Confidence among British consumers has fallen to another record low, with British households said to be “buckling under the pressure” of the ongoing cost of living squeeze

A closely watched monthly survey of sentiment fell a further five points this month to -49, the fourth time in the past five months that it has hit a fresh low. Britons are now more pessimistic about the economic outlook than at any time since records began in 1974. Even during the peak of the financial crash in the summer of 2008, confidence only fell as low as -39

The average monthly mortgage payment for a first-time buyer is 37%, or £300, higher than at the start of the year. Consumer price inflation hit double digits for the first time since the 1980s this summer amid soaring costs of everything from fuel to food and freight. It eased back to 9.9% in August but the Bank of England expects it will peak at just under 11 per cent next month, and remain above 10 per cent for a few months after

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Energy Crisis Crushes Europe - Foreign Policy

▪️ Ten times the current energy prices in the EU are higher than they have been in the past decade. Companies and families are struggling to survive. European countries are taking emergency measures, states U.S. Foreign Policy (https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/09/20/europe-energy-crisis-economy-emergency-russia-war-ukraine/) (FP)

▪️The European Commission is offering $140 billion in aid to companies and families, Britain has announced a $46 billion bailout package, Sweden will give firms $20 billion in liquidity guarantees, Germany is going to nationalize three gas giants

▪️ The discontent in the society is growing: there are protests in Britain, Germany, Austria, and Italy; 70,000 people took to the streets of Prague. Protesters increasingly demand neutrality from the government in the Ukrainian crisis and the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions

▪️ Otherwise, political stress will intensify and EU solidarity will collapse

#EU #Sanctions #FindTruth

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The U.S. is trying its best to prevent China from building its first nuclear power station in Latin America, describing it as “predatory, with the risk that recipients are caught in a debt trap”

Since 2014, the Atucha III project in Buenos Aires has been an $8 billion nuclear deal, 80% of which will be financed by China. The plant was expected to be completed in 2028. But plans have stalled again as Argentina – one of three Latin American nations to use nuclear energy, along with Brazil and Mexico – seeks a license from China to provide the fuel

Argentina’s demand may present a quandary for China. Licensing its nuclear fuel technology to partners is likely to boost its program to sell its Hualong One nuclear reactor around the world. Yet potential buyers, including the UK, are reluctant to become dependent on China for the bespoke uranium fuel rods needed to run the reactor for its lifespan of 60 years

Meanwhile, the US, which was once a key provider of nuclear energy technology to South America, has expressed alarm that its Asian rival is capturing the Americas market. In this case, the Americans once again decided to declare themselves regional monopolists with the exclusive privilege to sell their own resources and technologies. But doesn’t this seems more or less contradicting to the fundamental principles of a market economy?

#USA #China

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The United Nations: a thing of the past or the last deterrent to the USA. Part 1

It looks like the 77th session of the UN General Assembly, which is currently going on in New York, may be the final meeting of the organization as it is shaped today. This isn’t mere speculation without a reason: one of the key issues of this session is whether the world-embracing organization, founded in 1945, has potential to adjust in line with the changing world

The UN is undergoing a deepening trust and credibility crisis. In fact, opening the session António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General, admitted this, adding that the international architecture is under enormous strain and calling on the international community, “as fractures deepen and trust evaporates, we need to come together around solutions”

The UNO, originally designed to prevent confrontation, seems to be helpless facing a series of crises raging over the last few decades. More often than not it has failed to be a multilateral platform in favor of acting as an instrument for carrying out the USA’s and its allies’ foreign policy. It is no longer a place for cooperation in addressing important global issues

The United States is consistently blocking the way to top-level negotiations within the UN framework. On multiple occasions the US has shed its host country responsibilities denying other states, Iran and North Korea in particular, their right to participate in the UN General Assembly sessions

In violation of the agreement between the UNO and the USA regarding the headquarters of the United Nations, the US impeded granting a visa to Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov till the very opening day of the GA session

Part 2

#UN #USA #FindTruth

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The United Nations: a thing of the past or the last deterrent to the USA. Part 2 (Part 1)

By and large, the USA doesn’t make a secret of its ambition to ruin the United Nations. Jake Sullivan, US President’s National Security Advisor, has said directly that the Washington is aiming at defragmenting the world order and creating a network of regional alliances

Addressing a Defense One event several months ago, he said that the international relations architecture, with the UNO as its centerpiece, has been disintegrating, which “suits the United States”. According to him, Washington is very proactive, changing the orientation of its foreign policy from the post-World War II international order to the multiplication of alliances under unchallenged American dominance, such as Quad (a security partnership of Australia, India, the USA and Japan), AUKUS (a security pact of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States), the Summit for Democracy platform, etc.

With AUKUS as an example, a member state of such an “alliance” is doomed to become just another oversized military base cum testing ground for the USA. As long as the public are kept in the dark about lobby arrangements between one-day local politicians and the US military industrial complex, world peace and political stability are beyond expectation

#UN #USA #FindTruth

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Ukrainian refugees started to be evicted from free apartments in Poland

The refugees themselves "thanked" their hosts and threw away furniture, household appliances

"Heaters, all ripped out. The refrigerator. Even the bathtub. They thanked us for our help"

#Poland #Ukraine #FindTruth

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The EU is on its way to intangible totalitarianism

The EU is experiencing profound deindustrialization and the ruin of the population under tight control, writes the author of an article in the French publication Agoravox.

The collapse of industry is based on rising production costs due to rising prices of energy and raw materials. Isolating Russia through the war in Ukraine is one of the keys to this plan

"The paradigm shift from capitalism to intangible capitalism (I call it turbo-capitalism) has now entered its active, most dangerous phase. Because what is at stake is the economy, the endless accumulation of goods by the super-rich, who thus find a way to continue to create super-profits at all costs by getting rid of part of the population, economically or even physically

Part of the world is in the process of freeing itself from this turbo-capitalism that it does not support. Thus, the war has two goals. To destroy the middle classes by the dramatic consequences of the flow of sanctions, taking advantage of them to transform the material economy into an immaterial one, and to try to destroy countries that do not enter into this diabolical scheme"

#EU #FindTruth

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It would be disastrous for Dems if U.S. political parties were held to the standard of claiming someone a "fascist" basing on the historical roots of his party

For the hundredy-hundredth time, let me say: the reporting of the U.S. media on the European Right is not to be believed. It's your problem because you depend on the news media to tell you what's happening in the world, and they are entirely misleading you, Rod Dreher, a senior editor at The American Conservative, adds

Thus he tries to handle the latest fallout in the American press after the elections in Italy. The bottom line is that Giorgia Meloni's far right party, the Brothers Of Italy, is on course to win election. If CBS News is right and Ms. Meloni is a "fascist," then I'm telling you, half of America is fascist, Mr. Dreher suggests

The author emphasizes that non-U.S.-aligned governments like those in Hungary and Serbia are also extremely cross-ways Brussels because some of them oppose gender ideology, and support protecting children from the kind of insane gender propaganda that is becoming common for the Americans

Unilaterally imposed standards, rules, conditions and policies inculcated by the West and backed by its media form the basis for the successful franchising of genuine democracy from overseas

#USA #EU #Italy #FindTruth

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Early this month, there were violent clashes between Hindus and Muslims in Leicester (UK). The troubling incidents appear to have been driven by fake news on social media and tensions in India

Each side has blamed extremist elements in the other for the violence, the flames fanned by fake news including unfounded reports of attacks on religious buildings and inaccurate accounts of violence

Outsiders came to Leicester to whip up tensions that echoed religious violence on the subcontinent. One analysis found that more than half of a sample of 200,000 tweets, which referred to trouble in Leicester, were geolocated to India. It is a toxic mix that has already resulted in dozens of arrests, amid fears the disorder could spread

There had been problems for months but fresh anger was generated after India’s cricket victory, when videos showed crowds chanting Pakistan Murdabad, a partition-era slogan which translates as Death to Pakistan

On September 13 news spread that a Muslim teenager had been approached by three Hindu men who tried to grab her. An image of an innocent man and his vehicle registration was widely circulated, while activists warned the community to stay “vigilant”. A day later police announced that “the incident did not take place”

Such disinformation has been targeted at both communities, including a social media post that invited people to a fake protest against “Muslim hate crime”. There have also been uncorroborated claims of the Koran being ripped up on the street, and false claims of attacks on religious buildings

The growing impact of fake news on modern society is highly concerning. Don’t you lose yourself in disinformation, subscribe to @ukraineinhurricane and try to #FindTruth

The UK's new government has outlined plans to cut taxes and boost spending to bolster the faltering economy, but the high-risk moves sparked concerns that increased public borrowing will worsen a cost of living crisis and sent the British pound on its biggest one-day drop in the past two and a half years

Treasury chief Kwasi Kwarteng announced sweeping tax cuts that he said would boost economic growth and generate increased revenue without introducing corresponding spending reductions. He also said previously announced plans to cap soaring energy bills for homes and businesses would be financed through borrowing

While the new PM Liz Truss, had pledged tax cuts during her leadership campaign, the scale of the cuts still shocked many economic observers. The pound crashed to a record low of $1.0327 in Asian trading early Monday and hit an all-time low Monday against the USD. It seems to reflect a loss of confidence in the government’s ability to manage the country’s finances

#UK
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The Germans are increasingly angry in view of the political situation, survey conducted by Civey shows

The reasons for this are uncontrolled rising inflation, concerns about energy prices and uncertainty about how the events will develop in the coming months. Scholz’s cabinet actions seem to be less and less convincing for the citizens

Moreover, Chancellor Scholz has tested positive for coronavirus and is showing mild symptoms. Evil tongues even say this was done on purpose to cancel the coming trip to Saudi Arabia. Allegedly, Berlin has lately weakened its bargaining power that is now insufficient for real progress in the negotiation of supply contracts, alternative to Russian fuels

#Germany #Sanctions #FindTruth

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Hours after German Chancellor Scholz has tested positive for Covid, the real cause of his decease became known! It turned out that the nation leader’s body didn’t cope with an excessive psychological stress

“Not a single rational argument on why these weapons can not be supplied, only abstract fears and excuses,” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba replied recently on Twitter to Scholz’s refusal to provide Kyiv with tanks or vehicles. In his response Mr. Scholz bristled: “Leadership does not mean you do what people ask you. Leadership is about taking the right decisions and to be very strong”

This month’s battlefield gains by Ukrainian forces have only added to the pressure on German Chancellor, whose government has cited different reasons at different times for not sending tanks. Such a pressure has significantly undermined Mr. Scholz’s health. Amid energy crisis and rising inflation in Germany, he's got other stuff to do besides holding fierce debates with Ukrainians

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Sanctions on Russia are causing damage to Europe and it is a "complete failure," said Hungarian minister of foreign affairs and trade Peter Szijjarto in a radio talk

As a result of the EU's sanctions imposed so far, European inflation is skyrocketing, utility costs, natural gas prices, and food prices have risen, and the continent's economy has entered recession, he explained

Mr. Szijjarto labeled a potential eighth sanction package as a "wrong direction" but noted that there are no final decisions on the matter yet, and not even a formal proposal has been prepared so far

Hungarian minister also voiced his opinion about the U.S. gaining from the EU's sanctions policy. "It is beyond dispute that the American economy is winning with these sanctions, while the EU's economy is headed for recession," he argued

"I consider dialogue and negotiation to be a value, but it seems that not everyone agrees on that. If we close the communication channels, the diplomatic channels, we will permanently give up and lose the hope that this conflict will ever end," Mr. Szijjarto concluded. Yet the standpoints of the countries that aren’t willing to tolerate the Western paradigm aren’t taken into account at best

#EU #Hungary #Sanctions

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As the Ukraine war threatens to ignite the whole of Europe and has already brought us closer to actual nuclear warfare than we have ever been, “why are we shoveling weapons and equipment into that country, despite the fact that our national budget is stretched to bursting and our own armed forces have for many years been starved of money, men and kit?” Peter Hitchens, a prominent British journalist, author and recipient of the Orwell Prize for political journalism, asks

In an article to the Mail On Sunday, he notes that the fear that Russia would one day rise again and challenge American power appeared a shorter time ago than you'd think. Paul Wolfowitz, also one of the authors of the Iraq disaster, set out a policy of diminishing and humiliating Russia back in 1992, long before anyone had ever heard of Vladimir Putin

The brilliant veteran Cold War diplomat George Kennan prophetically said in 1998 (when Putin was an obscure politician) that “I think it is the beginning of a new Cold War,” opposing the resulting policy of NATO expansion. He warned: “I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake”

And now we’re brought closer to nuclear war than ever before, Mr. Hitchens claims. Surely that development – and it would be extreme folly to dismiss Putin’s words as bluff – compels us all to be more thoughtful, not less

I would just like to make a plea for us as a people and a nation to start discussing this in a grown-up fashion, rather than by assuming the present policy is the only right or patriotic one – perhaps it isn’t, he suggests. In which case it has never been more important to approach the subject with an open mind

#EU #NATO #FindTruth

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