RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18330/russia-funding-environmental-groups

“I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called non-governmental organisations – environmental organisations working against shale gas – to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas.” — NATO’s then Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, The Guardian, June 19, 2014.

The mechanism, which can be summarized as follows: “Funds from the Russian government -> Shell company ‘incorporated’ in Bermuda -> American foundation -> American environmental organizations.” The advantage of Bermuda is that it does not require any disclosure that funds come from a foreign government, contrary to American law. Sea Change must disclose that it has received funds from abroad — in this instance a Bermuda company. Nothing more.

On March 11, 2022, US Representatives Jim Banks and Bill Johnson sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, asking for an investigation into the reported Russian manipulation of American “green groups” that are seemingly funded with “dark money” (anonymous donations). “Russia spent millions promoting anti-energy policies and politicians in the U.S. … Unlike the Russia hoax, Putin’s malign influence on our energy sector is real and deserves further investigation,” Banks said to Fox News Digital.

Below Europe’s soil lie large reserves of shale gas, also known as bedrock gas. The exploitation of these European natural gas reserves would have substantially reduced Europe’s purchases of, and dependence on, Russia’s gas — in particular on its gas giant, Gazprom. The same is true of nuclear power, which offers Westerners an abundant, non-CO2-emitting energy source as an alternative to Russian gas.

Hence the interest, for the Russian government, in mounting a vast disinformation campaign against shale gas and nuclear power in the West, by massively financing the groups most likely “naturally” to oppose it: environmentalist organizations.

Have Western environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs), movements and parties been possible, even unwitting, collaborators with the Russian government for the last ten years?

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/03/while_all_eyes_are_on_ukraine_china_continues_undermining_americas_wellbeing.html

If you travel, you know that one of the things that countries and states zealously check for is smuggling prohibited foods. That sounds neurotic and protectionist but it’s an important part of securing a country’s food supply. If pests, parasites, or diseases migrate into a nation’s food supply, it can destroy entire farming sectors and even lead to famine. That’s why it matters that China has been caught smuggling hundreds of thousands of pounds of potentially contaminated meats into America. (Hat tip: FrontPage Mag.)

I first fully understood the problem of a contaminated food supply in the early 1980s when I learned that England’s cattle had been contaminated with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (aka mad cow disease). News of it broke not long after I returned to America following a college year in England. Having eaten beef in England (although not much because I couldn’t afford it), I neurotically worried for some years after that I might find myself afflicted with the disease. As it turned out, I avoided that scourge but, over the next few years, the British slaughtered over four million cattle and numerous countries banned British beef. It was a tragedy and an economic disaster for farmers.

Thus, there is nothing foolish about countries rigorously policing any contaminants that might get into the food supply. But little things like rules don’t stop the Chinese. After all, they’ve already flooded America with fentanyl and COVID, so why shouldn’t we also be a target of potentially dangerous meats?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/03/will-putin-ante-dr-craig-luther/

Geographically, Ukraine is the largest country in Europe (about the size of Texas and some 1800km across from west to east); it has a population of more than 40,000,000. The Russian invasion is being conducted along four axes: 1) from the north, out of Belarus; 2) from the northeast, along the Chernihiv-Sumy-Kharkiv axis; 3) out of the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine (with the help of the two Russian separatist republics of Luhansk and Donetsk); and, 4) out of Crimea in the south. In general, while the Russian assault has been significantly less effective than anticipated, Russian forces are still managing, deliberately and inexorably, to encircle and bombard key Russian cities and towns, e.g., the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Kharkiv (Ukraine’s second largest city), Mariupol. In the process, they have created the most tragic humanitarian disaster in Europe since the end of World War II, with more than 2,000,000 refugees now fleeing Ukraine.

The Initial Russian Air & Missile Strikes.

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th, Western military observers expected the Russian Air Force (VKS) to unleash something akin to the “shock and awe” campaign of our first Gulf War in 1991. At the start of Operation DESERT STORM, U.S. and Allied air forces conducted literally thousands of sorties, paralyzing Iraq’s leadership, destroying its military infrastructure (including air bases), and eliminating or at least grounding the Iraqi Air Force, giving Allied air forces complete command of the air, something air war theorists call “air supremacy.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2022/03/14/path-forward-david-malpass-president-world-bank-group/

MR. IGNATIUS: Welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m David Ignatius, a columnist for The Post. My guest today is David Malpass, the president of the World Bank. The world economy has been a rollercoaster the last two years, first with the COVID pandemic, now with terrible violence and disruption of the Ukraine war. Mr. Malpass is going to help us see our way through this turmoil. Thank you so much for joining us today on Washington Post Live, Mr. Malpass.

MR. MALPASS: Thank you for having me, David. Good to see you.

MR. IGNATIUS: So, sir, I want to begin with the Ukraine war. On March the 1st, a week into the war, you issued a joint statement with Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the IMF, warning that the war was creating–and I’m quoting here–“significant spillovers to other countries” and that disruption of financial markets will continue to worsen should the conflict persist and that sanctions that were then being imposed will also have a significant economic effect. We’re now in the third week of this war, and I want to ask you to give us an assessment of the damage to the international economy so far and what’s ahead given current trends.

MR. MALPASS: We can see there’s a massive impact, David. It extends from energy and food supplies to the long-run problems of rebuilding or of reconstruction of all of the destruction that’s going on in Ukraine. So in addition to our horror at the human catastrophe, we have to look at the global economy and see that it’s a big negative. There’s the lost supply from Russia and Ukraine. But there’s also hoarding, which I’ve talked about, that people need to really avoid that, because that in itself drives up prices, and that has the biggest impact on the poor. What our–one of my focuses and the focus of the World Bank is on poorer countries around the world and the people in those countries, and they are immediately affected by the rise in prices that’s occurring now.