today said British claims that his agents carried
out the Salisbury poisoning are ‘not worth five pounds’ – but justified
attacks on Russian traitors saying: ‘Treason is the gravest crime
possible and must be punished’.
The Russian President will meet Theresa May at the G20 in Russia
today where the Prime Minister will demand he admits to the Novichok
attack and hand over the two spies sent to kill Sergei Skripal last
year.
Mrs May has said her decision to speak to Putin in Osaka is not a
return to ‘business as usual’ with Russia, whose leader today sought to
laugh off claims he ordered the poisoning.
Mr Putin told the Financial Times: ‘Listen, all this fuss about spies
and counterspies, it is not worth serious interstate relations. This
spy story, as we say, it is not worth five kopecks. Or even five pounds,
for that matter’.
But in a chilling admission about how he believes his country should
‘punish’ like Skripal, who was secretly sharing secrets with the
British, he added: ‘Treason is the gravest crime possible and traitors
must be punished. I am not saying that the Salisbury incident is the way
to do it. But traitors must be punished.’
And in admission that he is willing to take risks to protect his
country, he said: ‘He who doesn’t take risks, never drinks Champagne’.
Earlier Putin said Anglo-Russian relations were beginning to improve
ahead of his face-to-face meeting with Theresa May at this weekend’s G20
summit in Osaka, Japan.
Relations have been rocky since the UK pointed the finger at the
Kremlin for the attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei
Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March last year.
Mr Putin said: ‘I think Russia and UK are both interested in fully
restoring our relations, at least I hope a few preliminary steps will be
made.’
But in a chilling admission about how he believes his country should
‘punish’ people like Skripal, who was secretly sharing secrets with the
British, he added: ‘Treason is the gravest crime possible and traitors
must be punished. I am not saying that the Salisbury incident is the way
to do it. But traitors must be punished.’
And in admission that he is willing to take risks to protect his
country, he said: ‘He who doesn’t take risks, never drinks Champagne’.
Trump’s critics have accused him of being too friendly with Putin and
castigated him for failing to publicly confront the Russian leader in
Helsinki over Moscow’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
A U.S. special counsel, Robert Mueller, conducted a two-year
investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election and
whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow.
Mueller found that Russia did meddle in the election but that the
Trump campaign did not illegally conspire with Russia to influence the
vote.
In a further attempt to lighten the mood, Trump sought common ground
with Putin at the expense of the journalists who had gathered to catch
the leaders at the outset of their meeting.
President Donald Trump said it was an ‘honor’ to be meeting with the Russian leader
‘Get rid of them. Fake news is a great term, isn’t it. You don’t have this problem in Russia but we do,’ Trump said.
World leaders kicked off one of their most high-stakes G20 meetings
in years Friday, with rows brewing over a bruising US-China trade war
and climate change despite a more conciliatory tone from US President
Donald Trump.
After lashing out at friend and foe alike en route to Osaka in
western Japan for the meeting, Trump appeared in a less combative mood
when meeting fellow world leaders face-to-face.
Fresh from describing traditionally close US ally Germany as
‘delinquent’ for not paying enough into the NATO budget, he was effusive
when meeting Chancellor Angela Merkel.
‘She’s a fantastic person, a fantastic woman and I’m glad to have her as a friend,’ he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says that liberalism has “outlived its
purpose” and that multiculturalism is “no longer tenable”. In an
interview with the Financial Times, Putin explained what had caused the
rise of the “Trump phenomenon” in the United States as well as the
success of right-wing populist parties throughout Europe.
The Trump-Putin meeting in Japan is crucial for both leaders—and for the world.
Despite determined attempts in Washington to sabotage such a “summit,” as I reported previously,
President Trump and Russian President Putin are still scheduled to meet
at the G-20 gathering in Japan this week. Iran will be at the top of
their agenda. The Trump administration seems determined to wage cold,
possibly even hot, war against the Islamic Republic, while for Moscow,
as emphasized by the Kremlin’s national security adviser, Nikolai Patrushev, on June 25, “Iran has been and will be an ally and partner of ours.”
Indeed, the importance of Iran (along with China) to Russia can
hardly be overstated. Among other reasons, as the West’s military
alliance encroaches ever more along Russia’s western borders, Iran is a
large, vital non-NATO neighbor. Still more, Teheran has done nothing to
incite Russia’s own millions of Muslim citizens against Moscow. Well
before Trump, powerful forces in Washington have long sought to project
Iran as America’s primary enemy in the Middle East, but for Moscow it is
a necessary “ally and partner.”
In normal political circumstances, Trump and Putin could
probably diminish any potential US-Russian conflict over Iran—and the
one still brewing in Syria as well. But both leaders come to the summit
with related political problems at home. For Trump, they are the
unproven but persistent allegations of “Russiagate.” For Putin, they are
economic.
As I have also previously explained,
while there was fairly traditional “meddling,” there was no “Russian
attack” on the 2016 American presidential election. But for many
mainstream American commentators, including the editorial page editor of The Washington Post,
it is an “obvious truth” and likely to happen again in 2020, adding
ominously that Trump is still “cozying up to the chief perpetrator,
Russian President Vladimir Putin.” A New York Times columnist goes further,
insisting that Russia “helped to throw the election” to Trump. Again,
there is no evidence whatsoever for these allegations. Also consider the
ongoing assault on Attorney General William Barr,
whose current investigation into the origins of “Russiagate” threatens
to conclude that the scandal originated not with Russia but with US
intelligence agencies under President Obama, in particular with the CIA
under John Brennan.
We should therefore not be surprised, despite possible
positive national security results of the Trump-Putin summit in Japan,
if the US president is again widely accused of “treason,” as he so
shamefully was following his meeting with Putin in Helsinki in July
2018, and as I protested at that time. Even the Times’
once-dignified columnist pages thundered, “Trump, Treasonous Traitor”
and “Putin’s Lackey,” while senior US senators, Democrat and Republican
alike, did much the same.
Putin’s domestic problem, on the other hand, is economic and
social. Russia’s annual growth rate is barely 2 percent, real wages are
declining, popular protests against officialdom’s historically endemic
corruption are on the rise, and Putin’s approval rating, while still
high, is declining. A public dispute between two of Putin’s advisers has
broken out over what to do. On the one side is Alexei Kudrin, the
leading monetarist who has long warned against using billions of dollars
in Russia’s “rainy day” funds to spur investment and economic growth.
On the other is Sergei Glaziev, a kind of Keynesian, FDR New Dealer who
has no less persistently urged investing these funds in new domestic
infrastructure that would, he argues, result in rapid economic growth.
During his nearly 20 years as Kremlin leader, Putin has generally sided with the “rainy day” monetarists. But on June 20, during his annual television call-in event,
he suddenly, and elliptically, remarked that even Kudrin “has been
drifting towards” Glaziev. Not surprisingly, many Russian commentators
think this means that Putin himself is now “leaning toward Glaziev.” If
so, it is another reason why Putin has no interest in waging cold war
with the United States—why he wants instead, indeed even needs, a
historic, long-term détente.
It seems unlikely that President Trump or any of the
advisers currently around him understand this important struggle—and it
is a struggle—unfolding in the Russian policy elite. But if Trump wants a
major détente (or “cooperation,” as he has termed it) with Russia,
anyone who cares about international security and about the well-being
of the Russian people should support him in this pursuit. Especially at
this moment, when we are told by the director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research that “the risks of the use of nuclear weapons…are higher now than at any time since World War Two.”
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen’s most recent weekly discussion with the host of The John Batchelor Show. Now in their sixth year, previous installments are at TheNation.com.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Putin told that “the liberal
idea” had “outlived its purpose” and said that nationalism is growing
instead as the public has turned against immigration, open borders and
multiculturalism.
“This liberal idea presupposes that nothing
needs to be done. That migrants can kill, plunder and rape with impunity
because their rights as migrants have to be protected,” the president succinctly put it.
Putin chastised the European liberal governments for not having acted
to reassure the citizens. Instead those governments had pursued a
mindless multiculturalism embracing, among other things, [false] sexual
diversity.
On a positive note the president told that the
liberals cannot anymore “simply dictate anything to anyone just like
they have been attempting to do over the recent decades.”
Jon Hellevig: "Instead of bailing out banks and oligarchs, Kazakhstan will write off
loans of the poor. This has been announced by new Kazakh president
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. There’s an unexpected corner of the world from
where sound and fair financial policies emanate!
Doing this
President Tokayev is actually reviving an ancient traditions of
cancelling debts when a new ruler took over going back to Hammurabi, the
Sumerians and other Near Eastern rulers. Michael Hudson has written a
book called “And Forgive their Debts” depicting this story from Babylonia and to other Bronze Age Near Eastern realms.
Hudson tells that this concept of starting from a clean slate was also
at the center of the Old and New Testaments, in the form of the Jubilee
Year. Jesus actually said: “Forgive them their debts,” but it was
converted by the Church to mean something vague in the form of: “Forgive
them their sins.” Actually meaning, just pay up, and we’ll deal with
the debts at the final judgement once you kick the bucket.
Forgiving of debts was also in ancient Greece and Rome an important
policy goal in the fight against the oligarchs. Should become again."
Nariman Gizitdinov and Tony Halpin • Bloomberg
Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said the debt relief would cost less than $1bn [Pavel Golovkin/Pool/Reuters]
Kazakh
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said he'll write off bad loans held by a
sixth of the central Asian country's population, while signaling a
sharp change in policy to end costly state bailouts of private banks.
The loan-forgiveness program is Tokayev's first major policy
announcement since he was elected president on June 9 in a choreographed
transfer of power that began when longtime leader Nursultan Nazarbayev
stepped down as head of state in March. His victory was met with rare
and widespread protests.
Bank bailouts are also a sensitive issue in Kazakhstan, which has
been mired in a decade-long crisis in which the government has pumped at
least $18 billion into lenders to keep the sector from collapsing under
the weight of bad debts. The central bank is conducting a review of
asset quality, prompting speculation that a new round of bailouts may be
in the works.
"My attitude is that there should be no governmental bailouts" for
lenders, Tokayev, 66, said in an interview Tuesday in the capital,
Nur-Sultan. "My assessment of this issue as a president is that the
government should not get involved any more, any longer, with its loans
as far as private banks are concerned."
Debt relief
While the debt-relief initiative may help lenders, the total
cost is likely to come in at "a bit less than $1 billion," according to
Tokayev. More than 3 million Kazakhs in the energy-rich country of 18
million will get help to escape debts averaging 300,000 tenge ($790), he
said. It is aimed at "people who find themselves in very difficult
living circumstances," he said.
About 4,000 people were detained by police during a rare outburst of
protests against what activists said was a lack of real choice in the
recent vote, which Tokayev won easily with 71% support. Leader-for-life
Nazarbayev, 78, handed the presidency to Tokayev in March, who called
the early election "to remove any uncertainty." International
observers criticized the conduct of the vote.
The new president's debt forgiveness program is similar to a
controversial policy unveiled by Georgia's ruling party,
which announced the write-off of loans for 600,000 people days before a
hotly-contested presidential election won by its candidate in November.
"We are not following the example of Georgia, this is a different case"
focused on the poorest citizens, Tokayev said.
Nazarbayev berated ministers as "cowards" in January for failing to
clean up the banking system, shortly before he dismissed the government
and replaced the central bank governor. Yet the biggest bank rescues
have involved people close to the former president's inner circle.
While Tokayev denied that political connections played a role in past
bailouts, "the lesson has been accepted by us," he said. "We will take
lessons from the past, from what has happened in the banking system, and
I think that in a couple of years you'll have absolutely new
questions."
Call me a cynic, but here is my cynical thought of a day.
So
about forty years ago, the Democrats and their intellectual leader,
Brzezinski, wanted to get rid of the hated regime. What do they do? They
are utilizing the maniacs from Saudi Arabia, like Bin Laden, and their
CIA enablers, to suck Brezhnev into the war in Afghanistan.
When
Russians crossed the border, triumphant Brzezinski informed Carter that
he'd created a perfect trap: Russian Vietnam, that would put an end to the Soviet Empire.
Who hates Trump with the passion that equals Brzezinski's hatred of Russia? Democrats.
So they are egging or silently condoning the maniacs abroad (Saudis,
Israelis) and the maniacs at home (Bolton, Pompeo) -- to suck Trump into
his Vietnam: Iranian war. That would surely be the end of his
presidency.
It appears that Trump --probably encouraged by
Tucker Carlson (too bad Brezhnev and his regime never had such smart
conservatives on their side) has avoided this trap.
But the
bottom line, the cynical and intelligent Democrats, would go to bed with
a devil, just to get into WH. And damn the consequences.
My Musings on Georgia's Anti-Russian antics by Prof. Vladimir Golstein
We know that
politicians play their games and use their strategies, smokescreens, and
spinning to get what they want. If Russophobia pays, why not use it?
That's what they do in Poland, and Ukraine, and United Kingdom, and
Baltic States. If it works for local consumption only, fine.
Russian government probably uses it too -- what's the best way to unite
the nation than to show that it is under siege. So I am not surprised
that Russian press milks the images of angry Georgians for their own purposes.
But both sides, while pursuing their myopic political goals are playing
with the national feelings of Russians, something that I find
unacceptable.
With the sloppy way perestroika was accomplished,
Russians felt utterly humiliated. Just few facts for those who have
neither memory, nor understanding.
1991, and then again in 1998
--The collapse of the ruble, which twice wiped out all people's savings.
People with say, comfortable 10 thousand rubles on their accounts
(which was a price of a good car) ended up with $20 bill for that. Then
New Chechen war and its losses.
1998. 80% of Russian farms went
bankrupt. 70 thousand factories closed. Epidemic of unemployment. 72 mil
Russians (half of the country) fell below the poverty line.
In
2006 Russian government estimated that that there were 715 thousand
homeless kids, while UNISEF raised this number to 3 mil. Suicide rate
doubled, violent crime rate increased fourfold, and consumption of
alcohol doubled in comparison with the Soviet period.
1999. NATO
bombs the hell out of Serbia, and all Russians can do is to watch it in
helpless anger, Eltsin's excursion into Pristina notwithstanding.
Add to that a total change in ethnic make up of Russian cities, where
all of the sudden all the markets belong to Azeris, plenty of other
businesses are run by Chechens and Georgians, and so on. Yet, Russians
just stoically put up with that, like a chained bear, continue to
swallow the baiting, that comes both from these ethnic minorities inside
the country, and outside it.
People who die at sixty with zero
money to their name have to hear that they are occupants, that they are
slaves, pigs, soviet deplorables, and all other crap that the
westernized liberals along with assorted nationalists from Ukraine,
Georgia or Estonia, keep on throwing at them.
What should be
truly surprising is that there are so few ethnic and other sorts riots.
Any other powerful group, would be rioting non stop. Luckily, the
economics has improved since then, and plenty of Russians can feel
justifiable proud of what their country has accomplished. Yet, the
sense of national insult, national humiliation has remained. At least
among the people who've survived these awful years.
So if
Georgians or any other fool wants to play with fire, let them. But I
don't recommend it. Pushkin had warned the authorities of a Russian
revolt: senseless and merciless, long time ago.
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order imposing new
"strong sanctions" against Iran in response to Tehran's downing of an
American drone last week.
Trump said the latest sanctions would target Iranian Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Trump told reporters at the White House on
Monday that Khamenei and his associates would be denied access to
financial resources by the new sanctions.
The CIA has called on its puppet regime in Georgia to make a serious
provocation against Russia, with staged demonstrations and threats
against Russians. An American woman who serves as the US puppet
president of that country declared that "Russians are our enemies and
occupiers." Protesters held up signs telling Russians to **ck off.
Then Putin told Russians would do just that, **ck off. There came a
Russian law, that no flights between Russia and Georgia are allowed,
meaning no tourists will travel.
The rub here is that Russians are by far the biggest paying tourist
group. They are the biggest group, but also the most affluent group.
Armenians and Azeris from neighboring countries also cross the borders,
but they hardly keep the economy going.
But the Russians do. 30%
of the Georgian economy comes from tourism. And about at least one-fifth
or some 6-7 percentage points of that stems from the aggressors
(Russians). Russia is also the only country that buys their wine and
mineral water. That could be another 2-3%. So, this CIA inspired
provocation will cost about 10% of the already miniscule GDP of that
country.
Georgia's GDP is about 16 billion USD nominally, and 40
billion on PPP. Tourism is 3 billion out of that (9 billion on PPP).
So, quite a costly provocation. Good luck with that.
Georgia has been hostile to Russia aleady for 10 years. Now with the
spark of this new round of hostility they say that they will get
tourists from other countries if Russians won't come. But then why did
they don't get any other tourists during the last 10 years of
hostilities?
Video footage of #Iran’s air defenses shooting down a high-altitude #US Navy surveillance #drone
has been posted on social media by the Iranian military. It shows the
missile launch and an explosion at the moment of interception. READ
MORE: https://on.rt.com/9wqt
In a legal challenge brought by anti-arms trade campaigners, three of
the UK’s top judges concluded that it was “irrational and unlawful” of
the government to allow arms sales to Saudi Arabia without making proper
checks
A scientific conference involving the leadership of the Russian Armed Forces started in Moscow on June 18.
The
Russian Armed Forces are about to get a whole new weapon based on laser
energy and hypersonic, the first of its samples have already been
introduced into trial combat duty, General of the Army Sergei Shoigu
said.
“In the near future, the Russian Armed Forces
will receive a completely new, unparalleled weapon based on hypersonic
and laser energy technologies. Its first samples have already been put
on trial combat duty,” he said.
IMAGE: mil.ru
The
defense minister noted that development of technologies and new weapons
have significantly change the face of contemporary warfare and armed
conflicts.
“Armed
conflicts we saw the last decades show that the nature of warfare has
changed considerably. It is caused by the rapid development of science
and technologies, the emergence of new weapons – all these influence
forms and methods of warfare”, Sergei Shoigu explained.
At the
same time, he noted that “as the high-tech weapons and military
equipment enter the service, the forms and methods of warfare should be
improved.”
“And we are making progress in this issue”, the Defence Minister stressed.
He
also pointed out that at today’s conference they will discuss “the
features of modern operations, issues of command and control and
comprehensive support of the actions, the use of new and advanced types
of weapons.”
According to Sergei Shoigu, “the results of the
conference will contribute to the further development of the military
strategy and operational art of Russia.”
Jon Hellevig writes: I don't know why Russia does this. They reported Q1 GDP growth of
0.5%. But they said the GDP deflator was 8.5%. GDP deflator is the
factor by which you diminish the nominal GDP growth. The idea is that it
would show the "real growth" of output instead of price inflation. In
this methodological theory you would only show as output increase
quantitative and qualitative growth but not price growth. But the
inflation in the same period was only 5%. So, Russia decreases the GDP growth
by much more than the inflation. At the same time, the price of oil and
gas has not increased from last year, and not that of other commodities
either.
So, where from do they find this 3.5% decrease above inflation? I would not
exclude that there is a Serdyukov ploy playing out here. Referring to
the time he was Minister of Defense and grabbing the headlines because
of corruption, while at the same time under his term Russia made an
incredible modernization of the army. The one that took over Crimea in a
night, and Syria in two years. There's a theory that Russia wanted they
Yanks to think that the Russian army is a quagmire and will stay so
until the time is right.
So, perhaps I am giving the game away, and the Russian economy is actually growing much more than they want us to know.
At the same time, the real-real GDP, the one measured in PPP grows
exactly by the nominal minus inflation plus the "nominal real growth"
plus/minus difference in currency exchange to the USD. That is 9 - 5.5 +
0.5 + 0=4%
Fake news outlet The New York Times peddles the lie that the Trump administration has targeted Russia with cyber attacks, in the hopes that it will provoke Russia into retaliating against the U.S.
I just finished reading a book called Putinomics by Chris Miller. He
had earlier written a book on Gorbachev's failed perestroika, except he
did not call it failed, rather it was an apology of that failure.
Nevertheless there was a lot of interesting facts (which facts the
author tried to tweak to fit his agenda). All in all, I was satisfied
with the reading, it gave me just what I was looking for, cause I am
very apt at separating facts from the narrative.
His second book "Putinomics"
is just what the heading promised. "Putinomics" - what a nonsensical
concept that has been clearly chosen to appease the author's publisher.
He discusses Putin's economic policies throughout his rule. In the text
itself Miller provides no information that could in anyway justify the
comical title, as if Putin was engaged in some hullabaloo excentric
policies. Instead he gives a fairly reasonable account of how Putin has
driven the economy. However, the big picture is lacking, and at the end
of the reading one is in no way the wiser from having read Western MSM
propaganda on the topic for 10 years. What surprises is that the book is
so badly structured and does not in anyway dig into the most important
topics, like modernization, corruption etc. Miller tells there is a lot
of corruption, but he does not provide any evidence, not even discussion
on that, and worst of all there is no comparative analysis, which would
show Russia is far behind his own United States what comes to graft.
The one good thing is the author's surprisingly candid account on the
criminal machinations that led to Khodorkovsky's downfall and the happy
jailing of him, which marked the end of oligarch rule of Russia.
On the other hand the book is replete with all the classic Russophobe
tropes - no doubt the grants would not have been flowing in otherwise
and the book would not have been published. In addition to all the trite
Western repetitions of "corruption," an "ineffective state sector",
"Putin's pals" etc, we also read that Sechin (CEO of Rosneft) an
employed director for a state owned corporation is repeatedly referred
to as an oligarch.
Vladimir Putin recently made comments on the seriousness of global conflicts that can lead to nuclear conflict. Patriots worldwide should pay close attention as the globalists build their dangerous nuclear arsenal.
Footage released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shows the moment a projectile hit Syrian positions and exploded during an air raid involving jets and helicopters on Sunday night.
![Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said the debt relief would cost less than $1bn [Pavel Golovkin/Pool/Reuters]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/6/26/b0d6e4b223b74241bd14d599a84cf662_18.jpg "Kazakhstan ends bank bailouts, writes off people's debts instead")
Liberteon