European country warns of ‘general energy collapse’
RT World News (RSS)

Gas shortage might put European states in a position where “even with money, you will not be able to get electricity,” Montenegro warns

Interruptions to Russian gas supplies and a mass switch to electricity would lead to “a general energy collapse” in Europe, the prime minister of Montenegro, Dritan Abazovic, claimed on Monday.

Speaking to parliament, Abrazovic recalled recent remarks by German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck who, amid looming energy difficulties over the winter period, advised his compatriots to spend less time in the shower and to prepare warm clothes.

In Abrazovic’s opinion, if someone...

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Chlorine gas explosion kills at least ten and injures hundreds (VIDEO)
RT World News (RSS)

A falling tank ruptured and engulfed the Jordanian port of Aqaba with a dense yellow gas cloud

A chlorine gas explosion killed at least ten people and injured 250 at the port of Aqaba, Jordan, on Monday. Video footage captured the moment a gas tank fell from a crane and exploded, releasing a dense cloud of toxic fumes.

The chief of the city's health department, Jamal Obediat, announced the casualty figures on state television, cautioning that these numbers could rise. Describing the situation as “critical,” Obediat told residents of the port city to remain indoors and close their windows,...

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Two countries apply to join BRICS
RT World News (RSS)

Iran and Argentina see potential in Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa bloc

The Islamic Republic of Iran has officially submitted its application to join the group of five leading economies made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, the foreign ministry in Tehran announced on Monday. The move comes after the Iranian president addressed the BRICS summit last week.

While BRICS is not a treaty bloc, it has a “very creative mechanism with broad aspects,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Monday, according to the Tasnim news agency. He added that Tehran h...

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Pro-EU government goes after former-president
RT World News (RSS)

Igor Dodon has been accused of abuse of office in relation to electricity purchases for Moldova

Former Moldovan President Igor Dodon is facing new criminal charges, and is accused of abuse of office “in the interests of an organized criminal group,” the country’s Office of the Prosecutor General announced on Monday.

According to a statement, the charges were filed in connection with the ‘Energocom’ criminal case and relate to the period of 2008-2009, when Dodon held the positions of first deputy prime minister and minister of economy and trade.

The prosecutor’s office claims that Dodon signed a d...

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Court in US rules on letting non-citizens vote
RT World News (RSS)

The New York Supreme Court has invalidated a law allowing foreign nationals to vote in New York City elections

The New York Supreme Court has struck down a law passed in January that would have given foreign nationals who had lived in New York City as little as 30 days the right to vote in local elections. In its decision on Monday, the court declared the law, which had been signed by incoming mayor Eric Adams just days after his inauguration, “illegal, null and void” because “it is clear…that voting is a right granted to citizens of the United States.”

The court’s decision granted a p...

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Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word. Biden Aims to Bite the Bullet and Fix Relations With the Saudis
Strategic Culture Foundation (RSS)

Biden needs to now show the Saudis that he was wrong and is sorry as he needs Riyadh more than ever before.

The so-called strategy of Biden to put the Kingdom in line and to alienate MbS has been a disaster and massively backfired. Biden needs to now show the Saudis that he was wrong and is sorry as he needs Riyadh more than ever before.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has always grown accustomed to the game of the seesaw when U.S. presidents take office, as one great friend and supporter is replaced by a ‘frenemy’ who gives Riyadh the cold shoulder. But few could have predicted that this seesaw would swing back within the four-year span of a U.S. presidency, which is what we are witnessing now with the somewhat preposterous stance that Joe Biden is now forced to take with the Saudis.

When Biden came into office he made a song and a dance about not “giving blank cheques” to regional players like the Saudis and it was obvious that he had Saudi’s mercurial Crown Prince ‘MbS’ in his sights, after a catalogue of appalling human rights calamities such as the Yemen war and the ghastly murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

He imposed a weapons ban on the kingdom, restricted the movement of a number of top officials and made MbS persona non grata all as part of a churlish campaign to bring KSA into line with so-called U.S. “democratic values”.

It didn’t take long though for Biden to cave into some stark realities which have turned the tables on him and his feeble gesturing. The moral tutelage quickly evaporated and reduced the American president to a more servile role in the aftermath of the Ukraine conflict – which Biden is largely responsible for starting when he was vice president in 2014 and he was part of a ruse to overthrow the Russian-friendly leader at the time. Biden quickly realised that while the U.S. can adapt to a new oil crisis, Europe would find it much harder. The U.S. imposed maximum oil sanctions against Russia, but the EU could not follow through as a number of countries in Europe have no way of surviving without gas from Russia.

And so Biden now views Saudi Arabia through a new prism. Biden wised up and made the call to MbS shortly after the conflict started in mid-February but the Crown Prince refused to pick up – a churlish gesture followed by the UAE and which has resonated across the Atlantic and given Biden a harsh lesson, which at his age and with his experience in the White House he really shouldn’t need. Be kind to your friends when you climb as you may need them on the way down.

The Ukraine crisis was massively misjudged by Biden. It’s as though the U.S. president didn’t even care to do some peripheral research into the realities of going to war with Russia. The division between EU countries and also within the EU itself in Brussels guaranties that Europe will continue to fund Russia’s military campaign through energy sales.

But Biden didn’t just misjudge how the war would play out in Ukraine and how the EU would be forced to play both a role in financing it on Russia’s side but also facing crippling inflation at home at the gas pumps and the supermarkets.

Biden also misjudged how the price of gasoline in the U.S. would determine how well he has performed as U.S. president as midterm elections loom. The quick fix for him would be to get KSA on board with higher production which, he hopes, would bring down prices at the pump back home. A hard call from people he once called ‘murderers’, some might argue, and for that matter those who are feeling the...

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 Biden Pays Big Bucks For Pfizer’s Latest Flop
Strategic Culture Foundation (RSS)

The Biden administration is paying $10.6 billion in taxpayer money for Pfizer’s unoriginal and ineffective Covid-19 drug, Paxlovid.

Dr. David GORTLER

Back in November 2021, the White House paid drugmaker Pfizer nearly $5.3 billion for 10 million treatment courses of its experimental Covid-19 treatment, Paxlovid, an antiviral combination of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir.

Ritonavir was developed in 1989 and nirmatrelvir was developed in 2020. In other words, Paxlovid wasn’t developed from scratch to treat Covid-19; the compounds already existed.

In December 2021, Pfizer claimed initial study findings showed that Paxlovid cut the risk of hospitalization and death by nearly 90 percent in people with mild to moderate coronavirus infections.  Without context this statement is grossly misleading. Just about everyone who gets the existing Covid-19 mutation will have mild or moderate disease, yet the drugmaker limited its study to people who were unvaccinated and faced the greatest risk from the virus due to age or health problems, such as obesity. An updated, more recent analysis from 1,153 patients (out of a possible 2,246 patients) showed a lackluster, non-significant 51 percent relative risk reduction.  A sub-group analysis of 721 vaccinated adults with at least one risk factor for progression to severe Covid-19 showed a non-significant relative risk reduction in hospitalization or death (treatment arm: 3/361; placebo: 7/360).

According to Pfizer’s official June 14 press release, results from the Phase 2/3 of the amended Paxlovid EPIC-SR (Evaluation of Protease Inhibition for COVID-19 in Standard-Risk Patients) study showed, with my emphasis:

The novel primary endpoint of self-reported, sustained alleviation of all symptoms for four consecutive days was not met.
Pfizer will cease enrollment into the EPIC-SR trial due to low rate of hospitalization or death in the standard-risk population.

Tucked within Pfizer’s press release was the following financial nugget for investors: “The results from these additional analyses are not expected to impact Pfizer’s full-year 2022 revenue guidance.” The reason for that is: Pfizer already has $5.3 billion in hand from taxpayers, and has locked in “blockbuster status” (defined as one billion dollars in sales of a single drug).

In addition to the $5.3 billion already committed, in January the U.S. announced a confidential additional “commitment” to order an additional 10 million doses (at the price of 5.3 billion dollars more, for a total of $10.6 billion), giving Pfizer highly sought-after “super blockbuster status” (defined as 10 billion dollars in sales of a single drug). The administration remained “firmly committed to proceeding with the [additional] purchase,” according to an April 2022 Bloomberg report.

According to Bloomberg, the White House initially sought $22.5 billion in new pandemic funding. Democrats were prepared to include just over $15 billion in a broad government-spending bill earlier this year, but it was removed amid disputes wit...

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Imperial Narrative Control Has Five Distinct Elements
Strategic Culture Foundation (RSS)

By Caitlin JOHNSTONE

All of our world’s worst problems are created by the powerful. The powerful will keep creating those problems until ordinary people use their superior numbers to make them stop. Ordinary people don’t use their superior numbers to stop the powerful because the powerful are continuously manipulating people’s understanding of what’s going on.

Humans are storytelling creatures. If you can control the stories humans are telling themselves about the world, you control the humans, and you control the world.

Mental narrative plays a hugely prominent role in human experience; if you’ve ever tried to still your...

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UN chief says ailing oceans in state of 'emergency'
WION - world News Releases (RSS)

A long-delayed conference on how to restore the faltering health of global oceans kicked off in Lisbon on Monday, with the head of the UN saying th

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Qatar steps in to hold informal nuclear talks between Iran and US: Reports
WION - world News Releases (RSS)

As per a Reuters report quoting Iranian media, in a bid to break the months-long impasse in negotiations to reinstate the 2015 nuclear pact, Qatar

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