The World Blog by humble servant.

Former US Secretary of State and First Lady Hillary Clinton announced on Tuesday that she had tested positive for Covid-19 and was suffering from mild symptoms. “Well, I’ve tested positive for COVID. I’ve got some mild cold symptoms but am feeling fine,” Clinton announced on Twitter, before adding that she was “more grateful than ever for the protection vaccines can provide against serious illness.” “Please get vaccinated and boosted if you haven’t already!” she said. Clinton also revealed that her husband, 42nd US President Bill Clinton, had tested negative for the coronavirus, but was still quarantining until the entire household tests negative. After Clinton asked for movie recommendations to watch during quarantine, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki recommended the Netflix series ‘Inventing Anna’ and advised Clinton to drink “lots of water, tea and juice.” Like Clinton, Psaki also announced on Tuesday that she had tested positive for Covid-19 and would subsequently have t...

Russian Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina did not attempt to resign over Ukraine only to have her resignation personally rejected by President Vladimir Putin, the regulator said on Wednesday. It reiterated that “the information provided by the Bloomberg agency is not true.” Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested those curious inquire with Nabiullina herself. The story cited four anonymous individuals with knowledge of the supposed discussions between Putin and Nabiullina, claiming the central banker had attempted to resign following the offensive in Ukraine, apparently spooked by looming economic catastrophe, only to be asked to stay by the president. Bloomberg admitted Nabiullina’s “current views couldn’t be learned,” adding that for her to leave now would be seen as a “betrayal” after nearly 20 years of working with Putin. She has not said anything publicly about her position, her appointment to another five-year term on Friday, or her opinion on the conflict, an...

Russia has announced the expulsion of an unspecified number of US diplomats in response to Washington’s order to expel 12 staffers from Moscow’s mission to the United Nations. The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that on Wednesday it summoned “a senior diplomat of the US diplomatic mission in Moscow” and handed him a “a note with a list of deported American diplomatic employees declared ‘persona non grata’.” The ministry revealed that it was a retaliation to the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the UN mission in New York and of a Russian employee from the UN Secretariat. US expels diplomats from Russia’s UN missionREAD MORE: US expels diplomats from Russia’s UN mission “The American side was firmly told that any hostile actions of the United States against Russia would receive a decisive and adequate response,” the statement reads. Washington notified Moscow of its decision to declare 12 Russian diplomats persona non grata at the end of February. The US claimed the R...

Ukraine’s parliament on Wednesday appealed again to the West to impose a “no-fly zone” over the country. However, the parliament raised eyebrows online by comparing the devastation suffered by its cities to that suffered by Nazi Germany during Allied bombing raids. The bizarre choice of comparison is the latest Nazi-related statement to come out of Kiev. An image posted to Twitter by Ukraine’s ‘Verkhovna Rada’ (Parliament) portrays a bombed out building in Hamburg in 1943 alongside similar damage to the Ukrainian city of Kharkov in 2022. Text above the image reads “When the Sky is Open,” and a message in English demands that the West “#CloseTheSky over Ukraine.” “#CloseTheSky” is a reference to the possibility of a NATO-imposed ‘no-fly zone’ over Ukraine, a step Kiev has demanded but leaders in Washington and Brussels have thus far refused to take. It would involve NATO committing to shooting down Russian aircraft over Ukraine, a step that would bring the alliance into open war with R...

German gas industry group Zukunft Gas said on Wednesday it was confused by the statement of Russian President Vladimir Putin about the switch of payments for Russian natural gas supplies to rubles. “We took the message that Russia wants [us] to pay for gas supplies only in rubles with great confusion,” Timm Kehler, the director general of Zukunft Gas, told DPA agency. “We can't predict at this moment what specific implications this will have for the gas trade,” Kehler said. Meanwhile, Austrian OMV said it was going to continue to pay for Russian gas in euros. According to the head of the company, they have no other contractual basis. President Putin announced earlier in the day that Russia will now accept payment for gas exports to “unfriendly countries” in rubles only. READ MORE: Putin wants rubles for Russian gas The measure is the first serious response from Moscow to sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and its allies over the conflict in Ukraine. A number of mostly Weste...

averick podcaster Joe Rogan has called out journalists in the US who are treating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a war hero since the Russian attack on the country. Previously, Ukraine was perceived in the West as a corrupt hellhole and its leader as a would-be authoritarian, so the U-turn is “confusing,” Rogan said on his show on Saturday. “This is one of the things that is so weird is that they were very disparaging of Ukraine. They were talking about [the] massive corruption of Ukraine and how horrible it was over there. And now all of a sudden they are looking at it like they’re heroes,” he observed. Rogan offered a collection of articles in the Western press explaining Ukraine’s corruption problems and the increasing slide towards authoritarianism under Zelensky as well as his alleged personal grift. “We are supposed to take a hard-right turn, a veer away, a hard angle away from the narrative that was being pushed just a couple of years ago. And we are supposed to j...

Rssian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Western sanctions against his country have dealt a large blow to public trust in the two major Western currencies. Many US allies have joined together to impose sweeping restrictions on Moscow in response to its ongoing military offensive in Ukraine. Putin argued that the penalties showed it “makes no sense anymore” to sell Russian goods in the US and the EU while receiving payment in dollars or euros. He said that the ruble will be used for the sale of Russian natural gas to, what Moscow considers to be, “hostile” countries. “During the last few weeks, as you know, several Western countries adopted unlawful decisions to freeze Russian assets,” Putin outlined during a government meeting held via video link. “The West has de facto destroyed the credibility of its currencies.” The United States and the EU have practically defaulted on their obligations before Russia. Some have suspected this, but now everyone in the world knows t...

The ruble has surged on Wednesday after the announcement that payments for gas exports to certain Western countries will be switched to Russia’s domestic currency. The Russian currency immediately rose to a three-week high of 95 rubles against the dollar, before settling below 100. It also gained 3.5% against the EU’s currency, trading at 110.5 rubles per euro. The ruble plunged to historic lows earlier this month as unprecedented Western sanctions hit the Russian economy, dropping to record lows of 132 rubles per dollar and 147 rubles per euro on March 7. In mid-February, the currency’s exchange rate was around 75 rubles per dollar and 85 rubles per euro. READ MORE: Putin wants rubles for Russian gas Russia plans to abandon all “compromised” currencies in gas payment settlements, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. He added that illegitimate decisions by a number of Western countries to freeze Russia’s assets destroyed all confidence in their currencies. Therefore “unfriend...

Russia’s special military operation during the ongoing Ukrainian crisis and, more broadly, its conflict with the West hardly seems to change the fabric of India-Russia bilateral relations dramatically. A time-tested special and privileged strategic partnership, encompassing all crucial fields related to defense and security issues as well as political and economic spheres, is not likely to be affected by the hostilities taking place somewhere in Eastern Europe. That is what one could grasp in general so as to set and forget the matter concerned. Nonetheless, the devil is, as usual, in the details. No Man Left Behind "As Hon’ble Members would be aware, tense situation between Russia and Ukraine erupted into conflict on 24 February 2022. The root causes for this are complex, going back to range of issues including the security architecture, political governance and inter-state politics. To that was added the challenges of implementing understandings reached earlier. What is perti...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned, on Wednesday, that if NATO agrees with a Polish proposal to deploy peacekeepers to Ukraine, the move could trigger a military conflict between the US-led bloc and Moscow. Lavrov also claimed that Warsaw may desire to establish a foothold in the large western Ukrainian city of Lvov and remain there after the conflict is over. “Why not, they had such thoughts, and not only thoughts, this occurred in the past,” he said. The diplomat also warned the Baltic states against sending their “little battalions” to fight Russian troops in Ukraine. “Our Polish colleagues have already stated that there will be a NATO summit now, and peacekeepers should be deployed. I hope they understand what is at stake. This will be a direct clash between the Russian and NATO armed forces, which everyone not only wanted to avoid but said that it should never take place in principle,” he outlined. Earlier last week, the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republi...

German news magazine Focus has advised readers to change their spending and lifestyle habits in order to save money amid skyrocketing prices. According to the publication, Russia’s military operation in Ukraine and the economic sanctions placed on Moscow have resulted in additional problems in supply chains and have driven up energy prices. This, in turn, has affected the product range and prices across German supermarket chains. Prices for basic products such as pasta and sunflower oil, for instance, have soared by 40% and 100% respectively. Detergents, mineral water, dairy products, coffee, and toilet paper are also more expensive. Popular supermarket chain Aldi raised prices on 140 different items last week, and other supermarkets are likely to follow suit, according to Focus. However, the publication has come up with a number of measures to help consumers save money. To start with, readers are advised to drink tap water instead of buying bottled water. The publication even list...

Current and former Western leaders who have achieved eternal notoriety for launching the Iraq War, as well as other military disasters, are clearly the wrong people to lecture Russia over its actions in Ukraine. As George W. Bush and Tony Blair are emerging from political retirement to pontificate on Russia’s “authoritarian bullying” against Ukraine, the question arises: does such a surreal spectacle underscore the public’s notorious short-term memory, or does it prove the media’s vast power to shape public opinion in favor of its latest agenda? All things considered, it’s most likely a wicked combination of the two noxious ingredients. Whatever the case, it defies reality that these former US and British leaders, whose past military exploits have been described in some quarters as actual war crimes, are now weighing in on the legitimacy of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, or any other conflict for that matter. To put it another way, Bush and Blair acting like long-haired anti-war acti...

Global economies will be rethinking how safe it is to rely on the US dollar in their foreign currency holdings, the deputy head of the International Monetary Fund, Gita Gopinath, said on Tuesday. The statement comes after half of Russia’s forex holdings were effectively confiscated by international financial institutions amid sanctions placed on Moscow following the launch of its military operation in Ukraine. “We are likely to see some countries reconsidering how much they hold of certain currencies in their reserves,” she stated in an interview with Foreign Policy magazine. Gopinath said the IMF sees “increasing fragmentation” in global payments systems as one of the consequences of the current events. However, she stated that the US dollar, traditionally considered the world reserve currency, is not likely to suffer an “imminent demise.” Still, depending on how long the crisis in Ukraine lasts, there could be larger effects, Gopinath said. Touching on the prospect of Russia’s s...

Russia will now accept payment for gas exports to "unfriendly countries" in rubles only, President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with the government on Wednesday. The president explained that Russia plans to abandon all “compromised” currencies in payment settlements. He added that illegitimate decisions by a number of Western countries to freeze Russia’s assets destroyed all confidence in their currencies. “I have decided to implement in the shortest possible time a set of measures to change the payments for – yes let’s start with this – for our natural gas supplied to the so-called unfriendly countries in Russian rubles, that is to stop using all compromised currencies for transactions,” the Russian president said. "It doesn't make sense to deliver our goods to the EU and the US and get paid in dollars and euros," he added. Putin gave the Central Bank and the government a week to determine the procedure for operations for buying rubles on the domestic m...