The World Blog by humble servant.

The head of the Russian space agency says he will propose a plan on ending the partnership with the West on the International Space Station (ISS). Saturday’s statement comes in response to sanctions imposed on Moscow following its attack on Ukraine, which was launched in late February. Dmitry Rogozin said Roscosmos will soon present its “proposals regarding the timetable of the end of cooperation on the ISS with US, Canadian, EU, and Japanese space agencies” to the country’s leadership. According to Rogozin, joint work on the International Space Station cannot go on as usual unless restrictions are lifted. “The position of our partners is clear: the sanctions will not be lifted,” he wrote on social media. “The goal of the sanctions is to kill the Russian economy, impose despair and hunger on our people, and bring our country to its knees. They will obviously fail, but the goals are clear.” This is why I believe the restoration of normal relations with [our] partners regarding the...

Mending relations between Russia and Europe is still possible, but it will only happen when the latter “sobers up from the American bourbon” and gets rid of US influence, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Saturday. “There are always solutions. From any confrontation, from any difficult situation, there are always ways out,” Peskov told Russian media. Russia-EU relations, however, are unlikely to improve in the near future, he admitted. Moscow expects that to happen only when Europe realizes that it, and not the US, is responsible for its own fate, he added. “When the Europeans sober up from the American bourbon a little bit, and when they finally realize that we should on our own take care of the fate of our continent, Europe, maybe even Eurasia, then it will happen – that’s not a matter for the nearest future - but then the time will come for a reassessment of our relations,” Peskov stated. Russia set to end cooperation with West on space stationREAD MORE: Russia set to end...

Iranian oil production has bounced back to levels achieved before the US quit an agreement on the country’s nuclear program and reimposed tough sanctions in 2018, according to the country’s oil minister. Output of crude and condensate has rebounded to more than 3.8 million barrels a day, matching pre-sanctions levels, Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji told media outlets this week. The country also has ramped up exports of crude oil, petrochemicals and refined fuels, finding dependable customers despite Washington’s threats to sanction nations that do business with Tehran. “By taking effective measures in onshore and offshore oilfields – drilling new wells, repairing wells, rebuilding and modernizing facilities, and oil collection centers – the current oil production capacity has reached before the sanctions, and we have no problem in performance and this amount of production,” Owji said. The news comes weeks after Owji claimed that Iran had managed to boost exports despite the “tough...

By sanctioning Russia without a plan for replacement fuel, the European Union may have hurt itself more than Moscow in its drive to punish Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, former European diplomat Alastair Crooke . NATO’s economic attack on Russia has split world powers into “two separate spheres,” Crooke explained on RT’s ‘Going Underground’ on Saturday. He argued that by completely decoupling the price of commodities from the US dollar, sanctions on Russia have essentially dynamited the credibility of the fiat currency system, and Europe has made the wrong move by rushing forward to bludgeon Russia with sanctions without lining up a backup source of fuel. “In many ways, Europe has not sanctioned Russia, it has sanctioned itself,” Crooke said, pointing out that the conflict in Ukraine is essentially being paid for by $100 billion in European funds previously sent to Moscow to pay for fuel, and the the Europeans “cannot get gas from anywhere else that will substitute for Russian...

Canada’s high commissioner to the UK is determined to convince the overseas market to take Canadian beef, even though it’s treated with controversial growth hormones that currently make it illegal in the UK, he told Politico on Friday. Commissioner Ralph Goodale insisted he would make the case for his country’s meat with “vigor and conviction” as the two countries worked to hash out a bilateral trade deal. But while Canada, like the US, regularly uses hormones in animal farming, the UK hasn’t done so since it was part of the European Union, which it voted to leave nearly eight years ago and is still in some ways extracting itself from. Use of the drugs is controversial for animal welfare reasons as well as human health concerns. Despite Goodale’s faith in Canadian beef, however, London says it will not compromise on its food standards – and it likely means what it says, given that the looming threat of “chlorinated chickens” from the US managed to turn a significant portion of the ...

The inflation rate in Germany jumped to a more than 30-year high, and is expected to rise by 7.3% in March compared to the same period last year, according to preliminary data released by the German Federal Statistics Office (Destatis) on Wednesday. Consumer prices will also be 2.5% higher compared to February, data shows. “The prices for natural gas and mineral oil products have again risen noticeably and are having a significant impact on the high inflation rate,” Destatis explains, adding that the inflation rate was also similarly high in West Germany in 1981, nearly a decade before it was reunited with East Germany in 1990 to form the current state. The statistics office also cites supply bottlenecks due to disruptions in supply chains caused by the coronavirus pandemic as a contributing factor to the significant price increases. Final inflation figures for March will be released on April 12. Uncertainty over energy supplies and rising costs have also led to Germany – Europe’s ...

Lithuania’s government said on Saturday that it has halted all purchases of Russian natural gas, making irrelevant President Vladimir Putin’s demand that all “unfriendly states” pay for the fuel in rubles amid heavy sanctions imposed on Moscow over the Ukraine conflict. “In these circumstances, Russia’s demand to pay for gas in rubles is meaningless, as Lithuania no longer orders Russian gas and no longer plans to pay for it,” the Lithuanian Energy Ministry said in a statement. Lithuania is first among the EU countries traditionally supplied by Russian state-owned gas giant Gazprom to completely wean itself off imports from Moscow, Energy Minister Dainius Kreivys claimed. “This is the result of a multi-year, coherent energy policy and timely infrastructure decisions,” he said. The ministry said that Lithuania’s gas distribution network has been operating without any supplies from Russia since Friday, which was Putin’s deadline for payment in rubles. The move came in response to “Ru...

Republican lawmakers are pressing President Joe Biden’s administration to allow farmers to plant crops on millions of fallow acres through a federal conservation program, saying larger US harvests would help stabilize food prices and prevent famine amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict. At issue are the more than 4 million acres of US farmland that are currently idled under the US Department of Agriculture’s Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). The program, which is designed to improve soil quality and provide wildlife habitat, pays farmers to keep some of their land fallow under 10- or 15-year contracts. Senators Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming) argued this week in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack that with the Ukraine crisis disrupting global food supplies, farmers should be allowed to plant CRP lands without penalty. The food supplies of dozens of countries across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia are at risk because they are dependent on imports ...

Latin American nations have been distancing themselves from their neighbor to the north and joining China’s Belt and Road Initiative, US senators discussed on Thursday during a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing. The senators spoke of the looming threat of Chinese influence in Latin America - a region which was once considered their own backyard but has since been wooed by Beijing’s deep pockets and big infrastructure projects. Major Latin American nation joins China’s mega-project Read more Major Latin American nation joins China’s mega-project “China has a plan. We don’t have a plan,” Sen. Edward Markey (D-Massachusetts) explained, while officials from several US agencies discussed their strategies. These mostly consisted of pointing out flaws with Chinese projects and talking up the US alternatives: supposedly stronger labor, environmental and anti-corruption regulations. Officials with the State Department, USAID, and International Development Finance Corporation bro...

The recovery of the Russian ruble indicates that the sanctions on Moscow are not serving their purpose, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Saturday. A large number of states, including EU members, imposed restrictions on Russia after it attacked Ukraine in late February. “I must say this very clearly: the sanctions we have imposed so far don’t work. The best evidence is the ruble exchange rate,” Morawiecki said on Saturday. “The ruble exchange rate, this litmus test, has returned to the level it was before the Russian aggression against Ukraine. What does it mean? It means that all economic, financial, budgetary, and monetary measures have not worked as some leaders wished. It needs to be said very loudly,” he added, speaking at a center for Ukrainian refugees in Otwock near Warsaw. Poland has advocated for tougher sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine. Earlier this week, the prime minister tweeted that “The sanctions are supposed to stop Putin. If the...

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has complimented regional rival India for maintaining an “independent foreign policy” amid US and allied pressure to adopt a harsher stance toward Russia. Speaking Friday after accusing Washington of “interference” in Pakistan’s internal affairs, Khan went on to praise New Delhi’s unwillingness to go along with a barrage of sanctions and economic restrictions against Moscow. “They protect their independent foreign policy which is centered on its people,” he said, as cited by local media. No country is respected unless it stands on its own two feet. Facing a no-confidence vote on Sunday after losing his parliamentary majority following multiple defections from his party, Khan’s remark was quickly denounced by political opponents, with the leader of the opposition National Assembly, Shehbaz Sharif, blasting him for talking up the policy approach of Pakistan’s top adversary. “His recurring praise for [Indian Prime Minister] Narendra Modi’s foreign...

Pakistani Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry announced on Friday that the country’s security agencies reported a plot to assassinate Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan. “After these reports, the prime minister’s security has been beefed up as per the government’s decision,” Chaudhry said, as cited by the Dawn media outlet. A similar statement was made earlier this week by Faisal Vawda – leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, of which the PM is a member – who said there was a conspiracy developed to assassinate Khan over his refusal to “sell the country.” Vawda claimed that the PM had been repeatedly told that bulletproof glass needed to be installed in front of his dais during his March 27 rally in Islamabad, but the leader refused. “But as always and as usual, he said my [death] will come when Allah wills. Don’t worry about it,” Vawda said. The PTI leader reiterated that along with an upcoming vote of no-confidence, there was a threat on the prime minister’s life a...

Islamabad has summoned its acting US envoy, Assistant Secretary of State Donald Lu, to officially condemn his language regarding the upcoming no-confidence vote against PM Imran Khan, a Pakistan foreign ministry official confirmed on Friday. Lu allegedly told the Pakistani ambassador to the US that “relations with Pakistan cannot improve” as long as Khan was in power. If the former cricket star was ousted in the no-confidence vote, however, the country would be “forgiven for its mistakes,” local media reported. Khan’s government opted to issue a “strong demarche” to the US in return for his threatening remarks after the PM consulted with his national security committee on Thursday over the matter, which they denounced as “blatant interference in Pakistan’s internal affairs” by a foreign country. While the initial statement from the committee did not publicly reveal that the “foreign country” in question was the US, Khan let slip during a televised address that night that the “forei...

Russia’s energy major Gazprom said on Monday that it had pumped more gas to China in February via the Power of Siberia pipeline than it had initially planned, more than tripling supplies compared to the same month last year. “The export of gas to China through the Power of Siberia gas pipeline continues to grow. Supplies regularly exceed our daily contractual obligations. The actual monthly volume of supplies in February is 3.2 times more than in February 2020,” Gazprom said in a statement. The 3,000km (1,864 mile) cross-border pipeline started official deliveries of Russian natural gas to China in 2019. The so-called eastern route’s capacity is 61 billion cubic meters of gas per year, including 38 billion cubic meters for export. Last year, Gazprom supplied 4.1 billion cubic meters of gas to China via the Power of Siberia. It plans to boost exports by an additional six billion cubic meters.

Russia’s Gazprom and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed a second long-term contract on Friday for the supply of 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas from the Russian Far East. The agreement comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin is in China on an official visit. According to Gazprom, the agreement is “an important step in further strengthening mutually beneficial cooperation between Russia and China in the gas sector.” After the project reaches its full capacity, the volume of Russian pipeline gas supplies to China via the Far East route will reach 48 billion cubic meters per year (including deliveries via the Power of Siberia gas pipeline). Gazprom’s largest natural gas deposit in the Far East is the Yuzhno-Kirinskoye field, where production is due to begin in 2023. “The signing of the second contract for the supply of Russian gas to China testifies to the highest level of mutual trust and partnership between our countries and companies. Our Chinese p...

Russian energy major Gazprom said on Friday that it has pumped more gas to China via the Power of Siberia pipeline than planned. The exports were part of the contract between Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), according to the company’s report on the first quarter results. “Gazprom continues to supply gas in accordance with consumer requests in full compliance with contractual obligations,” Gazprom said on Friday on Telegram. “Gas supplies to China are growing via the Power of Siberia gas pipeline under a bilateral long-term contract between Gazprom and CNPC,” it added. READ MORE: Russia and China sign major energy deal The 3,000km (1,864 mile) cross-border pipeline started official deliveries of Russian natural gas to China in 2019. The eastern route’s capacity is 61 billion cubic meters of gas per year, including 38 billion cubic meters for export. The agreement on gas supplies via the pipeline was reached in 2014, with Gazprom and CNPC signing a 30-year con...

The Bank of Japan cannot seize Russian foreign reserves as the country’s current laws do not allow it to do so, according to Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki. In late February, Tokyo announced plans to join other Group of Seven nations in seizing the Russian central bank’s foreign-exchange assets to prevent Moscow from accessing tens of billions of dollars held in Japan. Similar measures, previously introduced by the US and its Western allies, came as part of sanctions against Russia over its military operation in Ukraine. Earlier this month, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said Russia had been deprived of nearly $300 billion out of a total $640 billion in foreign currency reserves due to the measures. READ MORE: Japan jumps on Western bandwagon in restricting Russian trade Last week, the US and its allies announced further sanctions blocking financial transactions involving the Russian central bank’s international reserves of gold.

Japan has no intention of withdrawing from its oil and natural gas projects in Russia's Far East, Economy Minister Hagiuda Koichi told reporters on Friday. “Japan has stakes in both [oil and gas] projects and has secured long-term supplies. The projects provide our country with energy at below-market prices, and soaring energy costs are making the projects even more important,” the official emphasized. Koichi also said that while Japan imports about 90% of its crude oil from the Middle East, Russia's Sakhalin-1 project is viewed in Tokyo as an important energy source outside that region. He added that the Sakhalin-2 project, in turn, accounts for about 9% of his country's imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Moreover, the minister stressed that Japan will also stick to agreements on another LNG development project in the Russian Arctic. Koichi's statements run counter to Japan's broader stance on cooperation with Russia. The Asian state recently joined a numb...

The Bank of Russia has resumed gold purchases this week, but more importantly, the regulator is doing so at a fixed price of 5,000 rubles ($59) per 1 gram between March 28 and June 30, raising the possibility of Russia returning to the gold standard for the first time in over a century. If the country takes the next step, as has been proposed this week, to sell its commodities priced in rubles, these combined moves could have huge implications for the ruble, the US dollar, and the global economy. To get some answers, precious metals analyst Ronan Manly at Bullion Star Singapore. — Why is setting a fixed price for gold in rubles significant? By offering to buy gold from Russian banks at a fixed price of 5,000 rubles per gram, the Bank of Russia has both linked the ruble to gold and, since gold trades in US dollars, set a floor price for the ruble in terms of the US dollar. We can see this linkage in action since Friday 25 March when the Bank of Russia made the fixed price announce...

Amid Western sanctions, Russia might stop selling and buying food from “unfriendly countries,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has revealed. Medvedev, who is currently the deputy chair of the country’s Security Council, published a list of suggestions related to Russia’s food security and exports on Telegram on Friday. The post notes that Russia is a “major grain producer, on a par with India and China,” and when it comes to wheat, the country has been the “largest exporter in recent years.” He also pointed out that agro-industrial exports reached over $37 billion last year. Medvedev unveiled plans to sell “food and crops only to our friends” in rubles and their respective national currencies. According to him, Russia has “a lot of friends” outside of Europe and North America. ‘Entitled’ generation warned of food shortages and inflationREAD MORE: ‘Entitled’ generation warned of food shortages and inflation The former president suggested that Russia should not “ship [its] ...

The backbone of the German economy – its industry – could “collapse” should Berlin decide to impose an embargo on Russian gas, the president of the country’s industry association has warned. Appearing on the Maybrit Illner political talk show on Thursday, Siegfried Russwurm, the president of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), crossed swords with other guests who were calling for the immediate phasing out of Russian gas. Russwurm pointed out that should such an embargo be introduced, the implications would be immense, going far beyond a “speed limit” on highways and “recession and unemployment,” as the host suggested. Without Russian gas, there would come a “virtual breakdown of our industrial networks,” the head of the BDI forecast. He added that at the moment it was impossible to put a price on the potential losses and give even a ballpark figure of how much it would cost the average German. “We are talking about a completely different kind of collapse of our industry,” Ru...

Ukraine is expecting to be granted access to $400 billion worth of frozen Russian assets for the country’s reconstruction fund, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s economic adviser, Oleg Ustenko, said in an interview with the local Ukraine 24 news outlet. “We are talking primarily about the $300 billion frozen Russian Central Bank reserves… [and] the frozen assets of President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, which includes several hundred people outside the country,” Ustenko said, commenting on the sources for the reconstruction fund Ukraine is planning to set up in order to deal with the consequences of the current crisis. The official noted that in addition to this fund, Ukraine hopes to receive financial aid from its Western partners, and counts on having an overall amount of up to $500 billion to restore the country with. EU to let Ukraine refugees convert hryvnas into euros for freeREAD MORE: EU to let Ukraine refugees convert hryvnas into euros for free Earlier, several Western pol...

The US will be sending an additional $300 million in military aid to Ukraine, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby announced on Friday. He added that the package will include laser-guided rocket systems, switchblade tactical drones which are capable of taking out armored vehicles, Puma surveillance drones, armored Humvees, ammunition, night-vision devices, machine guns, communications equipment, medical supplies, and other items. “This decision underscores the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in support of its heroic efforts to repel Russia’s war of choice,” Kirby said. The secretary explained that the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative allows the US government to procure supplies and equipment directly from defense industry contractors, rather than taking it from the Defense Department’s own stockpiles. The US has so far committed over $2.3 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia launched its military opera...

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has defended a recently agreed trade agreement with India. Morrison said the decision to foster relations with a country that has refused to denounce Russia’s military campaign against Ukraine does not undermine Canberra’s support for Kiev. The Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement was signed by Australia’s trade minister, Dan Tehan, and India’s minister of commerce and industry, Piyush Goyal, on Saturday afternoon, in a virtual ceremony witnessed by the prime ministers of both countries, Morrison and Narendra Modi . The accord, among other things, cuts tariffs on a range of Australian exports to India, including coal, lentils, lobsters, and rare earths. The Morrison government hailed the deal as a significant milestone in diversifying Australia’s export markets and reducing its dependence on China. The signing of the agreement comes less than 24 hours after the Indian prime minister received Russian Foreign Minister Sergey...

British energy major Shell will not be able to buy Russian gas due to London’s anti-Russia sanctions, Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of Russian President Vladimir Putin, told the media on Saturday. “London wants to be the leader of everything anti-Russian. It even wants to be ahead of Washington! That’s the cost!” Peskov outlined. He was referring to the fact that the UK is the only country to have imposed sanctions on Russia’s Gazprombank, through which payments for Russian natural gas are made. The measure effectively denies Britain the ability to pay for the commodity. On March 31, Putin signed a decree requiring gas buyers from “unfriendly countries” to open special ruble and foreign currency accounts with Gazprombank to pay for gas supplies. They will transfer funds in foreign currencies to Gazprombank, which will buy rubles on exchanges and transfer them to the buyers’ ruble accounts to make payments to Russia’s suppliers.