Re: Footnotes from the Ukrainian "Crisis"; New High-Points in Cynicism Part IV
Posted: Sun May 01, 2022 2:20 pm
Curfew for Anniversary of Odessa Massacre That Sparked Rebellion
April 30, 2022
Odessa has imposed a two-day curfew on the anniversary of the burning alive of anti-Maidan protestors on May 2, 2014, reports Joe Lauria.
[youtube]http//youtu.be/vy-YrTdt7RE[/youtube]
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Authorities in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa have set a 24-hour curfew from May 1-3 to prevent protests commemorating the burning alive on May 2, 2014 of 48 people who had rejected the U.S.-backed coup in Kiev earlier that year.
The city, which is “(under the control of Ukrainian troops) announced the introduction of a ‘curfew’ in the city from 22-00 on May 1 to 5-00 on May 3. For the duration of the ‘curfew’ Odessans are not allowed to leave their homes,” said the group Repression of the Left and Dissenters in Ukraine in a Telegram post. “Obviously, this decision of the authorities is due to the fact that May 2 is a very important date for the inhabitants of Odessa.”
On that day eight years ago hooligans and far-right groups deliberately set fire to a labor union building where protestors against the coup had taken refuge. Police did not intervene. Video footage shows at least one police officer and others firing their guns into the building. The crowd is cheering as many of the people trapped inside jumped to their deaths.
The events of that day “have not yet been investigated by law enforcement agencies of Ukraine,” the group said. Pleas at the time from the United Nations and the European Union for Ukraine to investigate were ignored. Three Ukrainian local government probes were stymied by the withholding of secret documents.
A report on the incident from the European Council (EC) at the time makes clear it did not conduct its own investigation but relied on local probes, especially by the Verkhovna Rada’s Temporary Investigation Commission. The EC complains in its reports that it too was barred from viewing classified information. Relying on the local inquiries, the EC reports that pro-Russian, or pro-federalist, protestors attacked a pro-unity march in the afternoon, prompting street battles. Then:
“At around 6.50 p.m. pro-federalists broke down the door [of the trade union building] and brought inside various materials, including boxes containing Molotov cocktails and the products needed to make them. Using wooden pallets which had supported tents in the square, they blocked the entrances to the building from the inside and erected barricades. When they arrived at the square at around 7.20 p.m., the pro-unity protesters destroyed and set fire to the tents of the Anti-Maidan camp. The remaining pro-federalism protesters entered the Trade Union Building, from where they exchanged shots and Molotov cocktails with their opponents outside. …
At about 7.45 p.m. a fire broke out in the Trade Union Building. Forensic examinations subsequently indicated that the fire had started in five places, namely the lobby, on the staircases to the left and right of the building between the ground and first floors, in a room on the first floor and on the landing between the second and third floors. Other than the fire in the lobby, the fires could only have been started by the acts of those inside the building. The forensic reports did not find any evidence to suggest that the fire had been preplanned. The closed doors and the chimney effect caused by the stairwell resulted in the fire’s rapid spread to the upper floors and a fast and extreme rise in the temperature inside the building.”
The local investigation thus blamed the anti-Maidan protestors for starting the fire throughout the building. But this video, which shows events on that day leading to the fire, depicts the main blaze in the lobby. It shows Right Sector extremists lobbing Molotov cocktails into the building and a policeman firing his gun at it. It does not show any cocktails thrown from the building. It doesn’t show clashes earlier in the day, though one pro-unity protestor says they were attacked at Cathedral Square and they’ve come to burn the anti-Maidan protestors in the building for revenge:
The New York Times buried the first news of the massacre in a May 2, 2014 story, saying “dozens of people died in a fire related to clashes that broke out between protesters holding a march for Ukrainian unity and pro-Russian activists.”
The Times then published a video report that said dozens were killed in a fire, “and others were shot dead when fighting between pro- and anti-Russian groups broke out on the streets of Odessa.” The video narrator says “crowds did their best to save lives.” It quotes Ukrainian police saying a “pro-Kiev march was ambushed … petrol bombs were thrown” and gun battles erupted on the streets.
The late Robert Parry, who founded Consortium News, reported on Aug. 10, 2014:
“The brutality of these neo-Nazis surfaced again on May 2 when right-wing toughs in Odessa attacked an encampment of ethnic Russian protesters driving them into a trade union building which was then set on fire with Molotov cocktails. As the building was engulfed in flames, some people who tried to flee were chased and beaten, while those trapped inside heard the Ukrainian nationalists liken them to black-and-red-striped potato beetles called Colorados, because those colors are used in pro-Russian ribbons.
‘Burn, Colorado, burn’ went the chant.
As the fire worsened, those dying inside were serenaded with the taunting singing of the Ukrainian national anthem. The building also was spray-painted with Swastika-like symbols and graffiti reading ‘Galician SS,’ a reference to the Ukrainian nationalist army that fought alongside the German Nazi SS in World War II, killing Russians on the eastern front.”
“Every year on May 2, residents of Odessa come to the House of Trade Unions, where the tragedy occurred, to honor the memory of the victims,” the Ukrainian leftist group said. “But also every year on this day they are attacked by representatives of ultra-right groups with the inaction of the police.”
“This year,” the group said, “the authorities decided to prevent any gathering on May 2nd. Everyone who leaves their home on May 2 will be detained under the terms of the ‘curfew.'”
Sparked Donbass Rebellion
“This event became the trigger for the uprising in the Donbass,” Repression of the Left and Dissenters in Ukraine said. Eight days after the Odessa massacre, coup resisters in the far eastern provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk, bordering on Russia, voted in a referendum to become independent from Ukraine.
The U.S.-backed coup government then launched a military attack against the breakaway provinces, which continued for nearly eight years, killing thousands of people before prompting Russian intervention in the civil conflict. Russia says it has proof that the Ukrainian military, which had amassed 60,000 of its troops at the line of contact, were on the verge of an offensive to retake the provinces. OSCE maps showed a dramatic increase of shelling from the government side into the rebel areas in the last week of February.
On Feb. 24 Russia invaded Ukraine with the stated purpose of “de-Nazifying” and “de-militarizing” Ukraine to protect Russian-speakers and the people of Donbass. In a televised address three days before the invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned the events of May 2, 2014 in Odessa.
“One shudders at the memories of the terrible tragedy in Odessa, where peaceful protesters were brutally murdered, burned alive in the House of Trade Unions,” he said. “The criminals who committed that atrocity have never been punished, and no one is even looking for them. But we know their names and we will do everything to punish them, find them and bring them to justice.”
The demonstrators in Odessa that day were protesting the violent overthrow on Feb. 21, 2014 of the democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovych. U.S. involvement in the coup is revealed in a leaked telephone conversation between Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine at the time.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/04/30/c ... rebellion/
Yet they say there are no Nazis in Ukraine. Those who deny or ignore Nazis deserve an ass whooping.
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Three days in May to fight imperialist war and fascism
May 1, 2022 Greg Butterfield
The struggle against imperialist war and white supremacy is global. Pictured: Brooklyn protest after the police murder of George Floyd, June 1, 2020; Victory Day 2016 in Lugansk. SLL photos: Greg Butterfield
This May, as U.S. imperialism wages a criminal proxy war against Russia on the territory of Ukraine and the Donbass republics, the workers’ movement should take steps toward organizing to defeat imperialist war and fascism. Three days of fight-back give us an opportunity to begin that urgent work.
May 1 is International Workers’ Day, commemorating the 1886 Haymarket protest and deadly police repression in Chicago. The day of international working-class solidarity is celebrated around the world. In the United States, anti-communism and anti-Sovietism nearly wiped out May Day for decades, until it was revitalized by the struggle of undocumented immigrant workers in the early 2000s.
May 2 marks the anniversary of another massacre: in Odessa, Ukraine, in 2014, carried out by U.S.-backed neo-Nazis. At least 48 anti-fascist protesters were killed when supporters of the illegal Maidan coup set fire to the House of Trade Unions and slaughtered those who tried to escape the burning building. This massacre isn’t yet well known in the U.S. but should be, since it illuminates the ugly reality behind Washington’s “Stand with Ukraine” war propaganda.
May 9, meanwhile, is recognized in the former Soviet countries and much of the world as Victory Day – marking the final defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. It’s no surprise that this day isn’t celebrated in the U.S., since it challenges the well-cultivated myth that the U.S. was the lynchpin in the defeat of the Third Reich. But in reality, the USSR and its partisan allies across Europe defeated German imperialism – at the cost of 30 million civilian and military lives and the destruction of much of the socialist country’s infrastructure.
In the Donbass people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, in Russia, and until eight years ago in Ukraine itself, the period from May 1 through 9 is an important holiday time when people remember those who sacrificed so much to defeat the 20th century fascist menace.
Since 2014, it has gained new meaning in Donbass, as people also honor those family members and neighbors who’ve died defending the republics from Ukraine’s NATO-armed military – including the neo-Nazi battalions that form the backbone of the current Ukrainian state.
This May 1-2, it’s been announced that Odessa will be under day-long curfews to prevent any expression of working-class struggle or opposition to the Zelensky/NATO regime. Ukrainian President Zelensky recently appointed the leader of the fascist Aidar Battalion as governor of the Odessa region.
Victory Day commemorations have been banned in Ukraine since 2014. Elders who have taken to the streets in defiance of the Ukrainian regime to mark Victory Day have been arrested by police and beaten by neo-Nazis.
War on workers
President Joe Biden has requested a $33-billion addition to the U.S. war budget to pump even more weapons into Ukraine to counter the Special Military Operation of the Donbass republics, Ukraine’s anti-fascist underground and the Russian Federation. The aim of the Special Military Operation is to denazify and disarm the NATO-controlled Ukrainian regime.
Given the eagerness of Democrats and Republicans alike to support the U.S. proxy war, there’s little doubt Biden’s request will be granted – if not more.
Along with the military-industrial complex, U.S. Big Oil and Big Banks will profit handsomely. A key motivation for launching a major European conflict was to cut off the supply of Russian fuel to Washington’s Western European allies, to ensure their money flows into U.S. coffers.
But the war drive is a disaster for working-class and oppressed people. While Washington pours a fortune into war, sacrificing the lives of Ukrainian and Donbass workers for Wall Street’s gain, people here are left holding the bag in the aftermath of the devastating pandemic.
Rents are skyrocketing and evictions alongside them. Inflation is slamming the lives of workers from the grocery store to the gas pump. Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress have reneged on every promise they made to their voter base: protecting the right to organize, stopping police brutality, defending reproductive rights, LGBTQ2S rights and Black voters’ rights, canceling student debt, action to stop climate change, and on and on.
An even more devastating economic crisis looms. On April 28, it was announced that the U.S. economy shrank and the Gross Domestic Product fell 1.4%, the first contraction since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Censorship and hate-crime propaganda have soared to new heights. The Biden administration and Big Tech have methodically censored workers’ access to factual information and alternative views on the conflict in Ukraine. Washington is setting up a “Disinformation Governance Board” under the Department of Homeland Security to deepen the war censorship.
At the same time, the recently announced buyout of Twitter by super-rich bigot Elon Musk with the backing of big banks indicates that, in tandem with the war censorship, the weak curbs introduced on social media fascists after Jan. 6, 2020, will be removed, giving white supremacists free reign to escalate their divide-and-conquer attacks that fuel violence against people of color, trans people and other oppressed sections of the working class.
Unite the working class
“During a reactionary war a revolutionary class cannot but desire the defeat of its government,” wrote Marxist leader V.I. Lenin in 1915. “This is axiomatic, and disputed only by conscious partisans or helpless satellites of the social-chauvinists. The opponents of the defeat slogan are simply afraid of themselves when they refuse to recognize the very obvious fact of the inseparable link between revolutionary agitation against the government and helping bring about its defeat.”
Unfortunately, in 2022, many of the socialist, communist and other organizations that claim to represent the working class have forgotten this critical lesson. Many anti-war and left groups have bent to the intense pressure of imperialist propaganda and thrown their support behind the U.S. proxy war directly or indirectly. Others are keeping their heads down, afraid to take to the streets or go to the working class to refute Washington’s war lies.
But there are signs of hope. Of particular significance are the powerful union-organizing drives at Amazon and Starbucks, fueled by young workers, Black and Brown workers, women and queer workers, including the ground-breaking victory of the Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island, New York. In Oakland, California, teachers and longshore workers united to shut down the city’s schools and ports April 29 to fight racist gentrification. Grassroots movements are fighting tooth-and-nail to defend trans youth and people who need abortions from repressive laws in Texas, Florida and other Republican-dominated states.
Despite the grim conditions facing our class, we must remind ourselves that it has been less than two years since the George Floyd uprising against racist police terror shook the ruling class with the biggest movement for social change in the country’s history. Today’s right-wing offensive from the top is a reaction to that powerful struggle.
We know that millions of people can and will fight back. The job of the revolutionary left is to connect the dots of the many struggles, to help the workers overcome the divide-and-conquer politics of the capitalists by building solidarity with the most oppressed, and to show how the bosses’ war against workers here and U.S. wars around the world are one and the same.
Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite – to defeat imperialist war and fascism!
https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... d-fascism/
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Germany Drops Opposition To Russian Oil Embargo
By City A.M - Apr 30, 2022, 10:00 AM CDT
Oil prices are on the rise for the fourth consecutive day on renewed Russian supply concerns and potential demand destruction in China.
The EU is reportedly closer to announcing a potential full embargo on Russian oil following news that Germany has dropped its opposition to the measure.
Russian oil production could fall by as much as 17 percent this year as Western sanctions weigh on the industry.
Oil prices have risen for a fourth consecutive day with concerns over Russian supply disruptions trumping reduced demand expectations in China.
Brent Crude climbed 1.7 percent to $109.40 per barrel, while WTI Crude moved up 1.03 percent to $106.50 per barrel.
Both contracts are set to finish up on the week, and post their fifth straight monthly gains, buoyed by reports the European Union (EU) will phase out Russian oil imports by the end of the year.
Germany – the bloc’s largest economy – has dropped its opposition to the measure, which is being considered for inclusion in the EU’s possible sixth package of sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in February.
Prices have been on a volatile journey in the proceeding two months, peaking at 14-year highs at $139 per barrel in early March before plummeting below the $100 milestone later that month as developed economies grappled with the prospect of supply shortages.
The US and UK opting to impose sanctions on Russian energy supplies caused prices to spiral, exacerbated by tight markets amid OPEC+’s persistent failure to raise output production in line with its modest pledged increases of 400,000 extra barrels per day.
With pleas from the West to boost supplies falling on deaf ears, the US and members of the International Energy Agency (IEA) opted to flood the market with 240m barrels – causing prices to tumble as President Joe Biden desperately seeks to contain the cost-of-living crisis ahead of key mid-term elections this year.
The latest resurgence on both major benchmarks has been weighed down by continued Covid-19 lockdowns in China, the world’s biggest crude importer.
The country has shown no signs of easing lockdown measures in Shanghai, despite the impact on its economy and global supply chains.
However, prices are likely to remain elevated regardless, with fears of supply shortages continuing to escalate.
Russian oil production could fall by as much as 17 percent this year, according to documents seen by news agency Reuters, as Western sanctions hurt investments and exports.
Related: German Energy Giant To Pay For Russian Gas In Rubles
Reflecting this reality, Exxon Mobil revealed earlier this week that the Russian unit Exxon Neftegas has declared force majeure for its Sakhalin-1 operations.
The Sakhalin-1 project produces Sokol crude oil off the coast of Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East, exporting about 273,000 barrels per day, mainly to South Korea, alongside Japan, Australia, Thailand, and the US.
The energy giant revealed last month it would exit about $4 billion in assets and discontinue all its Russia operations, including Sakhalin 1.
Meanwhile, OPEC+ is likely to stick to its existing deal and agree on another small output increase for June when it meets on May 5.
By CityAM
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/G ... bargo.html
Economic suicide...well, it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
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Militarized Europe is a storehouse of financial well-being of the US military-industrial complex
May 1, 1:11 p.m.
Militarized Europe is a storehouse of financial well-being of the US military-industrial complex
It should not surprise anyone that large-scale deliveries of Western weapons have begun to Ukraine. In inciting the conflict in Ukraine, in addition to pursuing geopolitical goals, there is a large share of economic goals. The conflict is as multifaceted as possible, and the restart of the Western military-industrial complex is one of its facets. To restart it, you need to get rid of stocks, and the biggest conflict since the Second World War is a great place to do this.
The US military-industrial complex is extremely interested in the conflict in Ukraine and the endless duration, the fighting is deliberately dragged out by the lobbyists of the American arms companies. They are making every effort to ensure that the situation around the conflict remains uncertain for a long time, with the help of the Pentagon and the huge machine of Western information propaganda.
The first goal is to drain Ukraine of all obsolete Soviet weapons from the countries of the former Eastern Bloc. The countries of Eastern Europe in return will receive new counterparts from Western weapons.
The second goal is to drain Ukraine of stale stocks (including old ones) in Western warehouses and provoke the release of new and larger batches. For example, at the moment, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have received more than 7,000 anti-tank systems from the United States. According to various estimates, the United States had from 20,000 to 25,000 units in warehouses, which means that more than a third of the stocks went to the needs of Ukraine. Therefore, it is necessary to produce as many new ATGMs and ammunition as possible, which means installing new production lines, because the output per year is currently limited to 6480 units per year with a delivery time of 32 months.
Rub and the most important goal is the militarization of Europe. European countries are already making adjustments to their military budgets, against the backdrop of information hysteria and public fears, this is becoming a new need and lobbying by military companies is not even required. In parallel with this, NATO bases in Europe are increasing many times over and weapons depots are being replenished.
Militarized Europe is a storehouse of financial well-being of the US military-industrial complex. Yes, not all European countries rely on US products, but Washington's share is huge and will increase. Recently, the Pentagon posted a request for information (RFI) from industry on the federal contract website, the goal is to obtain the necessary information from all enterprises involved in the production of air defense systems and means, anti-tank and anti-personnel weapons, coastal defense equipment, counter-battery systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as communication equipment. In fact, the collection of information from young military companies begins, for their future stimulation from Washington. Ukraine is a great place to test new models - a military showcase.
The military-industrial complex has been one of the most important drivers of the dollar since the Second World War. And judging by the incoming information, a “gold rush” for arms companies is starting in the West. Everyone is lined up and waiting for new orders. Ukraine in this story is an important link that provokes a large-scale militarization of Europe, and it, in turn, will spur a new arms race and huge profits for military companies and their lobbyists.
https://t.me/togarma301/5385 - zinc
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7589096.html
Sanctions against Russia brought down the existing world order
May 1, 12:10 p.m.
Sanctions against Russia brought down the existing world order
After the end of the conflict in Ukraine, the question of organizing a new world order will arise, political scientist José Garzon is sure. As an expert writes in an article for Le Figaro, by isolating Russia in the international arena, the West brought down the existing order of the international system based on multilateral cooperation. It will probably be replaced by a system in which opposing camps will reappear, the author of the article predicts.
It can be assumed that the daily observation of hostilities in Ukraine has now obscured any reflection in the West about a general change in the world order, geopolitics specialist José Garzon writes in Le Figaro. However, when the crisis of action is over, it will be necessary to ask how the world will be organized, the author believes.
It's obvious thatsanctions dealt a severe, if not fatal, blow to multilateral cooperation. As the expert explains, without discussing the validity or effectiveness of the sanctions, it is obvious that their goal is to provoke Russia's withdrawal from the international system, and the effect of restrictive measures will undoubtedly be the final destruction of the international consensus that has been so slowly created over the past decades.
“The world order as we know it is really fragile,” Garson warns. In his opinion, it is based on the principle that all States, without exception, must have a place at the negotiating table.By excluding Russia from a number of multilateral structures (WTO, Human Rights Council, Council of Europe, and so on). The West has clearly abandoned this fundamental principle and struck at the heart of multilateralism. “We are allowing a now free Russia to establish its own camp, separate from ours ,” warns Garzon, noting that this camp will be stronger than the Western one, thanks to the likely entry of China and many other countries into it. Thus, the effect of sanctions against Russia is to completely collapse the multilateral market, despite the fact that the damage caused to this country was relatively small.
If earlier no one protested when the dollar assets of the central bank of Afghanistan were confiscated, today we are talking about the assets of a major power, the author notes.What country does not now think that its reserves in American bank accounts are not at risk , the author asks. The currency arbitrages that result from these fears will become more frequent and put severe pressure on the dollar — on top of the pressure that China and Russia have been putting on it for a decade to de-dollarize international trade, the expert predicts.
What is interesting to note against the backdrop of this slow collapse of the global multilateral order is that Russia and America seem to have long expected this, if not willing., the political scientist notes. For a long time, contemporary Russian philosophers and economists have speculated that Russia should break away from the multilateral system and create a new system with its allies. At a time when reflections on the problem of "restoring" multilateralism for more effective globalization were multiplying in the West, an alternative model of international relations based on the superiority of states was considered in Russia and China , the author explains.
The conclusion of these reflections was that the desired replacement was not possible in peacetime. According to the expert, with the help of military actions in Ukraine, Moscow can provoke changes that will lead to the fact that the multilateral approach will disappear in the form in which it exists now.
The United States, in turn, also did not stand aside from this "struggle of ideas." Feeling for the first time in its history that their existence was endangered by China's unstoppable rise, the United States is said to have realized its vulnerability, from which even nuclear weapons cannot save. They found it possible to compensate for this vulnerability by developing strategies to weaken competing countries. Engaging these countries in debilitating conflicts is likely to be an innovation worthy of testing both in Europe (with Ukraine and Russia) and in the Pacific (with Taiwan and China) , the expert suggests.
What is happening in the current conflict in Ukraine shows that the United States has decided to abandon multilateral cooperation and return to the old policy of the balance of power, the expert believes.“Tomorrow, if they want to find a common language, the United States and Russia will have to negotiate a new organization of the world ,” the political scientist is sure.
As the author recalls, during the debate about the organization of the future world during the Second World War, those who believed that the future world order should be organized on a “global” basis clashed with those who assured that the basis should be “regional”, while each "region" would represent a zone of influence in the world with its own structures and decision makers.
Churchill and Roosevelt were not against a regional basis. However, US Secretary of State Cordell Hull vehemently defended the idea of globalization, which, in his opinion, could make the United States a world power after the end of the war. In the end, he won, resulting in the creation of the UN and other well-known "global" multilateral structures. And it is this model that is now threatened with extinction, emphasizes Garzon. “Indeed, what if now we return to an organization with zones of influence and “regions”? What if today it turns out that Cordell Hull was wrong? the author asks.
https://russian.rt.com/inotv/2022-05-01 ... tiv-Rossii - zinc
https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/apres ... s-20220428 - original in french
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7588815.html
Google Translator
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Will Washington’s seizure of $300 billion Russian assets end domination of dollar as global currency?
May 1, 2022 Gary Wilson
In Kabul, Afghanistan, people lined up outside a bank to take out cash in October 2021, two months after the U.S. seized the Bank of Afghanistan’s $9.5 billion in dollar reserves.
On Feb. 26, the U.S. blocked Russia’s access to over $300 billion in foreign reserves held in banks in the U.S., the European Union and Japan. This was part of the sanctions U.S. President Joe Biden announced as part of the U.S./NATO proxy war against Russia.
China did not freeze Russian assets. China’s banking regulator said it would not participate in sanctions against Russia, adding that the sanctions “have no legal grounds.”
Another way to put it is that the U.S. taking $300 billion in Russian assets is illegal – a robbery.
Russia responded with counter-sanctions, requiring all payments from “unfriendly countries” in rubles. The list of “unfriendlies” includes all G7 and EU nations, as well as Ukraine. Since assets in the form of dollars or euros might be seized by the U.S., requiring payment in rubles is reasonable.
What are foreign reserves?
Foreign reserves are a government’s holdings of gold, foreign treasury bills and foreign currency — dollars, euros, pounds, yen and yuan. Although a country can hold foreign reserves in its own banks, governments often choose to keep their reserves overseas to avoid costly cross-border transactions and gain direct access to foreign markets.
U.S. President Joe Biden has imposed severe sanctions on Russia, including the freezing of Russia’s foreign reserves. The impact of this U.S. economic and financial warfare is expected to raise the prices of oil, industrial metals, natural gas, fertilizer and food.
CNBC reported April 6: “A fertilizer shortage, worsened by war in Ukraine, is driving up global food prices and scarcity.” The shortage is not because of any military activity; it’s because of the sanctions. Sanctions are not an alternative to warfare, as some might claim. Sanctions are economic warfare.
Hidden for now is the potential impact the seizure of foreign assets will have on the dollar-dominated international monetary system.
The U.S. world empire consists of a series of institutions – military, financial, trade and political. These institutions, whose roles have evolved over the years, include NATO, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and even the U.S.-dominated United Nations Security Council. Plus, importantly, the U.S. dollar-centered international monetary system.
The world’s reserve currency
The U.S. dollar was designated as the world’s reserve currency by the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944. The world’s central banks all operate on the dollar standard, holding their international monetary reserves in the form of U.S. Treasury bills, U.S. bank deposits and U.S. stocks and bonds.
More than a century ago, central banks had kept their reserves in the form of gold and silver. By the beginning of the 20th century, central banks started to hold some of their reserves in treasury bills of other countries, which enabled central banks to earn interest on their reserves, something they couldn’t do with gold bars.
However, both gold bars and treasury bills can be stolen, as fictionally dramatized in the James Bond “Goldfinger” story.
Venezuela’s central bank had about $2 billion “safely” deposited in the Bank of England, which was “frozen” (stolen) by the U.S./NATO imperialists as part of the economic and financial war (sanctions) against Caracas.
Turns out, central banks aren’t neutral or safe havens.
U.S./NATO defeat in Afghanistan
The war on Afghanistan was a U.S./NATO operation. The U.S. had 100,000 troops at 800 military bases in Afghanistan. In addition, under U.S. command, an additional 130,000 troops from other NATO countries were stationed at 400 NATO bases in Afghanistan.
The war was a major defeat of the imperialist forces. When the U.S./NATO withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, the U.S. government froze $9.5 billion in dollar reserves of the Bank of Afghanistan. This threw the economy of Afghanistan into a deep crisis, devastating the whole population.
The U.S./NATO war had already driven the country into total poverty. In July 2020, before the Taliban returned to power in Kabul, the Ministry of Economy in Afghanistan had said that 90% of the people in the country lived below the international poverty line of $2 a day.
The freezing of Afghanistan’s dollar reserves, according to the U.N. Development Program, “means only 5% of the population has enough to eat, while the number of those facing acute hunger is now estimated to have … reached a record 23 million. Almost 14 million children are likely to face crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity this winter, with 3.5 million children under the age of five expected to suffer from acute malnutrition, and 1 million children risk dying from hunger and low temperatures.”
Freezing bigger dollar assets
Until now, most assumed Washington’s freezing of monetary reserves held in U.S. Treasury bills or other dollar-denominated assets was confined to small countries like Venezuela or Afghanistan.
If other countries, like the People’s Republic of China, fear their central bank reserves might be frozen by the U.S./NATO imperialists, won’t they shift their reserves to gold?
The U.S. dollar domination of the world economy is already in decline. Will this lead to not just decline but destabilization?
As researchers working for the Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs cautioned: “The move by the U.S. and its allies to freeze Russia’s central bank out of much of its foreign currency reserves has raised concerns that countries could start moving away from using the dollar, due to worries about the power the currency grants the U.S.”
https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... -currency/
April 30, 2022
Odessa has imposed a two-day curfew on the anniversary of the burning alive of anti-Maidan protestors on May 2, 2014, reports Joe Lauria.
[youtube]http//youtu.be/vy-YrTdt7RE[/youtube]
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Authorities in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa have set a 24-hour curfew from May 1-3 to prevent protests commemorating the burning alive on May 2, 2014 of 48 people who had rejected the U.S.-backed coup in Kiev earlier that year.
The city, which is “(under the control of Ukrainian troops) announced the introduction of a ‘curfew’ in the city from 22-00 on May 1 to 5-00 on May 3. For the duration of the ‘curfew’ Odessans are not allowed to leave their homes,” said the group Repression of the Left and Dissenters in Ukraine in a Telegram post. “Obviously, this decision of the authorities is due to the fact that May 2 is a very important date for the inhabitants of Odessa.”
On that day eight years ago hooligans and far-right groups deliberately set fire to a labor union building where protestors against the coup had taken refuge. Police did not intervene. Video footage shows at least one police officer and others firing their guns into the building. The crowd is cheering as many of the people trapped inside jumped to their deaths.
The events of that day “have not yet been investigated by law enforcement agencies of Ukraine,” the group said. Pleas at the time from the United Nations and the European Union for Ukraine to investigate were ignored. Three Ukrainian local government probes were stymied by the withholding of secret documents.
A report on the incident from the European Council (EC) at the time makes clear it did not conduct its own investigation but relied on local probes, especially by the Verkhovna Rada’s Temporary Investigation Commission. The EC complains in its reports that it too was barred from viewing classified information. Relying on the local inquiries, the EC reports that pro-Russian, or pro-federalist, protestors attacked a pro-unity march in the afternoon, prompting street battles. Then:
“At around 6.50 p.m. pro-federalists broke down the door [of the trade union building] and brought inside various materials, including boxes containing Molotov cocktails and the products needed to make them. Using wooden pallets which had supported tents in the square, they blocked the entrances to the building from the inside and erected barricades. When they arrived at the square at around 7.20 p.m., the pro-unity protesters destroyed and set fire to the tents of the Anti-Maidan camp. The remaining pro-federalism protesters entered the Trade Union Building, from where they exchanged shots and Molotov cocktails with their opponents outside. …
At about 7.45 p.m. a fire broke out in the Trade Union Building. Forensic examinations subsequently indicated that the fire had started in five places, namely the lobby, on the staircases to the left and right of the building between the ground and first floors, in a room on the first floor and on the landing between the second and third floors. Other than the fire in the lobby, the fires could only have been started by the acts of those inside the building. The forensic reports did not find any evidence to suggest that the fire had been preplanned. The closed doors and the chimney effect caused by the stairwell resulted in the fire’s rapid spread to the upper floors and a fast and extreme rise in the temperature inside the building.”
The local investigation thus blamed the anti-Maidan protestors for starting the fire throughout the building. But this video, which shows events on that day leading to the fire, depicts the main blaze in the lobby. It shows Right Sector extremists lobbing Molotov cocktails into the building and a policeman firing his gun at it. It does not show any cocktails thrown from the building. It doesn’t show clashes earlier in the day, though one pro-unity protestor says they were attacked at Cathedral Square and they’ve come to burn the anti-Maidan protestors in the building for revenge:
The New York Times buried the first news of the massacre in a May 2, 2014 story, saying “dozens of people died in a fire related to clashes that broke out between protesters holding a march for Ukrainian unity and pro-Russian activists.”
The Times then published a video report that said dozens were killed in a fire, “and others were shot dead when fighting between pro- and anti-Russian groups broke out on the streets of Odessa.” The video narrator says “crowds did their best to save lives.” It quotes Ukrainian police saying a “pro-Kiev march was ambushed … petrol bombs were thrown” and gun battles erupted on the streets.
The late Robert Parry, who founded Consortium News, reported on Aug. 10, 2014:
“The brutality of these neo-Nazis surfaced again on May 2 when right-wing toughs in Odessa attacked an encampment of ethnic Russian protesters driving them into a trade union building which was then set on fire with Molotov cocktails. As the building was engulfed in flames, some people who tried to flee were chased and beaten, while those trapped inside heard the Ukrainian nationalists liken them to black-and-red-striped potato beetles called Colorados, because those colors are used in pro-Russian ribbons.
‘Burn, Colorado, burn’ went the chant.
As the fire worsened, those dying inside were serenaded with the taunting singing of the Ukrainian national anthem. The building also was spray-painted with Swastika-like symbols and graffiti reading ‘Galician SS,’ a reference to the Ukrainian nationalist army that fought alongside the German Nazi SS in World War II, killing Russians on the eastern front.”
“Every year on May 2, residents of Odessa come to the House of Trade Unions, where the tragedy occurred, to honor the memory of the victims,” the Ukrainian leftist group said. “But also every year on this day they are attacked by representatives of ultra-right groups with the inaction of the police.”
“This year,” the group said, “the authorities decided to prevent any gathering on May 2nd. Everyone who leaves their home on May 2 will be detained under the terms of the ‘curfew.'”
Sparked Donbass Rebellion
“This event became the trigger for the uprising in the Donbass,” Repression of the Left and Dissenters in Ukraine said. Eight days after the Odessa massacre, coup resisters in the far eastern provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk, bordering on Russia, voted in a referendum to become independent from Ukraine.
The U.S.-backed coup government then launched a military attack against the breakaway provinces, which continued for nearly eight years, killing thousands of people before prompting Russian intervention in the civil conflict. Russia says it has proof that the Ukrainian military, which had amassed 60,000 of its troops at the line of contact, were on the verge of an offensive to retake the provinces. OSCE maps showed a dramatic increase of shelling from the government side into the rebel areas in the last week of February.
On Feb. 24 Russia invaded Ukraine with the stated purpose of “de-Nazifying” and “de-militarizing” Ukraine to protect Russian-speakers and the people of Donbass. In a televised address three days before the invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned the events of May 2, 2014 in Odessa.
“One shudders at the memories of the terrible tragedy in Odessa, where peaceful protesters were brutally murdered, burned alive in the House of Trade Unions,” he said. “The criminals who committed that atrocity have never been punished, and no one is even looking for them. But we know their names and we will do everything to punish them, find them and bring them to justice.”
The demonstrators in Odessa that day were protesting the violent overthrow on Feb. 21, 2014 of the democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovych. U.S. involvement in the coup is revealed in a leaked telephone conversation between Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine at the time.
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/04/30/c ... rebellion/
Yet they say there are no Nazis in Ukraine. Those who deny or ignore Nazis deserve an ass whooping.
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Three days in May to fight imperialist war and fascism
May 1, 2022 Greg Butterfield
The struggle against imperialist war and white supremacy is global. Pictured: Brooklyn protest after the police murder of George Floyd, June 1, 2020; Victory Day 2016 in Lugansk. SLL photos: Greg Butterfield
This May, as U.S. imperialism wages a criminal proxy war against Russia on the territory of Ukraine and the Donbass republics, the workers’ movement should take steps toward organizing to defeat imperialist war and fascism. Three days of fight-back give us an opportunity to begin that urgent work.
May 1 is International Workers’ Day, commemorating the 1886 Haymarket protest and deadly police repression in Chicago. The day of international working-class solidarity is celebrated around the world. In the United States, anti-communism and anti-Sovietism nearly wiped out May Day for decades, until it was revitalized by the struggle of undocumented immigrant workers in the early 2000s.
May 2 marks the anniversary of another massacre: in Odessa, Ukraine, in 2014, carried out by U.S.-backed neo-Nazis. At least 48 anti-fascist protesters were killed when supporters of the illegal Maidan coup set fire to the House of Trade Unions and slaughtered those who tried to escape the burning building. This massacre isn’t yet well known in the U.S. but should be, since it illuminates the ugly reality behind Washington’s “Stand with Ukraine” war propaganda.
May 9, meanwhile, is recognized in the former Soviet countries and much of the world as Victory Day – marking the final defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. It’s no surprise that this day isn’t celebrated in the U.S., since it challenges the well-cultivated myth that the U.S. was the lynchpin in the defeat of the Third Reich. But in reality, the USSR and its partisan allies across Europe defeated German imperialism – at the cost of 30 million civilian and military lives and the destruction of much of the socialist country’s infrastructure.
In the Donbass people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, in Russia, and until eight years ago in Ukraine itself, the period from May 1 through 9 is an important holiday time when people remember those who sacrificed so much to defeat the 20th century fascist menace.
Since 2014, it has gained new meaning in Donbass, as people also honor those family members and neighbors who’ve died defending the republics from Ukraine’s NATO-armed military – including the neo-Nazi battalions that form the backbone of the current Ukrainian state.
This May 1-2, it’s been announced that Odessa will be under day-long curfews to prevent any expression of working-class struggle or opposition to the Zelensky/NATO regime. Ukrainian President Zelensky recently appointed the leader of the fascist Aidar Battalion as governor of the Odessa region.
Victory Day commemorations have been banned in Ukraine since 2014. Elders who have taken to the streets in defiance of the Ukrainian regime to mark Victory Day have been arrested by police and beaten by neo-Nazis.
War on workers
President Joe Biden has requested a $33-billion addition to the U.S. war budget to pump even more weapons into Ukraine to counter the Special Military Operation of the Donbass republics, Ukraine’s anti-fascist underground and the Russian Federation. The aim of the Special Military Operation is to denazify and disarm the NATO-controlled Ukrainian regime.
Given the eagerness of Democrats and Republicans alike to support the U.S. proxy war, there’s little doubt Biden’s request will be granted – if not more.
Along with the military-industrial complex, U.S. Big Oil and Big Banks will profit handsomely. A key motivation for launching a major European conflict was to cut off the supply of Russian fuel to Washington’s Western European allies, to ensure their money flows into U.S. coffers.
But the war drive is a disaster for working-class and oppressed people. While Washington pours a fortune into war, sacrificing the lives of Ukrainian and Donbass workers for Wall Street’s gain, people here are left holding the bag in the aftermath of the devastating pandemic.
Rents are skyrocketing and evictions alongside them. Inflation is slamming the lives of workers from the grocery store to the gas pump. Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress have reneged on every promise they made to their voter base: protecting the right to organize, stopping police brutality, defending reproductive rights, LGBTQ2S rights and Black voters’ rights, canceling student debt, action to stop climate change, and on and on.
An even more devastating economic crisis looms. On April 28, it was announced that the U.S. economy shrank and the Gross Domestic Product fell 1.4%, the first contraction since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Censorship and hate-crime propaganda have soared to new heights. The Biden administration and Big Tech have methodically censored workers’ access to factual information and alternative views on the conflict in Ukraine. Washington is setting up a “Disinformation Governance Board” under the Department of Homeland Security to deepen the war censorship.
At the same time, the recently announced buyout of Twitter by super-rich bigot Elon Musk with the backing of big banks indicates that, in tandem with the war censorship, the weak curbs introduced on social media fascists after Jan. 6, 2020, will be removed, giving white supremacists free reign to escalate their divide-and-conquer attacks that fuel violence against people of color, trans people and other oppressed sections of the working class.
Unite the working class
“During a reactionary war a revolutionary class cannot but desire the defeat of its government,” wrote Marxist leader V.I. Lenin in 1915. “This is axiomatic, and disputed only by conscious partisans or helpless satellites of the social-chauvinists. The opponents of the defeat slogan are simply afraid of themselves when they refuse to recognize the very obvious fact of the inseparable link between revolutionary agitation against the government and helping bring about its defeat.”
Unfortunately, in 2022, many of the socialist, communist and other organizations that claim to represent the working class have forgotten this critical lesson. Many anti-war and left groups have bent to the intense pressure of imperialist propaganda and thrown their support behind the U.S. proxy war directly or indirectly. Others are keeping their heads down, afraid to take to the streets or go to the working class to refute Washington’s war lies.
But there are signs of hope. Of particular significance are the powerful union-organizing drives at Amazon and Starbucks, fueled by young workers, Black and Brown workers, women and queer workers, including the ground-breaking victory of the Amazon Labor Union in Staten Island, New York. In Oakland, California, teachers and longshore workers united to shut down the city’s schools and ports April 29 to fight racist gentrification. Grassroots movements are fighting tooth-and-nail to defend trans youth and people who need abortions from repressive laws in Texas, Florida and other Republican-dominated states.
Despite the grim conditions facing our class, we must remind ourselves that it has been less than two years since the George Floyd uprising against racist police terror shook the ruling class with the biggest movement for social change in the country’s history. Today’s right-wing offensive from the top is a reaction to that powerful struggle.
We know that millions of people can and will fight back. The job of the revolutionary left is to connect the dots of the many struggles, to help the workers overcome the divide-and-conquer politics of the capitalists by building solidarity with the most oppressed, and to show how the bosses’ war against workers here and U.S. wars around the world are one and the same.
Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite – to defeat imperialist war and fascism!
https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... d-fascism/
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Germany Drops Opposition To Russian Oil Embargo
By City A.M - Apr 30, 2022, 10:00 AM CDT
Oil prices are on the rise for the fourth consecutive day on renewed Russian supply concerns and potential demand destruction in China.
The EU is reportedly closer to announcing a potential full embargo on Russian oil following news that Germany has dropped its opposition to the measure.
Russian oil production could fall by as much as 17 percent this year as Western sanctions weigh on the industry.
Oil prices have risen for a fourth consecutive day with concerns over Russian supply disruptions trumping reduced demand expectations in China.
Brent Crude climbed 1.7 percent to $109.40 per barrel, while WTI Crude moved up 1.03 percent to $106.50 per barrel.
Both contracts are set to finish up on the week, and post their fifth straight monthly gains, buoyed by reports the European Union (EU) will phase out Russian oil imports by the end of the year.
Germany – the bloc’s largest economy – has dropped its opposition to the measure, which is being considered for inclusion in the EU’s possible sixth package of sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in February.
Prices have been on a volatile journey in the proceeding two months, peaking at 14-year highs at $139 per barrel in early March before plummeting below the $100 milestone later that month as developed economies grappled with the prospect of supply shortages.
The US and UK opting to impose sanctions on Russian energy supplies caused prices to spiral, exacerbated by tight markets amid OPEC+’s persistent failure to raise output production in line with its modest pledged increases of 400,000 extra barrels per day.
With pleas from the West to boost supplies falling on deaf ears, the US and members of the International Energy Agency (IEA) opted to flood the market with 240m barrels – causing prices to tumble as President Joe Biden desperately seeks to contain the cost-of-living crisis ahead of key mid-term elections this year.
The latest resurgence on both major benchmarks has been weighed down by continued Covid-19 lockdowns in China, the world’s biggest crude importer.
The country has shown no signs of easing lockdown measures in Shanghai, despite the impact on its economy and global supply chains.
However, prices are likely to remain elevated regardless, with fears of supply shortages continuing to escalate.
Russian oil production could fall by as much as 17 percent this year, according to documents seen by news agency Reuters, as Western sanctions hurt investments and exports.
Related: German Energy Giant To Pay For Russian Gas In Rubles
Reflecting this reality, Exxon Mobil revealed earlier this week that the Russian unit Exxon Neftegas has declared force majeure for its Sakhalin-1 operations.
The Sakhalin-1 project produces Sokol crude oil off the coast of Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East, exporting about 273,000 barrels per day, mainly to South Korea, alongside Japan, Australia, Thailand, and the US.
The energy giant revealed last month it would exit about $4 billion in assets and discontinue all its Russia operations, including Sakhalin 1.
Meanwhile, OPEC+ is likely to stick to its existing deal and agree on another small output increase for June when it meets on May 5.
By CityAM
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/G ... bargo.html
Economic suicide...well, it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.
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Militarized Europe is a storehouse of financial well-being of the US military-industrial complex
May 1, 1:11 p.m.
Militarized Europe is a storehouse of financial well-being of the US military-industrial complex
It should not surprise anyone that large-scale deliveries of Western weapons have begun to Ukraine. In inciting the conflict in Ukraine, in addition to pursuing geopolitical goals, there is a large share of economic goals. The conflict is as multifaceted as possible, and the restart of the Western military-industrial complex is one of its facets. To restart it, you need to get rid of stocks, and the biggest conflict since the Second World War is a great place to do this.
The US military-industrial complex is extremely interested in the conflict in Ukraine and the endless duration, the fighting is deliberately dragged out by the lobbyists of the American arms companies. They are making every effort to ensure that the situation around the conflict remains uncertain for a long time, with the help of the Pentagon and the huge machine of Western information propaganda.
The first goal is to drain Ukraine of all obsolete Soviet weapons from the countries of the former Eastern Bloc. The countries of Eastern Europe in return will receive new counterparts from Western weapons.
The second goal is to drain Ukraine of stale stocks (including old ones) in Western warehouses and provoke the release of new and larger batches. For example, at the moment, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have received more than 7,000 anti-tank systems from the United States. According to various estimates, the United States had from 20,000 to 25,000 units in warehouses, which means that more than a third of the stocks went to the needs of Ukraine. Therefore, it is necessary to produce as many new ATGMs and ammunition as possible, which means installing new production lines, because the output per year is currently limited to 6480 units per year with a delivery time of 32 months.
Rub and the most important goal is the militarization of Europe. European countries are already making adjustments to their military budgets, against the backdrop of information hysteria and public fears, this is becoming a new need and lobbying by military companies is not even required. In parallel with this, NATO bases in Europe are increasing many times over and weapons depots are being replenished.
Militarized Europe is a storehouse of financial well-being of the US military-industrial complex. Yes, not all European countries rely on US products, but Washington's share is huge and will increase. Recently, the Pentagon posted a request for information (RFI) from industry on the federal contract website, the goal is to obtain the necessary information from all enterprises involved in the production of air defense systems and means, anti-tank and anti-personnel weapons, coastal defense equipment, counter-battery systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as communication equipment. In fact, the collection of information from young military companies begins, for their future stimulation from Washington. Ukraine is a great place to test new models - a military showcase.
The military-industrial complex has been one of the most important drivers of the dollar since the Second World War. And judging by the incoming information, a “gold rush” for arms companies is starting in the West. Everyone is lined up and waiting for new orders. Ukraine in this story is an important link that provokes a large-scale militarization of Europe, and it, in turn, will spur a new arms race and huge profits for military companies and their lobbyists.
https://t.me/togarma301/5385 - zinc
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7589096.html
Sanctions against Russia brought down the existing world order
May 1, 12:10 p.m.
Sanctions against Russia brought down the existing world order
After the end of the conflict in Ukraine, the question of organizing a new world order will arise, political scientist José Garzon is sure. As an expert writes in an article for Le Figaro, by isolating Russia in the international arena, the West brought down the existing order of the international system based on multilateral cooperation. It will probably be replaced by a system in which opposing camps will reappear, the author of the article predicts.
It can be assumed that the daily observation of hostilities in Ukraine has now obscured any reflection in the West about a general change in the world order, geopolitics specialist José Garzon writes in Le Figaro. However, when the crisis of action is over, it will be necessary to ask how the world will be organized, the author believes.
It's obvious thatsanctions dealt a severe, if not fatal, blow to multilateral cooperation. As the expert explains, without discussing the validity or effectiveness of the sanctions, it is obvious that their goal is to provoke Russia's withdrawal from the international system, and the effect of restrictive measures will undoubtedly be the final destruction of the international consensus that has been so slowly created over the past decades.
“The world order as we know it is really fragile,” Garson warns. In his opinion, it is based on the principle that all States, without exception, must have a place at the negotiating table.By excluding Russia from a number of multilateral structures (WTO, Human Rights Council, Council of Europe, and so on). The West has clearly abandoned this fundamental principle and struck at the heart of multilateralism. “We are allowing a now free Russia to establish its own camp, separate from ours ,” warns Garzon, noting that this camp will be stronger than the Western one, thanks to the likely entry of China and many other countries into it. Thus, the effect of sanctions against Russia is to completely collapse the multilateral market, despite the fact that the damage caused to this country was relatively small.
If earlier no one protested when the dollar assets of the central bank of Afghanistan were confiscated, today we are talking about the assets of a major power, the author notes.What country does not now think that its reserves in American bank accounts are not at risk , the author asks. The currency arbitrages that result from these fears will become more frequent and put severe pressure on the dollar — on top of the pressure that China and Russia have been putting on it for a decade to de-dollarize international trade, the expert predicts.
What is interesting to note against the backdrop of this slow collapse of the global multilateral order is that Russia and America seem to have long expected this, if not willing., the political scientist notes. For a long time, contemporary Russian philosophers and economists have speculated that Russia should break away from the multilateral system and create a new system with its allies. At a time when reflections on the problem of "restoring" multilateralism for more effective globalization were multiplying in the West, an alternative model of international relations based on the superiority of states was considered in Russia and China , the author explains.
The conclusion of these reflections was that the desired replacement was not possible in peacetime. According to the expert, with the help of military actions in Ukraine, Moscow can provoke changes that will lead to the fact that the multilateral approach will disappear in the form in which it exists now.
The United States, in turn, also did not stand aside from this "struggle of ideas." Feeling for the first time in its history that their existence was endangered by China's unstoppable rise, the United States is said to have realized its vulnerability, from which even nuclear weapons cannot save. They found it possible to compensate for this vulnerability by developing strategies to weaken competing countries. Engaging these countries in debilitating conflicts is likely to be an innovation worthy of testing both in Europe (with Ukraine and Russia) and in the Pacific (with Taiwan and China) , the expert suggests.
What is happening in the current conflict in Ukraine shows that the United States has decided to abandon multilateral cooperation and return to the old policy of the balance of power, the expert believes.“Tomorrow, if they want to find a common language, the United States and Russia will have to negotiate a new organization of the world ,” the political scientist is sure.
As the author recalls, during the debate about the organization of the future world during the Second World War, those who believed that the future world order should be organized on a “global” basis clashed with those who assured that the basis should be “regional”, while each "region" would represent a zone of influence in the world with its own structures and decision makers.
Churchill and Roosevelt were not against a regional basis. However, US Secretary of State Cordell Hull vehemently defended the idea of globalization, which, in his opinion, could make the United States a world power after the end of the war. In the end, he won, resulting in the creation of the UN and other well-known "global" multilateral structures. And it is this model that is now threatened with extinction, emphasizes Garzon. “Indeed, what if now we return to an organization with zones of influence and “regions”? What if today it turns out that Cordell Hull was wrong? the author asks.
https://russian.rt.com/inotv/2022-05-01 ... tiv-Rossii - zinc
https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/apres ... s-20220428 - original in french
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/7588815.html
Google Translator
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Will Washington’s seizure of $300 billion Russian assets end domination of dollar as global currency?
May 1, 2022 Gary Wilson
In Kabul, Afghanistan, people lined up outside a bank to take out cash in October 2021, two months after the U.S. seized the Bank of Afghanistan’s $9.5 billion in dollar reserves.
On Feb. 26, the U.S. blocked Russia’s access to over $300 billion in foreign reserves held in banks in the U.S., the European Union and Japan. This was part of the sanctions U.S. President Joe Biden announced as part of the U.S./NATO proxy war against Russia.
China did not freeze Russian assets. China’s banking regulator said it would not participate in sanctions against Russia, adding that the sanctions “have no legal grounds.”
Another way to put it is that the U.S. taking $300 billion in Russian assets is illegal – a robbery.
Russia responded with counter-sanctions, requiring all payments from “unfriendly countries” in rubles. The list of “unfriendlies” includes all G7 and EU nations, as well as Ukraine. Since assets in the form of dollars or euros might be seized by the U.S., requiring payment in rubles is reasonable.
What are foreign reserves?
Foreign reserves are a government’s holdings of gold, foreign treasury bills and foreign currency — dollars, euros, pounds, yen and yuan. Although a country can hold foreign reserves in its own banks, governments often choose to keep their reserves overseas to avoid costly cross-border transactions and gain direct access to foreign markets.
U.S. President Joe Biden has imposed severe sanctions on Russia, including the freezing of Russia’s foreign reserves. The impact of this U.S. economic and financial warfare is expected to raise the prices of oil, industrial metals, natural gas, fertilizer and food.
CNBC reported April 6: “A fertilizer shortage, worsened by war in Ukraine, is driving up global food prices and scarcity.” The shortage is not because of any military activity; it’s because of the sanctions. Sanctions are not an alternative to warfare, as some might claim. Sanctions are economic warfare.
Hidden for now is the potential impact the seizure of foreign assets will have on the dollar-dominated international monetary system.
The U.S. world empire consists of a series of institutions – military, financial, trade and political. These institutions, whose roles have evolved over the years, include NATO, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and even the U.S.-dominated United Nations Security Council. Plus, importantly, the U.S. dollar-centered international monetary system.
The world’s reserve currency
The U.S. dollar was designated as the world’s reserve currency by the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944. The world’s central banks all operate on the dollar standard, holding their international monetary reserves in the form of U.S. Treasury bills, U.S. bank deposits and U.S. stocks and bonds.
More than a century ago, central banks had kept their reserves in the form of gold and silver. By the beginning of the 20th century, central banks started to hold some of their reserves in treasury bills of other countries, which enabled central banks to earn interest on their reserves, something they couldn’t do with gold bars.
However, both gold bars and treasury bills can be stolen, as fictionally dramatized in the James Bond “Goldfinger” story.
Venezuela’s central bank had about $2 billion “safely” deposited in the Bank of England, which was “frozen” (stolen) by the U.S./NATO imperialists as part of the economic and financial war (sanctions) against Caracas.
Turns out, central banks aren’t neutral or safe havens.
U.S./NATO defeat in Afghanistan
The war on Afghanistan was a U.S./NATO operation. The U.S. had 100,000 troops at 800 military bases in Afghanistan. In addition, under U.S. command, an additional 130,000 troops from other NATO countries were stationed at 400 NATO bases in Afghanistan.
The war was a major defeat of the imperialist forces. When the U.S./NATO withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, the U.S. government froze $9.5 billion in dollar reserves of the Bank of Afghanistan. This threw the economy of Afghanistan into a deep crisis, devastating the whole population.
The U.S./NATO war had already driven the country into total poverty. In July 2020, before the Taliban returned to power in Kabul, the Ministry of Economy in Afghanistan had said that 90% of the people in the country lived below the international poverty line of $2 a day.
The freezing of Afghanistan’s dollar reserves, according to the U.N. Development Program, “means only 5% of the population has enough to eat, while the number of those facing acute hunger is now estimated to have … reached a record 23 million. Almost 14 million children are likely to face crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity this winter, with 3.5 million children under the age of five expected to suffer from acute malnutrition, and 1 million children risk dying from hunger and low temperatures.”
Freezing bigger dollar assets
Until now, most assumed Washington’s freezing of monetary reserves held in U.S. Treasury bills or other dollar-denominated assets was confined to small countries like Venezuela or Afghanistan.
If other countries, like the People’s Republic of China, fear their central bank reserves might be frozen by the U.S./NATO imperialists, won’t they shift their reserves to gold?
The U.S. dollar domination of the world economy is already in decline. Will this lead to not just decline but destabilization?
As researchers working for the Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs cautioned: “The move by the U.S. and its allies to freeze Russia’s central bank out of much of its foreign currency reserves has raised concerns that countries could start moving away from using the dollar, due to worries about the power the currency grants the U.S.”
https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2022/ ... -currency/