INTL Europe: Politics, Economics, Military- May 2021

[northern watch]

Russian lawmakers vote to follow US out of overflight treaty
The Russian parliament’s lower house has voted to withdraw from an international treaty allowing surveillance flights over military facilities

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press
19 May 2021, 06:53

The Associated Press
In this photo provided by the State Duma, deputies attend a session at the State Duma, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, May 19, 2021. The Russian parliament's lower house has voted to withdraw from an international treaty allowing surveillance flights over military facilities following the U.S. departure from the pact. The Russian exit from the Open Skies Treaty is yet to be endorsed by the upper house of parliament and needs to be signed by President Vladimir Putin to take effect. (The State Duma, The Federal Assembly of The Russian Federation via AP)

MOSCOW -- The Russian parliament's lower house voted Wednesday to withdraw from an international treaty allowing surveillance flights over military facilities following the U.S. departure from the pact.

The Russian exit from the Open Skies Treaty is yet to be endorsed by the upper house of parliament and needs to be signed by President Vladimir Putin to take effect. Moscow has signaled its readiness to reverse the withdrawal procedure and stay in the treaty if the United States returns to the agreement.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian lawmakers Wednesday that if the U.S. declares its intention to return to the pact, a “new diplomatic process will start.” He added, however, that he considers that unlikely.

The withdrawal vote came hours before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov were to hold their first meeting on the sidelines of a gathering of top diplomats from the Arctic countries in Reykjavik, Iceland. They are expected to focus on setting the stage for a planned summit next month between U.S. President Joe Biden and Putin.

The Open Skies Treaty was intended to build trust between Russia and the West by allowing the accord’s more than three dozen signatories to conduct reconnaissance flights over each other’s territories to collect information about military forces and activities. More than 1,500 flights have been conducted under the treaty since it took effect in 2002, aimed at fostering transparency and allowing for the monitoring of arms control and other agreements.

U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the pact last year, arguing that Russian violations made it untenable for Washington to remain a party. Washington completed its withdrawal from the treaty in November.

Moscow has deplored the U.S. withdrawal, warning that it will erode global security by making it more difficult for governments to interpret the intentions of other nations, particularly amid heightened Russia-West tensions.

The European Union has urged the U.S. to reconsider its exit and called on Russia to stay in the pact and lift flight restrictions, notably over its westernmost Kaliningrad region, which lies between NATO allies Lithuania and Poland.

Russia has insisted the restrictions on observation flights it imposed in the past were permissible under the treaty and noted that the U.S. imposed more sweeping restrictions on observation flights over Alaska.

As a condition for staying in the pact after the U.S. pullout, Moscow has unsuccessfully pushed for guarantees from NATO allies that they wouldn’t hand over the data collected during their observation flights over Russia to the U.S.

The upper house of Russia's parliament, the Federation Council, is expected to approve the withdrawal bill on June 2; once Putin signs the measure, it would take six months for the Russian exit to take effect.

“Hypothetically, the U.S. has a chance until June 2 to show common sense and say: ‘OK, we suspend our decision,’” Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko told reporters. “There is such a theoretic, hypothetical opportunity, and it’s up to the U.S. whether to use it.”

Leonid Slutsky, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house, has said that the upper chamber initially planned to vote Wednesday on leaving the pact but pushed its consideration back at Putin’s suggestion to offer the U.S. more time to consider a comeback.

Russian lawmakers vote to follow US out of overflight treaty - ABC News (go.com)

 

[Plain Jane]

EU-Turkey relations at 'historic' low point, say MEPs – DW – 05/20/2021

Members of the European Parliament have urged other EU institutions to make accession talks with Ankara conditional upon democratic reform. Turkey rejected the legislative body's report.

www.dw.com

EU-Turkey relations at 'historic' low point: European Parliament
Members of the European Parliament have urged other EU institutions to make accession talks with Ankara conditional upon democratic reform. Turkey rejected the legislative body's report.




Talks for Turkey to join the EU have been at a standstill

The European Parliament on Wednesday adopted a report urging the EU Commission to formally suspend accession negotiations with Turkey if Ankara does not reverse its "hostile" policies.

"In recent years, the [government] of Turkey has distanced itself increasingly from EU values and standards. As a result, relations have been brought to a historic low point," Members of the European Parliament said in a statement.

MEPs slammed Turkey's human rights record and its foreign policies in the report adopted by 480 votes in favor, 64 against and 150 abstentions.

Watch video01:45
New chapter in EU-Turkey relations?
"This report is probably the toughest yet in its criticism of the situation in Turkey," said MEP Nacho Sanchez Amor.

"We urge the other EU institutions to make any positive agenda they might pursue with Turkey conditional upon democratic reform," he added.

What are MEPs demanding from Turkey?
MEPs urged Turkey to release jailed human rights activists, journalists and "others who have been detained by the government on unsubstantiated charges."


Watch video00:50
von der Leyen: Human rights are crucial for the European Union
"[MEPs] also repeat their encouragement to Turkey to recognize the Armenian Genocide," their statement read.

Still, the European Parliament asserted its view of Ankara as a key partner for stability in the region, noting Turkey's role in hosting millions of refugees.

However, they insisted that "the use of migrants and refugees as a tool for political leverage, and blackmail cannot be accepted."

Watch video07:29
EU-Turkey migration deal: 'It broke down one year ago'
How has Turkey responded?
The Turkish Foreign Ministry released a statement rejecting the European Parliament's report, saying it was "by no means objective."

"It is well known... that the standstill in Turkey's accession negotiations is not due to Turkey's lack of will for reforms," the Turkish statement read.

"As a candidate country, Turkey expects the [European Parliament] to carry out constructive efforts about how the relations can be improved with Turkey and how it can contribute to Turkey's EU integration process, rather than being a platform for baseless allegations and blind accusations against Turkey."

Negotiations to join the EU started in 2005. However, the EU Commission said last year that accession talks had "effectively come to a standstill," due to Ankara's strained relations with Cyprus and human rights concerns.

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Watch: Spanish Soldiers Throwing Migrants Into The Sea

BY TYLER DURDEN
THURSDAY, MAY 20, 2021 - 05:00 AM
Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,
Video footage shows Spanish soldiers beating migrants and throwing them into the sea after thousands reached European soil as a result of Morocco deliberately loosening border controls to punish Spain.


“Images of Spanish soldiers beating migrants/refugees and throwing them into the sea on the Moroccan border,” tweeted journalist Josep Goded.

According to the Associated Press, many of the migrants were sub-Saharan Africans. They were part of a flood of people who arrived in Ceuta, the Spanish city of 85,000 located in North Africa which is separated from Morocco by a 10 meter fence.
Half of the migrants who swarmed the border were expelled, but many have now made their way into Europe.

A 31-year-old Moroccan woman described how police in Morocco deliberately allowed migrants to surge to the border.

“They let people pass and stand there without speaking,” she told the Associated Press.
“People just pass and pass and pass.”

The crisis escalated after around 8,000 migrants arrived via sea following a decision by Morocco to punish Spain because it offered medical treatment to militant leader Brahim Ghali, head of the Polisario Front, which Morocco opposes.

Just as with President Erdogan in Turkey, the entire issue once again highlights how migrants have been weaponized by Middle Eastern and African countries to discipline European nations into acquiescing to their demands.

Criminal people smugglers also benefit from the scam, which is facilitated by left-wing protest movements across the west which embark on “refugees welcome” campaigns.

The migrant influx, which accelerated in 2015, has exacerbated crime and security issues within European countries, with numerous terror attacks being carried out by jihadists who exploited the “refugee” wave.

Violent crime and sexual assaults have also spiked as a result of the complete failure to integrate migrants from dangerous countries into host populations.
* * *

 

[Zagdid]

Hungary has opted out of new EU vaccine deal with Pfizer | Reuters

MAY 20, 20216:49 AM UPDATED 7 HOURS AGO
Hungary has opted out of new EU vaccine deal with Pfizer
By Reuters Staff

BRUSSELS/BUDAPEST (Reuters) -Hungary is the only European Union country that has decided to opt out of a new vaccine deal the bloc has signed with Pfizer and BioNTech for the supply of up to 1.8 billion doses of their COVID-19 jab, an EU spokesman said.

The Commission on Thursday confirmed the new deal, the third it has signed with the two companies, for the possible purchase of up to 1.8 billion doses until 2023, following 600 million doses ordered via the two previous contracts.

“Hungary opted out of the Pfizer deal,” the EU spokesman said on Thursday.

Gergely Gulyas, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff, confirmed that Hungary had decided not to be part of the joint purchase, expressing confidence in the country’s current supply of vaccines.

Gulyas added that Hungary would also refrain from buying other vaccines through the EU procurement scheme. “Hungary would not like to take part in the next chapter of Brussels’s vaccine purchase program,” he told a news conference on Thursday.

Even if a booster was needed, “there are plenty of vaccines from Eastern and Western sources as well,” he said.

Orban has cultivated strong ties with Russia and China, and Hungary has authorised and deployed Russian and Chinese shots before their approval by the EU drugs regulator -- the only European Union country to do so.


In March, the government suggested Russian and Chinese COVID-19 vaccines were more effective than Western ones, prompting an outcry from Hungarian scientists and doctors.

The government’s approach seems to be paying off, however: Hungary has given at least one dose of a vaccine to 49% of the adult population, the fourth-fastest rollout in the world, according to a Reuters tally.

Under the joint procurement scheme, the EU has signed deals with six Western vaccine makers to secure up to 2.6 billion doses. The new contract with Pfizer is the first of a second wave of deals meant to ensure the EU has enough doses in the future for boosters and against variants.

Reporting by Francesco Guarascio

 

[Plain Jane]

An ailing Sahrawi leader shakes Spain and Morocco's alliance

The leader of an Algeria-backed movement fighting for the independence of Africa's Western Sahara was quietly admitted to a hospital in Spain last month.

apnews.com

An ailing Sahrawi leader shakes Spain and Morocco’s alliance
By ARITZ PARRAyesterday



1 of 3
FILE - In this file image made from video on Feb. 27, 2021, Brahim Ghali, leader of the pro-independence Polisario Front speaks to a crowd in Tindouf, Algeria. Ghali, the leader of an Algeria-backed movement fighting for the independence of Western Sahara, was admitted to a hospital in northern Spain last month. His presence under a disguised identity didn’t go unnoticed to the government in Morocco, the country that annexed the northwestern African territory nearly half a century ago. (AP Photo, file)

LOGRONO, Spain (AP) — The mysterious COVID-19 patient arrived at an airport in northern Spain in a medicalized jet. An ambulance ferried the 71-year-old man on a freeway that passed vineyards of Rioja grapes to a state-of-the-art public hospital in the city of Logrono.
The patient was sent directly to an intensive care bed, registered on April 18 with the identity on his Algerian diplomatic passport: Mohamed Benbatouche.

He turned out to be Brahim Ghali, the leader of the Polisario Front, an Algeria-backed pro-independence movement representing the local Sahrawi people of Africa’s Western Sahara. Ghali’s presence in Spain under a disguised identity didn’t go unnoticed to the government in Morocco, the country that annexed Western Sahara nearly half a century ago.

Rabat, which regards Ghali as a terrorist, protested Spain’s decision to grant compassionate assistance to its top enemy. It threatened there would be “consequences.” And they finally came to fruition this week when Morocco let down its guard on the border with Ceuta, a Spanish city perched on the northern African coastline.

The move allowed thousands of migrants to enter Ceuta, many of them children who swam or jumped over fences.

The humanitarian crisis has become a flashpoint between the two neighbors. Morocco recalled its ambassador in Madrid. Spain is under fire from human rights groups for pushing back most of the trespassers in bulk, which is illegal under international law.

And in what resembled an assertion of its sovereignty of Ceuta, which many Moroccan nationalists deem a colony of Madrid along with the nearby Spanish city of Melilla, Spain deployed soldiers to the border. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez also made a quick trip to the overwhelmed city.

The Western Sahara region stretches along Africa’s Atlantic Coast and is home to roughly 600,000 people. Since Morocco annexed the territory in 1975, filling a void left when Spain withdrew as a colonial power, the international community has been divided on its recognition, with most countries backing a long-running U.N. effort for a negotiated solution.

An announcement by the United States late last year supporting Rabat’s claim - in exchange for Morocco normalizing diplomatic ties with Israel - undermined those efforts, rallying other countries behind Morocco’s proposal to give the territory greater autonomy.

Pushing instead for a referendum on self-determination has been the main focus for Ghali, who was elected president of the self-declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in 2016. He previously served as its defense minister and as a Polisario diplomat in Spain (1999-2008) and Algeria (2008-2015).

Ghali, wearing combat fatigues while speaking in February at a military parade marking the 45th anniversary of the SADR, called on the new U.S. administration of President Joe Biden to find a solution that would allow the Sahrawi “to enjoy their inalienable right of freedom and independence.”

At the San Pedro hospital in Logrono, there is little sign of the presence of the Polisario’s top man. People familiar with his condition say he recently came out of three weeks in critical care. A security guard performs identity checks on medical personnel and visitors entering the COVID-19 ward. Inside, Ghali receives a daily visit from his personal physician, an Algerian doctor, according to a police report seen by The Associated Press.

“They probably chose this place because nothing ever happens here, and we rarely make it to the news,” local resident Milagros Capellán, 64, said as she left the hospital after a medical check-up. “It feels strange that this is connected with the very sad developments in Ceuta.”

Moroccan intelligence officials knew about Ghali’s whereabouts from the moment the Algerian jet carrying Ghali landed in Spain last month, leaking his presence to the media and exposing what had been designed by Spain as a covert “humanitarian” operation.

“What was Spain expecting from Morocco when it hosted an official from a group that is carrying arms against the kingdom?” Morocco’s minister for human rights, Mostapha Ramid, wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.

Spain’s foreign minister responded the next day, blaming Morocco for the chaos at the border: “It tears our hearts out to see our neighbors sending children, even babies… (because) they reject a humanitarian gesture on our part,” Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya said.

The Spanish Foreign Ministry declined to answer AP’s questions on why it agreed to treat Ghali even when other European governments had refused. An official familiar with the decision who requested anonymity because of its sensitive nature said that the request was made directly to González Laya by her Algerian counterpart, Sabri Boukadoum.

Before the request was granted, it had caused deep divisions within Sánchez’s Cabinet, the official said.

The Polisario Front’s representative in Spain, Abdulah Arabi, rejected depicting the circumstances of Ghali’s arrival in Spain as exceptional.

“He is the head of state and comes from a country that recognizes the Sahrawi Republic,” Arabi said. He accused Rabat of “trying to discredit the noble, peaceful struggle for resistance of the Sahrawi people by attacking somebody who is a symbol.”

Providing that his recovery goes well, Ghali’s future is now shrouded in uncertainty. With his whereabouts known, a discreet return to Tindouf, Algeria, where Sahrawi refugee camps are located, seems out of question.

Further complicating matters, Spain’s National Court on Tuesday re-opened a genocide probe from 2008 against Ghali and 27 other Polisario members. An investigating judge closed the case last year because the court couldn’t locate the defendants.

Ghali is also expected to give testimony June 1 in the same Madrid-based court for a 2019 lawsuit filed by a Sahrawi activist who claims he was tortured in the refugee camps for his opposition to the Polisario.

On May 10, a police officer visited the Polisario leader to hand him a court summons for the lawsuit. According to the police report seen by The Associated Press, Ghali refused to sign the notice, asking for “several days” to consult with the Algerian Embassy and other advisors.

González Laya said that Spain’s agreement with Ghali was for medical treatment only, suggesting that the government won’t facilitate his immediate departure. “If he has pending matters with Spain’s justice, he will have to appear (before the court),” she told Spain’s public radio.

Behind the legal cases against Ghali are groups of Sahrawis aligned with Morocco’s position. Asadesh, which stands for the Saharawi Association for Human Rights, accuses 28 Polisario members of killing, torturing, illegally detaining and abducting prisoners and its own Saharawi people, some of whom the group claims were allegedly forced to remain in refugee camps against their will.

Pedro Altamirano is also suing Ghali for allegedly inspiring threats that the Spanish journalist and head of a recently founded platform to support “Sahrawi reunification” received from online netizens.

“The only thing that cannot happen is that by the hand of the devil this man leaves the country without appearing before a judge,” said Altamirano, who supports Morocco’s claim on Western Sahara.
___
Associated Press writers Elaine Ganley and Angela Charlton in Paris, and Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain, contributed to this report.

 

[northern watch]

US, Russia hold parallel military drills in the Balkans
Serbia and Russia have launched joint military exercises near Serbia's capital as U.S.-led forces held massive drills in neighboring Balkan nations

By The Associated Press
20 May 2021, 11:54

The Associated Press
In this photo provided by the Serbian Defense Ministry, Russian and Serbian soldiers perform during exercise in Deliblatska Pescara, a large sand area, 70 kilometers north-west of Belgrade, Serbia. Serbia and Russia on Thursday launched joint military exercise in the Balkan country as the US-led forces held massive drills in neighboring states in what appeared to be Moscow's resolve to maintain influence in the European region torn by wars in the 1990s. (Serbian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

BELGRADE, Serbia -- Serbia and Russia launched joint military exercises near Serbia's capital Thursday as U.S.-led forces held massive drills in neighboring Balkan states in what appeared to be Moscow’s resolve to maintain influence in the European region torn by wars during the 1990s.

The Serbian and Russian defense ministries said the joint training of some 200 special troops will include “the destruction of an illegal military formation,” live ammunition shooting and “anti-terrorist” action. The drills will last through May 25, the ministries said.

The exercises at a training ground near Belgrade comes as large-scale U.S. Army-led drills dubbed DEFENDER-Europe 2021 are held across Europe, including in most of the nations that neighbor Serbia.

The U.S. Army has said that the joint exercises which include approximately 28,000 multinational troops are “designed to build readiness and interoperability between U.S., NATO and partner militaries.’’

The exercises, which include air and missile defense assets, “demonstrates our ability to serve as a strategic security partner in the western Balkans and Black Sea regions while sustaining our abilities in northern Europe, the Caucasus, Ukraine and Africa,” the U.S. military has said.

Serbia, which is a member of NATO’s Partnership for Peace outreach program and is formally seeking European Union membership, has been forging close military, economic and political ties with both Russia and China.

Serbia remains the only Russian ally in the region that was torn by bloody civil wars in the 1990s. Most of Serbia's neighbors belong to NATO and Moscow has openly opposed their membership in the Western military alliance, claiming the eastern European region is its traditional sphere of influence.

Serbian Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin said Thursday that Russia is “a great security partner.”

“We are jointly thinking of how to preserve our countries because Serbia and Russia can be broken only from within, not from the outside,” Vulin said.

US, Russia hold parallel military drills in the Balkans - ABC News (go.com)

 

[Zagdid]

Merkel: Germany to discuss 'common ground' on Russia with US - ABC News (go.com)

Merkel: Germany to discuss 'common ground' on Russia with US

Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germany will discuss “necessary common ground” with the U.S. on relations with Russia after President Joe Biden opted not to punish the company overseeing a Russia-Germany pipeline project that Washington opposes

By GEIR MOULSON Associated Press May 20, 2021, 2:18 PM

BERLIN -- Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that Germany will discuss “necessary common ground” with the U.S. on relations with Russia after President Joe Biden opted not to punish the company overseeing a Russia-Germany pipeline project that Washington opposes.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has been an irritant in relations between the U.S. and Germany for years. Washington, which has battled to block it, argues that the pipeline — now 95% complete — threatens European energy security, heightens Russia’s influence and poses risks to Ukraine and Poland in bypassing both countries.

On Wednesday, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on Russian companies and ships for their work on the pipeline, but Biden angered many Democratic and Republican lawmakers by opting not to punish Nord Stream 2 AG, the company overseeing the project.

Waiving penalties regarding ally Germany was “in line with our commitment to strengthen our Transatlantic relationships as a matter of national security,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

Merkel said Thursday that “President Biden has now taken a step toward us in connection with the Nord Stream 2 conflict, where we have different views but where we will now talk further about what the necessary common ground is in the relationship with Russia.”

Speaking at an event organized by German broadcaster WDR in Berlin, she didn't elaborate on that common ground.

Asked what Biden will get from Germany or Europe for waiving sanctions, Merkel replied: “Look, that's not how it works.”

Merkel added that she and Biden will soon see each other at Group of Seven and NATO meetings. She noted that she and Armin Laschet, her party's candidate to succeed her after Germany's Sept. 26 election, advocate sticking to pledges to raise Germany's defense spending.

“We will have to speak about Russia and Ukraine policy, and of course about China policy,” she said. “But this isn't measured in millimeters and grams — partnerships are based on trying to react to the other's thought processes and positions in order to find good compromises.”

Nord Stream 2 is owned by Russian state company Gazprom, with investment from several European companies. Domestic critics in Germany — including Laschet's main opponent in the election, Green party candidate Annalena Baerbock — have argued that the pipeline should be abandoned for various reasons, including Russia’s treatment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

In Washington, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “We’ve continued to convey that we believe it’s a bad idea, a bad plan.”

“Our view is that it’s a Russian geopolitical project that threatens European energy security and that of Ukraine and the Eastern flank NATO allies and partners,” Psaki said.

But, she added: “In what way were we be going to be able to stop a project in another country that’s been built 95%?”

 

[Plain Jane]

Cardinal Pell eyes a Vatican scandal he suspected long ago

Cardinal George Pell, who was convicted and then acquitted of sex abuse charges in his native Australia, is spending his newfound freedom in Rome.

apnews.com

Cardinal Pell eyes a Vatican scandal he suspected long ago
By NICOLE WINFIELD2 hours ago



1 of 8
Australian Cardinal George Pell is interviewed by The Associated Press in his home at the Vatican, Thursday, May 20, 2021. Pell, who was convicted and then acquitted of sex abuse charges in his native Australia, is spending his newfound freedom in Rome. Pell strongly denied the charges and his supporters believe he was scapegoated for the Australian Catholic Church’s botched response to clergy sexual abuse. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

ROME (AP) — Cardinal George Pell is enjoying his first Roman spring since being exonerated of sex abuse charges in his native Australia: He receives visitors to his Vatican flat, sips midday Aperol Spritz’s at the outdoor cafe downstairs and keeps up religiously with news of a Holy See financial scandal that he suspected years ago.

Pell, who turns 80 in June, is buoyed by the perks of being a retired Vatican cardinal even as he tries to put back together a life and career that were upended by his criminal trials and 404 days spent in solitary confinement in a Melbourne lockup.

“I’ve become very Italian,” Pell tells a visitor one morning, referring to his daily routine checking coronavirus cases in Italy. “I check the stats every day. But I’m regional: I go immediately to Lazio,” which surrounds Rome.

Pell left his job as prefect of the Vatican’s economy ministry in 2017 to return home to face charges that he sexually molested two 13-year-old choir boys in the sacristy of the Melbourne cathedral in 1996.

After a first jury deadlocked, a second convicted him and he was sentenced to six years in prison. The conviction was upheld on appeal only to be thrown out by Australia’s High Court, which in April 2020 found there was reasonable doubt in the testimony of his lone accuser.

Pell and his supporters strongly denied the charges and believe he was scapegoated for all the crimes of the Australian Catholic Church’s botched response to clergy sexual abuse. Yet victims and critics say Pell epitomizes everything wrong with how the church has dealt with the sex abuse problem and have denounced his exoneration.

Pell spoke to The Associated Press ahead of the U.S. release of the second volume of his jailhouse memoir, “Prison Journal, Volume 2,” chronicling the middle four months of his term. The book charts his emotional low after the appeals court upheld his initial conviction, and ends with a sign of hope after Australia’s High Court agreed to hear his case.

“Looking back, I was probably excessively optimistic that I’d get bail,” Pell says now, crediting his “glass half-full” attitude to his Christian faith.

Pell still has many detractors — he freely uses the term “enemies” — who think him guilty. But in Rome, even many of his critics believed in his innocence, and since returning in September he has enjoyed a well-publicized papal audience and participates regularly in Vatican events.
Pell had returned to Rome to clean out his apartment, intending to make Sydney his permanent home.

But he never left. As Italy’s COVID-19 resurgence hit, Pell spent the winter watching as the scandal over Vatican corruption and incompetence that he tried to uncover as Pope Francis’ finance czar exploded publicly in ways he admits he never saw coming.

For the three years that Pell was in charge of the Vatican’s finances, he tried to get a handle on just how much money the Secretariat of State had in its asset portfolio, what its investments were and what it did with the tens of millions of dollars in donations to the pope from the faithful.

He largely failed, as his nemesis in the Secretariat of State, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, blocked his efforts to impose international accounting and auditing standards. But now Becciu has been sacked, Francis has stripped the secretariat of its ability to manage the money and Vatican prosecutors are investigating the office’s 350 million euro investment in a London real estate venture.

No indictments have been handed down after two years of investigation. But in court documents, prosecutors have accused an Italian broker involved in the London deal of trying to extort the Holy See of 15 million euros in fees, and they have accused a handful of Vatican officials of involvement.

Those same court documents, however, have made clear the entire venture was approved by top officials in the Secretariat of State, and witnesses say Francis himself approved a “just” compensation for the broker. Yet only low-ranking Vatican officials and external businessmen are known to be under investigation.

Pell said he is heartened that Vatican prosecutors are on the case, given the tens of millions of euros that were lost in the deal. But he expressed concerns about possible problems in the investigation and wondered if the truth will ever come out.

He noted a British judge recently issued a devastating ruling against the Vatican in a related asset seizure case against the broker, Gianluigi Torzi. The judge said Vatican prosecutors had made “appalling” omissions and misrepresentations in their request for judicial assistance, and his ruling essentially dismantled much of their case against Torzi.

“He used the word ‘appalling’ about the level of competence,” Pell said. The issues flagged in the British ruling are “a matter for concern,” said Pell, for whom matters of due process are particularly dear.

“It’s a matter of basic competence and justice,” Pell said. “We must act within the norms of justice.”

 

[northern watch]

Austria, Slovenia, Czech Republic want North Macedonia in EU
The foreign ministers of Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovenia have voiced unanimous support for North Macedonia and Albania to start membership talks with European Union

By KONSTANTIN TESTORIDES Associated Press
22 May 2021, 13:11

The Associated Press
Czech Republic Foreign Minister Jakub Kulhanek talks, during a joint news conference with Foreign Ministers from Austria Alexander Schallenberg, North Macedonia Bujar Osmani and of Slovenia Anze Logar, following their meeting at the foreign ministry building in Skopje, North Macedonia, Saturday, May 22, 2021. Foreign ministers of Austria, Czech Republic and Slovenia have voiced unanimous support Saturday for North Macedonia and Albania to start accession talks with the European Union, pointing that bilateral issues should not block further enlargement of the Western Balkan countries. (AP Photo/Boris Grdanoski)

SKOPJE, North Macedonia -- The foreign ministers of Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovenia voiced unanimous support Saturday for North Macedonia and Albania to start membership talks with European Union, arguing that bilateral issues should not block the EU's enlargement into the Western Balkans.

Austria’s Alexander Schallenberg, the Czech Republic's Jakub Kulhanek and Slovenia’s Anze Logar arrived in North Macedonia's capital, Skopje, to offer their backing for EU accession talks scheduled for June. The three plan to visit Albania, which also wants to join the EU, on Sunday.

Bulgaria refused last year to approve the EU’s membership negotiation framework for North Macedonia, effectively blocking the official start of membership talks with its smaller Balkan neighbor.

Bulgaria wants North Macedonia to formally recognize that its language has Bulgarian roots and to stamp out allegedly anti-Bulgarian rhetoric. The government in Skopje says the Macedonian identity and language are not open to discussion.

Bulgaria on Friday ruled out again a possible reversal of its veto following a meeting with EU officials.

The Czech Republic’s Kulhanek said it is “not fair” for one EU member nation to condition the enlargement process on a bilateral dispute.

“This is a crucial time, and we cannot allow (the process) to be stuck with such demands,” he said.

North Macedonia applied for EU membership in 2004 and received a positive assessment from the European Commission a year later. EU leaders agreed to formal accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia after Skopje settled a nearly three decade-long dispute with neighboring Greece over the country’s name, which saw it renamed North Macedonia.

Western Balkan countries are at different stages of EU membership talks. Serbia and Montenegro have already started negotiating some chapters of their membership agreements. Kosovo and Bosnia have signed a Stabilization and Association Agreement, the first step to membership.

Austria, Slovenia, Czech Republic want North Macedonia in EU - ABC News (go.com)

 

[Plain Jane]

Food, shelter, beatings: Border city divided over migrants

Residents of Spain’s multiethnic city of Ceuta are used to being in the news every time the fragile alliance between Madrid and Rabat shakes up.

apnews.com

Food, shelter, beatings: Border city divided over migrants
By RENATA BRITO and BERNAT ARMANGUÉyesterday



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Ceuta residents and migrants perform a funeral prayer on a Moroccan teenager in the muslim cemetery of Ceuta, Saturday, May 22, 2021. The young man died on Monday 17 trying to swim across the border from Morocco to Spain's North Africa enclave together with thousands of other migrants. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

CEUTA, Spain (AP) — Residents of Spain’s multi-ethnic city of Ceuta are used to being in the news every time the fragile alliance between Spain and Morocco shakes up.

For many “Ceutis,” as locals are known, that comes with being a speck of a European nation in North Africa. The city is culturally closely intertwined with Morocco, with Muslims making over 40% of its population, but also separated from it by high perimeter fences that set apart the two extremes of poverty and prosperity.

But when relations hit a two-decade low this week over Spain’s help to one of Morocco’s top enemies, “Ceutis” confronted the sudden arrival of thousands of African migrants with sympathy, concern and in some cases hostility.

In one neighborhood, Muslim women, moved by the plight of young Moroccan men, gathered in a traditional house to sort out and distribute donated clothes. They also cooked food and offered migrants sleeping in the streets a place to shower.


The women said the migrants could be their children — and that their plight brought memories of past times when the migrant flow was in the opposite direction.

“I remember my mother telling me they were migrating too, people didn’t have anything to eat and were going to Morocco,” said 75-year-old Aisha Ali Mohammed, who was among those sorting through garments. “Now they are migrating here.”

Dozens of migrants gathered for respite outside of Nawal Ben Chalout’s family home, where she had shifted around to give shelter to three young men.

“The boys are very confused, very scared, I talk to them and they ask for food,” Ben Chalout said, adding that her neighbors were also opening their doors to offer a place to sleep and eat. “Sometimes they don’t even want food. They have questions, they want information.”

A dozen Ceuta residents and migrants attended the funeral Saturday of a Moroccan teenager who died on May 17 while trying to swim across the border from Morocco with thousands of other migrants and asylum-seekers.

Members of the local Muslim community washed the victim’s body, wrapped it in white shrouds and chanted prayers before burying it in a Ceuta cemetery according to religious customs.

Solidarity with migrants in Ceuta has not been unanimous. Several migrants spoke of attacks by groups of locals at night as they slept in the streets or fields.

Fouad, an Algerian man who was in Morocco and crossed into Ceuta earlier this week, said armed men woke him up pointing a gun at him. They beat him and others with a stick, used pepper spray on him and took his phone and money.

One migrant was taken to hospital after the beating, said Fouad, who declined to give his last name for fear of reprisal and deportation.


Of the 8,000 migrants who arrived in just 48 hours in the city of 85,000, Spanish authorities have since expelled 7,000 to Morocco. The Spanish government says around 800 of those who remain in Ceuta are minors.

The migrant influx was a reminder of the inequality between the two sides. While per capita gross domestic product in 2019 was $30,000 on the Spanish side, it drops to $3,200 across the border, according to the World Bank.

But the bustling businesses of Spain’s Ceuta and Fnideq, the closest Moroccan town, have taken a big hit during the pandemic. With the border closed, over 30,000 workers who used to commute across it daily have been jobless for much of the past year.

Even before the pandemic hit, nationalist voices in Rabat were reviving old claims on Ceuta and Melilla, Spain’s second coastal enclave in North Africa.

That has fueled anti-Moroccan sentiment in Ceuta, a feeling tapped into by Spain’s new far-right party Vox, which became the city’s most popular party in Spain’s 2019 vote.
Vox has referred to the influx of migrants as an “invasion,” but the term has been also used by some conservatives, including the autonomous city’s president, Juan Jesús Vivas.

His government said more than half of the city’s children skipped school on Tuesday because their parents feared instability in the streets and some shops closed, fearing looting from cashless migrants.

But Fouad and others directed their anger at the Moroccan government for using them as pawns in the diplomatic impasse with Spain.

The government in Rabat has denied that it loosened border control to allow the migrants to cross, blaming it on the weather and the post-Ramadan “exhaustion” of its border guards. It has also criticized Spain for providing COVID-19 treatment to Brahim Ghail, the head of the Polisario Front that is fighting to make Western Sahara independent of Morocco, which annexed it in the 1970s.

“This was not improvised, it was planned. Morocco benefits by sending us,” said an 18-year-old Moroccan who crossed into Ceuta and feared deportation if his identity was published. “We are Morocco’s experiment, we are like lab rats.”

The man told how he had lost his mother years ago in a stampede at the Ceuta border, where many women earned their living as porters before authorities closed the border.

Many from Morocco said they wanted to reach mainland Spain to find work and stability. Yaser, a 26-year-old from Tetouan, said those he knew brought skills and education with them.

“We have boys with lots of education, baccalaureates, lots of diplomas, but they don’t have work,” he said. “That is the basis of all the problems, work, rights, good life ... that is all people want.”
___
Follow AP’s global migration coverage at Migration

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Lithuania Withdraws From China's "17+1" Cooperation Platform

BY TYLER DURDEN
MONDAY, MAY 24, 2021 - 02:00 AM
Authored by Frank Fang via The Epoch Times,
The Lithuanian government has pulled out of Beijing’s “17+1” platform, a Chinese initiative that the Baltic nation signed up to in 2012.


The Chinese regime officially launched the platform—which was initially named the “16+1” platform—in April 2012 to intensify cooperation with 11 European Union member states and five Balkan countries. The platform was renamed “17+1” after Greece signed up for the initiative in April 2019.

The initiative calls for participating countries to cooperate with China in many fields, including finance, health, trade, and technology. Modeled after the platform, Beijing rolled out another project in 2013, which is called the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI, also known as “One Belt, One Road), in an effort to build up trade routes linking China and other parts of the world.

On May 22, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said in a statement that the Baltic nation does not see itself as a “17+1” member any more and will not participate in the initiative’s activities, according to the Baltic News Service.

Landsbergis added that the Chinese platform was “divisive” from the EU’s point of view. He called on EU members to pursue “a much more effective 27+1 approach and communication with China.”

“Europe’s strength and impact is in its unity,” Landsbergis added. Currently, there are 27 member countries in the EU after the UK left the political and trading bloc in January 2020.

Lithuania’s decision to pull out of the Chinese platform was not unexpected. In March, Landsbergis told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that the “17+1” platform had fallen short of their expectations, in particular about investments that served mutual interests.

Taking part in the platform also came with negative consequences. Landsbergis explained to the German paper, “This format was accompanied by divisive tendencies in the EU and greater political pressure from China.”


Lithuania’s Homeland Union and Lithuanian Christian Democrats party leader Ingrida Simonyte delivers her speech at the parliament in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Nov. 24, 2020. (Petras Malukas/AFP via Getty Images)

Xinjiang and Taiwan
Lithuania’s move is the latest indication of a souring tie between the two countries.
On May 20, the Lithuanian parliament passed a non-binding resolution, condemning Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghur minority in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang as “genocide.” The resolution was passed by 86 to one vote and seven abstentions.

In Xinjiang, which is home to about 11 million Uyghurs, at least 1 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz have been detained in internment camps for political indoctrination.

Parliaments in Canada, the Netherlands, and the UK have passed similar resolutions. In January, then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has committed “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” against Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.

The Lithuanian resolution also called on the CCP to “immediately end the illegal practice of organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience, release all prisoners of conscience in China, including members of the Falun Gong.”

In response to the resolution, the Chinese Embassy in Lithuania slammed the Lithuanian parliament for a “shoddy political show based on lies and disinformation” in a statement released on May 20.

Beijing also reacted angrily when Lithuania voiced support for Taiwan, a de-facto independent country that Beijing claims is a part of its territory. In November 2020, the Lithuanian government stated that it was committed to supporting “those fighting for freedom” around the world including Taiwan.

The public support for Taiwan drew the ire of Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of China’s hawkish mouthpiece Global Times. In his opinion article published days later, Hu demanded the Lithuanian government “to behave” with regards to Taiwan issues.

“If the government in Vilnius [Lithuania’s capital] continues to behave crazily, it is bound to suffer consequences,” Hu threatened.

Taiwan and Lithuania are not formal diplomatic allies but officials from the Baltic nation have voiced support for the self-ruled island to take part in the World Health Organization (WHO). Taiwan is not a member of the WHO due to Beijing’s opposition.

In March, Lithuania stated it wanted to advance ties with Taiwan by setting up a representative office on the island.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen speaks during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Office Building in Taipei on Oct. 10, 2020. (Sam Yeh/AFP via Getty Images)

Espionage
Lithuania has also previously warned about China’s increasing intelligence activities inside the Baltic nation.

“From Lithuanian citizens, Chinese intelligence may seek to obtain sensitive or classified national or NATO and EU information,” stated Lithuania’s 2019 National Threat Assessment report, according to the Estonian newspaper The Baltic Times.
“Chinese intelligence-funded trips to China are used to recruit Lithuanian citizens.”

The report was put together by Lithuania’s State Security Department and the Second Investigation Department under the country’s Defense Ministry. It named two Chinese agencies—the Ministry of State Security, China’s chief intelligence agency, and the Military Intelligence Directorate of China’s People’s Liberation Army—for their increasing operations in Lithuania.

“Chinese intelligence looks for suitable targets—decision-makers, other individuals sympathizing with China and able to exert political leverage. They seek to influence such individuals by giving gifts, paying for trips to China, covering expenses of training and courses organized there,” the report stated.

Some of the particular interests to Chinese intelligence officials included Lithuania’s domestic and foreign policies, as well as the country’s economy and defense sector.

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

"Shocking Act" Of "State Hijacking" Of Civilian Plane: US & EU Demand Belarusian Journalist's Immediate Release

BY TYLER DURDEN
SUNDAY, MAY 23, 2021 - 09:35 PM
update(9:30pm): It didn't take long for a flurry of condemnations from both EU and US officials in the hours after the Ryanair incident over Belarus, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for opposition journalist Raman Pratasevich's immediate release. Multiple EU leaders described Sunday's detention of Pratasevich after his commercial aircraft with 170 international passengers on board (including Americans, apparently) was diverted to Minsk complete with Belarusian MiG fighter escort as tantamount to "hijacking a civilian plane"...

"Hijacking of a civilian plane is an unprecedented act of state terrorism. It cannot go unpunished," Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on Twitter.

And Greece's Foreign Ministry agreed (the aircraft had departed from Athens en route to Lithuania), calling the incident "state hijacking": "Greece strongly condemns the state hijacking that took place today and resulted in the forced landing of Ryanair FR 4978, which operated the Athens-Vilnius route, in Minsk, Belarus," the statement said.

Top EU officials were unanimous in their outrage and condemnation...

The US statement from Secretary Blinken underscored that there had been Americans on board:

"This shocking act perpetrated by the Lukashenka regime endangered the lives of more than 120 passengers, including U.S. citizens," he said late in the day Sunday.

"Initial reports suggesting the involvement of the Belarusian security services and the use of Belarusian military aircraft to escort the plane are deeply concerning and require full investigation," the US statement added.

But at the same time some are pointing to some not-so-distant history where US and European allies did essentially the same thing...

(Assange)


* * *
A bizarre and alarming incident which officials are calling unprecedented unfolded over the skies of Eastern Europe on Sunday. A Ryanair flight which had departed Athens and was en route to Vilnius - the capital of Lithuania - was forced to land in Belarus to allow state intelligence and security services to detain a journalist who's long been critical of President Alexander Lukashenko.

Bloomberg has identified the detained journalist is Raman Pratasevich, described as "the former editor-in-chief of the most popular Telegram news channel in Belarus" who was "arrested in the Minsk airport after the plane landed, according to the Minsk-based human rights center Viasna, which is not officially registered by the country’s authorities."


Neighboring Lithuania had earlier issued Pratasevich asylum after Belarusian authorities had put him on a "terror watch list" related to his journalistic activities, given the 26-year old blogger and activist helped spearhead last year's anti-Lukashenko demonstrations which at times shut down large parts of central Minsk following the disputed August 2020 election which resulted in prolonging the autocrat's rule to a sixth term (which will see him into three decades in power).

The journalist has been dubbed an "extremist" for his role in covering and participating in protests which officials also alleged there was a "foreign hand" behind which had covert NATO support. Pratasevich now faces a severe sentence - if he even goes to trial at all, with some supporters going so far as to suggest a possible death penalty case.

Astoundingly, Belarus' military had scrambled MiG fighter jets in order to divert the plane to Minsk. Bloomberg continues, "The plane, which was flying over Belarus en route to Lithuania, was escorted to Minsk by a MiG-29 fighter jet after a bomb threat, Belarusian state news agency Belta reported, citing the Minsk airport’s press service."

The bomb threat, however, is being widely perceived as but a ruse which ensured the plane would be on Belarusian soil in order to facilitate the controversial detention.
Germany's Deutsche Welle details:

An airport spokesperson told the agency that although authorities did not find any explosive devices on the plane, it was unclear when it would be allowed to take off again.
The opposition Telegram channel Nexta also reported that the plane was searched and that authorities detained the outlet's former editor, Roman Protasevich.
"The plane was checked, no bomb was found and all passengers were sent for another security search," said Nexta. "Among them was... Nexta journalist Roman Protasevich. He was detained."

Image via NEXTA
The episode is quickly gaining international attention and raising alarm in NATO and the European Union, with Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda issuing a statement on Twitter condemning the "unprecedented" and "abhorrent" action of Lukashenko's government.

President Nauseda also said in a written statement released to international press agencies that: "I call on NATO and EU allies to immediately react to the threat posed to international civil aviation by the Belarus regime." He added, "The international community must take immediate steps that this does not repeat."


Also interesting will be the added pressure on both Belarus and Lukashenko-ally Putin over the brazen intervention in a foreign airline's flight path (Ryanair DAC is based in Ireland and did not immediately comment in the hours after the incident), given especially the two leaders are expected to meet again in Sochi this week, Rossiya-1 television reported.

Putin has been widely seen in the West as enabling Lukashenko's dictatorial rule, with Russian officials also seeing recent protests in the former Soviet satellite state as West-backed 'color revolution' activity fueled by external powers designed to expand NATO influence by seeking overthrow of Russia-friendly governments.
************
See this thread also:

INTL - President of Belarus orders fighter jet to intercept civilian aircraft to arrest opposition activist!

Holy Unprintable Bat Man! Now, this guy is diverting civilian airliners with fighter jets to pull opposition leaders living in exile off of it! Ryanair is based in Ireland and is pretty much the "Southwest" Airlines of European budget flights. I can only imagine the terror of the passengers on...

www.timebomb2000.com

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Russian Vessel Enters German Waters For Last Leg Of Nord Stream 2 Pipelaying

BY TYLER DURDEN
TUESDAY, MAY 25, 2021 - 02:45 AM
Late last week the Biden administration slapped yet more sanctions on Russian entities, including 13 vessels and their owners, which are in the final stretch of laying the Russia to German natural gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 (said to be well over 90% complete). Just days prior the administration sent contradictory signals when it removed sanctions against the German overseer of the project Nord Stream 2 AG and CEO Matthias Warnig, in an attempt to mend relations with Berlin.

As expected, the conflicting actions has thwarted neither side of the project, as on Monday for the first time the Russian vessel Fortuna began laying pipes in German waters. While the Fortuna itself is under US sanctions, initially put in place under the Trump White House, Germany's Waterway and Shipping Authority proudly confirmed that it's begun work on this final section.
Via MarineTraffic.com

"All works are performed in accordance with the available permits," Nord Stream 2 said a statement, according to Reuters. "Fortuna will be working in German waters from May 22 to June 30, having earlier laid pipes in Denmark."

On the Russian side state energy giant Gazprom has overseen the $11 billion dollar project, and months ago warned that should the US sanctions noose tighten further, the pipeline could see significant delays.

Germany has along with Russia fought back against Washington efforts to see the construction halted, long rejecting US punitive measures as interference in its domestic affairs, but with last Wednesday's removal of sanctions for the German overseer of the project - this served to drastically ease tensions with Berlin over the matter, with German foreign minister Heiko Maas thanking the Biden administration for doing so.

"We understand the decisions that have been taken in Washington as taking into account the really extraordinarily good relationship that have been built with the Biden administration," Maas had said.

But as we noted at the time, Biden was immediately slammed for the act of "capitulation" after long vowing to get "tough" on Russia by Republicans but also Democrat hawks, including in conservative and independent media outlets which pointed out that Trump would have no doubt been accused of being under "Russian influence" had he been the one to relax sanctions.

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Lithuania's Heroic Stand Against China: The World Should Listen

BY TYLER DURDEN
TUESDAY, MAY 25, 2021 - 03:30 AM
Authored by Anders Corr via The Epoch Times,
Lithuania is a small Baltic country of population 2.8 million and land area 65,300 square kilometers. Compare that to China’s 1.4 billion population and 9.6 million square kilometers. Yet, Lithuania has taken a series of steps against the Chinese Communist Party in recent months that would at times have struck fear into the hearts of larger nations such as the United States, Japan, Germany, and France.

Apparently precipitated by a recognition of the genocide in China’s Xinjiang region, Lithuania blocked Chinese investment, started a trade office in Taiwan, and most recently on May 22, pulled out of a Beijing-led forum for economic cooperation in central and eastern Europe. Lithuania’s actions are indicative of a worsening relationship between the European Union, of which it is a member, and China. Agence France-Presse reports that Lithuania’s actions are angering Beijing.


People take part in a human chain protest in support of the Hong Kong Way, a recreation of a pro-democracy “Baltic Way” protest against Soviet rule three decades ago, in Vilnius, Lithuania on Aug. 23, 2019. (Petras Malukas/AFP via Getty Images)

On Saturday, Lithuania terminated its relationship with China’s 17+1 forum for cooperation with eastern and central European states. The forum is now 16+1, and includes 11 EU countries (Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia) along with Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The latter two are considered a single country.

In an apparent effort at divide-and-conquer, and to increase its influence, Beijing is providing the latter five countries with extensive free vaccines and masks. But a $1 billion loan to Montenegro for a road turned sour, with China’s monopolization of the money for its own construction company, allegations of kickbacks to “thief” politicians, repayments in arrears, the stalling of construction, and a threat of a Chinese takeover of key Montenegrin assets like its main port, which the country might have hocked as loan collateral. Any such takeover, according to EuroNews, could give China “sovereign” territory in Montenegro.

Given the increasingly overbearing circumstances of China’s global economic expansion and influence, Lithuania did the right thing. “There is no such thing as 17+1 anymore, as for practical purposes Lithuania is out,” Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said in an email to Politico.

The wealthier and more democratic EU is obviously the better choice for the country. “Vaccination rollout, tackling pandemics are just [a] few recent examples of the EU27 united in solidarity and purpose. Unity of [the] 27 is key to success in EU’s relations with external partners. Relations with China should be no exception,” the foreign minister told Politico.

Lithuania called the Beijing-led organization “divisive” of European Union unity. Lithuania urged other EU members to leave the forum given deterioration of ties with China over Uyghur forced labor and the sanctioning of EU officials.

According to Agence France-Presse, Landsbergis called upon EU members to seek “a much more effective 27+1 approach and communication with China.”

On May 20, Lithuania’s parliament recognized China’s genocide and crimes against humanity as such. It called for an investigation, by the United Nations, of the Uyghur concentration camps in the Xinjiang region of China, and asked for a review of relations with Beijing by the European Commission.

The same day, the European Parliament froze the EU-China investment deal, until China lifts sanctions against Members of the European Parliament and European scholars. The vote was a major blow to Beijing, which through its genocide and wolf-warrior diplomacy, is steadily alienating its biggest trade partners around the world. The two votes likely precipitated the foreign minister’s announcement of a break with Beijing’s 17+1 grouping. Its singular break, however, indicates continued confusion among EU member states over the need for political and economic distance from Beijing.

Lithuania’s History of Resistance Against Tyranny
Lithuania has extensive experience in trying to maintain its independence from foreign authoritarian rule, including multiple partitions and occupations of its territory in the 18th and 19th-centuries by Russia, Prussia, France, Germany, and Poland. This deep historical understanding of authoritarian imperialism likely in part drives Lithuania’s leadership in objecting to Beijing’s attempts to assert influence over the European Union.

Revolts against Russian rule over Lithuania in the 19th century led to Moscow’s attempts at Russification of the country, which lost its legal code, dating to the 16th century, in 1840. Russian cultural imperialism spurred Lithuanian nationalist and cultural resistance. Beneath the Russian yoke, Lithuanians continued to promote their culture and language through informal schools that utilized Lithuanian-language books smuggled in from Germany.

People form a human chain under the motto “The Baltic Way – It’s Us” from Gediminas Tower to the City Limits in Vilnius, Lithuania on Aug. 23, 2019. From Catalan separatists to Hong Kong pro-democracy activists, the human chain that helped the Baltic states win independence from the Soviet Union three decades ago still inspires freedom-seekers the world over. (Petras Malukas /AFP/Getty Images)

A 1905 Congress, which took advantage of liberalization during the Russian Revolution of 1905, demanded the establishment of an autonomous Lithuanian political entity. But in 1915, the German military occupied Lithuania with the goal of creating a satellite state. The state was proclaimed “independent” in February 1918, only to remain under German military control until the armistice in November 1918. In early 1919, the Soviet military occupied the country, to be pushed out by the Polish army in mid-1919. The Western Allies protected some territory for Lithuania, and two years later after some fighting with Poland, Lithuania joined the League of Nations as an independent sovereign state.

The Red Army, allied with Nazi Germany, re-occupied Lithuania in 1940 and absorbed the country into the Soviet Union. 35,000 Lithuanians were deported. Germany attacked the Soviets in 1941, and occupied Lithuania again. Approximately 250,000 Lithuanians died, most of whom were Jewish. In 1944, the Soviets reoccupied Lithuania, which fought back through guerrilla warfare into the early 1950s. Joseph Stalin deported approximately 220,000 Lithuanians from 1947 to 1949 and forced his cultural reforms on the country. Lithuania retained a fiercely nationalist underground movement, producing more underground publications than did any other republic of the Soviet Union.

Perestroika and glasnost (restructuring and openness) in the Soviet Union created the conditions for an independent Lithuanian legislature that declared independence in 1990. In 2004, after a decade of work, Lithuania achieved membership in the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Lithuania and China Today
The current Lithuanian population is not particularly anti-China. A 2019 Pew survey found that only 33 percent of Lithuanians had an unfavorable view of China, while 45 percent held a favorable view. Compare that to 85 percent of Japanese, 70 percent of Swedes, and 67 percent of Canadians who hold an unfavorable view of the Asian superpower.

The view of China in Lithuania is affected by the economic outlook of the respondent, which makes sense as a major complaint about China is that it steals jobs and technology. “In Lithuania, 55% of those who grade their economy as good have a favorable view of China; just 33% of those who say the economy is in poor shape share that opinion, a 22-point gap,” according to Pew. The median unfavorable view of China across 34 countries polled by Pew in 2019 was 41 percent.

Lithuanians have suffered at the intersection of empire for hundreds of years. The last thing they should want is another aspirant, this time to global hegemony, from as far away as Beijing.

The Lithuanian government has taken such a strong stand against the Chinese Communist Party and its divide-and-conquer tactics should be a signal to the rest of the EU, and to the world. These strong people, who experienced hundreds of years of foreign domination, and who finally achieved freedom in 1990, are telling us something about China. We should listen.

 

[northern watch]

Biden to meet with Putin in Geneva
The meeting is planned for June 16.
By Ben Gittleson
ABC News
25 May 2021, 07:19

President Joe Biden will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 16, according to a statement from White House press secretary Jen Psaki.

Sergei Ilyin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with a cabinet members and high range military officials in the Bocharov Ruchei residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, May 25, 2021.

"The leaders will discuss the full range of pressing issues, as we seek to restore predictability and stability to the U.S.-Russia relationship," Psaki said about their first face-to-face meeting.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Biden to meet with Putin in Geneva - ABC News (go.com)

 

[Plain Jane]

3 arrested in Italy funicular crash; clamp deactivated brake

Police in northern Italy have made three arrests in a cable car disaster that killed 14 people. Authorities said Wednesday that an investigation showed a clamp was placed on the brake as a patchwork repair and prevented the brake from engaging after the lead cable snapped.

apnews.com

3 arrested in Italy cable car crash; clamp deactivated brake
39 minutes ago

Rescuers work by the wreckage of a cable car after it collapsed near the summit of the Stresa-Mottarone line in the Piedmont region, northern Italy, Sunday, May 23, 2021. A mountaintop cable car plunged to the ground in northern Italy on Sunday, killing at least five people and sending at least three more to the hospital, authorities said. (Soccorso Alpino e Speleologico Piemontese via AP)

ROME (AP) — Police in northern Italy arrested three people early Wednesday in the cable car disaster that killed 14 people after an investigation showed a clamp, intentionally placed on the brake as a patchwork repair, prevented the brake from engaging after the lead cable snapped.

Carabinieri Lt. Col. Alberto Cicognani told Sky TG24 that at least one of the three people questioned overnight admitted to what happened. He said the fork-shaped clamp had been placed on the brake specifically to prevent it from engaging because it was braking spontaneously and preventing the funicular from working.

The clamp was put on several weeks ago as a temporary fix to prevent further interruptions in the funicular service, Cicognani said. The cable car line went back into service on April 26 after a wintertime coronavirus-linked shutdown.

After the lead cable snapped Sunday, the cabin reeled back down the line until it pulled off entirely, crashed to the ground and rolled over down the mountainside until it came to rest against some trees. Fourteen people were killed; the lone survivor, a 5-year-old boy, remains hospitalized.

******
See this thread also:

INTL - At least eight dead after cable car falls in Italy [now 14 and the 9 year old in hospital has died]

Last night Italy won the Eurovision contest and normally the nation would rejoicing but the death toll from the crash is up to nine and at least two children are in the hospital with serious injuries. I gather there is a children's playground at the top of this cable car ride, so I don't know...

www.timebomb2000.com

 

[Plain Jane]

Germany's far-right AfD slides further rightward – DW – 05/25/2021

The German far-right party Alternative for Germany has chosen two staunch anti-immigrant hard-liners to lead it into this year's general election. This is a heavy defeat for the more moderate wing of the party.

www.dw.com

AfD far-right gets a boost through new top candidates
The German far-right party Alternative for Germany has chosen two staunch anti-immigrant hard-liners to lead it into this year's general election. This is a heavy defeat for the more moderate wing of the party.


Watch video01:35
Germany's AfD picks duo to lead party into election
Four months ahead of the next federal election, Germany's biggest opposition party, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), has chosen its top candidates for the campaign.

The victors were Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, both of whom are sitting members of parliament. Party members elected the pair with a resounding 71% of the vote share, giving a boost to the more radical far-right forces in the party.


Watch video02:02
Germany's AfD meets to hammer out party platform
Cold shoulder from party leader
Cracks are again beginning to show in the upper ranks of the AfD, the far-right party founded only eight years ago on a nationalist and euroskeptic platform, which has since been amended to emphasize anti-immigration policies.

Weidel and Chrupalla were not the preferred choices of party leader Jörg Meuthen, a member of the European Parliament, who had been promoting more moderate lead candidates for the campaign. His plan failed miserably.

Party co-chair Jörg Meuthen opposes the radical extreme right forces in his party

At a press conference after their nomination had been announced, Weidel and Chrupalla spoke in relaxed tones, called their nomination a great success, and said they saw the AfD now back on track after months of power struggles. The two explained that their main focus was now the fight against coronavirus mitigation measures imposed by the federal government.

"The lockdown is completely excessive," said Weidel, an economist. She warned of Germany's economic decline. She also chose to lash out at the Green party, which is currently leading in the polls, accusing them of intending to lead the country into communism with their climate and energy policies.

Chrupalla invoked the importance of the German middle class. He himself is a craftsman and has warned against small businesses being squeezed amid the economic downturn. The 46-year-old from Saxony joined the AfD in 2015 because of its anti-immigration platform.

He attracted significant criticism in 2020 after the global anti-racism movement sparked by the murder of unarmed Black man George Floyd at the hands of a white police
officer. Chrupalla tweeted about the Black Lives Matter protests, warning that the unrest showed how multiracial societies were doomed and how Germany needed to avoid such a development.

• 

More recently, Chrupalla has been advocating more moderate language — drastic messages would put off women voters, he said.

Weidel, who hails from western Germany, joined the AfD in 2013 and has held a high party office for several years. The openly gay co-head of the party in parliament opposes same-sex marriage, although she herself raises two children with her partner, who is of Sri Lankan origin. Weidel has been embroiled in a scandal over the false declaration of party finances and has more recently faced inner-party criticism for not pulling her weight in the regional election campaign for her home state of Baden-Württemberg.

At Tuesday's press conference, Chrupalla and Weidel were not big on the details of what exactly they want to change.

The AfD has no chance of playing a part in the German government after September's federal elections. The AfD strongly opposes all other parties — which, in turn, are unified against the far-right party.

Opinion polls put the AfD at over 10% of the vote
Support from extreme-right 'Wing' faction
The nomination of Weidel and Chrupalla is a victory for the AfD's radical fringe. For months, the extreme faction of the party, called "the Wing," has been under investigation by the German domestic intelligence service. A report by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution collected some 1,000 pages of evidence on the anti-constitutional nature of the "Wing," which has since been formally dissolved.

Now, it seems that moderates around party co-chair Jörg Meuthen are on the retreat. "The outlook for party leader Meuthen has become worse," political scientist Frank Decker said on the Phoenix television station. "He has to expect that he will not survive in office at the next party conference." However, that will not take place until after the Bundestag elections in September.


Watch video26:05
Fiasco in Thuringia: Will the AfD Destroy Merkel's Legacy?
Against immigration, gender sensitivity and Islam
The AfD is calling for a radical restructuring of German society: The party wants to severely limit immigration and believes that citizenship should once again be dependent on a person's origin.

The party wants funding cut for numerous projects that fight racism or support a modern understanding of gender. The AfD also doubts the reality of human-made climate change and wants Germany to continue to rely on coal and nuclear energy, both of which have been significantly reduced in recent decades. The party rejects the EU and has called for Germany to leave the bloc.

Weidel and Chrupalla said their main opponents in the election were Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats. Their election goal, they said, is to become stronger than the center-left Social Democrats, who are currently struggling.

The AfD is currently polling at around 11% of likely voters.

Hans Pfeifer contributed to this report.

 

[northern watch]

Switzerland ends talks toward sweeping new accords with EU
The Swiss government has pulled out of years-long negotiations with the European Union on a comprehensive package of bilateral accords

By JAMEY KEATEN and FRANK JORDANS Associated Press
26 May 2021, 10:05

The Associated Press
FILE - In this Friday, July 12, 2019 file photo, Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis attends a joint news conference after talks in Ankara, Turkey. The Swiss government said Wednesday, May 26, 2021 that years-long negotiations with the European Union on a comprehensive package of bilateral accords have collapsed, after the two sides failed to reach agreement on key issues including the cross-border movement of jobseekers. Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said the Alpine nation's government informed EU chief Ursula von der Leyen about its decision to withdraw from the talks — a breakdown that could resonate with Britain as it seeks to flesh out its own ties with the bloc following the wrenching, divisive Brexit process. (AP Photo/Burhan Ozbilici, file)

GENEVA -- The Swiss government on Wednesday pulled out of years-long negotiations with the European Union on a comprehensive package of bilateral accords, after the two sides failed to reach agreement on the cross-border movement of jobseekers and other key issues.

Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis said the government informed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen about Switzerland's decision to withdraw from the talks — a breakdown that could resonate with Britain as it seeks to flesh out its own ties with the EU following the wrenching, divisive Brexit process.

The collapse of talks could have significant repercussions for the wealthy Alpine nation of about 8.5 million people, which is all but surrounded by EU nations. Some 1.4 million EU citizens live in Switzerland, and about 340,000 people commute across the border to work in an array of Swiss industries.

The negotiations largely stumbled over EU demands for its citizens to have full access to the Swiss labor market, including those seeking work. Switzerland had resisted such a move. Cassis said it could mark a “paradigm shift” which might result in non-Swiss citizens getting social security rights.

Cassis said Switzerland hoped to remain a close partner of the 27-nation bloc, with which it has more than 100 bilateral treaties, but also suggested his country deserved respect it wasn't getting from the EU.

“We want Switzerland to be treated on an equal footing compared to other third-party states (outside the EU), whether it's a question of cooperation or the recognition of equal standards," Cassis told reporters in Bern, the capital.

The EU's executive Commission expressed regret at what it called a “unilateral” Swiss decision, and said the negotiations were aimed to ensure that anyone with access to the bloc's single market faces the same conditions. It said decades-old EU-Swiss agreements were “not up to speed” for current bilateral ties.

"We will now analyze carefully the impact of this announcement," it said.

But the bloc has been unflinching in its previous warnings about what a failure to strike the “institutional framework agreement” would mean. The EU has circulated a fact sheet suggesting that a lack of common rules could cause Switzerland to lose its “privileged” connection with the bloc’s electricity system and that the lack of a framework accord was “hampering access of Swiss air carriers to the EU’s internal market.”

The EU also suggested that cooperation in the health sector or labor market would suffer. It has warned that failure to reach an agreement could harm numerous existing agreements, including cooperation in the areas of trade, education and research.

Over the years, the Swiss have demonstrated hot-and-cold attitudes about EU migrants, which has put pressure on top politicians in a country where a nationalist, populist party still holds the most seats in parliament.

Lawmakers, bound by previous pacts with the EU, struggled to apply the popular will as expressed in a 2014 referendum called “Stop mass immigration,” which largely was intended to cap the number of EU citizens in Switzerland.

Cassis acknowledged that the potential cost of granting the EU's demands were only part of the calculation.

“A very important element, which the federal council perhaps considered more serious, was the political dimension,” he said. “If there's one issue that's delicate and sensitive in the population, it's the issue of free movement."

The minister suggested that after spending years fine-tuning its immigration policy to achieve “social peace," the Swiss government did not want to upset that balance.

Cassis said the government has long maintained that it wants to keep ties built on bilateral agreements and that other talks could continue even if the ones on a sweeping framework accord had failed.

“This shouldn’t be compared with Brexit at all. Brexit was the exact opposite,” Cassis said. “They (the British) took a step backward and wanted to completely distance themselves. So it’s a totally different logic than that of Brexit, and we are not before a cliff edge.”

———

Jordans reported from Berlin. Raf Casert in Brussels contributed to this report.


Switzerland ends talks toward sweeping new accords with EU - ABC News (go.com)

 

[Melodi]

Thanks, I was going to post the Switzerland article but this is a much better version than the one I found. Although the other article made the point that the EU DEMANDED pretty much that Switzerland sign on to the free travel, employment, and everything else they wanted.

Switzerland basically just told them to go stuff themselves, and I'm not surprised. This will make life a bit more difficult for some activities but no one likes to be pushed around.

This is right on the heels of the same Ursula Van Der Lynn telling the Brits/Northern Irish that the Irish protocol was the ONLY solution and that it MUST be implemented. I have a nasty feeling that the Irish Republic and the Brits are either going to have to figure out have to have a hard border on the Island (not that I like that idea) or find a way for Northern Ireland to have a semi-independent status or even a unification vote (which might not pass right now).

There may also be another agenda here and I don't know if this is the case with Switzerland but like England, they have a viable military and most of their citizens have some military training (especially the men and that will soon include young women).

One reason it is rumored that BREXIT was pushed so hard is that they had the best viable military in the EU and that the EU was planning to demand they simply "join in" a "united" EU military. That was never official so I can't verify it but I suspect it is true and I also have to wonder if behind the scenes the same demand were made of Switzerland (or at least to share a lot of stuff).

Now watch NORWAY, as they have a similar set of "agreements" with the EU patched together over time, and if the EU makes similar demands on them, they may also choose to play ball.

Interesting times...

 

[Plain Jane]

Azerbaijan arrests 6 Armenian soldiers at border – DW – 05/27/2021

Relations between the two countries remain strained following last year's war over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

www.dw.com

Azerbaijan arrests 6 Armenian soldiers at border
Relations between the two countries remain strained following last year's war over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.




The two countries fought a war last year over a breakaway region

Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said on Thursday that six Armenian servicemen were detained as they attempted to cross the border.

According to the Azeri army, an "intelligence-sabotage group" of Armenian soldiers tried to cross to the other side at around 3 a.m. local time (0700 UTC).

Armenia's Defense Ministry confirmed the arrests but said that Azerbaijan captured the soldiers "while [they were] carrying out engineering works in bordering area of Gegharkunik region of Armenia."

In November, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a Russian-brokered deal to end the military conflict over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

But tensions have been rising again since both countries last month accused the other of opening fire in Karabakh and their shared border.


Watch video22:52
Nagorno-Karabakh: Returning home to a new reality
What are the recent tensions?
Armenia had accused Azerbaijan of firing at Armenian positions earlier this week. Azerbaijan denied the accusation.

An Armenian soldier was killed in a border shootout with Azerbaijani forces on Tuesday, according to Armenia's Defense Ministry.

Earlier this month, Armenia also accused the Azeri military of crossing its southern border in an "infiltration" to "lay siege" to a lake shared by the two countries.

The United States and France have called on Azerbaijan to withdraw its forces from Armenian territories.


Watch video03:29
Fighting continues in Nagorno-Karabakh despite truce
What was the Armenia-Azerbaijan war about?
The war over a breakaway Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan erupted in late September, with some 6,000 people killed in six weeks of fighting.

The Russian-brokered cease-fire ended six weeks of heavy fighting and advancement by Azeri forces.

Azerbaijan retook much of the land in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, which it lost in a war 1991 to 1994 that killed and displaced tens of thousands of people.

 

[Plain Jane]

I'm not sure what to make of this.

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

BaNZai7 Food and Beverage Warning...

Lukashenko Lashes Out After BBC & Others Admit Detained Activist's Ukrainian Azov Battalion Ties

BY TYLER DURDEN
WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 2021 - 11:20 PM
Belarus' long time leader Alexander Lukashenko has spoken out on Wednesday over the Ryanair diverted flight saga, pushing back against widespread accusations coming from the former Soviet satellite country's opposition but especially Western leaders that his security services engaged in "state hijacking" of the airliner carrying activist and blogger Roman Protasevich. Promises of EU and US additional sanctions were swift after Protasevich and his girlfriend were detained on charges of inciting riots and publishing the personal information of police and officers of the state online. State airline Belavia is also facing an airspace ban over Europe and carriers out of the EU are avoiding flying over Belarus.

Instead of concealing the ordeal or downplaying the detention which has attracted international media scrutiny and outrage, Lukashenko has gone on the offense, lashing out at his critics while justifying the detention of Protasevich, calling him an "extremist" who was ultimately taking cues from a foreign entity in his activism and journalism, or even "inciting riots" - as he's being charged with. "One extremist with his female accomplice. So let his numerous Western patrons answer this question: Which intelligence services did this individual work for?" Lukashenko said as quoted by the Belarus Segodnya newspaper.
Via EPA

"Not only him but his accomplice as well. These Western advocates should answer one more question: who paid him for taking part in the war in Donbass?" Belarus' president added, "Perhaps, they fear this the most. So they’re making a fuss. His experience as a mercenary is huge."

It's long been reported and a subject of controversy in Belarusian and Eastern European media that Pratasevich was indeed in war-torn Donbas in Ukraine at the height of fighting there in 2015. And BBC among others is now acknowledging:

"Mr Protasevich confirmed in an interview last year that he had spent a year in the conflict-hit Donbas region and was wounded, but said he was covering the conflict as a journalist and photographer."

He was "embedded" with the far-right and neo-Nazi linked Azov Battalion while they fought fierce battles against pro-Russia separatists. However, BBC notes that Protasevich has insisted he was only there as a journalist: "A former commander of the Azov unit has backed Mr Protasevich's version of events, confirming that he spent time with them as a journalist and was wounded," the report says.

Minsk is now accusing the young detained activist of essentially being a mercenary and "terrorist" who's long plotted the overthrow of the legitimate government. Lukashenko added in his Wednesday comments:

"These facts are well-known not only here, but in brotherly Russia, and also throughout the world. And he did not hide this. Well, here, in Belarus, he and his accomplices also plotted a massacre and a bloody coup," Lukashenko said further.

Photographs of Protasevich's time in Eastern Ukraine increasingly point to him having been more than a mere journalist in the conflict...

The Belarusian president stressed and claimed further that "there was a terrorist on that plane."
Via Sky News
Instead of skirting the issue, Lukashenko owned up directly to authorizing Protasevich being removed from the plane along with his girlfriend:

"According to the law, this person had been put on a terrorist list, and his organization is recognized as an extremist one. Who does not know this? And that we detained him, a Belarusian national, and his partner who holds our residence permit at the airport, this is our sovereign right to do so," he said.

However, the president stated the Ryanair flight was not initially diverted because of efforts to apprehend Protasevich, but because there was a bomb threat. The West has accused the bomb threat of being a ruse orchestrated to force the plane's emergency diversion and landing.
Via TASS
"As we predicted, ill-wishers from outside and inside the country have changed their ways of attacking our country," Lukashenko said, according to state media. "They crossed many red lines, crossed the boundaries of common sense and human morality."

 

[Melodi]

It means Mr. Dictator is just kept piling it on higher and deeper - trying to make this young man and his girlfriend into terrorists to justify his state-sponsored hijacking.

Personally, I suspect it is possible he was a journalist in Ukraine and I would also not be surprised if he was being indirectly supported by people like Soros.

That doesn't matter in this situation, because the issue that has the Europeans madder than I have ever seen then over anything is that the plane was that a CIVILIAN airline was ordered by a fighter jet to land due to a false bomb scare and forced to land not at the nearest airport but in Minsk. At which point the young man and his probably innocent girlfriend were removed from the plane, the passengers were searched and terrified (aka held hostage in the view of many) before being returned to Vilnius.

Every day this dictator's accusations get wilder as he realizes that Europe (not just the EU either) is not totally a paper tiger and that they mean business when it comes to actually make his regime a pariah like North Korea only in the heart of Europe.

That doesn't mean the young man in question is "white as snow" or that his girlfriend is a perfect person. If they had been kidnapped in an "operation" off the street there would still be horror and push back but not on this scale.

This is getting really ugly, and I mean really ugly.

 

[Plain Jane]

It means Mr. Dictator is just kept piling it on higher and deeper - trying to make this young man and his girlfriend into terrorists to justify his state-sponsored hijacking.

Personally, I suspect it is possible he was a journalist in Ukraine and I would also not be surprised if he was being indirectly supported by people like Soros.

That doesn't matter in this situation, because the issue that has the Europeans madder than I have ever seen then over anything is that the plane was that a CIVILIAN airline was ordered by a fighter jet to land due to a false bomb scare and forced to land not at the nearest airport but in Minsk. At which point the young man and his probably innocent girlfriend were removed from the plane, the passengers were searched and terrified (aka held hostage in the view of many) before being returned to Vilnius.

Every day this dictator's accusations get wilder as he realizes that Europe (not just the EU either) is not totally a paper tiger and that they mean business when it comes to actually make his regime a pariah like North Korea only in the heart of Europe.

That doesn't mean the young man in question is "white as snow" or that his girlfriend is a perfect person. If they had been kidnapped in an "operation" off the street there would still be horror and push back but not on this scale.

This is getting really ugly, and I mean really ugly.

Thanks for answering. I do get the feeling that there is something larger going on here. Especially with Biden meeting Putin in just over 2 weeks. Something really feels off about the whole situation.

 

[northern watch]

 

[Plain Jane]

Putin hails closer relations with Belarus in meeting with Lukashenko

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday praised closer ties between Russia and Belarus during talks with strongman Alexander Lukashenko, a day after the UN civil aviation agency announced it would…

www.france24.com

Putin to meet Lukashenko in display of support after Belarus plane diversion
Issued on: 28/05/2021 - 08:04

File photo of Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in Moscow on April 22, 2021. AFP - MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV
Text by:FRANCE 24Follow
6 min
Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on Friday in a critical display of Moscow’s support for Lukashenko's regime, a day after the UN civil aviation agency announced it would investigate Sunday's diversion of a Ryanair plane and the arrest of a journalist on board.


The meeting in Sochi between the Kremlin and the Belarusian leader, who enjoys strong support from Moscow, comes as airlines revealed Russia has blocked some European flights for avoiding Belarusian airspace.

The G7 global powers have demanded Belarus release the journalist, Roman Protasevich, and the EU's foreign policy chief threatened hard-hitting economic sanctions.

The meeting comes a day after the UN civil aviation agency, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Council said it had "decided to undertake a fact-finding investigation of this event".

The Montreal-based agency said the investigation "underlined the importance of establishing the facts of what happened, and of understanding whether there had been any breach by any ICAO Member State of international aviation law."

01:08
Lukashenko sparked international outrage by dispatching a fighter jet Sunday to intercept a Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius carrying Protasevich, 26, and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega, 23.

A nervous-looking Protasevich was last seen in a video released by Belarusian authorities on Monday in which he was seen supposedly admitting to helping to organise mass unrest, a charge that could land him 15 years in jail.

"I want you to relay our appeal everywhere, throughout the world, to government representatives, to EU countries, to EU leaders, to US leaders: I am appealing, I am begging, help me free my son," his mother Natalia told journalists in Warsaw, visibly moved.

His father Dmitry said his son was "a tough man" and "a hero", adding: "Throughout his life he fought for the truth and passed it on to people, which is why Lukashenko committed this despicable act."

The couple and their lawyer confirmed they have not had any communication with Protasevich since his arrest.

'Immediate and unconditional release'
Foreign ministers of the Group of Seven wealthy nations on Thursday demanded the "immediate and unconditional release" of Protasevich, "as well as all other journalists and political prisoners held in Belarus", in a joint statement published by the British government.
The European Union's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said proposals were "on the table" to target key sectors of the Belarusian economy.

He mooted targeting the potash fertiliser sector or refusing gas being delivered to the bloc via Belarus over the "hijacking" of the plane by the regime.

Borrell was echoed by German Foreign Minister Heiko Mass, who also raised the possibility of hitting key firms in the fertiliser sector and said the EU could curb the Belarusian government's ability to issue bonds in Europe.

But he played down the likelihood of the bloc agreeing quickly to reject gas transiting through pipelines in Belarus, insisting it was "more of a medium and long-term issue".

The bloc was also looking at "targeted sanctions" against the Belarusian authorities to add to the 88 regime figures and seven companies already on a blacklist over a brutal crackdown on the opposition after last year's disputed presidential election.

Yet even as the EU prepares a range of sanctions, Moscow's continued backing has emboldened Lukashenko.

At a Thursday briefing in Vilnius, where she fled after last year's election, exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya called for an "economic boycott of the regime".

Christophe Deloire, head of media rights watchdog Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) was also in Lithuania to file a legal complaint against Lukashenko with prosecutors investigating Sunday's incident.

Lukashenko still enjoys solid support from Putin, with the Kremlin website describing "integration" between the two nations as "a long-term cherished project for Moscow" ahead of their meeting at the Russian leader's summer residence in Sochi.

Air links cut
The ICAO, of which Belarus is a member, has no power to order sanctions and Russia's support for Minsk means the UN Security Council is unlikely to agree on a collective statement.

However EU nations are banning Belarusian carriers and the EU has also urged airlines to avoid the country's airspace.

On Thursday, Austrian Airlines said it had cancelled a Vienna-Moscow flight after Russian authorities did not approve a route change avoiding Belarusian airspace.

An Air France flight from Paris to Moscow on Wednesday had to be cancelled for the same reason.

'Europe's last dictator'
A defiant Lukashenko said he had "acted lawfully to protect our people" from an alleged bomb threat on the plane, in a parliament address Wednesday.

The criticism was nothing more than another attempt by his opponents to undermine his rule, he added.
Lukashenko, often dubbed "Europe's last dictator", is facing some of the strongest international pressure of his nearly 27 years ruling ex-Soviet Belarus.

He and his allies are already under a series of Western sanctions over a crackdown on protests after his disputed re-election to a sixth term last August.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Norway's Oil Industry Boosts Investment Despite IEA Report

BY TYLER DURDEN
FRIDAY, MAY 28, 2021 - 05:00 AM
Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,
Oil firms expect to spend 4.8 percent more on oil and gas operations offshore Norway in 2021 compared to the previous estimate three months ago, thanks to more fields coming on stream, Statistics Norway said in its quarterly survey on Wednesday.


Total investments in oil and gas activity, including pipeline transportation, are now estimated at US$21.8 billion (181.9 billion Norwegian crowns) for this year, which is 4.8 percent higher than estimated in the previous quarter. The higher investment forecast is mainly driven by field development and fields coming on stream, Statistics Norway said.

Since the last quarter, the industry has filed with authorities development plans for two oil and gas fields, which were not included in the previous estimate.

The upward revision of expected investments now point to slight growth of 0.9 percent in 2021 compared to 2020.

Yet, current estimates for investments in oil and gas in Norway in 2022—albeit higher in the latest survey than in the previous one – still point to an overall drop next year compared to this year. The latest investment forecast for 2022 is US$17.2 billion (142.8 billion crowns), up by 3.1 percent compared to the estimate in the previous survey in February.
At the end of last year, the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association said that investments in oil and gas offshore Norway were set to decline by 4.2 percent in 2021 compared to 2020, a smaller drop than what the industry feared in early 2020.

The association, the main industry body and employer’s organization for the sector, commented last week on the bombshell report of the International Energy Association (IEA) that suggests no new investments in oil and gas are needed if the world wants to reach net-zero emissions in 2050.

“Norwegian Oil and Gas does not share the assumption that Opec members alone should account for more than half of oil and gas production for the world market in a 2050 perspective. If demand does not decline as rapidly as the IEA assumes in its scenario, and the supply side is simultaneously choked off, global energy provision could be threatened and lead to very high energy prices,” the association said in a statement.

The industry body also noted that halting oil and gas exploration offshore Norway would deprive the country of revenues and jobs necessary for supporting industries such as carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, and recovering seabed minerals.

 

[northern watch]

As Russia tensions simmer, NATO conducts massive war games

Thousands of NATO troops, several warships and dozens of aircraft are taking part in military exercises stretching across the Atlantic and into the Black Sea region as tensions with Russia simmer

By LORNE COOK Associated Press
28 May 2021, 02:17

The Associated Press
Military personnel inspect US and British jets as they participate in the NATO Steadfast Defender 2021 exercise on board the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth off the coast of Portugal, Thursday, May 27, 2021. NATO has helped provide security in Afghanistan for almost two decades but the government and armed forces in the conflict-torn country are strong enough to stand on their own feet without international troops to back them, the head of the military organization said Thursday. (AP Photo/Ana Brigida)

ABOARD HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH -- As tensions with Russia simmer, thousands of NATO troops, several warships and dozens of aircraft are taking part in military exercises stretching across the Atlantic, through Europe and into the Black Sea region.

The war games, dubbed Steadfast Defender 21, are aimed at simulating the 30-nation military organization’s response to an attack on any one of its members. It will test NATO’s ability to deploy troops from America and keep supply lines open.

Already in recent years, the United States and its allies have deployed troops and equipment in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to try to reassure those members neighboring Russia that their partners will ride to the rescue should they come under attack.

Russia’s decision last month to send thousands of troops to the border area with Ukraine has raised concern at the military alliance, which launched one of its biggest ever defense spending initiatives after Russian troops annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

Top NATO brass insist that the military exercises, involving some 9,000 troops from 20 nations, are not aimed at Russia specifically, but they focus on the Black Sea region, where Russia stands accused of blocking the free navigation of ships.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the exercises send an important message to any potential adversary: “NATO is ready.”

“NATO is there to defend all our allies, and this exercise sends a message about our ability to transport a large number of troops, equipment across the Atlantic, across Europe and also to project maritime power,” Stoltenberg told The Associated Press aboard a British aircraft carrier off the coast of Portugal.

The ship, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, is the pride of the British Navy. It’s making its maiden voyage and carrying 18 F-35 jets: the first ever deployment of so many of the 5th generation planes aboard an aircraft carrier.

The ship’s presence, part of a 6-7 month deployment that will take it south past India, through Southeast Asia to the Philippines Sea, is aimed in part at restoring Britain’s tarnished image as a major global power since it left the European Union.

Adorned with high-tech U.S. jets and flanked by warships from other NATO countries, the carrier strike force also stands as an important symbol of unity as the world’s biggest security organization tries to recover from four tumultuous years under the Trump administration.

Stoltenberg will chair a NATO summit in Brussels on June 14 with current U.S. President Joe Biden and his counterparts keen to usher in a new era of trans-Atlantic cooperation, as troops leave its longest-ever mission in Afghanistan while tensions with Russia, and increasingly China, mount.

The war games tie in two new NATO command centers, one in Norfolk, Virginia; the other in Ulm, Germany. Part of the focus of its first phase was to protect the undersea cables that carry masses of commercial and communications data between the U.S. and Europe.

NATO says Russia is mapping the cables’ routing and might have darker intentions.

“We all lulled ourselves into thinking that the Atlantic was a benign region in which there was not anything bad going on, and we could just use it as a free highway,” Norfolk’s commander, U.S. Navy Vice-Admiral Andrew Lewis said.

“There are nations are out there mapping those cables. They may be doing something else bad. We have to be aware of that and answer that,” he told reporters.

NATO says its policy toward Russia is based on two pillars: strong military deterrence and dialogue. But high-level meetings between the two historic foes are rare, and European officials insist that President Vladimir Putin is turning increasingly authoritarian and distancing himself from the West.

“We’re ready to sit down with Russia, because we think it’s important to talk, especially when times are difficult,” Stoltenberg said. “The main challenge now is that Russia has not responded positively to our invitation, or our initiative, for a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council,” their top consultative forum.

As Russia tensions simmer, NATO conducts massive war games - ABC News (go.com)

 

[Melodi]

“We all lulled ourselves into thinking that the Atlantic was a benign region in which there was not anything bad going on, and we could just use it as a free highway,” Norfolk’s commander, U.S. Navy Vice-Admiral Andrew Lewis said.

“There are nations are out there mapping those cables. They may be doing something else bad. We have to be aware of that and answer that,” he told reporters.

NATO says its policy toward Russia is based on two pillars: strong military deterrence and dialogue. But high-level meetings between the two historic foes are rare, and European officials insist that President Vladimir Putin is turning increasingly authoritarian and distancing himself from the West.

“We’re ready to sit down with Russia, because we think it’s important to talk, especially when times are difficult,” Stoltenberg said. “The main challenge now is that Russia has not responded positively to our invitation, or our initiative, for a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council,” their top consultative forum.

As Russia tensions simmer, NATO conducts massive war games - ABC News (go.com)

THIS! The Cable situation is very worrying, cables are what run most of the worlds current internet...

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Man stabs, shoots 3 French police officers; motive unclear | Law-Order

When he was located, he fired on officers trying to arrest him, the gendarme service said.Police and ambulances blocked roads in the normally quiet, residential area.Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and the Nantes prosecutor headed to the scene of the attack.

www.devdiscourse.com

Man stabs, shoots 3 French police officers; motive unclear
When he was located, he fired on officers trying to arrest him, the gendarme service said.Police and ambulances blocked roads in the normally quiet, residential area.Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and the Nantes prosecutor headed to the scene of the attack.

• PTI
• |
• Paris
• |
• Updated: 28-05-2021 05:49 IST
• |
• Created: 28-05-2021 05:49 IST

An unidentified assailant stabbed a police officer at her station in western France then shot two other officers before being detained Friday, authorities said. The motive for the attack is unclear.
The suspect was gravely wounded during the arrest, France's national gendarme service told The Associated Press. His identity is being verified.

The three officers were wounded but none is in life-threatening condition, the gendarmes said.

After stabbing the first police officer in her station in the Nantes suburb of La Chapelle-sur-Erdre, the assailant took her gun and fled, according to the gendarme service.

French police deployed helicopters, search dogs and more than 200 officers to find the suspect, and closed nearby schools and stores. When he was located, he fired on officers trying to arrest him, the gendarme service said.

Police and ambulances blocked roads in the normally quiet, residential area.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and the Nantes prosecutor headed to the scene of the attack. Domestic security and attacks on police are a big political issue ahead of regional elections next month and France's presidential election next year.

Two police employees have been killed in France in recent weeks. One was an administrative official stabbed to death inside her police station near Paris in what authorities are investigating as an Islamic extremist attack. The other was a drug squad officer shot to death in the southern city of Avignon.

 

[Housecarl]

Posted for fair use.....

Field Report: The Netherlands as a narcostate and the emergence of a methamphetamine industry | Small Wars Journal

This field report looks at the drugs trade in the Netherlands. It draws from SWJ-El Centro Fellow Teun Voeten’s journalistic experience and updates the discussion contained in “Chapter 6, The Netherlands as a narco-state, and Antwerp as its principle cocaine hub” in his SWJ-El Centro book...

smallwarsjournal.com

Thu, 05/27/2021 - 7:00pm
Field Report: The Netherlands as a narcostate and the emergence of a methamphetamine industry
Teun Voeten

Many people associate Holland with a lovely but brave country that for centuries has managed to put up a heroic fight against the sea. It exports cheese, grows tulips, and has an easygoing attitude towards prostitution and soft drugs, making it a rather relaxed and adorable place. What most people do not realize is that the Netherlands, a trading nation for centuries with an excellent infrastructure, has become a major drug hub in Europe. Drug related violence is also on the rise. Holland is even becoming the major European production center for crystal meth.

In February 2018, a Dutch police report called the Netherlands a narcostate. The report said that due to a lack of manpower and money, organized crime is expanding with impunity and is infiltrating the legal economy.[1] The report was a shock for the Netherlands and was met with disbelief, rejection and denial. The Dutch pride themselves on their tolerant stance towards drugs and attribute even a moral superiority to this attitude, considering themselves a shining example for the rest of the world to follow.

But the report was correct. Many people interpret a narcostate as a dysfunctional failed state, where thugs armed with Kalashnikovs are roaming the streets, with high levels of chaos and violence. But explicit violence, bloodshed and terror on every street corner are not the essence of a narcostate. Violence is used by sophisticated drug syndicates as well as most organized crime groups in a very selective way since it alerts authorities and is a waste of human and financial resources. Therefore, it is not conducive for smooth business operations. The true essence of a narcostate is an important parallel drug economy, corruption, impunity, and infiltration. Holland scores high on all these points and therefore can be rightly called a narcostate, albeit a functional one.

The growth of the drugs industry in the Netherlands
The story of the Dutch drug industry starts with Robert Jasper Grootveld, the rather idealistic figurehead of the 1960s Provo movement, a fluid group of artists and activists with a rebellious streak.[2] Their libertarian idea was that marijuana consumers should grow their own pot on their balcony without interference from the government or the capitalist free market. Inspired by the Provos, the Dutch authorities started to develop a lax and tolerant attitude towards drugs that gave rise to the so-called coffee shops where sales of small quantities (30 grams) of cannabis were tolerated.

This system was meant to decriminalize cannabis use, but actually was a rather schizophrenic policy; production remained illegal and soon a huge underground pot industry emerged. Also, the quantity tolerated, 30 grams, was in fact a nice stockpile for a dealer and Dutch coffee shops were flooded with clients from neighboring countries such as France, Germany, and Belgium who drove just across the border to stock up a serious stash they intended to sell back home. In the 1990s, there were around 2,000 coffee shops in Holland. The most notorious was coffee shop “Checkpoint” in the Southern border town of Terneuzen that at one point boasted 5,000 clients a day, mostly foreigners. The city had placed traffic signs to guide visitors to the coffee shop and had made a special parking place, as a proud mayor showed flabbergasted foreign delegations. In short, Dutch policy makers looked the other way when a large underground cannabis economy started to flourish. A whole generation of criminologists did not see, or chose not to see, this inconvenient side effect and a self-congratulatory attitude reigned.

Actually, most people did not take this illegal agribusiness seriously, in much the same way poppy plantations were condoned in the early 20th century in Mexico. Soon however, the Dutch marijuana sector started to professionalize and became a profitable million-dollar industry, using the latest agricultural techniques and branching out into grow shops and seed banks. In the early1980s, the Dutch cannabis sector lost its innocence definitively when it diversified into synthetic drug production. Holland became Europe’s biggest amphetamine producer. In the late 1980s, the Dutch also started to produce MDMA, the psychedelic ingredient in Ecstasy pills. This was a very profitable export business. A pill that would have a street value of $2 US in Holland, would fetch sometimes $30 US in Australia. To this day, Holland remains the biggest Ecstasy producer in the world. In the 21st century, illegal drugs have become a huge parallel economy with escalating violence that could no longer be ignored. Over time, Holland started to develop the traits of a narcostate, with a considerable narcotic sector.

Crystal meth from Michoacán, MX © Teun Voeten, November 2009

Booming Drugs Business
The drug economy is booming in the Netherlands. Holland is a significant consumer country, for nationals as well as tourists. It is also the most important production center in Europe for marijuana and synthetic drugs and it exports MDMA and Ecstasy pills on worldwide. Holland is also a trendsetter in agricultural innovation. Thanks to cross breeding and enrichment techniques, Dutch marijuana has a THC content that is 4 to 5 times as high as the pot sold in the 1960s and can be classified as a hard drug.
As a transit country, Holland processes considerable amounts of Moroccan hash and Afghan opium. The Netherlands is also the biggest import country in Europe for cocaine, that goes either through the harbor of Antwerp in the neighboring country of Belgium, or through its own port of Rotterdam. It is estimated that 90 percent of the cocaine that enters through Antwerp is recuperated by a skilled class of middlemen, and goes straight to the Netherlands where it is distributed throughout the rest of Europe.[3]

Over the last decade, there has been a steady yearly increase of between 10 and 25 percent in cocaine confiscated in the two port cities. The latest numbers for 2020 confirm this trend. In 2020, authorities discovered 40 tons in Rotterdam, and 65 tons in Antwerp. With its lenient tax laws for big corporations, Holland is an attractive country to launder and reinvest money. According to Roberto Saviano, who wrote the classic exposé Gomorra on the Italian mafia, Amsterdam is actually worse than Naples since it has become an international hub for several international drug syndicates to launder money.[4]

Regarding consumption, the Netherlands ranks at the top in Europe. The pungent odor of strong weed (called “skunk”) hangs in nearly every street in the center of Amsterdam. At dance parties, it is common that everybody is high on drugs. Hundreds of thousands of drug tourists visit Amsterdam every year and thousands of dealers from Belgium, Germany and France come to Dutch cities where they are guided by local drug runners to drug houses. The Dutch government spends considerable energy and money to educate the public on the dangers of tobacco and alcohol. No such campaigns exist for drugs and a generation of adolescents waste their brains and descend into apathy smoking harmful, ultra-strong weed in coffee shops. Thanks to free methadon hand-outs for heroïne addicts, the conspicuous junkies that in the 1980s roamed the touristic centre of Amsterdam have disappeared from public view. However, a new generation of problematic drug users, most from the lower social economic strata, get high from home-made GHB or other synthetic drugs that are freely available on the internet, but this time out of sight, behind closed shutters of their rent-subsidized apartments.

In Mexico, narcotics provide an estimated 10 to 20 percent of GNP. In the Netherlands the exact number remains a guess, but Dutch researchers Pieter Tops and Jan Tromp estimated in 2017 that marijuana cultivation is the biggest economic sector in the southern city of Tilburg.[5] With a yearly revenue of 800 million, this industry is larger than the total city budget. In 2018, these researchers presented shocking numbers that the synthetic drugs industry in the Netherlands had grossed nearly 20 billion, just as much as the largest Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn.

Impunity and soft sentences
Dutch law is very soft on drug offenders. Possession of a kilo of heroin carries a twenty years sentence in Greece. In Holland, this is only one year. Drug dealing goes on undisturbed in most parts of the Netherlands. In Amsterdam, a class of couriers—mostly with an immigrant background—delivers packets of cocaine throughout the city without any interference from the authorities. These kids are lured into making thousands a week resulting in a whole generation that has dropped out of high school to chase short term materialistic goals. This growing class of small drug couriers provides a fertile recruiting ground for people aspiring to mid and high-level positions in the industry.

Continued.....

 

[Housecarl]

Continued.....

2010 was the most violent year for Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, when over 3,000 people were killed, 98.5 percent of these murder cases were never resolved. In Holland, district attorney Greetje Bos stated that the 400 drugs cases she prosecuted in her jurisdiction, resulted only in six convictions, due to procedural and stalling techniques from lawyers. This percentage of 1.5 percent of convictions is coincidentally the same as in Juárez. Like in Mexico, many Dutch people have little confidence in the legal apparatus and only 20 percent of crimes are reported. According to the Police Union, officers are overwhelmed by bureaucratic procedures and have the manpower to investigate only one out of nine serious cases. Just like multinationals that establish themselves in countries with the most lenient tax laws, drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) base themselves in countries with the most liberal drug laws, another reason why DTOs prefer to operate their business out of the Netherlands.

Violence on the rise
Regarding violence, the Netherlands is relatively peaceful compared to Latin America. The total number of murders is actually decreasing in the Netherlands, but the percentage of drug related murders is steadily increasing to a few dozen victims every year. Not yet, the 30,000 yearly killed in Mexico, but there is absolutely an escalation in extreme violence in the Netherlands in some cases similar to that seen in Mexico. In 2016, a young man, 23-year old Nabil Amzieb, was tortured and subsequently beheaded. His head was placed in a box in front of a shisha (water pipe) lounge in Amsterdam. Liquidations with automatic weapons where innocent victims also fall have become common.

In February 2018, a commando armed with an AK-47 stormed a youth center, also in Amsterdam, and killed 17-year-old Mohammed Bouchikhi accidently. This sounds like Juárez where, at the height of the drug war, many liquidations took place in social clubs frequented by teenagers. In the Netherlands most of these murders have been committed by Moroccan crime groups, dubbed the Mocro Maffia, who started out in the 1970s when first migrant workers smuggled hash from their home country to sell in Holland.

These days, the Mocro Maffia (Dutch-Morrocan Mafia) has become notorious for its hard-core violence, which was unprecedented in the Dutch criminal underworld. In 2018, Rotterdam police uncovered a hit squad of killers for hire that were still in their teens. Prices to hire sicarios have dropped from 50,000 to 5000 euros, sometimes even lower. A watershed moment was September 2019 when lawyer Derk Wiersum, who defended a key witness in court proceedings against the Mocro Maffia was murdered on his doorstep in Amsterdam. The incident rudely awakened the public and politicians from their complacency and confronted them with the fact that Holland indeed had developed traits of a narcostate. In July 2020, Dutch police raided a drug trafficking ring in the southern village of Wouw, and discovered several containers in an industrial shed that had been transformed into torture chambers.[6]

Intimidation of the media
In Mexico, on average 8 journalists are killed on a yearly basis. In the Netherlands this does not happen, except for the murder of crime blogger Martin Kok in 2016—himself a former criminal. But it is telling that crime reporter Paul Vugts who wrote a book on the Mocro Maffia was threatened and had to go into hiding. District attorney Greetje Bos also had to go into hiding after threats from the underworld, from people allegedly involved in the synthetic drugs industry. There have been attacks with RPGs and vehicle-borne arson at publications like De Telegraaf and Panorama.[7] On a regular basis, crime reporters, in the Netherlands as well as in Belgium, receive threats. In most case, they have to keep a low profile and go into hiding for a few weeks.

Corruption and infiltration
In the southern border province of Brabant, traditionally a hotbed of smuggling and drug activity, criminals infiltrate city councils and threaten mayors. In 2012, the town hall of Waalre was set on fire, allegedly by drug criminals whose operations had been hampered by the authorities. Again, this is not on the scale of Mexico where an estimated 40 percent of town councils are infiltrated and where liquidations of police chiefs and mayors have become normal. This year, the outspoken mayor of Antwerp, Bart de Wever who favors a tough approach on drug related crime, received serious threats and had to receive special protection.

Drug syndicates prey on vulnerable people to bribe them into cooperation after which there is no way back. Port workers are paid up to 50,000 euros to help secure contraband hidden in containers. The drug mafia uses small neighborhood shops to launder money, but also luxurious real estate projects in Amsterdam, Antwerp, and on the Mediterranean coast in Morocco or in Dubai, where many drug kingpins hide. Similar to Mexican drug lords, these kingpins subsidize sporting events and even Islamic schools as a form of corporate social responsibility.[8]

In 2020 and 2021 Dutch and Belgian police, with the help of their French counterparts, managed to penetrate the encrypted phone systems used by criminals. This provided an unprecedented look inside of the wheeling and dealing of organized crime and brought home shocking examples of corruption in the Low Countries. Former police officials were involved in narcotrafficking, as well as the highest echelons in the port authorities in Rotterdam and Antwerp. The latter were in a unique position to facilitate maritime cocaine imports.

Holland as a meth-producing center in Europe with Mexicans involved
Crystal meth labs in Holland were unheard of before 2015, when the first one was discovered. In May 2019, Dutch authorities discovered a river barge with a hidden crystal meth lab. Three Mexican nationals from Culiacán were arrested on the boat. It is not clear if the people working on the “narcobarco,” as it was called in the Mexican media were employed to teach the trade of meth cooks, or if the lab was a sign that Mexican cartels were expanding their business.[9] In 2020, a total of 32 labs were discovered. Many drug labs that were producing MDMA have recently switched to crystal meth. This is not difficult, since the same lab equipment and networks can be used. However, profits can be ten times as much producing MDMA. In many cases, Mexican lab cooks, were involved.

Some fear that Mexican cartels are indeed coming to Europe. According to others, European criminal groups would not tolerate foreign organizations establishing themselves in their territory. But there are indeed many mutual contacts. In 2014, El Chino Ántrax, a high commander from the Sinaloa cartel, was arrested at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.[10] Other contacts are made in the decadent Spanish resort town of Marbella which hosts the de facto international summer conference for the international drugs mafia. According to a former top smuggler, criminals visit each other’s parties and exchange knowledge and routes. In a remarkable catch, in 2020 authorities in Slovakia found 1500 kilograms of meth coming in from Mexico, with the rapidly expanding Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) responsible.

Crystal meth lab near Patzcuaro and Uruapan, Michoacán, MX © Teun Voeten, November 2009​

There are different hypotheses about what the Mexicans are exactly doing here. According to the Dutch federal police, brokers in Mexico provide cooks to work in labs in Holland. Sometimes these middlemen have counterparts in Spain, where Mexicans can easily hide. A former meth producer in a Mexican jail told me there are also cordial relations with Mexican groups that are already present in Amsterdam.

For the moment, it looks like the crystal meth produced in Western Europe is for export, mostly to Australia, Japan, and New Zealand. There, retail prices vary between 300 and $ 500 US a gram, compared with $20 US in the USA and between $50 to 90 US in Europe. Except for the Czech Republic, where there has been a meth industry for decades, the European consumer market is small. Western consumers are rather educated and know the dangers of meth and there are many cheaper and less dangerous alternatives. A Dutch speed dealer actually told me not only would his clients never buy meth, he refused to sell it out of principle. However, there is always a risk that the growing underclass of chronically unemployed, mentally ill, and undocumented immigrants in Europe will discover meth once it becomes cheaper. This has been happening all over the world where cheap consumer portions of meth, that sometimes costs just a few dollars, have replaced crack as the favorite drug for the down and out that dwell in the new pockets of despair that are popping up all over on the planet.

This ‘Field Report’ draws from Teun Voeten’s journalistic experience and updates the discussion contained in “Chapter 6, The Netherlands as a narco-state, and Antwerp as its principle cocaine hub” in his book Mexican Drug Violence: Hybrid Warfare, Predatory Capitalism and the Logic of Cruelty (2020). That book is also available in Dutch as Het Mexicaanse Drugsgeweld. Een Nieuw Type Oorlog, Roofkapitalisme en de Logica van Wreedheid (De Blauwe Tijger, 2018).
Endnotes
[1] Daniel Boffrey, “Netherlands becoming a narco-state, warn Dutch police.” The Guardian. 20 February 2018, Netherlands becoming a narco-state, warn Dutch police and Teun Voeten, Mexican Drug Violence: Hybrid Warfare, Predatory Capitalism and the Logic of Cruelty. (A Small Wars Journal–El Centro Book.) Bloomington: XLibris. 2020, Chapter 6, pp. 330-336.
[2] Teun Voeten, “Dutch Provos,” High Times. January 1990, Dutch Provos.
[3] Teun Voeten, Drugs: Antwerpen in de greep van de Nederlandse syndicaten. Antwerp: Van Halewyck, 2020.
[4] Jarl van der Ploeg, Interview Roberto Saviano. “Auteur maffiaboek Gomorra: ‘De maffia in Amsterdam is erger dan in Napels,’” De Volkskrant. 27 September 2019, Auteur maffiaboek Gomorra: ‘De maffia in Amsterdam is erger dan in Napels’.
[5] Peter Tops and Jan Tromp, De achterkant van Nederland: hoe onder – en bovenwereld verstrengeld raken. Amsterdam: Balens, 2016.
[6] “Dutch Police Arrest 6 Men, Uncover Makeshift Torture Chamber,” New York Times. 7 July 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/07/07/world/europe/ap-eu- netherlands-torture-chamber.htm.
[7] See “Van is driven into office of Telegraaf newspaper in Amsterdam.” Reuters. 25 June 2018, Van is driven into office of Telegraaf newspaper in Amsterdam, “Anti-tank weapon fired at Amsterdam office building.” NL Times. 22 June 2018, Anti-tank weapon fired at Amsterdam office building, and “Second suspect arrested for attack on Panorama building.” NL Times. 11 July 2018, Second suspect arrested for attack on Panorama building.
[8] See Tom Wainright, Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel. New York: Public Affairs, 2016.
[9] Inder Bugarin, “Piden en Holanda 5 años de cárcel para mexicanos de narcobarco.” El Universal. 14 February 2020, Piden en Holanda 5 años de cárcel para mexicanos de narcobarco.
[10] See “Top Enforcer of Sinaloa Cartel Arrested In Amsterdam.” KPBS News. 8 January 2014, Top Enforcer of Sinaloa Cartel Arrested In Amsterdam and Anabel Hernández, “Netherlands: The possible consequences of liberal drugs policies.” DW (Deutsche Welle). 29 November 2019, Netherlands: The possible consequences of liberal drugs policies | DW | 29.11.2019.

 

[Plain Jane]

UK: Johnson hosts Orban to discuss 'a post-Brexit period' – DW – 05/29/2021

The visit has not been without controversy, with opposition parties suggesting the British prime minister should not be entertaining someone like Orban, whom they view as anti-democratic.

www.dw.com

Boris Johnson hosts Viktor Orban to discuss 'a post-Brexit period'
The visit has not been without controversy, with opposition parties suggesting the British prime minister should not be entertaining someone like Orban, whom they view as anti-democratic.




Orban's visit to London met with criticism

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson met with Viktor Orban on Friday amid criticism of the Hungarian prime minister's invite to London.

Downing Street said in a statement that the two leaders discussed a wide range of issues, including security and climate change.

Johnson also raised human rights with Orban, an anti-immigration nationalist who has clamped down on his country's media and judicial freedom, as well as sought control over Hungary's universities.

Orban told reporters that the two leaders discussed finding "a way to cooperate in a post-Brexit period."

Orban said before the trip that Hungary missed the UK in the EU, as the two conservative governments had 'agreed on many things'

Objections to Orban's visit
Opposition parties in the UK raised strong objections over the decision to invite Orban due to his outspoken views, but the government defended the talks, adding that it rejected the Hungarian's anti-immigrant stance.

Johnson "raised his significant concerns about human rights in Hungary" including gender equality and gay rights, as well as discussing Russia, Belarus and China, London said in a statement.

Johnson's office said "the prime minister encouraged Hungary to use their influence to promote democracy and stability."

Orban rejected accusations of antisemitism, and defended his past comments on Muslim "invaders" sweeping into Europe, threatening Europe's Christian cultural identity..

"That happened, that was a fact. Without any kind of legal permission... they just destroyed the border and they marched through the country," he said, referring to Europe's refugee crisis in 2015.

Immigration into Hungary was "totally negative," he said. "So to be anti-migrant, it means that you are on the good side."

Watch video26:06
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'We have to engage'
British Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said earlier on Friday that leaders had to meet counterparts "whose values we don't necessarily share."

"I think Viktor Orban's views on migrants are things that I would not endorse in any way," he told Sky News. "Having said that, I think that we have to engage with the EU, he's an EU leader. And in this post-Brexit world, I think it's absolutely right for us to be building bilateral relations with (EU) countries."

In the past, Orban has praised Johnson over Brexit.

And the Hungarian leader himself is often at loggerheads with the EU, particularly over global issues such as a collective stance on China, the Middle East, immigration or the coronavirus.

Johnson has also come under fire for comments made regarding Muslims.

In 2018, he received criticism over a newspaper column he wrote in which he defended people's right to wear a burqa in public but in which he also said those who did looked like "letterboxes" and "bank robbers."

 

[northern watch]

Thousands rally against Slovenian PM ahead of EU presidency
Thousands of people have joined in a protest against Slovenia's right-wing Prime Minister Janez Jansa, reflecting mounting pressure on the government weeks before the country takes over the European Union's rotating presidency
By The Associated Press
28 May 2021, 11:51

The Associated Press
Protesters gather in downtown Ljubljana, Slovenia, Friday, May 28, 2021. Some thousands of people on Friday rallied against Slovenia's right-wing Prime Minister Janez Jansa, reflecting mounting political pressure on the government weeks before the country takes over European Union's rotating presidency. (AP Photo)

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia -- Thousands rallied in Slovenia's capital Friday against right-wing Prime Minister Janez Jansa, reflecting mounting pressure on the government weeks before the country takes over the European Union’s rotating presidency.

Some 20,000 people gathered at a central Ljubljana square to demand that the government step down and early elections be held. Several workers' unions and opposition parties joined the demonstration.

Critics accuse Jansa of assuming increasingly authoritarian ways similar to those of his ally, Hungary’s hardline Prime Minister Viktor Orban. They claim that Jansa’s government has pressured Slovenian media and spurred hate speech, while mishandling the coronavirus crisis and curbing social dialogue in the traditionally moderate Alpine nation.

Jansa, a veteran politician who has served twice in the past as prime minister, has dismissed the accusations as a leftist conspiracy. Earlier this week, he survived an impeachment motion filed by the opposition in parliament.

Jansa came to power last year after the previous, liberal prime minister stepped down. He is also known for prematurely congratulating former U.S. President Donald Trump while vote count was still underway during the presidential election last November.

The protesters on Friday shouted “Elections now," waving Slovenian and labor union flags and banners. One banner read “Death to Fascism, Freedom for all.”

Many participants wore face masks in line with pandemic rules.

Pija Zorman said she came to Ljubljana for the protest from Kranj, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) away. The 29-year-old said she joined the rally because of "lack of perspective.”

“We, the young people, are ignored,” said Zorman.

Slovenia is set to assume the presidency of the 27-member EU in July. Jansa has come under EU scrutiny over allegations of media pressure in the country, including abolishing state funding for Slovenia's only news agency, the STA.

Thousands rally against Slovenian PM ahead of EU presidency - ABC News (go.com)

 

[northern watch]

Thousands rally against Slovenian PM ahead of EU presidency
Thousands of people have joined in a protest against Slovenia's right-wing Prime Minister Janez Jansa, reflecting mounting pressure on the government weeks before the country takes over the European Union's rotating presidency
By The Associated Press
28 May 2021, 11:51

The Associated Press
Protesters gather in downtown Ljubljana, Slovenia, Friday, May 28, 2021. Some thousands of people on Friday rallied against Slovenia's right-wing Prime Minister Janez Jansa, reflecting mounting political pressure on the government weeks before the country takes over European Union's rotating presidency. (AP Photo)

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia -- Thousands rallied in Slovenia's capital Friday against right-wing Prime Minister Janez Jansa, reflecting mounting pressure on the government weeks before the country takes over the European Union’s rotating presidency.

Some 20,000 people gathered at a central Ljubljana square to demand that the government step down and early elections be held. Several workers' unions and opposition parties joined the demonstration.

Critics accuse Jansa of assuming increasingly authoritarian ways similar to those of his ally, Hungary’s hardline Prime Minister Viktor Orban. They claim that Jansa’s government has pressured Slovenian media and spurred hate speech, while mishandling the coronavirus crisis and curbing social dialogue in the traditionally moderate Alpine nation.

Jansa, a veteran politician who has served twice in the past as prime minister, has dismissed the accusations as a leftist conspiracy. Earlier this week, he survived an impeachment motion filed by the opposition in parliament.

Jansa came to power last year after the previous, liberal prime minister stepped down. He is also known for prematurely congratulating former U.S. President Donald Trump while vote count was still underway during the presidential election last November.

The protesters on Friday shouted “Elections now," waving Slovenian and labor union flags and banners. One banner read “Death to Fascism, Freedom for all.”

Many participants wore face masks in line with pandemic rules.

Pija Zorman said she came to Ljubljana for the protest from Kranj, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) away. The 29-year-old said she joined the rally because of "lack of perspective.”

“We, the young people, are ignored,” said Zorman.

Slovenia is set to assume the presidency of the 27-member EU in July. Jansa has come under EU scrutiny over allegations of media pressure in the country, including abolishing state funding for Slovenia's only news agency, the STA.

Thousands rally against Slovenian PM ahead of EU presidency - ABC News (go.com)

Sounds like Soros at work

 

[Plain Jane]

Austria's 'Islam map' sparks lawsuit – DW – 05/29/2021

The map, showing the names and location of over 600 mosques and associations in the country, has sparked outcry.

www.dw.com

Austria's Muslim youth file lawsuit against 'Islam map'
The map, showing the names and location of over 600 mosques and associations in the country, has sparked outcry.




The controversial map plots hundreds of Islamic organizations in Austria

Muslim Youth Austria (MJO) is filing a lawsuit against the country's controversial "Map of Political Islam," the group announced on Saturday.

The map, showing the names and location of over 600 mosques and associations in Austria and their possible links abroad, was unveiled on Thursday.

"The publication of all the names, functions and addresses of Muslim and Muslim-affiliated organizations represents an unprecedented crossing of boundaries," Muslim Youth Austria said.

Who else criticized the map?
The Muslim youth organization is not the only voice to have criticized the map that was co-created by the University of Vienna and Austria's Documentation Centre of Political Islam.
The map was "inadmissible," the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday. It urged Vienna to not "compile a register of Muslims," but to adopt what it termed: "a responsible policy."


Watch video05:10
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It "demonstrates the government's manifest intent to stigmatize all Muslims as a potential danger," the IGGOe, Austria's Muslim representative council, said in a statement on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Austria's Green party's spokeswoman for integration Faika El-Nagashi complained that "no Green minister or MP was involved or even told about it. The project mixes Muslims with Islamists and is the contrary to what integration policy should look like."

The Protestant Church also expressed concern. Bishop Michael Chalupka called on Integration Minister Susanne Raab, who unveiled the map, to take the site down.

The University of Vienna sought to distance itself from the map and has already prohibited the use of its logo for the map.


Watch video03:28
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What did the Integration Minister say?
Meanwhile, Raab insisted that the aim was to "fight political ideologies."

She said it was intended to assist in combatting attitudes and positions that are in part misogynistic, antisemitic, racist or hostile to integration, without placing Muslims under general suspicion.
kmm/csb (dpa, AFP)

 

[Plain Jane]

In post-pandemic Europe, migrants will face digital fortress

The European Union is installing a high-tech surveillance system at a migration flashpoint along Greece’s border with Turkey during a lull in movement due to the coronavirus pandemic.

apnews.com

In post-pandemic Europe, migrants will face digital fortress
By DEREK GATOPOULOS and COSTAS KANTOURISan hour ago



1 of 18
A police officer works inside the operation center at the village of Nea Vyssa near the Greek - Turkish border, Greece, Friday, May 21, 2021. An automated hi-tech surveillance network being built on the Greek-Turkish border aiming at detecting migrants early and deterring them from crossing, with river and land patrols using searchlights and long-range acoustic devices. (AP Photo/Giannis Papanikos)

PEPLO, Greece (AP) — As the world begins to travel again, Europe is sending migrants a loud message: Stay away!

Greek border police are firing bursts of deafening noise from an armored truck over the frontier into Turkey. Mounted on the vehicle, the long-range acoustic device, or “sound cannon,” is the size of a small TV set but can match the volume of a jet engine.

It’s part of a vast array of physical and experimental new digital barriers being installed and tested during the quiet months of the coronavirus pandemic at the 200-kilometer (125-mile) Greek border with Turkey to stop people entering the European Union illegally.

A new steel wall, similar to recent construction on the U.S.-Mexico border, blocks commonly-used crossing points along the Evros River that separates the two countries.

Nearby observation towers are being fitted with long-range cameras, night vision, and multiple sensors. The data will be sent to control centers to flag suspicious movement using artificial intelligence analysis.

“We will have a clear ‘pre-border’ picture of what’s happening,” Police Maj. Dimonsthenis Kamargios, head of the region’s border guard authority, told the Associated Press.
The EU has poured 3 billion euros ($3.7 billion) into security tech research following the refugee crisis in 2015-16, when more than 1 million people — many escaping wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan — fled to Greece and on to other EU countries.

The automated surveillance network being built on the Greek-Turkish border is aimed at detecting migrants early and deterring them from crossing, with river and land patrols using searchlights and long-range acoustic devices.

Key elements of the network will be launched by the end of the year, Kamargios said. “Our task is to prevent migrants from entering the country illegally. We need modern equipment and tools to do that.”

Researchers at universities around Europe, working with private firms, have developed futuristic surveillance and verification technology, and tested more than a dozen projects at Greek borders.

AI-powered lie detectors and virtual border-guard interview bots have been piloted, as well as efforts to integrate satellite data with footage from drones on land, air, sea and underwater.

Palm scanners record the unique vein pattern in a person’s hand to use as a biometric identifier, and the makers of live camera reconstruction technology promise to erase foliage virtually, exposing people hiding near border areas.

Testing has also been conducted in Hungary, Latvia and elsewhere along the eastern EU perimeter.

The more aggressive migration strategy has been advanced by European policymakers over the past five years, funding deals with Mediterranean countries outside the bloc to hold migrants back and transforming the EU border protection agency, Frontex, from a coordination mechanism to a full-fledged multinational security force.

But regional migration deals have left the EU exposed to political pressure from neighbors.
Earlier this month, several thousand migrants crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in a single day, prompting Spain to deploy the army. A similar crisis unfolded on the Greek-Turkish border and lasted three weeks last year.

Greece is pressing the EU to let Frontex patrol outside its territorial waters to stop migrants reaching Lesbos and other Greek islands, the most common route in Europe for illegal crossing in recent years.

Armed with new tech tools, European law enforcement authorities are leaning further outside borders.

Not all the surveillance programs being tested will be included in the new detection system, but human rights groups say the emerging technology will make it even harder for refugees fleeing wars and extreme hardship to find safety.

Patrick Breyer, a European lawmaker from Germany, has taken an EU research authority to court, demanding that details of the AI-powered lie detection program be made public.

“What we are seeing at the borders, and in treating foreign nationals generally, is that it’s often a testing field for technologies that are later used on Europeans as well. And that’s why everybody should care, in their own self-interest,” Breyer of the German Pirates Party told the AP.

He urged authorities to allow broad oversight of border surveillance methods to review ethical concerns and prevent the sale of the technology through private partners to authoritarian regimes outside the EU.

Ella Jakubowska, of the digital rights group EDRi, argued that EU officials were adopting “techno-solutionism” to sideline moral considerations in dealing with the complex issue of migration.

“It is deeply troubling that, time and again, EU funds are poured into expensive technologies which are used in ways that criminalize, experiment with and dehumanize people on the move,” she said.

Migration flows have slowed in many parts of Europe during the pandemic, interrupting an increase recorded over years. In Greece, for example, the number of arrivals dropped from nearly 75,000 in 2019 to 15,700 in 2020, a 78% decrease.

But the pressure is sure to return. Between 2000 and 2020, the world’s migrant population rose by more than 80% to reach 272 million, according to United Nations data, fast outpacing international population growth.

At the Greek border village of Poros, the breakfast discussion at a cafe was about the recent crisis on the Spanish-Moroccan border.

Many of the houses in the area are abandoned and in a gradual state of collapse, and life is adjusting to that reality.

Cows use the steel wall as a barrier for the wind and rest nearby.

Panagiotis Kyrgiannis, a Poros resident, says the wall and other preventive measures have brought migrant crossings to a dead stop.

“We are used to seeing them cross over and come through the village in groups of 80 or a 100,” he said. “We were not afraid. ... They don’t want to settle here. All of this that’s happening around us is not about us.”
___
Associated Press writer Kelvin Chan in London contributed to this report.
___

 

[Plain Jane]

Zerohedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

German Judge Declares Mask Mandates Illegal And Harmful To Children

BY TYLER DURDEN
MONDAY, MAY 31, 2021 - 04:30 AM
Authored by Rocco Loiacono via The Epoch Times,
As reported in The Epoch Times recently, the Oklahoma Legislature recently passed a Bill banning mask mandates in schools. In Germany, mask mandates in schools have also been under the microscope, in particular in an extraordinary judgment given last month.



A woman wearing a protective face mask reading ''dictatorship'' protests against government restrictions, although the rally has been disallowed by a regional court, amid the CCP virus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Bremen, Germany, on Dec. 5, 2020. (Fabian Bimmer/Reuters)

On April 8, the Weimar District Court banned two schools in that district from enforcing mask mandates, social distancing requirements, and rapid COVID-19 testing on their students. The court also ordered the schools to no longer conduct distance learning.

The decision followed a legal action by the mother of two students, aged 8 and 14 respectively, at one of the schools, who argued that such measures were causing physical, psychological, and pedagogical harm to her children, as well as constituting an infringement of her children and parental rights under German and international law.

The judge, Christian Dettmar, upheld this argument (pdf), noting that mask mandates and social distancing requirements for children, were not only causing the harm mentioned above, but were in direct violation of Articles 2 and 6 of the German Constitution, which guarantee the rights to freedom of individual development, education, and parental assistance.



Members of the police stand guard as people protest against the government measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), as the lower house of parliament Bundestag discusses amendments to the Infection Protection Act, in Berlin, Germany, on April 21, 2021. (Christian Mang/Reuters)

Accordingly, the judge held that the anti-COVID measures deployed were not proportional to the threat posed. This was in accordance with proportionality principles enshrined in Articles 20 and 28 of the German Constitution.

The court also referred to an October 2020 WHO Bulletin which featured a study by renowned medical science expert John Ioannidis, who found the death rate for coronavirus was 0.23 percent, the equivalent of a moderate influenza epidemic.

In examining expert medical, scientific (including biological) and psychological evidence, the judge found the use of masks and social distancing had no effect whatsoever on reducing infection, and cast serious doubt on the ability of asymptomatic persons—particularly children—to spread the virus. This was the first time evidence was presented to a German court regarding the scientific reasonableness and necessity of the prescribed anti-virus measures.

Judge Dettmar found that the anti-virus measures posed a danger to the mental, physical or psychological well-being of the children to such an extent that significant harm could be foreseen with a high degree of certainty. He wrote:

“The children are not only endangered in their mental, physical, and spiritual well-being by the obligation to wear face masks during school hours and to keep their distance from each other and from other persons, but, in addition, they are already being harmed. At the same time, this violates numerous rights of the children and their parents under the law, the constitution, and international conventions.
This applies in particular to the right to free development of the personality and to physical integrity from Article 2 of the (German Constitution) as well as to the right from Article 6 of the (Constitution) to upbringing and care by the parents (also with regard to measures for preventive health care and ‘objects’ to be carried by children) …”

The judge agreed with the experts’ assessment that masks were not useful for viral protection, that PCR tests could not detect a disease-causing infection with necessary certainty, and that asymptomatic transmission played no detectable role epidemiologically with respect to coronavirus.


On the contrary, masks would have a negative impact on children’s health due to handling-related contamination. Testing in school classes would be unnecessary, harmful and also extremely problematic in terms of data protection.

In conclusion, he stated, “100,000 elementary school students would have to put up with all the side effects of wearing masks for a week in order to prevent just one infection per week. To call this result merely disproportionate would be a wholly inadequate description. Rather, it shows that the state legislature regulating this area has fallen into a factual disconnect that has reached historic proportions.”

Following this sensational decision, Judge Dettmar had his house, office, and car searched by police, and mobile phone confiscated.

The Weimar Administrative Court—a separate court with no jurisdiction over the District Court—issued a statement in response describing Dettmar’s decision as unlawful (without giving reasons), and reiterated the importance of the mask mandate.

Do the actions of the police, court, and authorities suggest that the edifice of virus restrictions could be exposed as lacking proper epidemiological foundations?

 

[northern watch]

Russia to form 20 new military units in west to counter NATO
Russia’s defense minister says the military will form 20 new units in the country’s west this year to counter what he described as a growing threat from NATO

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV Associated Press
31 May 2021, 07:53

MOSCOW -- Russia's military will form 20 new units in the country's west this year to counter what it claims is a growing threat from NATO, the defense minister said Monday.

Sergei Shoigu made the announcement at a meeting with top military officials. He pointed to a growing number of flights by U.S. strategic bombers near Russia's borders, deployments of NATO warships and increasingly frequent and major drills by alliance forces.

He charged that such actions “destroy the international security system and force us to take the relevant countermeasures."

“We will form another 20 units and formations in the Western Military District until the year's end,” Shoigu said

He added the military units in Western Russia have commissioned about 2,000 new pieces of weaponry this year.

Asked Monday about Russia’s plans, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg noted that “Russia over the last years has invested heavily in new, modern military capabilities, from conventional to nuclear weapon systems” and "has been willing to use military force against neighbors, in Georgia, in Ukraine.”

“This is one of the main reasons why NATO over the last years has increased the readiness of (its) armed forces,” he told reporters before Tuesday's meeting of the alliance's foreign and defense ministers.

Currently, thousands of NATO troops, several warships and dozens of aircraft are taking part in military exercises stretching across the Atlantic, through Europe and into the Black Sea region.

NATO says the war games aren't aimed at Russia, but the Steadfast Defender 21 exercises are simulating the 30-nation military organization’s response to an attack on any one of its members. It will test NATO’s ability to deploy troops from the U.S. and keep supply lines open.

Last month, a troop buildup in Russia’s south and southwest near the Ukrainian border raised concerns in Ukraine and the West, which urged Moscow to withdraw its forces.

Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014 following the ouster of the country's Moscow-friendly president and then threw its weight behind separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. More than 14,000 people have been killed in seven years of fighting in eastern Ukraine.

Russia has recalled some troops from its western part after sweeping maneuvers in April, but Shoigu ordered them to leave their weapons behind for Russia's Zapad (West) 2021 military exercises in September.

He noted Monday that preparations for the exercises, which will be conducted jointly with Belarus, are now in their final stage and emphasized that the maneuvers have an “exclusively defensive character.”

Last week, Russia offered political support to its ally Belarus, which diverted a Ryanair plane flying from Greece to Lithuania as part of a ruse to arrest a dissident journalist. The European Union denounced the flight's diversion as piracy and responded by barring the Belarusian flag carrier from its airspace and advising European airlines to skirt Belarus' airspace.

———

Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report

Russia to form 20 new military units in west to counter NATO - ABC News (go.com)

 

[northern watch]

Russia Lines Up New Gold Buying Through Its Sovereign Wealth Fund

BY TYLER DURDEN
ZERO Hedge
SUNDAY, MAY 30, 2021 - 09:00 AM

Submitted by Ronan Manly, BullionStar.com

In a significant and strategic development for monetary metals, the Government of the Russian Federation has just introduced legislation which will allow Russia’s giant National Wealth Fund (NWF) to invest in gold and other precious metals. The NWF is Russia’s de facto sovereign wealth fund, and has assets of US$185 billion.

Introduced as a resolution to the procedures for managing the investments of the National Wealth Fund and signed off by the Russian prime minister Mikhail Mishustin on Friday 21 May, the changes will allow the National Wealth Fund to buy and hold gold and other precious metals with the Russian central bank, the Bank of Russia.

Gold as Diversification and Protection

In a note accompanying the gold announcement, the Russian government refers to gold as a traditional protective asset, and says that the move to add gold will introduce more diversification into NWF’s investment allocation, while promoting overall safety and profitability for the fund.

The full resolution (Resolution of May 21, 2021 No. 765) can be seen here, in Russian, in pdf form.

Up until now, the National Wealth Fund, through its 2008 investment management decree has been allowed to allocate funds to all main financial asset classes, such as foreign exchange, debt securities of foreign states, debt securities of international financial organizations, managed investment funds, equities, Russian development bank projects, and domestic bank deposits. The latest amendment now adds gold and precious metals to that list.

While Russia’s National Wealth Fund is sizable (at US$ 185 billion), it is not that widely known internationally. So here’s a quick recap. In its current structure, the National Wealth Fund emerged in February 2008 when its precursor, the Stabilization Fund of the Russian Federation, was split into two parts, namely a Reserve Fund and a Future Generations’ Fund (later renamed the National Wealth Fund).

The original Stabilization Fund, which was established in 2004, was launched so as to stabilize the Russian federal budget and insulate it against the volatility of international oil prices and oil export earnings.

The Reserve Fund then grew into a general fund to top up the federal budget, while the National Wealth Fund was designated as a fund to support the Russian Federation pension fund, for co-financing the state pension fund, and to guarantee the long-term stable functioning of the pension system. Then in early 2018, the Reserve Fund was rolled into the National Wealth Fund.


Russian Ministry of Finance
When active, the Reserve Fund had an investment remit of investing in low-yield securities, while the National Wealth Fund then and now invests in a broader set of asset classes. While the National Wealth Fund is managed by the Russian Ministry of Finance based on investment procedures and terms established by the Russian Government, the operational investment of the NWF is carried out by the Bank of Russia.

The NWF is financed in the following way. Each year, the Russian Federation earns oil and gas revenues (from production taxes and duties on oil and gas), a portion of which are then applied to finance the federal budget, and the remainder of these oil and gas revenues are transferred to the National Wealth Fund. As its basically a multi-asset investment fund, the National Wealth Fund also increases in size based on positive returns from the existing assets that it manages.

Gold – More Sustainable than Financial Assets

As the NWF soon will begin to buy and hold gold as part of its investment remit, it will be interesting to watch the NWF’s asset allocation reports, which can be found in the statistics section of the NWF pages of the Russian Ministry of Finance website here.

If this recent news about the NWF investing in gold look familiar, that’s because it is. Back in November 2020, the Russian government proposed a plan to allow the NWF to buy and hold gold, at the time introducing draft legislation for that purpose. It is this draft legislation which has now been signed into law on 21 May by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.

However, nearly a year earlier in December 2019, Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov had originally raised the idea that the National Wealth Fund should invest in gold, saying at the time that he saw gold “as more sustainable in the long-term than financial assets.”

It’s therefore interesting that following more than a decade of aggressively buying of domestic gold mine production and boosting Russia to one of the largest sovereign gold holders in the world, the Russian central bank stopped buying gold in April 2020, saying that it had suspended gold purchases in the domestic market.

With the central bank stepping out as a regular gold buyer in early 2020, this left Russian gold miners (and the Russian commercial banks) to sell Russian gold on the export market, and Russian gold exports have ramped up since then, particularly Russian gold exports to the West via London. See here, here, and here for examples.

Russian Gold Reserves: 2006 – April 2021, tonnes. Source: www.GoldChartsRUs.com

The last time the Russian central bank bought gold was in March 2020 when it added 18.7 tonnes to its gold reserves, to give a grand total of 2299 tonnes. Since then it has made no gold purchases, but has made two small sales, each for 100,000 ozs (in January 2021 and again in April 2021), leaving the Russians with 2292 tonnes currently.

Still, this leaves Russia as the fifth largest sovereign gold holder in the world (just behind the claimed gold holdings of France and Italy). Russia’s gold reserves also comprise 22% of total Russian reserve assets, and since 2020 gold has been a larger component of Russian reserve assets than US dollar denominated assets, as the Russian state continues to de-dollarize its exposure in light of sanctions risk.

Note also that Russia operates a “State Fund of Precious Metals and Precious Stones” called the Gosfund which is managed by state organization ‘Gokhran’ which reports to the Ministry of Finance. This Gosfund can also buy and hold gold, but it does not publish any details of what it holds, and they confirmed to BullionStar in 2016 that:
“Gokhran does not publish information about the amount of gold reserves in the Russian Gosfund and data about precious metal operations”.

But you can assume that the Gokhran is probably also buying gold.

Conclusion

When at the end of March 2020, the Russian central bank announced that it would suspend purchases of gold in the domestic market, it also said that “subsequent decisions on gold purchases will be made subject to financial market developments."

One of these decisions now seem to be the Russian state / central bank putting on another ‘hat’ (of the National Wealth Fund), and returning to the gold market in tag team style (following a plan that began at the end of 2019), with the National Wealth Fund now able to continue where the Bank of Russia left off in early 2020. Any NWF gold buying will also mean less Russia gold for export, but maybe this is the intention, especially in light of heightened sanctions risk on Russia from the US and EU and the risks of overseas asset freezes.

Physical gold, as all gold owners will know, has no counterparty risk and no credit risk, so is the ultimate monetary asset for a national state to hold when worried about the sanctions risk of other countries.

As Dmitry Tulin, first deputy governor and board member of the Bank of Russia said in 2016 when commenting on the Bank of Russia’s gold purchases, “Russia is increasing its gold holdings because gold is a reserve asset that is free from legal and political risks."

With the arrival of the massive Russian sovereign wealth fund NWF as a new gold buyer, it now looks like Russia is involved in a grand game of geo-political and monetary chess with golden pieces, and indeed a game of 4D chess.
This article was originally published on the Bullionstar.com website under the same title "Russia lines up new Gold Buying through its Sovereign Wealth Fund".

Russia Lines Up New Gold Buying Through Its Sovereign Wealth Fund | ZeroHedge