While Western governments are crying foul over Russia’s termination of the “gain deal”, European governments are banning the import of grain from Ukraine

While Western governments are crying foul over Russia’s termination of the “gain deal”, European governments are banning the import of grain from Ukraine

    Wednesday, September 13, 2023   No comments

Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria will introduce restrictions on the import of grain from Ukraine. 

This was stated by Hungarian Agriculture Minister Istvan Nagy after negotiations with colleagues.

 Countries want to introduce restrictions on the import of Ukrainian grain at the national level until the end of 2023, if the EC does not extend them at the pan-European level.

Poland has already announced a unilateral ban on grain imports, and Romanian farmers are threatening to block ports and customs if the import ban is not extended.

Related to the grain deal, and after a meeting between Erdogan and Putin in Sochi, Russia, Turkeye, and Qatar agreed to form an alternative structure that would supply African countries with grain and fertalizer. Russia has offered to provide free grain to Africa.

The grain will be provided by Russia, the logistics will be financed by Qatar, and the operation will be managed from Trukeye, which is also asiring to become a natural gas hub for the world.

The statements of a Belgian minister about the occupation's violations against the Palestinians and the killing of children raise a diplomatic crisis with Israel.. and Guinness confirms that she does not regret her statements

The statements of a Belgian minister about the occupation's violations against the Palestinians and the killing of children raise a diplomatic crisis with Israel.. and Guinness confirms that she does not regret her statements

    Saturday, September 02, 2023   No comments

The statements of the Belgian Minister of Cooperation and Development, Caroline Guenez, about Israel's violations against the Palestinians, sparked a diplomatic crisis with Tel Aviv, according to Belgian media, while it was welcomed by the Palestinians.

In an interview with the local newspaper "De Morgen", published on Friday, Gennes spoke about the killing of Palestinian children, wiping entire villages off the map, and destroying schools and neighborhoods funded by the European Union.

And according to the website of the Belgian newspaper “HLN”, “Minister Guenez stuck to her words, which caused a diplomatic problem between her country and Israel.”

The newspaper quoted a spokesman for the minister as telling the Belgian media that Guenez "does not regret her statements in the interview."

She added that the minister also referred to "Belgium's support for the two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian issue, and if democracy and human rights come under pressure anywhere in the world, we will oppose that," according to the same source.

“Unfortunately, 2023 is the bloodiest year in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for a long time, as 218 Palestinians, including 34 children, and 28 Israelis, were martyred,” Guenez said in her statements, which she re-published in several languages on her account on the X platform.

She added, “We have also witnessed the systematic destruction of infrastructure on the Palestinian side in recent months, and this is pushing entire communities out of their villages, and the costs of this infrastructure have often been jointly financed through international support.”

And the Belgian minister added, “I still condemn this out of respect for the efforts of the international community, and a serious conversation is also scheduled with the Israeli ambassador on this issue on September 7.”

For its part, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates welcomed, in a statement, the Belgian Minister's statements.

And she considered that these statements are “fully consistent with international law and international legitimacy decisions and support the two-state solution and the principles of human rights, as indicated by the (Belgian Minister).”

The ministry condemned "the heinous and unjustified Israeli attack by the Israeli government against the minister and her statements."

And it considered that the Israeli attack falls “within the framework of misleading propaganda and intimidation of parties that criticize the occupying state and attempts to obscure the reality of the historical injustice that the Palestinian people are subjected to, repression, abuse, persecution and racial discrimination that many credible human rights and humanitarian organizations, including Israeli, American and European ones, have talked about.”

In turn, the Palestinian “Hamas” movement welcomed, on Saturday, the statements of the Belgian Minister of Cooperation and Development about Israel’s “crimes” against the Palestinians, especially children.

The leader of the movement, Bassem Naim, said in a statement: "The Belgian minister's statements are completely consistent with the facts on the ground, which were confirmed by several UN reports, especially in light of the current far-right government."

Naim added, "The occupation's reaction to the statements reflects the entity's fear of exposing its myths that it has promoted for decades, and its keenness to keep its crimes away from public opinion and the international media."

Yesterday, Friday, Tel Aviv summoned Belgium's ambassador to France, Jean-Luc Bodson, to express "strong condemnation" after Belgian Minister Guenez's statement about Israel's violations against the Palestinians, according to the "Times of Israel" newspaper.

The Israeli ambassador to Brussels, Edith Rosenzweig-Abu, also said, through her account on the “X” platform, that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs protested to the Belgian ambassador, and asked for clarifications regarding Minister Guenez’s statements.

 

  

Macron admits the Western dominated global order is being challenged, calls for revised strategies

Macron admits the Western dominated global order is being challenged, calls for revised strategies

    Monday, August 28, 2023   No comments

In his annual address to French ambassadors, French President Emmanuel Macron admits the Western dominated global order is being challenged, calls for strengthening of France's diplomatic on Monday.

Macron stated that: "The situation in the international arena is becoming more complicated, which threatens the risk of weakening the West and, in particular, Europe. We need to take a sober approach to this, without falling into excessive pessimism ... There is a revision of the world order, its principles, various forms of its organization, where the West has occupied and occupies a dominant position.”

France needs to consolidate its diplomatic strategies as the international context has become more “complex”, Macron told French ambassadors at a meeting in Paris on Monday.

“Our international order is being challenged,” said Macron. “War has returned to European soil, anti-French sentiment is rife, fueled by anti-colonialism or a perceived anti-colonialism that a double standard is being employed,” he said.

“We need to be clear, without being excessively pessimistic,” he said, citing the rise of “new forms of protectionism” and democratic backsliding due to a rise in illiberal powers.

Faced with these risks, Macron said France’s diplomatic efforts should focus on security policy in the context of the war in Ukraine and in bolstering European independence and strategic interests.

The French president also stressed the need to “avoid partitioning the world” over the Ukraine war, at a time when many countries from the Global South have refused to condemn Russian aggression. We must “avoid a narrative that claims, ‘this is Europe’s war, it doesn't concern us’”, he said.

France also seeks to be a “trusted partner” on the geopolitical front, “our diplomatic efforts should keep it simple. We should protect our interests. We should also stand for our principles and our values, which are universal,” said Macron.

 

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Personalities and ideologies that drive the conflict between NATO and Russia and their semi-proxy war in Ukraine

Personalities and ideologies that drive the conflict between NATO and Russia and their semi-proxy war in Ukraine

    Saturday, May 27, 2023   No comments

Yesterday, the New York Times revealed that the “Anti-Kremlin Group Involved in Border Raid Is Led by a Neo-Nazi”. The paper reported that the leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps, one of the two insurgent groups responsible for an armed incursion into Russia this week, is a far-right extremist, German officials and humanitarian groups say.

Russia has stated since the start of the conflict in Ukraine in 2014 that neo-Nazis are behind the campaign to kill and displace ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine; Russian leaders have stated that denazification is a goal of its military operation in Ukraine.

On the same day, the German DER SPIEGEL reported that the “evidence confirms Ukraine's involvement in the Nord Stream bombing.” The newspaper confirmed, Friday, that there is new evidence in the investigation indicating Ukraine's involvement in sabotage operations targeting the "Nord Stream" gas pipelines.

And the newspaper reported that the metadata of e-mail messages, which were sent during the charter of the boat, indicate the involvement of Ukraine, pointing to the finding in the yacht of traces of the explosive “HMX” substance, which is very widespread in the west as in the previous block in the east.

"Der Spiegel" stated that all the evidence "consistent with the assessments of several intelligence services, according to which the perpetrators will be searched for in Ukraine."

And the German newspaper continued: "We now wonder whether what happened could have been carried out by unsupervised commandos, or the Ukrainian intelligence services, and to what extent certain elements of the Ukrainian government apparatus were aware of this."

This comes at a time when police investigations are focusing, in particular, on the "Andromeda" yacht, which is likely to be used to transport explosives, which led to the detonation of the pipelines in September 2022, in the Baltic Sea, according to what was reported by "Agence France Presse".

It is likely that the yacht set off from the port of Rostock, in northern Germany, on September 6, with 6 people on board, including divers and a doctor.

It turned out that one of the passengers on the boat holds a Romanian passport, and he is also a "Ukrainian citizen who previously served in an infantry unit."

And at the beginning of this week, other German media traced the file of the boat rental by a Polish company owned, in fact, by Ukrainians.

Investigators are looking into the evidence of "Ukrainian military services," according to Sudeutsche, RND and VDR TV.

Meanwhile, a German analyst suggested that the transferring the Ukrainian war to Russia is a strategic mistake for which the world will pay.

During the past few days, the Russian-Ukrainian war witnessed a remarkable development when Russia revealed that armed elements had entered its territory through the Ukrainian borders, which means that Ukraine may have begun to transfer the war into Russia.

 

And whether you do or plan to do so, the question posed by German writer and analyst Andreas Kluth in an analysis published by Bloomberg News is: Will this development be a good thing?

 

Russia said that "Ukrainian terrorists" and "fascists" attacked Russian territory. Of course, according to the German analyst, such statements and everything issued by the Russian government can be ignored. It has been said that the armed groups that claimed responsibility for the attacks inside Russian territory consist of Russians who defected from President Vladimir Putin's army and are fighting against him for Ukraine now.

 

One of these groups calls itself the "Russian Freedom Corps", and the other is called the "Russian Volunteer Corps", and includes elements of ultra-nationalists.

 

According to Cloth, there is limited information available about these anti-Putin paramilitary forces, especially as to whether they take orders from Ukraine or operate independently.

 

In the context of the conflict with Russia, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said - in a statement - that the Ukrainian army needs about 48 F-16 combat aircraft to liberate the territories occupied by Russia, according to the ministry's statement.

 

On the other hand, the ministry announced that Canada will complete in the coming weeks the delivery of thousands of small arms and live ammunition that it donated to Ukraine.

 

The Ukrainian National News Agency quoted the Ministry of Defense as saying that the delivery of small arms and ammunition had already begun last April, including machine guns and assault rifles.

 

The ministry stated that in the coming weeks, one million bullets and about 5,000 assault rifles will be delivered.

 

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the German Defense Ministry said that the ministry had received a request from Ukraine in the past few days to hand over Taurus cruise missiles. The spokeswoman did not give any other details about the letter, such as the number of missiles that Kiev is requesting.

All these developments suggest that if Ukraine accumulates enough weapons, it will be able to use them anyway it sees fit without any consideration of the limits demanded by the Western nations that donated the weapons. This would take things out of control and can result in catastrophic events unless the conflict is recalibrated. Sensing the urgency to act now before it is late, and the to build on the Chines, Brazilian, and African initiatives to settle the conflict, German leaders decided to reopen a direct line of communication with Russia. Schultz intends to reconnect with Putin at the appropriate time

German Chancellor Olaf Schultz announced today, Friday, that he is ready to return to contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin "at the appropriate time," in light of the interruption of talks between them since last December.

 

Schultz said in an interview published by the newspaper "Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger" on Friday that his last phone call with Putin was a long time ago, but he intends to talk to him again at the appropriate time.

 

Regarding his vision for resolving the conflict, Schultz said that Russia "must understand that the war cannot end with some kind of cold peace that would turn the current front line into a new border between Russia and Ukraine, that would only serve to legitimize Putin's campaign."

 

On the contrary, he added, a just peace must be achieved through the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine.

 

But Schultz refused to say whether this withdrawal should also include Crimea, occupied since 2014, and the German chancellor believed that it was up to Ukraine to determine what it wanted.

Commenting on all these developments, and speaking on behalf of Putin, Dmitry Peskov said that “the degree of involvement of the West in the conflict in Ukraine is growing every day.”

 Peskov noted that the involvement of the West can stretch the conflict in time, but will not change the situation radically. "Russia will continue the special operation and one way or another will ensure its interests," the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation stated.

Media review: is France's Macron rebelling against the Western world order?

Media review: is France's Macron rebelling against the Western world order?

    Thursday, April 20, 2023   No comments

The Economist thinks so.

The prestigious British newspaper The Economist launched, in its latest issue, a fierce attack on President Macron because of his statements that he made to a very limited number of journalists who accompanied him during his recent visit to China, describing them as very dangerous and at the wrong time.

What angered the well-established magazine, which represents the Western liberal capitalist world in one way or another, and was reflected in its editorial, which is followed by most of the leaders of the Western world in particular, and topped its latest issue, the saying of the French president, whom she described as one of the most experienced European leaders, “It is not the business of the European continent to fall into crises.” It is not our business, and in the name of strategic autonomy, and we should not be in Europe following America in a crisis like the Taiwan crisis.”

Macron, from the magazine's point of view, made two fatal mistakes:

The first: strengthening the ambition of China and its president to divide the European continent and separate the Europeans from America.

The second: undermining the allies' support for Taiwan, because diplomacy alone will not reduce the risks of war, and the West needs to strengthen military deterrence, which requires strengthening the US-European Western alliance in the face of tyranny.

What is certain and indisputable is that Emmanuel Macron is not Charles de Gaulle, the historical leader of France, and it is not possible to compare the two for many reasons that are long to explain, but his recent positions, that is, Macron, are trying to emulate de Gaulle's strategic positions, the most prominent of which is preventing Britain from entering the European market The joint (European Union later) because it does not trust it, and not to join the “NATO” alliance led by America.

media review: German companies expand their investments in China

media review: German companies expand their investments in China

    Wednesday, April 12, 2023   No comments

The New York Times reported that some German companies are expanding in China and are reluctant to leave the huge market they need to finance operations in Berlin.

The newspaper added, "At a time when Washington seeks to stifle economic relations with Beijing, two powerful engines of the German economy, Volkswagen and the chemical company (BASF), are expanding their huge Chinese investments."

Volkswagen, which has more than 40 factories in China, has announced a new effort to design models according to the wishes of Chinese customers, and will invest billions in local partnerships and production sites.

And BASF, with 30 production facilities in China, is pushing ahead with plans to spend €10 billion on a new chemical production complex that would rival in size its huge headquarters in Ludwigshafen.

As the American newspaper pointed out, "Across Germany, executives know that these investments run counter to efforts by the United States to isolate China economically. They argue that revenue from China is essential for their businesses to thrive and grow in Europe."

"The profits from China have allowed the company to offset losses from Europe's high energy costs and strict environmental rules," said Martin Brodermüller, CEO of BASF.

According to the New York Times, close trade relations are now under scrutiny in Berlin, at the behest of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, knowing that there was a political proposal to reset the country's relationship with China, its largest trading partner.

According to the newspaper, a study conducted by the Kiel Institute showed that “separation from China would be very costly for the whole of Europe, but in particular for Germany.” About 131 billion euros, and it may cost more, if China responds with other steps.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier had said earlier that Germany should "learn its lesson" from Russia's war on Ukraine. The lesson is that "we have to reduce our dependence on others, wherever we can". "This is especially true of China," he added.