RT News - December 20th 2022 Late

Electricity is restored in Russia's Belgorod region, after Ukrainian shelling left almost half the city without power and a civilian wounded. Report on the continued shelling of Donetsk city as a hospital is targeted twice in one day.

Three people are killed and one injured as a fire erupts after an explosion at a Russian gas pipeline. (4)

The scandal known as Qatar-Gate in the EU Parliament shifts gears to Morocco, as an Italian court on Monday agreed to hand over to Belgian authorities a woman suspected of involvement in the graft scandal.

The EU energy price cap and the saga continues as many EU countries continue to buy Russian oil. It's all bizarre, especially as orders roll in from Poland.

USA is making commentary (QS "poking it's runny nose") into China's COVID19 measures. Damned if you do... damned if you don't .... Report from Caleb Maupin.

While Islamic terrorist groups continue attacks in Burkina Faso, RT France speaks to the country's interim Prime Minister on the country's security and search for new allies. Six civilians and two soldiers have died in separate attacks this week. Thousands have died and millions displaced. Please catch up on background on this channel or on the RT website (much more info there if you can access it) There is now the threat of hunger as communications links are blocked/cut off.

Twitter file number seven drops showing no trace of Russian meddling in the Hunter Biden laptop saga/scandal but plenty of input from the FBI. report from Donald Courter (1)

A British ex-footballer calls out .gov for low pay to health and essential workers.
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Below 1) --- Newly released docs shed light on attempts to influence Twitter
2) --- Developed states ‘failed’ Africa on climate change – Zimbabwe
3) --- US-backed officials involved in massive fraud case – media
4) --- Explosion rocks major Russian gas pipeline
5) --- Brits urged to be cautious with ambulance calls
6) (Feature) Dmitry Trenin: Post-Soviet Russia is dead, but what will replace the West as the country's primary inspiration?
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20 Dec, 2022 10:30

1) --- Twitter repeatedly pushed back against FBI claims of foreign disinformation campaigns on the platform, files published by the company show

The FBI constantly pressured Twitter for evidence of foreign influence campaigns and prodded it into sharing more data, newly released internal company communications show. At times, the social media platform pushed back against the Bureau’s claims of widespread disinformation campaigns by outside actors, according to excerpts from conversations between former Twitter executives and the FBI.

The seventh batch of Twitter documents was published on Monday by author Michael Shellenberger with the blessing of the company’s new owner, Elon Musk. The release was part of Musk’s effort to provide transparency about Twitter’s past decision-making.

According to Shellenberger, the files provide insight into how the FBI “primed” Twitter throughout 2020 towards the eventual decision to block the story about Hunter Biden’s business dealings with China, which were found on his laptop and reported on by the New York Post in October of that year.

The Post broke the story in the weeks leading up to the presidential election, which was won by Joe Biden, Hunter Biden’s father.

The FBI’s interactions with Twitter were aimed at dismissing stories, such as the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story, as Russian hack-and-leak operations, Shellenberger wrote in a lengthy Twitter thread.

“We have seen a sustained (If uncoordinated) effort by the IC [intelligence community] to push us to share more info & change our [data-sharing] policies. They are probing & pushing everywhere they can (including by whispering to congressional staff),” Twitter’s former policy director, Carlos Monje, wrote, according to an excerpt.

Internal communications further reveal that the Twitter team pushed back several times against the FBI by pointing out that the activity the Bureau had found suspicious came from accounts with low follower counts and therefore not much reach.

Responding to FBI agent Elvis Chan in 2020, Roth wrote that Twitter found “no evidence” to support the claims about two alleged separate foreign-linked disinformation campaigns on the platform that were published at the time by NBC News and the Washington Post.

According to the files previously released by journalist Matt Taibbi, Roth was “not particularly comfortable” with the FBI grilling Twitter with detailed questions over its stance on foreign influence campaigns.

The files also purported to shed light on how Twitter executives struggled to find a rationale to suppress the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop in 2020. They chose to do so anyway, even though they admitted in the published excerpts that they did not have any proof at the time that the laptop was hacked by foreign actors.
https://www.rt.com/news/568579-twitter-files-fbi-pressure/
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20 Dec, 2022 14:19

2) --- Developed states ‘failed’ Africa on climate change – Zimbabwe

Well-off nations have not presented “ambitious” emission-reduction targets, a senior official told RT’s Africa Now

Many African delegates were disappointed by the results of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27), which was held in November in Egypt. In the first episode of the new show Africa Now, RT’s Paula Slier explores why this happened and how the promising event came to be described as a failure.

Speaking to officials and journalists, Slier dissects the reasons why people in Africa now feel that they are being treated unfairly by the West when it comes to the effects of global warming.

“Developed countries were supposed to submit their ambitious [emission-reduction] targets. They have not done so,” Washington Zhakata, the head of Zimbabwe’s climate change management department, said on the sidelines of COP27. “Moreover, they failed to meet their obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.”

Most African participants feel like they were being treated unfairly by the industrialized nations, who are chiefly responsible for carbon emissions.

The region is blessed with critical resources needed for a transition to renewable energy, yet millions on the continent remain literally in the dark due to power grid problems.

Watch the new show every Tuesday and Thursday on air, as well as online at RT.com. (I am asking RT to make this available on Rumble, I hope they do... so far it's only available on the RT website and those of us in censored countries would need a VPN)
https://www.rt.com/news/568559-africa-climate-change-cop27/
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20 Dec, 2022 17:12

3) --- US-backed officials involved in massive fraud case – media

Washington was reportedly aware of the widespread corruption in ex-Afghan president Ashraf Ghani’s government but continued to fund it

Afghan government officials supported by the US helped a smuggling ring sneak more than $800 million out of Afghanistan in the years prior to the Taliban takeover, Business Insider reported on Tuesday.

Citing a trove of documents the outlet obtained from former Afghan officials, it revealed that the money was mostly carried through a border crossing into the nation’s northern neighbor, Uzbekistan. Business Insider described it as “a river of cash flowing out” of Afghanistan.

The money was never declared to the country’s officials but was reported to Uzbek customs agents on the other side of the border, the outlet said, adding that it got access to a total of 457 pages of records detailing the cash flow.

According to the Uzbek customs forms, much of the money smuggled that way was destined for the United Arab Emirates, where many top Afghan officials, including the ousted president, Ashraf Ghani, and his family fled not long before the Taliban takeover.

The sum of money smuggled out of Afghanistan over that period amounted to a total of $884 million, which is about 4% of the national GDP, according to the article. It also exceeded the US annual humanitarian assistance funding for the country, the media outlet added.

The US was well aware of widespread corruption within the Afghan government but did little to stop it, Business Insider claimed. American diplomats expressed their concerns over the matter in “the inner circle of the president” to Afghan officials in March 2021. The issue was also repeatedly raised in the final report of the US Afghan Study Group and investigations by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

Yet, when the Afghan officials looking into the smuggling ring approached the US Embassy and EU diplomats after being ignored by Ghani’s government, they also did nothing about it, the article noted. Instead, the investigators themselves started to receive death threats.

Ghani was previously accused of fleeing Afghanistan with loads of cash. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee called on the attorney general in 2021 to investigate reports about Ghani supposedly fleeing Kabul “with bags full of $169 million.” The ousted president himself denies all of these allegations.
https://www.rt.com/news/568620-us-backed-officials-fraud-afghanistan/
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20 Dec, 2022 14:50

4) --- Explosion rocks major Russian gas pipeline

Three people have died in the incident in Central Russia, with at least one injured, local authorities say

An explosion has rocked a pipeline in Russia’s Chuvash Republic several hundred kilometers east of Moscow, causing a major fire, local officials said. The incident along the route, which is used to transport energy to Europe, killed at least three people and injured another one, while prompting gas prices in Europe to soar.

The local administration’s press service said the blast occurred along the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline. It added that the operating company had been conducting maintenance work on the conduit before the fire broke out.

Of the three dead and one injured, “all of them were working on the gas pipeline,” local emergency services confirmed.

The regional directorate of Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations said earlier that the fire was caused by a gas leak at an underground pipeline close to the village of Yambahtino. It added that it had sent several fire-fighting crews to the scene. (video on telegram https://t.me/rian_ru/189261)

Oleg Nikolaev, the head of the Chuvash Republic, noted that the pipeline was used to deliver energy to Europe, and now it has been blocked off from two sides.

Videos posted on social media showed a large pillar of fire towering over nearby buildings. The Mash Telegram channel reported that locals said temperatures near the scene were so hot they were unable to approach their homes.

The incident prompted gas prices in Europe to spike, exceeding $1,250 per one thousand cubic meters, according to data from the ICE exchange. The pipeline serves as a route for transporting natural gas from Western Siberia to Europe via Ukraine.

The 4,500 km conduit crosses the border between the two countries in Kursk Region at the town of Sudzha, which remains the only point through which the gas is still flowing to Europe via Ukraine amid fighting between Moscow’s and Kiev’s forces.
https://www.rt.com/russia/568604-explosion-russia-gas-pipeline/
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20 Dec, 2022 14:44

5) --- Brits urged to be cautious with ambulance calls

With service reduced to a bare minimum, people should avoid “risky activity,” the UK health minister warned

UK Health Minister Will Quince has urged the public to avoid calling an ambulance on Wednesday unless facing a “life-threatening situation,” as ambulance workers prepare to strike. Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is already reeling from two nurses’ walkouts in less than a week.

Appearing on the BBC on Tuesday, Quince said that people suffering chest pains or other serious conditions could still expect some cover, but others should call the NHS’ non-emergency line instead.

“Where people are planning any risky activity, I would strongly encourage them not to do so because there will be disruption on the day,” Quince said, without specifying what he considered “risky activity.”

Negotiations over exactly which cases drivers will respond to are ongoing, The Guardian reported.

Nine ambulance trusts across England and Wales will strike on Wednesday, with the industrial action involving paramedics, dispatchers, and support workers. The planned disruptions will be the largest ambulance strikes to hit the UK since the 1980s, and NHS bosses have already instructed hospitals to free up beds and ensure ambulance patients are handed over within 15 minutes of arrival so that those few crews operating can respond to more calls.

The ambulance strike was preceded by a strike on Tuesday involving more than 10,000 nurses, the largest in the health service’s 74-year history. A similar nurses’ walkout last Thursday led to the rescheduling of 16,000 appointments and surgeries, according to NHS figures.

The nurses argue that recent pay rises haven’t kept pace with Britain’s soaring inflation rate, and are demanding a 19% hike in their wages. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the Daily Mail on Tuesday that he “won’t back down” in the face of such “unreasonable” demands. Sunak declared last Thursday that a pay rise of just 4.5% for most nurses was “fair and reasonable.”

Meanwhile, rail workers, postal workers and Border Force officers have all planned strikes this week.
https://www.rt.com/news/568606-ambulance-strike-nhs-uk/
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6) (Feature) Dmitry Trenin: Post-Soviet Russia is dead, but what will replace the West as the country's primary inspiration?

Entering a new period of turbulence in 2022, Russia will change beyond recognition, but we have yet to know precisely how

(Dmitry Trenin is a Research Professor at the Higher School of Economics and a Lead Research Fellow at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations. He is also a member of the Russian International Affairs Council.)

To describe in one word what 2022 has been for Russia? I would say – transformative.

This is nothing new. Wars invariably reconstruct the foundations of those who wage them. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is not a minor operation. Even after only ten months, its impact appears to be far bigger than that of the Crimean War of the mid-19th century or the Russo-Japanese war of the beginning of the 20th. The closest analogy one can find in Russian history is the First World War, and not only due to the dominance of artillery and the reality of trench warfare.

This is the first conflict, for Russia, since the Soviet collapse, to require mass – though still limited – mobilization, and will surely be the biggest in terms of casualties sustained.

The war in Ukraine, however, is just a violent element in a wider ‘hybrid’ conflict between Russia and the entire West. Accordingly, it has featured the so-called ‘sanctions from hell’, and then many even more strident measures that few people imagined even a year ago. As a result, Russia is virtually completely locked out from the Western-dominated global financial system.

Meanwhile, trade with Western Europe, home to Moscow's traditional principal economic partners, has been severely curtailed; and the EU’s energy ties with Russia, the main material pillar of the relationship with the bloc, are quickly being demolished. Half of Russia’s currency reserves have been frozen, and the private assets of a number of the country's citizens have been confiscated.

On the political side, Russia has not just been forced to leave the Council of Europe; its foreign minister has even been barred from attending the OSCE annual meeting and was allowed to attend the UN General Assembly session only at the last moment. Roughly two-thirds of UN member states have condemned Russia’s action in Ukraine; the European Parliament has branded Russia a state sponsor of terrorism; and the German Bundestag has heaped on Moscow all the blame for the Soviet Famine in the early 1930s, the Ukrainian portion of which is now being called a “genocide.”

German-Russian post-World War II reconciliation, one of history’s miracles – given that the two countries do not belong to the same military alliance or a common market, in their contemporary incarnations – is quickly eroding.

To cap it all, many in the West are working to bring about something like a moral execution of Russia, making it a latter-day version of post-1945 Germany. They are canceling Russian culture, barring Russian sportspeople from international competitions – including the World Soccer Cup and the Olympics – and even excluding Russian pets from dog and cat shows.

The magnitude and ferocity of those blows have been more than matched by the resilience displayed by Russia’s economy, society, and polity. The country’s GDP has contracted, but by less than 3% this year, with inflation at about 12% – which is lower than in many EU members states. The population has by and large managed to adapt to the new circumstances, including the totally unexpected mobilization shock.

With so many exports to Russia banned, the country is re-learning to manufacture products on a large scale by itself, from clothes to passenger airplanes. Technological sovereignty is ceasing to be a slogan and has turned into a policy. Financial sovereignty is being bolstered through a national payments system, and foreign trade in national currencies, including the ruble.

Western restrictions and the general hostility towards Russia have helped dispel residual illusions about Western Europe and North America, and have given a powerful boost to the long-overdue reorientation of Russian foreign trade policy to Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Russian elites, faced with a binary choice, have gone through a process of self-selection: Some have stayed with their country, while others moved closer to their assets abroad. Pro-Western groups inside Russia have lost most of their principal champions and adherents, many of whom have emigrated, while Russian patriotism has become stronger for many citizens. In terms of values and ideas, the culture of consumerism is being challenged by the culture of serving the common good.

Can it be that the worst of times could also be the best of times, and that what we are witnessing in Russia is a creative destruction? It may be, but as 2023 begins, we are only at the very beginning of a process that promises to be as earth-shattering as the demise of the Soviet Union, but headed in the opposite direction. True, there is still too much uncertainty around. Bad things may yet crowd out the good ones. Part of the elite is still daydreaming about reconciling with the West, even at the price of a surrender, and the patience of ordinary people may yet snap in the face of new extraordinary hardships. However, turning the clock back to February 20, 2022, much less 2013, is simply impossible. It will not happen.

Russia is not an incrementalist nation. Historically, it moves ahead from one crisis to another, with periods of peace and quiet – and inevitably, decay – sandwiched between them. After the end of the war in Chechnya, Russia enjoyed two decades of peace, relative stability, and a measure of prosperity. Now, it is time to face up to a major new crisis – which has come just right after the first iteration of post-Soviet Russia had demonstrably exhausted its potential.

The contours of Russian Federation 2.0 are not yet clear. One can only hope for a more viable and more self-sustained economy; more independent and solid finances; a more capable technological and scientific base; a more equitable social contract; a political system more accountable to the citizenry; a meritocratic elite that serves the nation, rather than individuals; a military much stronger on the non-nuclear side; and a foreign policy that is closely engaged with the rising global majority of non-Western countries and – eventually – finding a satisfactory basis for new relations with Western Europe and North America.

This is a long wish list. One thing is clear though: The path to a better future for Russia will have to be created in Ukraine – undoubtedly at a high price.
https://www.rt.com/russia/568517-dmitry-trenin-rf-two-point-zero/
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