Moon of Alabama – April 1, 2022
The European Union and China will hold a virtual summit today. Before the summit started Brussels has strewn rumors that it would pressure China to not support Russia.
China is of course rejecting any pressure and retaliates by pointing out Europe’s weak strategic autonomy:
Hours before the China-EU leaders’ meetings on Friday, Chinese analysts warned that China-EU relations cannot be kidnapped by the Ukraine crisis, and Europe should no longer be abducted by the US in foreign policy, as it will greatly undermine the EU’s own interests, making it difficult to ensure economic recovery and people’s livelihood, and runs counter to Europe’s aim of pursuing strategic independence.
…
As the Russia-Ukraine conflict stretches to over a month, Europe has sustained great pressure resulting from sanctions against Russia and its over-reliance on US-led NATO security structure.
“The EU is now kidnapped by the US on security, but that does not conform to the strategic independence EU has pursued,” [Cui Hongjian, director of the Department of European Studies at the China Institute of International Studies] said.
To avoid being caught in hot water again, the EU must take control of its own destiny. And developing ties with China provides the EU an opportunity to develop in a more balanced and comprehensive way in the long term, he said.
Its reliance on the U.S./NATO is Europe’s core strategic weakness. The U.S. has used it to infiltrate Europe’s decision making structures.
When the current Ukraine crisis began the U.S. announced that it had activated certain sanctions against Russia and told Europe to do the same. Europe then decide to deliver even more sanctions than it was told to do. With that done the U.S. has quietly buried or circumvented some of its own sanctions after it had used them to push the Europeans.
On March 8 the White House announced:
Today, President Biden will sign an Executive Order (E.O.) to ban the import of Russian oil, liquefied natural gas, and coal to the United States – a significant action with widespread bipartisan support that will further deprive President Putin of the economic resources he uses to continue his needless war of choice.
The United States made this decision in close consultation with our Allies and partners around the world, as well as Members of Congress of both parties.
…
Today’s Executive Order bans:
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- The importation into the United States of Russian crude oil and certain petroleum products, liquefied natural gas, and coal. Last year, the U.S. imported nearly 700,000 barrels per day of crude oil and refined petroleum products from Russia and this step will deprive Russia of billions of dollars in revenues from U.S. drivers and consumers annually. …
The Executive Order is here and it does seem to prohibit crude oil imports from Russia.
However, three weeks later the U.S. is still importing Russian crude oil. The U.S. Energy Information Administration publishes a weekly list of crude imports by country:
Click to enlarge
In the week ending March 26 the U.S. still imported 100,000 barrels per day of Russian crude oil.
I explained on March 7 why the U.S. needs the Russian oil:
Some U.S. refineries at the south coast are designed to only process heavy oil variants. Since 2019 the U.S. has blockaded heavy oil imports from Venezuela and replaced them with imports of heavy Ural variants from Russia. It has now send two officials to Caracas to try to get Venezuela’s oil flowing again. That would of course require to lift all sanctions off Venezuela and to return all confiscated companies and the gold that is owned by that country. It is not going to happen anytime soon.
Diesel and heating oil consist of long hydrocarbon chains. Lighter types of crude oil lack these. There are ways to create longer hydrocarbon chains from shorter ones but those processes are expensive. It is much easier to start off with heavy crude oil and to break it down when needed.
Without heavy Russian Ural crude oil the U.S. has no efficient way to create diesel and heating oil. This while we are in a global diesel crisis:
Diesel is what freight transport uses to deliver goods to consumers, but it is also what industrial transport uses for fuel. With Russian refiners cutting their processing rates in the wake of several waves of Western sanctions, already tight diesel supply is going to get a lot tighter.
“Governments have a very clear understanding that there is a clear link between diesel and GDP, because almost everything that goes into and out of a factory goes using diesel,” the director general of Fuels Europe, part of the European Petroleum Refiners Association, told Reuters this week.
As Vitol’s Russell Hardy noted earlier this week, “Europe imports about half of its diesel from Russia and about half of its diesel from the Middle East. That systemic shortfall of diesel is there.”
Europe is not the only one feeling the diesel pinch, however. Middle distillate stocks are on a decline in the United States, too, Reuters’ John Kemp wrote in his latest column.
The Biden administration announced yesterday that it would release 1 million barrels of crude oil per day from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). While this voter bribe will likely lower elevated gasoline prices it is doubtful that the SPR includes enough heavy crude to make a difference in the diesel market.
It is diesel, more than gasoline, that is driving inflation.
The U.S. is therefore likely to continue to cheat on its own sanctions. Europe should recognize that and should likewise handle its sanction in a matter that lessens the economic effects on itself. It will otherwise ruin its citizens.
It should also handle its relation with China, its largest trading partner, aside from the U.S. and the Ukraine-Russia mess up. Not doing so only increases the size of the recession it is soon likely to experience.
What happens. Western companies open accounts with Gazprom Bank, they deposit euro funds, the bank then converts the Euros or dollars into Rubles and deposits these Rubles in said accounts, then payment in made in Rubles. Of course, Gazprom Bank control the exchange rate, they control the market.
If Ruusia accepts Euros as payment, those Euros will be sanctioned, so free gas. This will never happen. It is the West who has defaulted, it is the West who has destroyed the principal that ownership is legal. Nothing is safe in the West.
The more I read all these articles the more painfully obvious this is all to subjugate Europe because we keep coming back from the ashes.
Different factions high up are fighting old/new etc.. the elite is not one entity that sees eye to eye.
Who do you want to rule the world? The old world europe or the new China dystopia and USA?
The EU is a wraths-chilled Frankenstein and so is modern China, and so is Israel, and what is left of their human aspect might not be easy to even access, and I would not be interested in programming these machines much.
1 April 2022
Peace and Security
A two-month truce in Yemen which goes into effect on Saturday must be a first step in ending the county’s devastating war, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on the eve of the ceasefire.
Yemen’s Government, backed by a Saudi-led coalition, and Houthi rebels have been battling since 2015.
Mr. Guterres commended the sides for reaching the agreement, which begins at 19:00 on Saturday, local time, and coincides with the start of the holy month of Ramadan.
A better future
“Today must be the start of a better future for the people of Yemen,” he said, speaking in New York.
Mr. Guterres urged all parties “to make the necessary arrangements to support the successful implementation of the truce, and to operationalize cooperation mechanisms without delay.”
The truce had been announced earlier on Friday by UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Hans Grundberg.
In a statement, he called on the parties to fully adhere to and respect the agreement, and to take all necessary steps towards its immediate implementation.
‘Long overdue step’
“This Truce is a first and long overdue step,” said Mr. Grundberg. “All Yemeni women, men and children that have suffered immensely through over seven years of war, expect nothing less than an end to this war. The parties must deliver nothing less.”
Under the truce, warring sides have accepted to halt all offensive military operations in Yemen and across its borders.
They have also agreed for fuel ships to enter into ports in the Hudaydah region, and for commercial flights to operate from the airport in the capital, Sana’a, to predetermined destinations in the region.
The parties have further agreed to meet under the auspices of the UN Special Envoy to open roads in Taiz and other governorates.
Possibility of renewal
The UN chief said the truce, which has the possibility of renewal, opens the door to addressing the urgent humanitarian and economic needs in Yemen, and creates a genuine opportunity to restart the political process.
“A halt to the fighting, coupled with the entry of fuel ships, and the easing of restrictions on the movement of people and goods in, out and within the country, will contribute to building trust and creating a conducive environment to resume negotiations for a peaceful settlement of the conflict,” he said.
Mr. Grundberg, the UN Envoy, said he plans to intensify his work with the parties during the two-month period, with the aim of reaching a permanent ceasefire, addressing urgent economic and humanitarian measures and resuming the political process.
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US and NATO is not mentioned in above statement.
Could the Saudi’s be thinking about disentangling themselves from NATO.
What’s that going to do to the US petrodollar?
It could also mean with no fighting the Saudi’s could increase oil production to help-out its Western allies and not suffer attacks from Yemen against their oil infrastructure?
I hope it’s the beginning of the end of the dirty war in Yemen.
Unfortunately for NATO from now on Yemen will probably prefer to be a Russian ally
This is the closest article to this point.
Many on here say Biden is a socialist or commie.
In this video at 13.45, a socialist academic gives a great example why Biden is a hard right Nazi parasit. I’d recommend you watch it all, but that 30 seconds is enough.
https://youtu.be/bXa4TR23L2A
Sums up the collapse of the ‘west’ perfectly… impose ‘sanctions’ and then cheat the sanctions you have imposed…because after all there’s no point in jamming your institutions to the rafters with criminals if you aren’t going to use there ‘skillsets’…
is there?
It serves to illustrate the intellectual paucity and abject lack of morals on display here… and the infantile nature of the modern ‘westerner’.. who by all accounts is on his way to the dustbin of history…
Chinese land fill…
Of course this is how all criminal gangs operate, so it’s really no surprise.. lets hope the crows get a chance at a ‘good peck’….
as they swing in the wind…
NB: Of course from a strategic ‘resetter’ perspective this is perfectly understandable..
because of course ‘sanctions’ are just the smoke that covers the mirrors…
and of course conehead Klaus and the boys have no intention of ‘having nothing’..
pauperdom being incompatible with ‘happiness’… somewhat like despotic eurasian billionaire WeF kleptokrats..
saving the ‘west’…
Despite the posturing, the US is no friend of Europe. It makes a great noise about sanctions, then quietly circumvents them, whilst pushing the idiot Europeans towards disaster. In the meantime, the US makes vast profits selling the Europeans the very products that they have just deprived themselves of.
> In the meantime, the US makes vast profits selling the Europeans the very products that they have just deprived themselves of.
Congratulations on discovering the whole point of “sanctions”.
Carl Jones directs us to a video of a Commie Jew and his “Equality” doctrine, all designed to make the Jew mafia and its ape army acceptable to humans. CJ has never changed.
lewis jones: oh bless my cotton socks, did I forget me prejudices?
While I have watched this academic many times. He usually uses very selective language on his own channel. But here, with Hedges, he talks straight. I don’t care if he’s a Jew. If he tells the truth, that’s good enough for me. As much as you might want to, you can’t lump everyone in the same pot. Not all Jews are money grabbing power mad idiots.
I’m a white vaguely working class Christian, and most would say I’m middle class, but don’t you dare lump me in with British sheeple, because I don’t identify with these thickos, and there must be Jews who think the same about their own group.
When you are born, you don’t have any say on your starting point in life. So some tolerance is needed.
The EU tolerates invading scum from the ME & africa but wants to “save” Europe from Putin???? It doesn’t get dumber.
To Carl Jones,, I believe in reincarnation and we do have a lot to say about what we are born as, and I don’t know how you can still be interested in “Equality”, especially when you call people thick all the time. That man in the video was a 1960s relic.