RT News - February 13th 2023

Donbass, Maryinka: RT follows Russian troops as they advance in a battle for one of the Ukrainian strongholds outside Donetsk. The village is all but destroyed. Russian MOD Ukraine has an estimated 250 troop loss. Russia now controls around 2/3rds of the village. Igor Zhdanov reports.

Pres. Zelensky has posted controversial images on his social media accounts.

Earthquakes, Turkiya and Syria: The death toll after the earthquakes and aftershocks is now mow than 31,000. As Türkiye and Syria struggle with the aftermath of a devastating earthquake, humanitarian help is being delivered from all over the world, including from one of the most crisis-stricken states. Rt has spoken to some of the survivors who have lost loved ones and their homes. Aid has come in from all over the world, even the poorest countries. In Palestine, there's been a blood drive for instance as well as other aid donated. Yousef Jalali reports from Iran. Small amounts of aid are now arriving from the west, who waited 6 days before allowing aid to be transferred to Syria and they still haven't lifted sanctions. Seyed Mohahhad Marandi comments on western sanctions.

Palestine, Gaza: Israeli forces have launched airstrikes on alleged Hamas missile factory in response to an alleged rocket launch by Hamas.

"Nothing ruled out" - that's the comment of a US Air Force official on whether the mysterious object shot down in Canada overnight could be extra-terrestrial.

USA/China - South Dakota: The U.S. bans a $700,000 Chinese farm construction investment calling it a national security threat. Caleb Maupin reports.

Africa, Ethiopia: The Ethiopian Orthodox Church is at heads with the government. Karabo Letlhatlha reports about the possible schism. It's complicated.
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Below via RT website 1) --- Big Oil rakes in record profits
2) --- Russia's trade with African country up more than 50% – ambassador
3) --- Elon Musk addresses UFO reports
4) --- Chechen leader explains when Russian borders will change
5) --- China announces visit of Iranian president
6) --- German minister urges equal distribution of Ukrainian refugees

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13 Feb, 2023 05:40

1) --- Big Oil rakes in record profits

Western oil supermajors made nearly $200 billion last year while households struggle to pay their energy bills

Oil giants Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil, Chevron and TotalEnergies posted a combined profit of $196.3 billion last year, according to the companies’ earnings reports. A record-high result for the oil industry, the sum tops the economic output of most countries.

French oil giant TotalEnergies was the last to report on its earnings, announcing on Wednesday that its full-year profit in 2022 was $36.2 billion, double its total for 2021. US oil major Chevron and British giants BP and Shell also reported record-high results earlier this month, while Exxon’s $56 billion-profit marked a historic high for the entire Western oil industry.

The record-setting earnings came as a result of a spike in fossil fuel prices last year. However, criticism of the industry for hoarding money while consumers are struggling to pay soaring energy bills has intensified.

“Given that we’re entering a global recession and that most of us know people who are struggling, we must all call out profiteering like this,” Alice Harrison from advocacy group Global Witness, told CNBC, calling for “an increased windfall tax to help those struggling to pay their bills.”

Human rights group Amnesty International said the oil majors’ profits are “patently unjustifiable” and “an unmitigated disaster.”

“The billions of dollars of profits being made by these oil corporations must be adequately taxed so that governments can address effectively the rising cost of living for most vulnerable populations,” said the group’s secretary general Agnes Callamard.

US President Joe Biden called Big Oil's record earnings “outrageous” in his State of the Union address on Tuesday. The head of state noted that the companies invested “too little of that profit” into efforts to stem the surge in energy prices, and proposed raising the tax on corporate stock buybacks four times to boost long-term investment.

Oil companies, however, have been arguing that windfall taxes could hinder investment.

“Windfall taxes or price caps simply erode confidence in that investment stability and so I do worry about some of the moves being made. I think there is a different approach that needs to be had which is to really draw investment capital at a time when we need to be able to embed energy security into the broader energy system here in Europe,” Shell CEO Wael Sawan said last week.

This opinion was mirrored by Amin Nasser, head of the world’s largest energy company Saudi Aramco, who told CNBC that higher taxes are “not helpful for [the companies] in order to have additional investment.”

“They need to invest in the sector, they need to grow the business, in alternatives and in conventional energy, and they need to be helped,” he added
https://www.rt.com/business/571157-big-oil-record-profit/
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British oil major BP has reported record high annual profits in 2022, more than doubling its earnings amid soaring energy prices, the company announced on Tuesday.

According to the disclosed data, BP’s underlying profits reached $27.7 billion in 2022, against $12.8 billion in the previous year. The earnings were the highest in the company’s history. Its previous annual profit record was $26.3 billion, reached in 2008.

BP CEO Bernard Looney called the earnings a “good set of results.”
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13 Feb, 2023 05:31

2) --- Russia's trade with African country up more than 50% – ambassador

Tunisian goods are commercially viable and show full potential for replacing EU products, Russian envoy says

Trade turnover between Tunisia and Russia saw an enormous growth of 63% in 2022 despite the Ukraine-related sanctions imposed on Moscow by the Western allies, Russian Ambassador to Tunisia Aleksander Zolotov said on Sunday in an interview with RIA Novosti.

According to the diplomat, the trade volume in monetary terms reached $692 million and is expected to further grow, as Tunisian goods, including food and textile products, are commercially viable and able to easily replace EU products that have left the Russian market.

“Volume of mutual trade grew significantly in 2022 despite the well-known artificial obstacles,” Zolotov said, adding that the increase is “an obvious example of our ability to successfully cooperate under the current difficult circumstances across the world.”

He added that the two nations are planning to discuss possibilities of improving logistics services for import and export exchange, as well as expanding the scope of supplies in the near future.

According to the envoy, Russia and Tunisia are also cooperating in the sphere of manned space flights. Zolotov also expects the Russian tourist flow to the country to gradually return to previous levels.

The ambassador said he hopes for deepening relations between the two nations, and to take further steps towards this during the Second Russia-Africa Summit, which will take place in St. Petersburg in July.
https://www.rt.com/business/571371-tunisia-russia-trade-soars-sanctions/
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12 Feb, 2023 21:02

3) --- Elon Musk addresses UFO reports

The Twitter CEO said that his extraterrestrial “friends” are “stopping by”

SpaceX and Twitter CEO Elon Musk referred on Sunday to a rash of UFO reports as his alien “friends” visiting Earth. A series of unidentified objects have been spotted around the world since the US shot down an alleged “Chinese surveillance balloon” and two other objects.

“Don’t worry,” the billionaire tweeted. “Just some of my [alien] friends of mine stopping by…”

Earlier on Sunday, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) shut down a sector of the airspace above Lake Michigan, lifting it shortly afterwards. The restriction came less than a day after NORAD closed off the airspace over central Montana in response to a supposed “radar anomaly.”

Further north on Saturday, US fighter jets shot down an unidentified and unmanned aircraft over Canada. A similar object was shot down over Alaska on Friday, while a Chinese balloon was downed off the coast of South Carolina last Saturday. US officials referred to the latter object as a Chinese “surveillance balloon,” while Beijing insisted that it was a “civilian airship” which veered off course.

Speaking to Fox News, US officials described one of the objects shot down since Friday as a “small metallic balloon with a tethered payload,” while Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told ABC News on Sunday that both craft were “balloons.”
Elsewhere, China’s Global Times newspaper said on Sunday that authorities in the coastal city of Rizhao were preparing to shoot down an “unidentified flying object,” while the Uruguayan Air Force said on Saturday that it had dispatched investigators to the area of Termas de Almiron to gather information on reports of “flashing lights in the sky” on Friday night.

There is no evidence that airspace closures in the US and UFO reports in China and Uruguay are connected. However, the glut of reports generated excitement among UFO enthusiasts online.

Despite once referring to himself as “an alien trying to get back to my home planet,” Musk is skeptical about the existence of intelligent life outside Earth. In a speech at last year’s G20 summit in Indonesia, he said that humankind may one day discover “alien civilizations or civilizations that existed millions of years ago.” However, he declared in 2018 that the existence of these civilizations is not certain, and that humans should “preserve the light of consciousness by becoming a spacefaring civilization.”
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https://twitter.com/RealBababanaras/status/1624861677140443136
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https://www.rt.com/news/571379-elon-musk-ufo-balloon/
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12 Feb, 2023 22:09

4) --- Chechen leader explains when Russian borders will change

The map will only be redrawn when Moscow decides, Ramzan Kadyrov says

Western hopes that Russia will be divided into smaller states are in vain as only Moscow can decide on the country’s borders, the leader of Russia’s Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, has said.

“As for the break-up of Russia, such attempts have been made by the West since the 1990s,” Kadyrov wrote on Telegram on Sunday.

“Russian borders change only when it wants this itself,” the Chechen leader said.

Kadyrov noted that he was writing in response to an “overconfident expert” from Ukraine who predicted that Russia would break up into several parts.

The ‘expert’ in question was most likely Aleksey Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, who claimed on Saturday that Russia is a colonial state that will soon split up.

“There will be free Ichkeria [the name given to Chechnya by the separatists in the 1900s], Tatarstan, Dagestan. It will happen in the near future, and we need to prepare for this and not pretend that if they [Russia] have nuclear weapons, this won’t happen,” Danilov said.

Russia’s borders recently changed after the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, and Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions voted overwhelmingly in referendums last autumn to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.
https://www.rt.com/news/571380-kadyrov-borders-ukraine-danilov/
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12 Feb, 2023 20:35

5) --- China announces visit of Iranian president

Ebrahim Raisi is coming to Beijing at the invitation of Xi Jinping, the Chinese Foreign Ministry says

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will make an official visit to China next week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said.

Raisi’s planned visit will take place between February 14 and 16 and is at the invitation of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the ministry announced in a statement on Sunday.

The three-day trip will include talks between Raisi and Xi, a joint meeting of the leaders with Iranian and Chinese businessmen, and the signing of cooperation documents between the delegations of the two countries, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency.

Also reporting on the upcoming visit, US outlet Politico said that it is “expected to deepen ties between the two political and economic partners that are opposed to the US-led Western domination of international affairs.”

Xi and Raisi last met during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit last September in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. During the talks, the Chinese leader said that strengthening their strategic partnership was the decision of both Beijing and Tehran.

In December, Chinese Vice President Hu Chunhua visited Iran and met with Raisi, with both sides expressing eagerness to boost bilateral ties further.

China is Iran’s largest trading partner and the main buyer of its oil amid US sanctions on Tehran. According to Iranian data, its exports to China reached $12.6 billion in the last ten months. The country also bought $12.7 billion worth of Chinese goods during the period.

Last year, Iran was formally included in the SCO as a permanent member, and it applied to join BRICS – two international organizations in which China and Russia play a major role.
https://www.rt.com/news/571378-china-iran-raisi-xi/
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12 Feb, 2023 19:56

6) --- German minister urges equal distribution of Ukrainian refugees

"It can’t remain this way," Nancy Faeser says of disparity in numbers taken in by various member states

Some EU nations should do more to relieve pressure from fellow member states that have taken in large numbers of Ukrainians fleeing the conflict with Russia, Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has said.

Better coordination between EU countries would be required if the escalation of the situation in Ukraine causes another wave of refugees, Faeser said in an interview with Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday.

"Poland has so far taken in more than 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees – Spain 160,000. It can't remain this way," she stated.

Germany itself has accepted more than one million Ukrainians since the outbreak of the conflict almost a year ago. According to Faeser, eight in ten refugees who came to the country in 2022 were from Ukraine.

Figures released by the UN earlier this week suggested that some eight million Ukrainians became refugees due to the fighting, with at least 4.8 million of them applying for temporary registration in the EU.

Security sources told TASS news agency in late January that Russia had taken in more than 5.2 million refugees from Ukraine, including some 730,000 children, since the start of the conflict. Around 4,000 people from the country have been entering Russian territory on a daily basis, with 987 temporary housing facilities set up for them, the sources said.
https://www.rt.com/news/571376-germany-eu-ukraine-refugees/
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