The World Blog by humble servant.

Turkey wants to negotiate an end to the conflict in Ukraine, while some other NATO members would like to see it drag on as a way to harm Russia, Ankara’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday in a TV interview. In a lengthy appearance on CNN Turk, Cavusoglu addressed Turkey’s decision not to sanction Moscow and why the Istanbul talks between Russia and Ukraine failed, among other things. “There are countries within NATO that want the Ukraine war to continue. They see the continuation of the war as weakening Russia. They don’t care much about the situation in Ukraine,” Cavusoglu said. While he did not name any names, US President Joe Biden said earlier this month that the conflict in Ukraine “could continue for a long time,” which was echoed by the former CIA chief of Russian operations. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said after a phone call with G7 leaders on Tuesday that the West is united in not allowing Russia to win and determined to “continue to arm the Ukrainian ...

Germany and a Dutch resource company may begin new offshore drilling for natural gas in the North Sea, according to a joint declaration on Wednesday. They said Russia’s attack on Ukraine had prompted Berlin to reevaluate its energy security. The hitherto untapped gas field lies 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Wadden Sea, a UNESCO World Heritage site, near the Dutch island of Schiermonnikoog and the German island of Borkum and under the seabed of both countries. Lower-Saxony Economics Minister Dr. Bernd Althusmann said that extracting gas in German territory on the condition of domestic demand for the fuel source was a “sensible framework for possible natural gas production in German waters.” “The potential of this field and the fields in the vicinity is about 60 billion cubic meters,” Chris de Ruyter van Steveninck, the CEO of ONE-Dyas, the largest privately owned exploration and production operating company in the Netherlands, told the state-funded broadcaster NOS. Conservati...

Ukrainian forces holed up at the Azovstal steel plant in the Black Sea port city of Mariupol have outlined their conditions to leave the besieged location. Late on Wednesday, Svyatoslav Palamar, the deputy commander of the neo-Nazi Azov regiment, released a new video address, stating that the troops were ready to leave the plant with the support of an unspecified “third party.” The fighters want to keep their personal weapons, as well as to evacuate their wounded and fallen comrades. Palamar refused to surrender to Russian forces or troops of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), which are besieging the sprawling industrial facility. Russia gives Ukrainian troops another chance to surrenderREAD MORE: Russia gives Ukrainian troops another chance to surrender Earlier in the day, a similar address was released by Sergey Volyna, the commander of Ukraine’s 36th marines brigade, which is holed up at the plant as well. There are some 500 wounded fighters at the facility, as well as “hundreds...

Relations between the US and Saudi Arabia that go back to 1945 have never been this bad, according to a report published Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal’s print edition. Insiders in Washington and Riyadh that spoke with the paper blamed the situation on a personal rift between US President Joe Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Both the White House and the Kingdom officially denied any trouble, however. According to the outlet, the crown prince has sought recognition from Washington as the incoming head of state, which would give him immunity from prosecution for the 2018 killing of dissident Jamal Khashoggi. The Biden White House has refused, bringing up Khashoggi in the first meeting with national security adviser Jake Sullivan and treating with the prince – known by his initials MBS – in his official capacity as Saudi Arabia’s defense minister. The WSJ story opens with a description of MBS “wearing shorts at his seaside palace” and seeking a “relaxed tone” for ...

Germany has supplied more weapons and military equipment to Ukraine than previously confirmed, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock revealed on Wednesday during her trip to the Latvian capital, Riga. According to Germany’s Tagesschau media outlet, the minister said Berlin has “supplied anti-tank missiles, Stingers and other things which we have never spoken publicly about, so that those shipments could take place quickly.” Top Ukrainian officials, including the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, have repeatedly criticized the German government for its failure to provide Kiev with heavy weaponry. According to the German media, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Social Democratic party are still skeptical about such deliveries, while his coalition partners, the Green Party and the Free Democratic Party, want Berlin to provide Kiev with more robust support, including tanks and armored vehicles. Meanwhile, Bloomberg has claimed that Berlin was ...

“Russia properly notified the US under its New Start treaty obligations that it planned to test this ICBM,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Wednesday afternoon, adding that the test was routine, and the US Defense Department deemed it “not a threat.” The new missile was launched from the Plesetsk military cosmodrome on Wednesday morning, with Russian President Vladimir Putin calling it an “event of great significance” for the country. “This truly unique weapon will strengthen the potential of our armed forces, reliably ensure the security of Russia from external threats and give pause to those who try to threaten us in the heat of frenzied aggressive rhetoric,” Putin said. The new missile is able to penetrate all modern defenses, and will have no analog anywhere in the world for a long time, the Russian president added. The test missile launched from Plesetsk and flew across the entire length of Russia, before touching down in the designated target area on the Kam...

The mishandling of the Taiwan issue by Washington may have a “ruinous” effect on bilateral relations with Beijing, Chinese Defense Minister General Wei Fenghe told his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, on Wednesday. During the 45-minute-long phone call, which was initiated by the American side, Wei reiterated Beijing’s stance that Taiwan was an “inalienable part of China,” insisting that “it was a fact and status quo that no one could change.” The Chinese armed forces were eager to do everything to protect the country’s territorial integrity, he added, according to a statement by the Chinese Defense Ministry. Wei also warned Austin that a US mishandling of the Taiwan issue “would have a ruinous impact on bilateral relations.” Despite recognizing Beijing as the sole legitimate authority in China since 1979, Washington maintains unofficial ties with the self-governed island of Taiwan, actively backing its push for independence and supplying it with weapons. Last week, the Chinese mil...

Belgian broadcaster VRT has apologized for using a Holocaust movie to ridicule Belgians complaining about food shortages – reportedly caused by the conflict in Ukraine – after Jewish groups complained. The Flemish-language public TV network had used a concentration camp scene from ‘Schindler’s List’ to satirize media reports about a popular cookie being out of stock. “Humor and satire should be allowed in our programming but it must never be the intention to hurt the feelings of others or laugh at their suffering,” VRT said in a statement on Monday evening. “We recognize that this did happen here, we wish to express our heartfelt apologies.” The Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie also said it would remove the video from its YouTube channel. The segment reportedly aired on April 7 as part of an evening show called ‘The Ideal World.’ It shows a scene from Steven Spielberg’s 1993 Holocaust drama, in which a Jewish concentration camp prisoner was dubbed to complain how someone...

The UN General Assembly is considering introducing a provision that would require permanent members of the Security Council to justify their use of veto powers. Currently, the five permanent members – China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US – can veto any resolutions put forth by the body. The council's other 10 rotating members do not have such powers. The provision was tabled by Liechtenstein last week and presented at a closed-door discussion panel on Tuesday. The discussion turned out to be quite “positive” and the initiative received additional co-sponsors, the mission of the microstate to the UN said after the meeting. “We had a strong turnout and positive engagement on the Veto Initiative in open format this afternoon. We will continue our work to get the strongest possible political support for our text which now has 57 cosponsors,” it stated. If adopted, the initiative would mandate convening the UN General Assembly within 10 days after a permanent member of the UNSC...

April 20, 2022 has every chance of going down in the history of modern international relations as the day that led to the sudden demise of the G20, which represents the leading economies of the Western and non-Western world. The events taking place in Washington as part of the meeting – during which the finance ministers of the ‘The Big 20’, as the group is unofficially referred to, were supposed to look for collective answers to the main challenges facing the world economy – lost their meaning amid the grandiose scandal that broke out in the American capital. US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen and UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak immediately announced they would boycott any G20 events attended by Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. Thus, the dialogue between the leading economies of the East and West – for which, in fact, the ‘20’ was created at one time – was disrupted even before it began. For the same reason, the finance ministers of the G20 countries were ...

kraine likely needs $5 billion a month in financial assistance to keep its economy operating and the immediate priority was finding ways to fill that gap in the next three months, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. The Washington-based financial institution will start work on a future loan program, but it was “unfair” to expect Ukraine to implement a far-reaching package of reforms at the moment, Georgieva told a news conference on Wednesday. On Sunday, Kiev requested $50 billion in financial support from the Group of Seven (G7) nations and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to cover a budget deficit largely created by the military conflict with Russia. Ukraine asks G7 for $50 billionREAD MORE: Ukraine asks G7 for $50 billion Ukraine is also considering issuing 0% coupon bonds to bridge the fiscal gap, as the country is currently facing an estimated $7 billion deficit a month, according to Oleg Ustenko, the top economic adviser...

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) said on Tuesday it will stop disclosing the identity of participants in the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), the country’s alternative to SWIFT. Until recently, the list was posted on the regulator’s website. “Under the current circumstances, we decided not to disclose on the website the list of companies connected to the system,” the CBR’s press service said, adding that “the users of the system can still see the list.” Some Russian banks were cut off from SWIFT recently, effectively denying them access to international markets. The ban was part of the latest Western sanctions targeting Russia over its military operation in Ukraine. According to the central bank governor, Elvira Nabiullina, most Russian banks, as well as 52 foreign organizations from 12 countries, have access to SPFS. Moscow, Tehran developing SWIFT alternative – Iranian ambassador “Until there was such a threat of being cut off from SWIFT, foreign partners weren’...

The Solomon Islands is a sovereign nation, so twisting its arm to prevent it from signing a security pact with China would have been the wrong move, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison argued on Wednesday. He was responding to opposition criticism of his government’s failure to stop the deal, which was described as a “massive foreign policy failure” on its part. Labor leader Anthony Albanese and the opposition party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Senator Penny Wong, lashed out at the government over the controversial deal during an election campaign event in Queensland state on Wednesday. “Australia needs to do more than step up with the slogan in the Pacific, it needs to step up with real engagement, deep engagement, with our Pacific island neighbors,” Albanese said. Morrison defended his government’s actions, saying his government respected the sovereignty of Honiara. Australia was treating the people of the Solomon Islands as siblings rather than children to be ordered aro...

Fake news at the cia double agents posing as reporters. BLOOMBERG filth putting out fake news. Why? They have nothing better to do than be bigots and mad.Why are they mad? There bigots. The fake story today. Kremlin insiders are upset with Putin. 10:52 AM · Apr 20, 2022·Twitter Web App View Tweet analytics johnnie ellington @e7johnny · 15m Replying to @e7johnny First question how would you know? He the most popular man on the planet how about genocide joe and the jew comic bigot and the hitler cousin in germany there rating and everybody in the world HATE them a known fake you wouldn't report on. johnnie ellington @e7johnny · 15m 2. NAME THEM.FAKE NEWS REFUTED. By the only truth teller.humble servant.Your mad all your evil scheme of yesterday white supremacy didn't work this time. johnnie ellington @e7johnny · 14m No one alarm there ELATED johnnie ellington @e7johnny · 7m What a butch of no bodies. You would think if they were real journalist with integrity.The big story the...

New RS-28 Sarmat ICBM was launched successfully from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia, the country’s military said Wednesday. The test launch was the first in a series of trials required for the adoption of the new missile by Russia’s strategic forces. The missile flew across the whole country, touching down at a test site in Russia’s Far East. “Inert warheads touched down in a designated area at the Kura training ground on the Kamchatka Peninsula,” the military said. The new silo-based strategic missile is set to replace the R-36M/R-36M2 Voevoda ICBMs. Compared to its predecessor, the Sarmat can carry more weapons, as well as be fitted with new types of warheads, including “hypersonic glider units”, the military noted. DETAILS TO FOLLOW

China has called on Western states to refrain from freezing the foreign reserves of other nations, saying that the measure undermines world economic stability. The Chinese ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun, made the remarks at a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine on Tuesday. The call comes a month after roughly half of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves, worth over $300 billion, were frozen by Western countries as part of sanctions over Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine. “Arbitrary freezes of foreign exchange reserves of other countries also constitute a violation of sovereignty, and is tantamount to weaponizing economic interdependence,” Zhang said. “Such practices undermine the foundation of world economic stability, and bring new uncertainties and risks to international relations,” the envoy said, adding that they should be abandoned as soon as possible.  China calls for ‘objective’ analysis of Russia’s claims about US biolabs in UkraineREAD MORE: China calls for ‘object...

Commenting on the stalled negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, President Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has told journalists that Russia forwarded to Ukraine a “draft document” with concrete wording. “The ball is in their court, we are awaiting their response,” Peskov said on Wednesday. When asked if there was a deadline for Ukraine to respond, the Russian official indicated that it was up to Kiev. He noted, however, that the “Ukrainians are not showing much inclination toward intensifying the negotiating process.” On top of that, Peskov accused Ukraine of “constantly moving away from their words, constantly changing them.” The Kremlin spokesperson concluded that this supposed lack of consistency “is having very bad consequences in terms of the negotiations’ effectiveness.” Zelensky aide issues peace-talks warningREAD MORE: Zelensky aide issues peace-talks warning Peskov’s remarks echo those made earlier on Wednesday by Russia’s Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman, Maria Zakhar...

Nearly half of Germans are dissatisfied with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s performance, a recent poll has revealed. According to the survey, the German head of government’s popularity is at its lowest point since he was sworn in December 2021. The survey conducted by German pollster Insa and commissioned by newspaper Bild am Sonntag indicated that some 49% of the respondents are not satisfied with how Scholz is handling the top job. According to Bild am Sonntag, this is the lowest level of approval the incumbent chancellor has had since he took office on December 8, last year. 38% of the Germans polled said they were happy with Scholz’s performance. As for the coalition government currently at the helm in Germany, it has failed to live up to the expectations of 55% of the respondents, while the remaining 35% approve of it. To measure the public’s attitude, the researchers surveyed 1,002 Germans last Thursday. Germany explains how it can send more arms to UkraineREAD MORE: Germany explai...

China’s National Bureau of Statistics said the country’s coking coal imports from Russia soared to 1.4 million tons in March, compared to 590,000 tons for the same month last year and 1.1 million tons in February. Overall, the nation more than doubled purchases of Russian steel-making coal, procuring the fuel at a discount. Imports of thermal coal, used for power generation, declined as mild weather curbed demand, with Beijing boosting domestic output. Data shows that China is Russia’s largest coal buyer, taking in more than 50 million tons of the commodity worth $7.4 billion last year via rail and sea from Russia’s Far East. Russia accounted for roughly 15% of China’s total imports and was its second-largest supplier behind Indonesia. Russia, China to boost freight rail trafficREAD MORE: Russia, China to boost freight rail traffic Nearly half of the imports from Russia are metallurgical coal and Chinese buyers are interested in importing more supplies despite the struggle to secur...

he price of oil could soar if the European Union abruptly bans Russian crude from its energy markets, JPMorgan said on Tuesday in a note seen by Business Insider. According to the investment bank, a full and immediate embargo would displace four million barrels of Russian oil per day, sending the benchmark Brent crude to $185 a barrel. Such a ban would leave “neither room nor time to re-route [supplies] to China, India, or other potential substitute buyers,” JPMorgan said. “In a slower phase-out, Russia would have more time to adjust its oil flows toward friendlier buyers and global ex-OPEC+ supply growth would have time to grow sufficiently to fill at least some of the Russia-sized hole in global oil supply,” it added. The Wall Street bank’s warning comes as the EU considers an embargo on Russian oil imports. If the EU ban were to be put in place over a four-month period, prices would be unlikely to rise much higher than current levels, the bank said. Brent crude was trading up on...

Some Western nations are set to boycott parts of a summit of G20 finance ministers scheduled for Wednesday due to the planned participation of the Russian minister. The US called for Russia’s expulsion from the club of the world’s most powerful economies over the conflict in Ukraine. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov is heading Moscow’s delegation at the event on Wednesday in Washington and will be participating via a video link, the ministry confirmed this week. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen “has made clear that she isn’t planning to attend events or meetings that the Russians are participating in,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in a daily briefing on Monday, commenting on the upcoming meeting. The secretary’s participation was confirmed by her department on the same day. She previously pledged to boycott any events involving Russia and called for Moscow’s full expulsion from the club. Consequently, her involvement in the G20 gathering was put into question...

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) collaborated with the Ukrainian government in its fight against the Donbass republics and tried to cover up offences by Ukrainian nationalist forces, Russia’s deputy representative to the UN told a UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday. The accusations came as Dmitry Polyansky blasted Western powers, saying they were being hypocritical regarding the security crisis in Ukraine. The US and its allies pursue their own selfish interests rather than the interests of the Ukrainian people, when they fan hostilities in the east European country, the diplomat said. “We obtained the latest proof of how dirty your tricks are in building a ‘rules-based order’ when we discovered proof that the OSCE special monitoring mission in Ukraine simply spied for Kiev instead of recording violations of the ceasefire,” he claimed. The official said Russia was collecting more evidence to make the case against the monitors. Polyansky made more a...

The Chinese Television System (CTS), Taiwan’s government-backed station, has issued an apology after mistakenly running ticker alerts about China striking targets near Taipei with missiles. The warning appeared during a live news broadcast on Wednesday morning, with alerts reportedly indicating that a “war could break out,” as well as that Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, had declared a state of emergency. According to local media, the viewers were also being informed about China’s missiles having hit warships and critical infrastructure in the vicinity of the capital, Taipei. However, an anchor clarified during the 10am news bulletin that the alerts had in fact been meant for a drill involving the Fire Department in New Taipei City on Tuesday but had been accidentally displayed on Wednesday morning due to a technical error. She also called on citizens not to be “overly panicked,” and apologized for the mistake. The false alerts, which had made it on air, did not cause mass panic ...

The UK tax authority, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), on Tuesday announced plans to revoke the Moscow Stock Exchange’s (MOEX) status as a “recognized stock exchange.” The move is meant to discourage British citizens from investing in Russia. “As we continue to isolate Russia in response to their illegal war on Ukraine, revoking Moscow Stock Exchange’s recognized status sends a clear message – there is no case for new investments in Russia,” UK Financial Secretary to the Treasury Lucy Frazer said, commenting on the move, as cited in the HMRC press release. The “recognized stock exchange” status is given by the UK’s tax authority to qualifying stock exchanges and allows securities traded on such stock exchanges certain tax treatments and reliefs. Stripping MOEX of the status means UK investors trading there will not be eligible for these perks in their future investments. However, “access to those treatments and reliefs for existing investments will remain unaffected,” the press relea...

Russia’s Defense Ministry has extended the offer to surrender for the remaining Ukrainian forces holed up at the Azovstal steel plant in the Black Sea port city of Mariupol after they refused to leave through a humanitarian corridor on Tuesday. Those present at the location may still exit the facility from 14:00 Moscow time on Wednesday without any arms or ammunition on them, officials said in a statement late on Tuesday. “The Russian leadership guarantees the preservation of life, complete safety and provision of qualified medical assistance to all those who lay down their arms,” it said. The country has proven its humane attitude towards surrendering Ukrainian troops on numerous occasions during the conflict and this time the term of the Geneva Convention on POWs will also be fulfilled, the ministry insisted. To be able to leave the steel plant, the Ukrainian commanders inside were told to establish uninterrupted radio contact with the Russian forces, cease all hostilities and r...

The US doesn’t see a need to change its nuclear posture at this point in time, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told journalists on Tuesday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed Moscow could use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine during his interview with CNN on April 15. The US Department of Defense is “constantly monitoring” nuclear threats to the country and took note of remarks made by Russian President Vladimir Putin in February, when he ordered Russian troops to start their military offensive in Ukraine, Kirby said. At the time, Putin warned that any nation trying to interfere in the Russian operation could face consequences unlike anything in their history, which many observers interpreted as a threat to use nuclear weapons. Russia put its nuclear deterrence on the highest alert in the early days of the military operation, citing allegedly hostile signals coming from NATO members. “In light of what’s going on in Ukraine, and certainly in light of the early rhet...

A senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that peace talks with Moscow could be halted should Russian troops seize Mariupol, a strategically valuable port city on the Black Sea. Speaking during a Tuesday briefing, presidential adviser Alexey Arestovich discussed developments in the conflict, namely Russia’s latest push to liberate the entire territory claimed by the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics as their sovereign territory, as well as the prospect of a negotiated settlement to end the fighting. However, if Russian troops succeed in fully taking Mariupol – a key port and the second-largest city in the Donetsk Oblast – “there may be no peace talks,” Arestovych said. “Then our main course of action will be the complete destruction of the enemy, relying on Western aid and the fact that the Russians have no one to get the aid from,” the adviser continued. Russia gives Ukrainian troops another chance to surrenderREAD MORE: Russia gives Ukrainia...

The US government is scrambling to trace large quantities of “lethal aid” transferred to Ukraine’s armed forces in recent months, officials have allegedly leaked to CNN, noting that intelligence agencies have “almost zero” ability to follow the shipments to their final end-users. Though weapons shipped to Ukraine account for the “largest recent supply to a partner country in a conflict,” the White House is increasingly concerned the aid “may wind up in the hands of other militaries and militias that the US did not intend to arm,” a senior defense official told CNN on Tuesday. “We have fidelity for a short time, but when it enters the fog of war, we have almost zero,” said another source briefed on US intelligence, adding that the weapons fall “into a big black hole, and you have almost no sense of it at all after a short period of time.” Ukraine receives aircraft parts from US alliesREAD MORE: Ukraine receives aircraft parts from US allies Despite that “blind spot” – which the out...