All posts tagged: sanctions

Russiatosis

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by James Howard Kunstler, via Clusterfuck Nation, August 4, 2017 Russia hysteria has become a full-blown national psychosis at a moment in history when a separate array of troubles poses the real threat to America’s well-being. Most of these have to do with the country’s swan dive into bankruptcy, but meeting them honestly would force uncomfortable choices on the grifters and caitiffs in congress. Meanwhile, the Treasury Dept is burning through its dwindling cash reserves, and all government activities will face a shutdown at the end of the summer unless congress votes to raise the debt ceiling — which may be way harder than passing the stupid Russia sanctions bill. That bill, vaingloriously called The Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act will only blow up in America’s face. This country’s actual trade with Russia is negligible, but the bill aims to interrupt and punish Europe’s trade, centering on oil and natural gas, which they need desperately. Mainly, the US bill seeks to interrupt a gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea that would bypass several of the Baltic Nations …

America Declares Economic War Against Europe

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Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org On Friday night, July 28th, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he would sign into law the increased economic sanctions (passed by 98-2 in the Senate and 419-3 in the House) against any business that is declared to have “knowingly provided goods or services … for construction, modernisation, or repair of Russia’s energy export pipelines.” Russia is the largest energy-supplier to the world’s largest energy-market, which is Europe, or the EU. The biggest proportion of that trade is in Europe’s main source of energy, which is gas, which is pipelined into Europe from Russia. So: those pipelines are vitally important not only to Russia’s economy but to Europe’s. President Trump had gotten Congress to agree to limit the application of this provision only to “The President, in coordination with allies of the United States, may impose five or more of the sanctions described in section 235 with respect to a person if the President determines that the person knowingly, on or after the date of the enactment of this …

The Guardian’s propaganda on Venezuela: all you need to know

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With the Constituent Assembly elections due to take place on July 30th, the Guardian published a piece titled “Venezuela elections: all you need to know”. But instead of breaking through the fog of falsehood and misinformation that is typical of the mainstream media’s coverage of Venezuela, the Guardian comes up with another propaganda piece laden with lies, distortions and omissions. In this article we go through the Guardian’s piece, clarifying the falsehoods, adding the conveniently omitted information and questioning the whole narrative that is presented.

Trump’s Biggest Test So Far

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by Eric Zuesse On December 7th was posed the biggest test so far of the mettle of America’s President-Elect, Donald Trump. He had said several times during his campaign that, if elected as President, he would seek a new, less hostile relationship between the U.S. and Russia.  Now the moment has come when he must either make his first move forward with that historic commitment, or else — by his own inaction when the circumstances (such as right now) demand immediate action on this very promise — set his future U.S. Presidential Administration onto exactly the opposite path: following through with and accepting the existing hostilities, even when they are the most blatantly irrational and counter-factual on their American basis (as now is the case). The precipitating event here is this: NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on December 7th that they want to continue the existing hostilities against Russia: specifically the economic sanctions that U.S. President Barack Obama initiated against Russia after Russia had accepted the overwhelming (90%+) request of the …

Merkel Under Pressure: EU Countries Resisting Russia Sanctions

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German Economic News, translation by Eric Zuesse  |  Published:14:12:15 The EU is in the surprising situation of needing to deal, at its upcoming summit meeting at the end of this week, with the question of whether to extend sanctions against Russia.  It had been expected to be an automatic continuation on account of Angela Merkel’s routinely doing whatever Washington says. But some European nations are clenching their fists and resisting her leadership on this particular matter. The EU summit this Thursday and Friday is consequently surprised to have to deal with the extension of economic sanctions against Russia.  The EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, on Monday the 14th, at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, stunned people by placing this question onto the agenda.  She tried to downplay the matter by saying that doing this is routine in cases where any member state might dissent from a consensus. Last week, Italy, in particular, said that it was opposed to extending sanctions, and therefore any extension would require high-level talks. The sanctions are hated by many states: sanctions have increased European …

Confrontation with Russia a Mistake

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Magdalena Ogorek, the presidential candidate for the Democratic Left Alliance of Poland, has called for the lifting of the sanctions against Russia and for a normalization of relations between the two countries. Ogorek underscored that her opinion is supported by a growing number of Polish people who are afraid of rising tensions in the region. Read more here.

Hungary, Greece, and Cyprus eyeing joint economic ventures with Russia

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by Vaska It looks like three EU member countries, Hungary, Greece, and Cyprus, are all quietly dropping the economic sanctions the Obama administration had sweet-talked/arm-wrestled the EU into imposing on Russia.  This can be gleaned from a recent RT report that Russia has begun quality control on agricultural items from Hungary, Greece and India before it begins imports. In the same RT report, Aleksey Alekseenko, the head of Russia’s food inspectorate Rosselkhoznadzor, added that products from Cyprus will undergo similar tests this week. Earlier on, Greece, Cyprus and Hungary had all asked Russia to either reduce or cancel the embargo on food imports from these countries. Moscow has, understandably, refused to extend such favours to those who’ve attacked Russia economically by means of the sanctions EU imposed on it last year. Instead, during Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ visit to Moscow two weeks ago, Russian President Putin suggested that one way interested countries could get around the counter-sanctions currently in place is to set up joint ventures with Russian companies. The quality-control on Hungarian, Greek …