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China Deepens Ties With Venezuela, Challenging US ‘Hegemonic Mindset’

September 17, 2023 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. , , , , , , , , ,
Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro took a historic trip to China this September. There, the two nations signed 31 comprehensive agreements and formally “upgraded” their relations to an “all-weather strategic partnership”, one of Beijing’s highest designations. China and Venezuela jointly blasted the “hegemonism” of the Western powers. Beijing formally condemned the illegal sanctions that Washington has imposed on Caracas. Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized this his government will “firmly support” Venezuela’s “just cause against external interference”. The global political and economic order is changing rapidly.

New Reinforcements Reach US-Occupied Syria

September 6, 2023 News Desk, The Cradle. , , ,
The Pentagon deployed new reinforcements from Iraq to Syria late on 5 September, as local reports say a military convoy consisting of 30 trucks entered the oil-rich Hasakah governorate via the illegal Al-Waleed border crossing. This was the second military convoy headed for US occupation bases in northeast Syria to cross from Iraq on Tuesday and the third since the start of September. According to the Sputnik correspondent in Hasakah, the convoys consist of dozens of trucks carrying “military and logistical equipment, electric generators, fuel tanks, cement blocks, and closed boxes.”

US Pressures Saudi Arabia To Sell Oil In Dollars, Not Chinese Yuan

August 11, 2023 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. , , , ,
The United States is negotiating behind the scenes with Saudi Arabia, pressuring the country to keep selling its oil in dollars. Washington is concerned that Riyadh may price its crude in other currencies, particularly China’s renminbi. Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s top three oil producers. Since the 1970s, Riyadh has agreed to sell its crude in dollars, helping maintain the greenback’s hegemonic status as the global reserve currency. The Wall Street Journal reported that the US is working on a diplomatic deal in which Saudi Arabia would agree to normalize relations with Israel’s apartheid regime.

Trump Boasts He Wanted To Take Venezuela’s Oil After Overthrowing Its Government

June 16, 2023 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. , , , ,
Former US President Donald Trump gave a speech in which he boasted that he wanted to “take over” Venezuela and exploit its large oil reserves. “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over; we would have gotten to all that oil; it would have been right next door”, Trump said. “But now we’re buying oil from Venezuela. So we’re making a dictator very rich. Can you believe this? Nobody can believe it”, he added. Trump made these remarks on June 10, at a speech for a convention organized by the North Carolina Republican Party. The US government initiated a coup attempt against Venezuela in 2019.

The West’s Economic War On Russia Has Failed

May 16, 2023 John V. Walsh, Antiwar.com. , , ,
The US with its EU vassals in tow has carried out a two-pronged attack on Russia. The first is Joe Biden’s cruel proxy war on Russia, with its cynical use of Ukrainians as cannon fodder. The second prong is the sanctions war designed to destroy Russia’s economy. The economic war is a failure. Russia has won. This verdict comes not from a Russia-friendly source but from two well-known British publications. One is the UK’s oldest political magazine, The Spectator. The other is The Daily Telegraph, a British broadsheet that supports the Ukraine war and has always endorsed Conservative candidates. Boris Johnson was once the editor of the former and a columnist for the latter.

Seymour Hersh: Trading With The Enemy

April 19, 2023 Seymour Hersh. , , , , , ,
The Ukraine government, headed by Volodymyr Zelensky, has been using American taxpayers’ funds to pay dearly for the vitally needed diesel fuel that is keeping the Ukrainian army on the move in its war with Russia. It is unknown how much the Zelensky government is paying per gallon for the fuel, but the Pentagon was paying as much as $400 per gallon to transport gasoline from a port in Pakistan, via truck or parachute, into Afghanistan during the decades-long American war there. What also is unknown is that Zelensky has been buying the fuel from Russia, the country with which it, and Washington, are at war, and the Ukrainian president and many in his entourage have been skimming untold millions from the American dollars earmarked for diesel fuel payments.

OPEC: Saudis Aren’t Afraid Of US Anymore

April 10, 2023 M. K. Bhadrakumar, People's Dispatch. , , ,
The shock oil production cuts from May outlined by the OPEC+ on Sunday essentially means that eight key OPEC countries decided to join hands with Russia to reduce oil production, signaling that OPEC and OPEC+ are now back in control of the oil market. No single oil producing country is acting as the Pied Piper here. The great beauty about it is that Saudi Arabia and seven other major OPEC countries have unexpectedly decided to support Russia’s efforts and unilaterally reduce production. While the eight OPEC countries are talking about a reduction of one million b/d from May to the end of the year, Russia will extend for the same period its voluntary adjustment that already started in March,  by 500,000 barrels.

Venezuelan Government And Opposition Sign ‘Social Agreement’

November 28, 2022 Andreína Chávez Alava, Venezuelanalysis. , , ,
Following the renewed talks in Mexico, Washington issued an expanded sanctions waiver for Chevron to partly resume its Venezuela operations. The Nicolás Maduro government and the US-backed rightwing opposition have signed a partial agreement focused on social issues following the resumption of the dialogue process. After a year-long hiatus, the government delegation disclosed that the agreement had been “exhaustively discussed” in Caracas with Norway as a mediator. On Saturday, they traveled to Mexico City to present a new deal that relates to the management of US $3 billion in Venezuelan funds seized by Washington. The document established a joint commission to follow and verify the correct implementation of the agreement.

OPEC’s Body Blow To Biden Presidency

October 11, 2022 M.K. Bhadrakumar, People's Dispatch. , , , ,
The Joe Biden administration is swiftly establishing a narrative that the recent OPEC decision to cut oil production by two million tonnes is a geopolitical “aligning” by Saudi Arabia and Russia. It taps into the Russophobia in the Beltway and deflects attention from the humiliating defeat of President Biden’s personal diplomacy with Saudi Arabia. But it is not without basis, either. Foreign policy was reputed to be Biden’s forte but is turning out to be his nemesis. An ignominious end is not unlikely; as with Jimmy Carter, West Asia may become the burial ground of his carefully cultivated reputation. The magnitude of what is unfolding is simply staggering. Biden realizes belatedly that territorial conquests in Ukraine is not the real story but embedded in it is the economic war and within that is the energy war that has been incubating through the past eight-month period following the Western sanctions on Russia.

Exclusive: Tracking The Flow Of Stolen Syrian Oil Into Iraq

September 29, 2022 The Cradle. , , ,
Although the porous Iraqi-Syrian border stretches for over 600 kilometers, about half of it – in practice – is not subject to the authority of either state. Over the years, this lack of comprehensive border control has given rise to a number of security threats to both nations, not least the persistent presence of ISIS elements in border regions. From the Iraqi side, there has been a pro-active approach in countering this low-level terrorism with the establishment of two defensive lines by the Joint Operations Command, in addition to concrete barriers and watchtowers. Smuggling from Syria into Iraqi border towns is another salient feature of current border activities, and one which presents both a threat and an opportunity for the US-led international coalition whose forces operate on both sides of the border.

Washington Moves To Annex North-East Syria By Proxy

May 21, 2022 Vanessa Beeley, Orinoco Tribune. , , , ,
Under cover of media focus on the NATO proxy war in Ukraine and the Zionist assassination of Al Jazeera senior correspondent Shireen AbuAkleh, Washington is making moves to annex Syrian territory. On May 11th during the meeting of the “global coalition against Islamic State” in Marrakech, Morocco the U.S acting assistant Secretary of State, , made an extraordinary move that has largely gone under the radar of even independent media. Everyone is distracted by events in Ukraine and the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Nuland who famously exclaimed “Fuck the EU” during recorded conversations that exposed the US State Department involvement in the 2014 coup in Ukraine and the subsequent massacre in Odessa by the Washington’s Nazi Contras is now turning her attention to Syria’s north-eastern territory.

Western Double-Standards – Russian Oil Bad, Saudi Oil Good

March 16, 2022 Gavin O'Reilly, Popular Resistance. , , ,
On Monday it was reported that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson would travel to the oil-rich desert kingdom in order to seek new supply deals following last week’s announcement that Britain would phase out oil imports from Russia by the end of the year in response to Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine – similar to the United States’ recent announcement that Russian oil imports would immediately be banned outright, with US President Joe Biden also seeking an increase in supply from Saudi Arabia and its’ Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) partner, the UAE; a request that has apparently been snubbed by both Kingdoms. To even request an increase in oil supply from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in the first place however, demonstrates the hollowness of the United States and Britain’s assertions that their suspension of oil imports from Russia is due to human rights concerns amidst the current military operation in Ukraine...

US Officials Meet Maduro, Fail To Drive Wedge Between Venezuela And Russia

March 8, 2022 José Luis Granados Ceja, Venezuelanalysis. , , ,
Mexico City, Mexico – A high-level United States (US) government delegation that visited Venezuela on Saturday failed to produce an agreement with the government of Nicolás Maduro. News of the delegation was first broken by the New York Times, which described the trip as the highest-level visit by US officials in years. Outlets subsequently reported that no agreement was reached. Caracas had not publicly commented on the meeting at the time of writing. According to Reuters, the US team was led by White House Latin America adviser Juan González and made “maximalist” demands concerning electoral guarantees. Citing three people familiar with the matter, Reuters reported that the US was seeking new presidential elections, a larger participation of foreign private capital in Venezuela’s oil industry and a public condemnation of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine.

How US Meddling Split Sudan

February 3, 2022 T J Coles, The Grayzone. , , ,
Like most countries, the Republic of South Sudan is a complex nation of shifting alliances and external influences. Recently, President Salva Kiir, who sports a Stetson hat gifted him by George W. Bush, signed a peace agreement with old enemies, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-In Opposition. Around the same time, the so-called Embassy Troika consisting of the US, Britain, and Norway facilitated International Monetary Fund (IMF) programs for South Sudan. When China proposes investment schemes, US politicians call it “debt-trap diplomacy.” As has been seen in South Sudan, when Western corporations seek to plunder poor, resource-rich nations, they call it “development.” The West’s interest in South Sudan is oil. Invoking the colonial-era “white man’s burden” of 19th century imperialists, the US government-backed Voice of America recently justified foreign interference in South Sudan by pointing out that the country’s 3.5 billion proven barrels of crude cannot be easily exported due to the lack of pipeline infrastructure and financial mismanagement.

Biden’s Forest Service To Facilitate Quadrupling Of Oil Production

October 23, 2021 Center for Biological Diversity. , , ,
Salt Lake city, Utah - In a massive blow to U.S. efforts to address the climate crisis, the Biden administration is poised to approve a right-of-way through the Ashley National Forest that would take the climate-damaging Uinta Basin Railway one step closer to being built. The railway would enable crude oil production in the basin to quadruple to 350,000 barrels a day. Over a year, that much oil would produce planet-warming pollution conservatively estimated at 53 million tons of carbon dioxide — equivalent to the emissions from six of Utah’s dirtiest coal plants. At an October 22 meeting of the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, board members discussed a recent meeting in Utah with U.S. Forest Service Chief Randy Moore.
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