Monthly Archives: November 2022

Western Hegemony's Collapse

The G20 is dead. Long live the G20

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by M K Bhadrakumar via Counter CurrentsBiden Xi USA China G20

US president Joe Biden (R) and Chinese president Xi Jinping met at Bali, Nov 14, 2022. Biden said they discussed their responsibility to prevent competition and find ways to work together.

The seventeenth G20 Heads of State and Government Summit held in Bali, Indonesia, on 15–16 November stands out as a consequential event from many angles. The international politics is at an inflection point and the transition will not leave unaffected any of the institutions inherited from the past that is drifting away forever.

However, the G20 can be an exception in bridging time past with time present and time future. The tidings from Bali leave a sense of mixed feelings of hope and despair. The G20 was conceived against the backdrop of the financial crisis in 2007 — quintessentially, a western attempt to burnish the jaded G7 by bringing on board the emerging powers that stood outside it looking in, especially China, and thereby inject contemporaneity into global discourses.

The leitmotif was harmony. How far the Bali summit lived up to that expectation is the moot point today. Regrettably, the G7 selectively dragged extraneous issues into the deliberations and its alter ego, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), made its maiden appearance in the Asia-Pacific. Arguably, the latter must be counted as a fateful happening during the Bali summit.

What happened is a negation of the spirit of the G20. If the G7 refuses to discard its bloc mentality, the cohesion of the G20 gets affected. The G7-NATO joint statement could have been issued from Brussels or Washington or London. Why Bali?

The Chinese President Xi Jinping was spot on saying in a written speech at the APEC CEO Summit in Bangkok on November 17 that “The Asia-Pacific is no one’s backyard and should not become an arena for big power contest. No attempt to wage a new cold war will ever be allowed by the people or by the times.”

Xi warned that “Both geopolitical tensions and the evolving economic dynamics have exerted a negative impact on the development environment and cooperation structure of the Asia-Pacific.” Xi said the Asia-Pacific region was once a ground for big power rivalry, had suffered conflicts and war. “History tells us that bloc confrontation cannot solve any problem and that bias will only lead to disaster.”

The golden rule that security issues do not fall within the purview of G20 has been broken. At the G20 summit, the western countries held the rest of the participants at the Bali summit to ransom: ‘Our way or no way’. Unless the intransigent West was appeased on Ukraine issue, there could be no Bali declaration, so, Russia relented. The sordid drama showed that the DNA of the western world hasn’t changed. Bullying remains its distinguishing trait.

But, ironically, at the end of the day, what stood out was that the Bali Declaration failed to denounce Russia on the Ukraine issue. Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey give reason for hope that G20 can regenerate itself. These countries were never western colonies. They are dedicated to multipolarity, which will ultimately compel the West to concede that unilateralism and hegemony is unsustainable.

This inflection point gave much verve to the meeting between the US President Joe Biden and the Chinese President Xi Jinping at Bali. Washington requested for such a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit, and Beijing consented. One striking thing about the meeting has been that Xi was appearing on the world stage after a hugely successful Party Congress.

The resonance of his voice was unmistakable. Xi underscored that the US has lost the plot, when he told Biden: “A statesman should think about and know where to lead his country. He should also think about and know how to get along with other countries and the wider world.” (here and here)

The White House readouts hinted that Biden was inclined to be conciliatory. The US faces an uphill challenge to isolate China. As things stand, circumstances overall work to China’s advantage. (here , here and here)

The majority of countries have refused to take sides on Ukraine. China’s stance amply reflects it. Xi told Biden that China is ‘highly concerned’ about the current situation in Ukraine and support and look forward to a resumption of peace talks between Russia and China. That said, Xi also expressed the hope that the US, NATO and the EU ‘will conduct comprehensive dialogues’ with Russia.

The fault lines that appeared at Bali may take new forms by the time the G20 holds its 18th summit in India next year. There is reason to be cautiously optimistic. First and foremost, it is improbable that Europe will go along with the US strategy of weaponising sanctions against China. They cannot afford a decoupling from China, which is the world’s largest trading nation and the principal driver of growth for the world economy.

Second, much as the battle cries in Ukraine rallied Europe behind the US, a profound rethink is under way. Much agonising is going on about Europe’s commitment to strategic autonomy. The recent visit of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to China pointed in that direction. It is inevitable that Europe will distance itself from the US’ cold war aspirations. This process is inexorable in a world where the US is not inclined to spend time, money or effort on its European allies.

The point is, in many ways, America’s capacity to provide effective global economic leadership has irreversibly diminished, having lost its pre-eminent status as the world’s largest economy by a wide margin. Besides, the US is no longer willing or capable of investing heavily in shouldering the burden of leadership. Simply put, it still has nothing on offer to match China’s Belt and Road Initiative. This should have had a chastening influence and prompted a change of mindset toward cooperative policy actions, but the American elite are stuck in the old groove.

Fundamentally, therefore, multilateralism has become much harder in the present-day world situation. Nonetheless, the G20 is the only game in town to bring together the G7 and the aspiring developing countries who stands to gain out of a democratised world order. The western alliance system is rooted in the past. The bloc mentality holds little appeal to the developing countries. The gravitation of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia toward the BRICS conveys a powerful message that the western strategy in conceiving the G20 — to create a ring of subaltern states around the G7 — has outlived its utility.

The dissonance that was on display in Bali exposed that the US still clings to its entitlement and is willing to play the spoiler. India has a great opportunity to navigate the G20 in a new direction. But it requires profound shifts on India’s part too –away from its US-centric foreign policies, coupled with far-sightedness and a bold vision to forge a cooperative relationship with China, jettisoning past phobias and discarding self-serving narratives, and, indeed, at the very least, avoiding any further descent into beggar-thy-neighbour policies.

About the author:

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar served the Indian Foreign Service for more than 29 years. He introduces about himself thus: “Roughly half of the 3 decades of my diplomatic career was devoted to assignments on the territories of the former Soviet Union and to Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. Other overseas postings included South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, and Turkey. I write mainly on Indian foreign policy and the affairs of the Middle East, Eurasia, Central Asia, South Asia and the Asia-Pacific…”

Military Affairs

All Western Capitals Within the Range: That’s the Greatest Fear

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via Turkey’s Yenisafak


Colonel General Sergey Karakaev, the commander of Russia’s strategic missile forces, announced at a military conference yesterday that Russia has recently successfully tested the Sarmat missile, also known as the Devil II (Satan II).

In his statement, Karakaev also announced that the Russian forces are ready to receive the second set of Avangard hypersonic missiles.

PUTIN GIVES ‘IMMEDIATE ORDER’, USA TAKES ACTION

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently issued an urgent order for a second test of the hypersonic Satan-2 nuclear missile by the end of the year.

After Putin’s instruction, the United States made an arrangement to increase the nuclear weapons capacities of newly developed warships belonging to its navy.

Known as the RS-28 Sarmat missile, Russia’s deadly weapon, which can hit targets on the other side of the world, also has a range that can reach London, the capital of England.

In other words, Russia is reaching the capacity to hit all European capitals with the missile in question within the framework of its deterrent power. According to the US press, the U.S. itself is also within the range of the missile.

IT IS THE BIGGEST FEAR OF THE USA AND THE WEST

The Satan II has been one of the biggest fears of the US and the West since the Ukraine war started.

While the media scrutinizes every detail from the construction of the weapon to its features, governments have been keeping their plans on hold for a long time on how to stop the deadly weapon.

Russia is aware of this fear, so Satan II has been used as a PR tool by the Russian media for a long time.

Russian politician Alexei Zhuravlyov had previously threatened to destroy Britain in a few minutes and Finland in just ten minutes with his Satan-2 hypersonic missile.

WHAT ARE THE FEATURES OF SATAN 2?

It is stated that Satan 2 is 2000 times more powerful than the atomic bombs that the USA dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War.

WEIGHT: 210 tons
LENGTH: 34.7 meters
DIAMETER: 3.0 meters
SPEED: 25,750 km / h
HEADS: 15 multiple warheads
RANGE: 17,700 km / h

Military Affairs

The Hypocrisy of Germany Has No Limits

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The hypocrisy of Germany as much as the hypocrisy of The UK, Poland and the rest of the collective West has no limits.

Scholz – announces an ultimatum to Russia: “We are sending a clear signal to the Russian president. Stop this war, withdraw your troops. No country is a neighbor’s backyard. No one has the right to appropriate someone else’s territory.”

Scamdemic - Corona Virus

Universal Vaccine Passports Plan Unites the World

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Washington and Moscow put aside their differences for the greater good

by Edward Slavsquat


By all accounts, the G20 summit in Bali was a smashing success. After tireless multipolar efforts, the famed intergovernmental forum announced the creation of a global health-preserving Pandemic Fund sponsored by the WHO, the World Bank, Bill Gates, and the Rockefeller Foundation. The fund will ensure there is plenty of money for experimental genetic vaccines in the weeks, months, and decades ahead.

In the same spirit of cooperation, Moscow suggested enveloping the whole world in Virus-detecting kiosks—a proposal based on Russia’s own “sanitary shield” program.

But these are mere trifles compared to the forum’s crowning achievement: the adoption of the G20 Bali Leaders’ Declaration.

From page eight of the document:

We acknowledge the importance of shared technical standards and verification methods, under the framework of the IHR (2005), to facilitate seamless international travel, interoperability, and recognizing digital solutions and non-digital solutions, including proof of vaccinations.
We support continued international dialogue and collaboration on the establishment of trusted global digital health networks as part of the efforts to strengthen prevention and response to future pandemics, that should capitalize and build on the success of the existing standards and digital COVID-19 certificates.

If you want to read the whole thing, you can download the PDF generously hosted on the Kremlin’s official website.

The titillating declaration includes much more than just a pledge to create an international injection Ausweis. Contained within its pages are purple prose about “sustainable development”, “digital transformation”, “interoperability of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) for cross-border payments”, and many other tasty multipolar morsels.

There is even a line about how the conflict in Ukraine is “exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy.”

Read the full article.

G20 Pushes Vaccine Passports For All Future International Travel

by ZeroHedge News

The G20 has issued a formal decree promoting vaccine passports as preparation for any future pandemic response in its final communique. Indonesian Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin, speaking on the matter on behalf of the G20 host country, had earlier in the summit called for a “digital health certificate” using WHO standards.

Sadikin advocated for that he dubbed a “digital health certificate” which shows whether a person has been “vaccinated or tested properly” so that only then “you can move around”. Watch his comments during a G20 Bali panel discussion earlier in the week…

The following is introduced in Article 23:

We acknowledge the importance of shared technical standards and verification methods, under the framework of the IHR (2005), to facilitate seamless international travel, interoperability, and recognizing digital solutions and non-digital solutions, including proof of vaccinations.
We support continued international dialogue and collaboration on the establishment of trusted global digital health networks as part of the efforts to strengthen prevention and response to future pandemics, that should capitalize and build on the success of the existing standards and digital COVID-19 certificates.

Interestingly, the next paragraph of the formal declaration, article 24, goes on to describe the need to for global institutions to fight against ‘disinformation’.

Article 24 of the final G20 declaration begins, “The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the transformation of the digital ecosystem and digital economy.”

And then leads into to the following statement later in the section: “We acknowledge the importance to counter disinformation campaigns, cyber threats, online abuse, and ensuring security in connectivity infrastructure.”

So as predicted by many early on in the pandemic (who were all dismissed and condemned as “conspiracy theorists”), a future proposed standardized vaccine passport will be accompanied by efforts for greater standardization and policing against ‘disinformation’ – likely to include any speech critical of the type of regimen that G20 leaders wish to enact.

Read the full article at ZeroHedge News.

Scamdemic - Corona Virus

The Maskparade Charade

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by Sylvia Shawcross via Off-Guardian.org,

Excerpt

[ . . . ]

Don’t be silly. We know why. We just don’t want to say.

So the Media and their polls have told us that [in Canada] 7 out of 10 people want to keep the masks. And why might that be?

They can hide their crooked teeth. Or their unbrushed teeth. Or their morning-after-the-night-before breath. They don’t have to wear make-up. Or shave. Or wash their faces or their children’s faces.

They can stick their tongue out at people without being caught. They can whisper without lip readers. They can smile and smirk and bite their lips. They can hide their cosmetic surgery in progress.They can hide their chin hairs and warts and zits and leftover food in their moustaches.

They can rob a bank or say whatever they want to strangers because no one knows who they are and even the cameras don’t know.

God only knows what’s going on behind those masks!

But! Those mask-wearing people are free in a weird weird way. Advocates of the new abnormal have found a form of freedom from social norms behind a mask.

How is that possible? Is it possible that masks are freedom? No wonder we’re all mixed up. We don’t even know what freedom is anymore.

Or is it because we lost the freedom to have crooked teeth, no makeup and snarky opinions in the real world due to ever evolving relentless social norms and now have to hide for any sort of freedom…Hmmm…

Seems to be true for a lot of things now doesn’t it?

(Except for anything sexual. You can pretty much proclaim or do anything publicly now. Except child molestation. You can apparently sniff but not anything else. But I’m doing that digression thing again…)

So, let’s get this straight— when we see someone in a mask are they to be feared as nasty snaggle-toothed leprous sneaky sociopaths with sharp tongues and nefarious intentions?

Or are they just victims grasping for what little freedom they can garner in a socially punishing world? Hmmm… It could well be either one… How would we know?

Nevertheless, this is all terribly alarming. WHAT is going on? 7 out of 10 of us!!!

Well, I have a theory. Beyond the usual theories of enforced enslavement, virtue signalling, forced shame, neurosis, herd-like conditioning, continued fear porn, dehumanization/objectification/subjugation/alienation, circumvention of facial-recognition systems, gateway moves to social credit scores, anti-feminist one-step-to-the-forced-wearing-of-shuttlecock-burkas assault and the ultimate theory that this poll is nonsense propaganda from our captured media.

All of these theories are as good as the next as long as science seems to have little to do with mask mandates. I mean, real science by independent researchers.

Beyond these theories is the “we’re in the Dark Ages during the plague years of 1346 or so again” theory of mine which I thought I might as well throw into the mix now that we’re all mixed up about freedom and stuff.

Not that there is a plague or anything really at the moment but because people’s reactions don’t change. Not through all these centuries. We’ve changed NOT at all.

Here’s my theory: People wearing masks are the flagellants of the dark ages during the plague years who would run around whipping themselves publicly for God’s forgiveness and atonement or something.

Now during the plague years we would have asked a priest about all this guilt and fear stuff that drive flagellants to be flagellants but today we ask the psychologists.

This is because many if not all of the first world countries have become atheistic and have abandoned religion. But human nature needs what human nature needs—hence the psychologists for priests e.g. or Fauci as Pope and Schwaub as God and Greta as Mother Mary Marx.

Some people believe either technology, money, or medicine has replaced religion but it is clearly evident that it is the Green movement. If we can accept that religion is something that people participate in every day in a meaningful way, then clearly the Green movement has it all. It has priests, codes of behaviours, dictates and forbidden things.

It has a hell (the world as it is going now) and it has a heaven (sustainable development in utopia) It has worshippers. It has the holy and the damned. It has flagellants. And the people now wearing masks are them.

After thirty or so years of being told humans are responsible for killing the planet and being driven to weeping guilt over spending and frivolity and recycling and plastic and gas and beef-pork pies, humans are despicable.

They know it. [ . . . ]

Uncategorized

Russia to Remove Dollar from the Exchange Rate Calculations

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Moscow is looking for ways to unpeg settlements with foreign partners from the US dollar, RBK reported on Saturday, citing sources in the financial market and the government.

Russia has stepped up efforts to switch international settlements to national currencies after a number of Western nations placed sanctions on the country earlier this year in connection with the conflict in Ukraine. As sanctions jeopardized Russia’s transactions in euros and the dollar, these currencies have been deemed compromised.

However, the exchange rate used in cross-border trade in local currencies is still calculated through the dollar. For example, when determining the ruble-tenge rate, the rate of the Kazakh currency is calculated through the dollar to determine the ruble price of a tenge and vice versa.

RBK’s sources say that Russia’s Central Bank and Finance Ministry are now working together with banks on a mechanism that would allow Russia to set prices for foreign contracts using new indicators that don’t take into account the dollar exchange rate.

One way is to create a basket of currencies that would presumably be pegged to one another. Another option is to introduce a new payment unit for foreign trade contracts, the value of which would be pegged to commodities such as gold and precious metals. In that case, the exchange rate world depend on the average prices of these commodities in global markets.

A third option on the table is simply to peg the national currencies to gold or oil. However, this may also be problematic because both oil and gold are priced in dollars.

One source told RBK that the exchange rate in foreign trade contracts could be calculated using the Chinese yuan instead of the dollar, as China has not sided with the West in the sanctions war against Russia. However, the yuan is not a freely convertible currency and Beijing’s consent would be required for the mechanism to be implemented.

via RT

Military Affairs

How Russians Fight

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On April 25, 1966, Su-7B took off from Vozdvizhenka airbase, 5 km from Ussuriisk, but when it reached an altitude of 150 m, the aircraft’s engine failed. There were residential buildings on the course, and the aircraft had to be diverted to an uninhabited area. This was done, but the pilot could not save himself, therefore, he died, and in five and a half months the widow of Colonel Vladimir Ivanovich Surovikin gave birth to a son, whose name was Sergei Vladimirovich Surovikin. He would later be called General Armageddon (the commander of all Russian forces in Ukraine)

Colonel Vladimir Ivanovich Surovikin (the father of the commander of all Russian forces in Ukraine)

Born in 1921. Participated in the Korean War from May 1951 to February 1952 in the 523rd Fighter Air Regiment. In air battles, he shot down three enemy planes (10.09.1951 – two F-86, 06.10.1951 – F-86). He was awarded the Order of Lenin (1966). On April 26, 1966, he was killed in a plane crash on a Su-7B.

***

On September 10 the pilots of the 64th Fighter Air Corps and the 4th Fighter Air Corps again engaged in combat and two battles were fought during the day. The first battle, in which all regiments of the 303rd and 324th Fighter Air Division participated, took place in the morning in the Shukusen – Hakusen – Junsen area. The 324th Fighter Air Division attacked the F-80 attack formation, while the Sabers covering them were attacked by the 303rd IAD. The battle took place between 11:25 a.m. and 12 p.m. First, at 11:35 near Hakusen, 26 crews of the 17th Regiment engaged in a 10-minute battle with a large group of F-86s in which Senior Lieutenant N. S. Volkov shot down one Saber without losses. At this time, 16 MiGs of the 176th GIAP encountered a group of 24 F-80s, and the latter immediately retreated into the bay, losing one Shooting Star, which was shot down by Captain G.I. Gies. A group of eight “Meteors” were also found escorting this group of F-80s. They were also hit by MiGs, and the same Gies shoots down one of the Meteors and the others leave the battlefield.

At this time (11:50) there was a fierce fighter fight between 24 MiGs of the 523rd Fighter Air Regiment and 26 F-86s in the Shukusen-Junsen area. “Two of them were shot down by Senior Lieutenant V. I. Surovikin and one more by Senior Lieutenants G. T. Shatalov and D. A. Samoilov. Our pilots did not sustain any losses in this battle.

October 6, 1951, from 8:50 to 9:00 near Junsen, the pilots of the 523rd and 17th regiments fought the Sabers: 24 MiGs fought 20 F-86s. In this battle, Captain S. A. Bakhaev and Senior Lieutenant V. I. Surovikin shot down two Seibers without losses.

(From I. Seydov’s book – “Red Devils in the Sky of Korea”. Moscow, Yauza-EXMO, 2007.)

@Slavyangrad

Surovikin is on the eastern bank of the Dnieper. Destroying and degrading what is left of what was once a viable country on the western bank. No more Ukraine. Defensively secure Surovikin will systematically destroy any semblance of a viable country. Surovikin is using Zhukov’s 1943 plan against von Manstein’s army. The little comedian on the propaganda piano in Kiev is no Erich von Manstein. More Eric Morecombe. Those Russians. Sure know how to win a war on the Dnieper. Like a great boxer. Can absorb a punch. Even a knockdown. But in the last rounds of big fights they keep punching. Keep coming. Because like all great fighters they know it isnt the ability to throw a punch that counts in big fights. Its the capacity to absorb big punches and still keep coming. That is the difference between a Russian army and a Anglo European one. The British always ran to the sea in wars on continental Europe. The Russians had no sea to evacuate to. Always fought with their backs to the motherland. Tough people make tough armies. They have never been defeated on the Dnieper. And they wont be now.

by Paul McGrory

Economics/Statistics

A BRICS Reserve Currency?

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by Yaroslav Lissovolik via Valdai Club

The new BRICS reserve currency can act in concert with the stronger role performed by BRICS national currencies to take on a greater share of the total pie of currency transactions in the world economy, writes Valdai Club Programme Director Yaroslav Lissovolik.
The issue of the creation of a BRICS reserve currency has taken on particular significance in recent months after President Putin declared that the creation of such a currency was in the process of discussion. This was followed by a series of statements coming from Russia’s legislative branch on the expediency of creating a new reserve currency — most recently from the Federation Assembly speaker Valentina Matvienko. While the debate on the possibility of creating such a reserve currency is only starting in Russia and more broadly across the global economy, the implications of such a move on the part of the BRICS could have transformational consequences for the global financial system. [category economics/statistics]
Initially, the proposal to create a new reserve currency based on a basket of currencies of BRICS countries was formulated by the Valdai Club back in 2018 — the idea was to create an SDR-type currency basket composed of BRICS countries’ national currencies as well as potentially some of the other currencies of BRICS+ circle economies. The choice of BRICS national currencies was due to the fact that these were the among the most liquid currencies across emerging markets. The name for the new reserve currency — R5 or R5+ — was based on the first letters of the BRICS currencies all of which begin with the letter R (real, ruble, rupee, renminbi, rand).
The recent debates concerning the prospects for the creation of a new reserve currency focused more on the risks, fragilities and outright impossibility of the R5 project. Less attention has been accorded to estimating the benefits (including in terms of hard figures) to BRICS economies and EM more generally. There has also been scant attention with respect to the actual modalities of launching the BRICS reserve currency.
What is clear at this stage is that the BRICS reserve currency will not be created to replace the national reserve currencies of the BRICS economies — rather it will complement these national currencies and will serve to improve the possibilities for more EM currencies to attain reserve status. Accordingly, the attainment of high trading shares among the BRICS economies is a desirable but not altogether an indispensable condition for launching the new reserve currency. In fact, the new BRICS currency does not have to service all trade transactions among BRICS economies in the very near term. Initially, the new BRICS currency could perform the role of an accounting unit to facilitate transactions in national currencies. In the longer run, the R5 BRICS currency could start to perform the role of settlements/payments as well as the store of value/reserves for the central banks of emerging market economies. 
Within the composition of the R5 currency basket the share of the Chinese renminbi may be initially set at a relatively high level in order to take advantage of the already advanced reserve status of the Chinese currency. This share may be reduced progressively in stages later on along with the inclusion of new EM national currencies. Outside of the BRICS economies some of the potential candidates that with time could be included into the R5+ currency basket may feature the Singaporean dollar or the UAE’s dirham.
One of the potential risks associated with the use of EM currencies in reserves is their high volatility. The basket mechanism of the BRICS reserve currency will allow for reducing some of this volatility via averaging out the exchange rate dynamics of currencies that follow different market trends — if the currencies of Russia, South Africa and Brazil follow the commodity cycle, the opposite is true with respect to commodity importers such as India and China.
Importantly, the scope for employing the new reserve currency in the world economy is sizeable given the tremendous potential for de-dollarization. The new BRICS reserve currency can act in concert with the stronger role performed by BRICS national currencies to take on a greater share of the total pie of currency transactions in the world economy. This greater role can be gradually extended from servicing foreign trade transactions to investment flows across the developing world. In line with the original R5 concept developed by Valdai Club in 2018 one of the possible venues for boosting the use of national currencies and the BRICS reserve currency could be the creation of a platform for regional development banks in which BRICS economies are members. Such a platform could develop a portfolio of common/integration projects that may be financed in national currencies.
In the end, the launching of a new reserve currency if successful will impart a transformational effect on the international financial system. The Central Banks in the global economy are experiencing a notable shortage of reserve currencies in managing their reserve holdings. In this respect, the emergence of additional reserve currencies from among the EM economies will serve to expand the possibilities for diversifying reserve holdings and reducing the vulnerabilities associated with the dependence on a narrow range of currencies. The R5 project can thus become one of the most important contributions of emerging markets to building a more secure international financial system. 

Western Hegemony's Collapse

House Republicans Announce Criminal Probe Into the Biden Family

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via Sputnik

GOP lawmakers spent months threatening to launch a formal congressional investigation into the president’s son, citing alleged ethical improprieties and information on possible criminal wrongdoing relating to “pay-to-play” business deals with foreign businessmen gleaned from a laptop which Hunter left in a Delaware computer repair shop in 2019.
House Republicans have announced a formal probe into the activities of the Biden family, citing suspected criminal activity, some of which they allege may pose a threat to national security.
“Today we’re going to provide you with something that you all aren’t used to with respect to congressional investigations, and that’s evidence,” Congressman James Comer said in a press conference in Washington on Thursday alongside Representative Jim Jordan and other lawmakers.
“Committee [on Oversight and Reform] Republicans have spoken with multiple whistleblowers on numerous schemes involving the Biden family, reviewed Hunter Biden’s laptop and received documents on previously unknown transactions. What we found were business plans aimed at targets around the world based on influence-peddling, including with people closely tied to foreign governments like China and Russia,” Comer, the committee’s ranking member, said.
“We also found plans based in the United States where the Biden family swindled investors of hundreds of thousands of dollars, all with Joe Biden’s participation and knowledge,” the lawmaker added. 
Accusing President Biden of “lying” on the campaign trail in 2020 when he said he was not involved in his son’s business activities, Comer cited whistleblower testimony and documents characterizing Biden as the “chairman of the board,” and evidence of his personal involvement in these business schemes.
“This evidence raises troubling questions about whether President Biden is a national security risk, and about whether he is compromised by foreign governments,” Comer suggested.
The lawmaker accompanied the presentation with photos of Biden meeting with Hunter’s business associates, as well as a map featuring over 50 countries where the Biden family has allegedly sought business, with this activity “often led by Hunter Biden,” according to Comer.
At one point in the presentation, Comer gestured toward a map of the world, which showed countries where the Bidens allegedly have a “footprint in international business dealings.” In addition to China and Russia, countries highlighted on the map include Canada, most of Latin America, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Australia, South Africa, Turkey, and most of Western Europe, including Britain.
“The Bidens flourished and became millionaires by simply offering access to the family. Among the dozens of shell companies the Bidens set up, there were millions of dollars of wire transfers, flights on Air Force 2 to conduct personal business and meetings with heads of state all while Joe Biden was aware of what was happening,” Comer alleged.
The lawmaker pointed to “red flags” raised by banks over many of these transactions, with financial institutions said to have filed nearly 150 “suspicious activity reports” (SARs) with the Treasury Department. Such documents are ordinarily filed in connection with suspected money laundering, fraud, or other types of criminal activity, Comer explained.
“One SAR generated by an American bank to the Treasury Department connects Hunter Biden and his business associates to international human trafficking, among other illegal activities…The money gained through influence peddling was funneled into a suspected criminal enterprise, again one linked to human trafficking. We have repeatedly called on the Biden Treasury Department to release additional financial documents to Committee Republicans but thus far the Treasury has refused,” Comer said.
Comer further alleged that Hunter Biden sought to “evade” SAR reporting with the help of an unnamed former Clinton administration official.
“We will continue to pursue all evidence, specifically the SAR and bank records in the new Congress,” Comer said.
Republicans formally secured the necessary 218 seats necessary to take control of the House on Wednesday, more than a week after the November 8 vote, after days of counting. The GOP’s narrow victory in the midterms was smaller than expected, and the party failed to win control of the Senate. Still, it’s enough for House Republicans to open their long-promised Biden investigation.
At Thursday’s presentation, Comer also said that the Republicans’ investigation had found links between the finances, credit cards, and bank accounts of Joe and Hunter Biden.
“One of Hunter’s closest associates, Eric Sherwin, was accessing Joe Biden’s money and writing checks to reimburse Hunter. Sherwin arranged the Bidens’ international deals around the world. At the same time, he was a frequent visitor to the White House and Joe Biden during the Obama Administration, visiting close to thirty times and sometimes with international business partners and Hunter, according to Hunter’s calendar. Sherwin was also the president of Hunter’s company and was appointed by President Obama to a position in the administration. After an apparent falling out with Sherwin, Hunter began coordinated businesses himself and increasingly the deals brought in Joe Biden as a direct equity holder,” the lawmaker said.
Comer pointed to a Chinese-language map gleaned from Hunter’s laptop related to the alleged sale of US natural gas to China, in which the elder Biden is alleged to have had a 10 percent stake.
The congressional probe also promises to touch upon the business activities of Jim Biden, President Joe Biden’s brother. Jim is accused of running a domestic pay-to-play scheme involving the sale of access to his powerful brother in exchange for “loans of hundreds of thousands of dollars that he never repaid” from companies.
“Committee Republicans have uncovered evidence of federal crimes committed by and to the benefit of members of the president’s family. These include: conspiracy or defrauding the United States, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, violations of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, tax evasion, money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering,” Comer said, summing up the suspected criminal activity that the probe will be looking at.
“I would just start with this question: what part of Mr. Comer’s presentation was ‘Russian disinformation,'” Representative Jordan asked gathered reporters, referring to FBI and media efforts to suppress the New York Post’s reporting on the Hunter laptop ahead of the 2020 presidential election. “What part of Mr. Comer’s presentation prompted the FBI to go to Facebook and say ‘hey, hey, hey you wanna be on the lookout for Russian misinformation this election season. What part of his presentation would prompt that?” Jordan asked.
Between October 2020 and spring 2022, the Biden administration and liberal media outlets including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and CNN dismissed the laptop left behind by Hunter Biden at a Delaware repair shop as “Russian disinformation.” The computer contains hundreds of thousands of emails, photos, videos, text messages, and other files showing evidence of a broad range of improper and potentially illegal activities, including Hunter smoking crack cocaine, cavorting with prostitutes, and organizing suspected business deals between foreign businessmen and his politician father. The emails include dozens of references to a “big guy” and “pops,” suspected to be the elder Biden.
Hunter Biden is already under federal investigation over alleged tax crimes, but has expressed confidence that he would beat the charges. Last month, US media reported that the state had gathered enough evidence to charge Hunter with tax crimes and lying about his drug abuse to purchase a handgun.
Military Affairs

New Online Tool Maps Out 867 US Military Bases Worldwide

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The United States of America, unlike any other nation, maintains a massive network of foreign military installations around the world.

How was this created and how is it continued? Some of these physical installations are on land occupied as spoils of war. Most are maintained through collaborations with governments, many of them brutal and oppressive governments benefiting from the bases’ presence. In many cases, human beings were displaced to make room for these military installations, often depriving people of farmland, adding huge amounts of pollution to local water systems and the air, and existing as an unwelcome presence.
Across the political spectrum and even within the US military there is growing recognition that many overseas bases should have been closed decades ago, but bureaucratic inertia and misguided political interests have kept them open. Estimates of the yearly cost to the US of its foreign military bases range from $100 – 250 billion. Thanks to davidvine.net for the variety of information included in this tool.

View a video overview the new interactive tool:

To explore this database,  click on map markers or use the dashboard to make selections:

World Beyond Bases make your selection.