Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

The overlord of science Anthony Fauci blamed President Trump Sunday for China’s continued obfuscation of the origins of COVID, claiming that it was Trump’s “anti-China approach” that encouraged the Communist state to be non-cooperative.

Now that he has retired, Anthony Fauci is devoting even more time to his favourite hobby, appearing on the news, shilling for China, and telling people to get booster shots.

In his latest appearance on CBS’ Face The Nation, Fauci declared “What happens is that if you look at the anti-China approach, that clearly the Trump administration had right from the very beginning, and the accusatory nature, the Chinese are going to flinch back and say, Oh, I’m sorry, we’re not going to talk to you about it, which is not correct. They should be.”

“I think that horse is out of the barn, and they’re very suspicious of anybody trying to accuse them,” Fauci continued, adding “We need to have an open dialogue with their scientists and our scientists, keep the politics out of it. And let the scientists- because these are scientists that we’ve known for decades, and we’ve collaborated with them.”

Watch:

Fauci defends China for covering up COVID origins, blames Trump for it pic.twitter.com/U08yPQxxL5

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 27, 2022

He also blamed Republicans for politicising COVID and claimed he has “never been” political:

Anthony Fauci says it was Republicans who “clearly politicized” COVID.

Fauci then claims he personally is “not political at all” and has “never been.” pic.twitter.com/Hbg9mnLKk8

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 27, 2022

Fauci also claimed that China often “acts secretive” even “when there’s nothing at all to hide,” citing the SARS-CoV-1 outbreak in the early 2000s as one example.

That would be the outbreak that China tried to underplay and cover up then.

CBS host Margaret Brennan asked Fauci if he “agrees with that word cover-up?” to which he responded “I don’t know what that means.”

“I’m not sure what they’re talking about. I mean, if cover-up is not allowing people to come in and look at all the data, that’s not a cover, that’s not being transparent,” he further stated.

Anthony Fauci is asked if he agrees with using the words “cover-up” and “intentional distortion” to describe China’s role in COVID.

FAUCI: “I don’t know what that means, no.” pic.twitter.com/NbJnIG1AuC

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 27, 2022

In a separate interview on NBC, Fauci repeated the claim that China always acts secretive and weird… nothing new to see here.

“Even when there’s nothing to hide they act in a suspicious, non-transparent way just probably because they don’t want to make it look like there’s a blame,” Fauci proclaimed.

“Why is the Chinese government acting so peculiar and weird?”

ANTHONY FAUCI: “I don’t mean this in a broad, pejorative way, but…even when there’s nothing to hide, they act in a suspicious, non-transparent way.” pic.twitter.com/1zRRNUCWPf

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 27, 2022

During both interviews, Fauci shilled for more booster vaccines, claiming that multiple shots every year will be needed, and we are still in a pandemic.

Two months after Biden declared “the pandemic is over” — and two years after Biden repeatedly promised to “shut down” the virus — top Biden medical advisor Anthony Fauci says “we certainly are still in” a pandemic. pic.twitter.com/GiPKIFM32l

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 27, 2022

And don’t forget to test everyone before dinner…

“The other thing that we don’t want to forget about is testing,” says Anthony Fauci.

“Test yourself before you congregate with people, particularly when you’re having someone over for dinner.” pic.twitter.com/Nn9uYucOR5

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 27, 2022

He also said he “doesn’t know” if schools will shut down again:

“Coming out of the holidays, should parents expect schools to shut down?”

FAUCI: “I don’t know, Margaret. I’m not sure.” pic.twitter.com/9e9bNG5FFo

— Jake Schneider (@jacobkschneider) November 27, 2022

Finally Fauci, bragged that now the Republicans don’t have control over the Senate, an investigation of him led by Rand Paul is “not going to happen.”

Meanwhile, over at ABC, the latest Biden COVID minion Ashish Jha was asked “what do you do?” in response to the fact that “People aren’t listening” when being told by Fauci and others to get booster shots.

ABC’s Martha Raddatz whines about people not listening to Fauci and getting COVID boosters: “Only about 11% have gotten the booster so far, maybe 42 million the flu shot. We’ve talked about this so many times. People aren’t listening, what do you do?” pic.twitter.com/P0LQGOftKz

— Kevin Tober (@KevinTober94) November 27, 2022

As we noted last week, Jha says he really believes that “God gave you two arms” so you can be injected with both the COVID booster and the Flu shot.

NOW – “God gave you two arms” to get your COVID and flu shot, says the White House COVID Response Director.pic.twitter.com/UAzSfdYJkB

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) November 22, 2022

Biden COVID advisor Ashish Jha:

“I really believe this is why God gave us two arms — one for the flu shot and the other one for the COVID shot!” pic.twitter.com/1dC9ChvD5R

— Jake Schneider (@jacobkschneider) September 6, 2022

*  *  *

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Apple shares fell nearly 2% in US premarket trading Monday on news that unrest at the world’s largest iPhone factory in central China could result in a production shortfall of iPhone Pro units this year, according to Bloomberg, citing a person familiar with assembly operations. 

The person said Apple’s manufacturing partner Foxconn Technology Group’s factory in Zhengzhou, could wind up with a 6 million iPhone Pro production shortfall by the end of the year, adding the situation remains fluid and lost production numbers could change. 

A lot will depend on how fast Foxconn can hire new workers and revive full capacity on assembly lines after weeks of unrest at the plant over Covid restrictions and disputes about pay. Thousands of workers were given $1,400 to leave the plant last week, a move by Foxconn to quell the unrest. Still, the Covid situation in China is worsening, and lockdowns in the weeks ahead could create even more production woes. 

News of Apple facing a 6 million iPhone deficit sent shares lower this morning, down nearly 2% as of 0630 ET. 

Bloomberg’s breakdown of Apple’s supply chain shows Foxconn (otherwise known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.) is a top supplier. Any manufacturing disruption in China could leave AT&T, Best Buy, and Verizon stores without iPhones.  

The facility produces most of the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max devices, Apple’s most in-demand devices this year. However, sales for the premium iPhones have rapidly cooled, and Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Apple lowered overall production targets to 87 million devices or fewer, compared with a target of 90 million units earlier. 

“It demonstrates that everyone, even Apple, is susceptible to supply-chain constraints in China due to Covid,” said Anshel Sag of Moor Insights & Strategy.

Morgan Stanley analysts recently estimated the iPhone Pro model shortfall would be around 6 million, but such a forecast was made before the unrest at the plant. 

French researchers have reanimated over a dozen prehistoric viruses which have been trapped deep within the Siberian permafrost for nearly 50 million years, according to a pre-print study.

After obtaining seven ancient permafrost samples, scientists from the French National Centre for Scientific Research were able to document 13 never-before-seen viruses that had been lying dormant in the ice, Science Alert reports.

The same researchers found a 30,000-year-old virus in 2014 which was trapped in permafrost. Notably, it was still able to infect organisms. Now, they’ve beaten their own record with a find that’s 48,500 years old, which they named Pandoravirus yedoma, according to Science Alert.

The scientists, who called these “zombie viruses” a public health threat, pointed to global warming as an ongoing risk that could result in the release of deadly pathogens from long ago.

“Due to climate warming, irreversibly thawing permafrost is releasing organic matter frozen for up to a million years, most of which decomposes into carbon dioxide and methane, further enhancing the greenhouse effect,” the authors wrote. “Part of this organic matter also consists of revived cellular microbes (prokaryotes, unicellular eukaryotes) as well as viruses that remained dormant since prehistorical times.“

As Global News notes,

Some of these “zombie viruses” could potentially be dangerous to humans, the authors warn. And, in fact, thawing permafrost has already claimed human lives.

In 2016, one child died and dozens of people were hospitalized after an anthrax outbreak in Siberia. Officials believe the outbreak started because a heat wave thawed the permafrost and unearthed a reindeer carcass infected with anthrax decades ago. About 2,300 reindeer died in the outbreak.

The revived viruses belong to the following sub-types;  pandoravirus, cedratvirus, megavirus, pacmanvirus and pithovirus – and are considered “giant” because they are large and easy to spot using light microscopy.

Beware of rotting Siberian bears.

Pressure has continued building for the Biden administration and Pentagon to provide stricter oversight and accounting for the massive military assistance and weaponry sent overseas to Ukraine, at a moment total defense aid is about to hit the $20 billion mark. 

GOP leaders have warned the Biden administration to expect greater restrictions and oversight during the next Congress. This as the kind of enthusiastic support for the Ukrainians among the broader American public seen in the opening months of the war appears to have turned to frustration at the spectacle of open-ended amounts of taxpayer funds being poured into a conflict which has no end in sight…

Tucker Carlson and L. Todd Wood question why Democrats have fought against an audit of the tens of billions of dollars the US has sent to Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/c08s2pfZmZ

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 26, 2022

Despite the State Department and Pentagon recently presenting plans to ensure greater oversight, Republicans who will soon enjoy a slim majority in Congress are readying to press for more, reports The Washington Post.

“Yet the reckoning could begin before the Republican takeover. A series of provisions on offer in the House-passed version of this year’s annual defense authorization bill would require a web of overlapping reports from the Pentagon and the inspectors general who police transfers of articles of war, plus the establishment of a task force to design and implement enhanced tracking measures,” The Washington Post writes. 

Among the most dangerous and ambitious of these efforts so far was reveled weeks ago. American troops are said to be performing “inspections” of US weapon caches on the ground in Ukraine, but significantly away from frontline fighting. There have already been several inspections overseen by a US Defense attache and a US Office of Defense Cooperation team based out of the Ukrainian capital. 

Yet as the new Washington Post reporting details, a growing number of Democrats are joining skeptical Republicans: 

“The taxpayers deserve to know that investment is going where its intended to go,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a veteran-turned-lawmaker, said in an interview.

Crow led an effort in the House Armed Services Committee to include in the defense bill instructions to the Defense Department Inspector General to review, audit, investigate and otherwise inspect the Pentagon’s efforts to support Ukraine. He called the directive “necessary,” even if he does not count himself among the critics insinuating the Defense Department and the Ukrainians have failed to take the matter seriously enough.

Recently there have even been documented instances of large amounts of US weaponry falling into the hands of Russian forces. And perhaps even more alarming is that Western-provided arms are ending up on the black market, and even make their way outside the country to criminal gangs, as the government of Finland recently admitted. 

“We’re not playing a mission of perfection here. This is a brutal, large-scale land war — house to house, street to street, trench to trench. There will be things lost,” Rep. Crow said further. “We’re not trying to prevent every single piece from falling into the hands of the Russians, but we want to make sure it’s not happening at a large scale.”

Authored by Steve Straub via The Federalist Papers,

A Cambridge University dean is claiming that Jesus could have been transgender based on an image found in a fourteenth century painting.

Via the Daily Mail:

Church worshippers cried ‘heresy’ at the Dean of Trinity College as they left a sermon claiming Jesus may have been transgender ‘in tears’.

But the view of a transgender Jesus is ‘legitimate’, according to Dr Michael Banner, the Dean who stepped in to defend the claim made at a Sermon last Sunday that Christ had a ‘trans body’.

Dr Michael Banner, the Dean of Trinity College, was backing up junior research fellow Joshua Heath, who displayed Renaissance and Medieval paintings of the crucifixion depicting a side wound that he likened to a vagina in front of the congregation.

The side wound ‘takes on a decidedly vaginal appearance’, said Heath, whose PhD was supervised by the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

The Dean of Trinity College, Dr Michael Banner, has stepped in to back up the view of a transgender Jesus after a junior research fellow claimed Christ had a ‘trans body’ last Sunday

The research fellow used the 1400th-century painting Pietà with the Holy Trinity by Jean Malouel to illustrate his point

‘In Christ’s simultaneously masculine and feminine body in these works, if the body of Christ as these works suggest the body of all bodies, then his body is also the trans body,’ claimed the researcher.

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Heath used the 1400th-century painting Pietà with the Holy Trinity by Jean Malouel, on display in the Louvre, to illustrate his point, according to The Daily Telegraph.

This just shows that the people who work in academia are either nuts or pretend to be nuts in order to keep their jobs.

To claim Jesus was transgender based on a side wound in a fourteenth century painting, and to take that claim seriously shows how far gone these people are.

The culture wars are over and conservatives have lost. Time for a new strategy.

Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News,

The current size of the British Army is only sufficient if its goal is to “stay at home and tootle around,” Britain’s Defense Secretary Ben Wallace warned on Thursday.

Speaking to The Times newspaper following a meeting in Oslo with Allied counterparts on-board the HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier, the U.K. defense minister urged for the country’s defense to be properly funded amid concerns of future cutbacks of personnel.

“If we just want to stay at home and do a bit of tootling around, we’ve got an armed forces big enough,” Wallace told the newspaper, explaining that Britain’s “international alliance of 30 people,” otherwise known as NATO, continued to act as Britain’s military deterrent.

He added, however, that measuring the sufficiency of the British Army is dependent on what the new government’s foreign policy objectives look like.

“We get in trouble when governments promise things without backing them up – they want to be everywhere… but they don’t fund it,” he told the newspaper.

With Army numbers dwindling and expected to drop by around 10,000 troops after cost-cutting measures were approved by ministers last year, Wallace, who has served as Britain’s defense minister under three separate Conservative administrations since 2019, vowed to “design an armed forces to fit the threat and to fit the ambition of the prime minister.”

The once-feared British Army will soon consist of just 72,500 soldiers, a 200-year low dating back to the Napoleonic Wars.

Wallace was tipped by many to be a front-runner to succeed Boris Johnson when he stepped down in July, but ruled himself out of the top job.

Authord by Lily Zhou via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The head of London Fire Brigade (LFB) said complaints will be handled externally from Monday after an official report published on Saturday said the brigade is “institutionally misogynist and racist.”

The Independent Culture Review, commissioned by London Fire Commissioner Andy Roe following the suicide of 21-year-old trainee firefighter Jaden Matthew Francois-Esprit in 2020, was led by former Chief Crown Prosecutor Nazir Afzal.

In conclusion, Afzal said that his 10-month review found “dangerous levels of ingrained prejudice against women and the barriers faced by people of colour spoke for themselves,” and that the LFB is “institutionally misogynist and racist.”

But he also stressed that his team didn’t find “the same level of operational bigotry” as were found in the Metropolitan Police, where there had been flagrant examples of police officers misusing power and allowing prejudice to shape their actions.”

Roe thanked Afzal for the review, saying he “completely accept[s]” the report’s 23 recommendations and will be fully accountable for improving the LFB’s culture.

In the report, Afzal said female and non-white firefighters are more likely to be subject to disciplinary action, less likely to be promoted, and frequently bullied, sometimes resulting in the loss of talented people.

The report cited testimonies including a noose being put above a black firefighter’s locker; a female firefighter receiving video calls from a man exposing his genitalia after making complaints over misogynistic behaviour; and a muslim firefighter being verbally abused and having bacon put in his sandwich, a pork sausage put in his pocket, and terrorism hotline sticker placed on his locker.

It also said most abuses had gone undetected as victims were convinced “the consequences of speaking out will be worse than the consequences of silence,” while perpetrators, “faced with exposure, commonly turn on their victims, try to assassinate their characters, and get others to do the same.”

The culture differs between teams, the report said.

“Most participants found that the place where they worked was a supportive and friendly environment. But they knew of other watches/teams where they would not want to work,” the report says.

It also cited Francois-Esprit and his friend and fellow trainee, who had been sent to a different station “with a supportive culture and a strong team that he was made to feel a part of.”

Francois-Esprit hung himself in 2020 after a significant deterioration of his mental well being in the weeks leading to his death.

According to the report, the friend said Francois-Esprit had spoken of “excitement” about completing the training programme before being sent to the Wembley station, but his enthusiasm was later “gone” as he “felt unsupported and didn’t fit in.”

No Evidence Bigotry Impacted Work With Public

Afzal also stressed that his team didn’t find “the same level of operational bigotry” as was found in the Metropolitan Police, where there had been flagrant examples of police officers misusing power and allowing prejudice to shape their actions.”

“The behaviour of firefighters going through women’s drawers was particularly troubling,” he said, referring to a female firefighter’s account that male firefighters “go through women’s drawers looking for underwear and sex toys” when doing house checks.

“But we did not see evidence of demonstrable bigotry in fire stations impacting on their work with the public,” he continued. “‘It’s like someone pulls a switch,’ one black firefighter told us. ‘They change when they’re on the fireground. It’s like they remember why they’re firefighters.’”

The report also mentioned the fire at the Grenfell Tower, which it said “loomed large” over the review and had “undoubtedly had a seismic impact on the culture of LFB.”

The 2017 accident consumed 72 lives, making it the worst residential fire in the UK since World War II.

Staff “repeatedly” told the review team that the incident had taken its toll on their mental health, the report said, saying the review recognises “the profound impact of Grenfell in the anger of firefighters who took significant personal risks on the night, and then felt the public criticism of the Brigade’s response personally.”

The report recommended LFB management adopt “zero tolerance policy for bullying, racist, and misogynistic behaviour in the workplace,” by taking Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Training and setting up an independent complaints service.

The 23 recommendations also include considering anonymised reporting of incidents relating to bullying, misogyny and racism and reviewing complaints made in the last five years, introducing body worn video for fire safety home visits, ensuring there are secure facilities for all women in stations, improve transparency in the promotion process, and investigating signs of deterioration in mental wellbeing.

Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

U.S. regulators have imposed a ban on electronic equipment created by several major Chinese tech corporations, citing national security concerns.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted new rules on Nov. 25 that will prohibit the import or sale of Chinese communications equipment deemed to pose an unacceptable risk to national security.

The new rules will bar equipment from Chinese telecom firms Huawei and ZTE from being imported into or sold in the United States. The order will also prohibit telecommunications equipment and video surveillance equipment produced by Hytera, Hikvision, and Dahua, as well as the companies’ subsidiaries or affiliates

By unanimous vote, the FCC concluded that the products posed an “unacceptable risk to [the] national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons,” according to a statement.

“The FCC is committed to protecting our national security by ensuring that untrustworthy communications equipment is not authorized for use within our borders, and we are continuing that work here,” said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

“These new rules are an important part of our ongoing actions to protect the American people from national security threats involving telecommunications.”

Products from the companies will not be allowed for import, marketing, or sale until the FCC approves the measures taken by the companies to remedy how their products might be used against the national interest.

Congress voted to bar all federal agencies from purchasing products from the five listed companies back in 2018. The new rules will expand and modify the FCC’s “Covered List” of banned products to prevent private entities from bringing the items into the United States.

“Today, the FCC takes an unprecedented step to safeguard our communications networks and strengthen America’s national security,” said FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr.

“Our unanimous decision represents the first time in the FCC’s history that we have voted to prohibit the authorization of communications and electronic equipment based on national security considerations.  And we take this action with the broad, bipartisan backing of congressional leadership.”

The order on Friday implemented requirements from the Secure Equipment Act of 2021, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden last November, the FCC said.

Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the United States have all declared the use of Huawei telecommunications equipment, particularly in 5G networks, to pose significant security risks to infrastructure. U.S. officials and experts have also sounded the alarm that the company’s ties to the Chinese Communist Party mean that its products could be used to spy on Americans or interfere with the free flow of data worldwide.

Read more here…

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

Only 15 years ago, the European Union produced more natural gas than Russia exported, according to the EIA. Repeating past mistakes and maintaining a failed energetic interventionist policy would only worsen what is already a structural disaster.

The prohibitive cost of electricity and gas in Europe is not a result of market flaws, but of a completely unsustainable cost structure where consumers are forced to pay escalating taxes, a hidden CO2 tax, subsidies, and other rising regulatory costs. More than 60% of an average euro area country household bill is made up of taxes and regulated costs, according to Eurostat.

Brussels cannot turn water into wine, and, similarly, the European Union cannot “cap” the price of natural gas and oil. It is almost ironic, but European leaders are spending days debating whether to impose a cap on Russian oil that would be set above the current Urals price and significantly above the five-year average levels.

The only thing that these so-called “caps” would achieve in a global energy market is to provide a massive subsidy that would then have to be repaid with higher tariffs or taxes afterwards. In Spain they already made the horrifying mistake that led to what was called the tariff deficit: Putting a cap on a tariff and passing the difference with the actual price to the following year with added interest charges. What the tariff deficit mechanism did was perpetuate higher tariffs even in periods of low commodity prices as the tariff deficit ballooned. The proposed gas cap would produce a comparable tariff deficit but at an enormous level if implemented throughout Europe.

Additionally, in a globalized and international market, the cap would create enormous arbitrage incentives that would only benefit China, which would continue purchasing cheap Russian commodities and exporting to Europe its more competitive goods.

We must not forget that the natural gas “cap” in Spain has been a genuine catastrophe. Elevating it to Europe would be worse.

According to Enagas data, natural gas demand in Spain soared while it declined in the rest of Europe, due to the disguised subsidy that the “cap” entails. Additionally, the cost of the measure for the country has increased to 13 billion euros, according to the power sector, which all citizens will pay with higher taxes, and this has led to a massive transfer of funds to France, which benefits from purchasing subsidized energy from Spain at a discount price while Spanish consumers pay the cost in higher bills.

The total cost of exports to France has exceeded 715 million euros (from 15 June to 4th November, according to sources of the power sector). Additionally, a significant increase in tariffs (+98 €/MWh) is added for clients with fixed contracts, converting their fixed contracts into variable ones due to the subsidy of natural gas prices.

The creation of a tariff deficit, which is what the current proposal would do to Europe, implies higher future costs and a larger debt burden. Short-term price “cuts” on gas and oil disguise the reality, incentivize demand while also creating an overcharge whose financing will result in higher prices and taxes in the future.

A European gas and oil cap causes no harm to Russia at all. We should have learned by now and that through exports to China, India, and other Asian countries, Russia continues to set trade surplus records.

A European “cap” on Russian gas and oil would be a subsidy to China at the expense of European taxpayers.

Additionally, by short-term subsidizing the price, the gas cap would create an artificial demand and a perverse incentive. More natural gas consumption and the long-term reliance on fossil fuels is maintained.

A cap on natural gas prices leads to higher consumption of fossil fuels, higher taxes, and bills while it penalizes renewable investment and a competitive energy transition.

What should the European Union do then?

The European Union needs a competitive energy policy that makes use of all available technologies. Eliminating, delaying, and placing bureaucratic barriers to investments in supply-chain security is a luxury no nation can afford.

• Use the EU’ extraordinary tax receipts from the sale of CO2 emission rights, which are estimated at more than twenty billion euro in the EU for 2022, to lower tariffs for the neediest families.

• Reduce the taxes on gasoline and gasoil that are more than 50% of the final price for the least fortunate and small businesses. The same for natural gas, where taxes add up to more than 30% of the tariff.

• Reduce the regulated costs burden included in consumer tariffs. Most of those regulated costs and subsidies have nothing to do with energy consumption and ought to be included in each country’s budget.

• Extend the life of nuclear plants and invest in new reactors.

• Support renewable energy eliminating the regulatory risk that negatively impacts capital attraction.

• Supporting renewable energy means securing the necessary amounts of lithium, copper, and cobalt.

• Facilitate investments in natural gas development and lifting the ban on the exploration and exploitation of unconventional gas.

• Reach long-term contracts with the major producers of liquefied natural gas, as China did when it closed its 27-year contract with Qatar.

• Eliminate taxes imposed on energy companies. They are the key to invest in security of supply.

• Strengthening the security of supply and stability provided by hydroelectric energy through contract extensions and investments in mini hydro.

• Provide tax benefits for investing in cogeneration.

• Supporting long-term investments in grid and networks and energy sources like green hydrogen with tax benefits.

The most important lesson is that the European Union will not solve an energy crisis created by interventionism by adding more bureaucracy, legal and regulatory instability and penalizing with higher taxes those that can invest in energy security.

The energy crisis, which was already a high-cost issue for European citizens in 2019, will become a price and supply issue soon if the European Union disregards these measures and continues to impose interventionist policies, raising taxes and imposing idealistic and industrially unviable models.

If the necessity of securing supply and mining of copper, cobalt, lithium, and rare earth metals is not understood, together with the need to strengthen nuclear, natural gas and hydro, the European Union will switch from being dependent on Russia to being dependent on Russia and China.

Via The Cradle,

Turkey has reportedly laid out its conditions for refraining from a ground offensive against the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria, Kurdish media reported.

According to local sources, the Turkish bombardment – although ongoing – has decreased significantly as of the last few days. The sources added that this is due to the current US mediation between Turkey and the Kurdish militant group. “Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar received the US ambassador, Jeffry L. Flake, at the ministry’s headquarters in Ankara,” the Turkish Defense Ministry said in a statement on 24 November, without further clarification.

During the meeting, the US ambassador reportedly offered a 30-kilometer pullback of Kurdish forces to prevent Turkey from launching its promised ground offensive. According to a Kurdish media report, however, Ankara has not only demanded a 30-kilometer withdrawal of the SDF from Turkey’s borders, but also that all members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Syria be handed over to Turkish custody.

The report also states that Turkey has demanded “the allocation of partial oil revenues in SDF-controlled areas for the benefit of factions loyal to Ankara [and the areas under their control],” referring to the Syrian National Army (SNA) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Ankara has also requested the establishment of “observation points,” either independent ones or joined by the US coalition, to allow Turkey to “monitor weapons transfers [following the SDF withdrawal].”

The Kurdish report also states that Ankara is willing to “substitute” all of its conditions with a handover “of the entire area” to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA). The report also accused Turkey of having a secret agreement with Russia that would allow it to occupy more Syrian territory. This could be due to Russian pressure on the Kurdish militants to withdraw.

While the US mediates between Turkey and the Kurds, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Friday that a Turkish ground offensive in Syria is still imminent and will begin “when the time comes.”

Moreover, Erdogan identified the northern Syrian towns of Ras al-Ain, Manbij, and Ain al-Arab (Kobane), as the site of the upcoming ground offensive. According to Turkish Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu, the order for the Istanbul bombing was taken in Manbij.

1/3 At the meeting held in #Qamishli, Russia asked the YPG to withdraw all its military presence from the Turkish border to the M4 road (and leave the entire region to the government). https://t.co/2qN8C95pYa pic.twitter.com/oh3nEG4EPr

— Balanche (@FabriceBalanche) November 26, 2022

Erdogan also announced that Turkey would initiate its plans to establish a 30-kilometer “security zone” on its southern border, which has been the longstanding goal of the Turkish military occupation in northern Syria.

Turkey has accused the US of supporting Kurdish ‘terrorism,’ while the SDF has accused the US of turning a blind eye to Turkish aggressions. Washington’s mediation is likely to be a form of appeasement for the two opposing sides, which are considered US allies.