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It seemed inevitable. Russia has finally halted the flow of natural gas to Germany indefinitely. In other words, Russia’s Gazprom will stop selling gas to Germany’s Uniper on all gas contracts dated from June 14 onward.
LONDON, July 18 (Reuters) - Russia's Gazprom has told customers in Europe it cannot guarantee gas supplies because of 'extraordinary' circumstances, according to a letter seen by Reuters, upping the ante in an economic tit-for-tat with the West over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
Dated July 14, the letter from the Russian state gas monopoly, said it was declaring force majeure on supplies, starting from June 14.
Known as an 'act of God' clause, force majeure is standard in business contracts and spells out extreme circumstances that excuse a party from their legal obligations.
This came after Canada refused to repair and return a turbine on the gas pipeline using the excuse of the sanctions. The German government pleaded with Canada to release the turbine, and they finally relented on July 17. But by then it was too late. Unless something happens quickly, Europe’s industry could soon shut down, and the winter could be quite cold for Europeans.
I suppose this will be reported as a victory for the sanctions. We showed those Russians who is boss! We have denied them the ability to sell their natural gas to Europe! That’s a bit like shooting oneself in the foot in order to splatter blood on Putin.
It is obvious that sanctions are not providing the solution to the Ukraine war. Russia is the clear winner of the economic war being waged here. But then, in my opinion Klaus Schwab and his henchmen of the “Liberal World Order” (as they now call it) knew all along that this would happen. It is part of their plan to shut down the world economy in order to “build back better” and gain totalitarian control over the western “democracies.”
They are trying to do the same in the US, but this is proving to be a challenge, simply because of the sheer size and strength of the American economy and its infrastructure. It takes a long time to break it apart entirely. Part of their problem is that Donald Trump made America energy independent during his term of office. With that starting point, Biden has had to work hard to reverse course, by shutting down pipelines and by refusing many new oil drilling leases.
Biden’s “solution” was to go to Saudi Arabia and beg them to produce more oil.
Biden’s request for the Saudis to pump more oil was rejected. The meetings did not go well at all, especially after Biden confronted Crown Prince bin Salman with the accusation about the murder of Khashoggi. Biden’s lack of diplomatic skills are probably not the problem. It seems to me that he purposely scuttled any oil deal by his skillful lack of diplomacy.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/16/middleeast/biden-mbs-khashoggi-abu-akleh-intl/index.html
(CNN) Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, hit back at Joe Biden after the US President confronted him about the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a meeting between the two leaders on Friday.
In the meeting, Bin Salman, also known as MBS, denied responsibility for the killing of Khashoggi at the kingdom's Istanbul consulate. Biden said US intelligence contradicted the prince's claims.
MBS countered with the sexual and physical abuse of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison by US military personnel and the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank -- incidents, he said, that reflected poorly on the US. Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi foreign minister, detailed parts of the conversation in a press conference on Saturday.
It is well known that if you want to make it look like you are doing something about the problem, but if you do not want to solve the problem, then create conditions that make it impossible for the other side to come to terms. That way, it looks like you have tried, but the other side was being unreasonable. This is done all the time when warring countries negotiate for peace when they have no intention of stopping the war.
Recall, too, that the Saudis already switched sides on August 15, 2021 when they signed a defense pact with Russia. This ended their military pact with the US government that was made when the petro-dollar was created in the early 1970’s. Saudi Arabia has since allowed China to pay for oil in yuan, rather than in US dollars. Now Saudi Arabia is preparing to join the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), which in turn is preparing to issue its own world reserve currency to replace the US dollar.
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGpGwmcrNKnLmVcnjspHCXzvgbb
While the mainstream media try to convince westerners that the whole world is siding with them in this matter of sanctions, the fact is that only the western countries are sanctioning Russia. The rest of the world wants no part of it. Most of them do not want to destroy their own economies, as Klaus Schwab demands. The smaller countries are being forced (by blackmail) to go along with the sanctions, but the big countries (like India, China, Iran, and now Saudi Arabia) are standing up to the US government.