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Weak sales growth has reportedly prompted Ford to cut production of its all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck.

The company says about 1,400 workers would be impacted by the move to the reduced production schedule, according to the Associated Press. The major U.S. automaker announced it will be cutting shifts, transferring about 700 workers and allowing other employees to take early retirement.

Dealerships have been struggling to sell the EVs that automakers are sending. Nearly 4,000 dealerships wrote President Joe Biden in November to say they were struggling to sell the electric vehicles on their lots.

They request his administration scale back its goal of having 50% of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2030.

Energy watchdog Robert Bryce reports every quarter that Ford loses tens of thousands of dollars on each EV it sells.

Source: Justthenews.com

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Qatar Energy within weeks could sign a long-term deal to provide liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Indian buyers on cheaper and more flexible terms than existing contracts, trade sources said, as India seeks to meet a goal to increase the fuel’s use.

The Indian companies and Qatar Energy have agreed on terms and a contract could be signed by the end of this month or early in February, one of the sources said, adding the contract offering destination-flexible cargoes and lower pricing, would run until at least 2050, possibly longer.

It would extend contracts set to expire in 2028 for the supply of 8.5 million metric tons per year (tpy) LNG to Indian buyers and play a part in meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aim to raise the share of natural gas in the country’s energy mix to 15% by 2030 from 6.3% now.

The Indian companies and Qatar Energy did not respond to requests for comment.

Qatar, which aims to expand its liquefaction capacity to 126 million tpy by 2027 from 77 million, is keen to play a larger role in Asia and Europe as competition from U.S. supply increases.

Last year, Qatar signed long-term deals with European majors Shell, TotalEnergies and ENI.

Qatari LNG is often priced in relation to oil, using a formula based on a slope, or percentage of crude.

One of the sources said the deal is likely to be finalised at a price of around a 12% slope of Brent per million metric British thermal unit (mmBtu). A second source gave a range of 12-12.5% for supplies on a free-on-board basis for India.

The second source said a deal could be signed during an energy conference in India from Feb. 6-9.

None of the sources could be named because they were not authorised to speak publicly.

Under an existing deal, India’s top gas importer Petronet LNG imports 7.5 million tpy of LNG from Qatar on a delivered basis with slope of 12.67% and a fixed charge of 52 cents.

Additionally, companies including state-run Indian Oil Corp , Bharat Petroleum and GAIL (India) – which hold stakes in Petronet – buy a combined 1 million tpy of LNG at the same price.

The new deal will allow the Indian buyers to decide which terminal in India will receive cargoes, a third source said. Under existing deals, Qatar delivers LNG to western Gujarat state.

The source added the freedom to decide on the arrival terminal could save Indian buyers pipeline transportation costs within the Indian grid.

Petronet Chief Executive A. K. Singh last year said his company could get a price lower than the 12-13% slope of Brent offered by Qatar to China and Bangladesh.

(Additional Reporting by Nidhi Verma in New Delhi, Andrew Mills in Qatar Editing by Tony Munroe and Barbara Lewis)

Source: Zawya.com

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The U.S. carried out its fifth airstrike against Houthi targets in Yemen late Thursday night.
The Iran-backed rebel group within hours launched two anti-ship ballistic missiles at a U.S.-owned tanker.
The Houthis say their campaign is in response to Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip and U.S. support for it.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Yemen’s Houthi rebels are enthusiastically “confronting America directly,” the organization’s leader said in a televised speech, vowing to continue the group’s campaign of attacks on ships in the Red Sea until Israel’s blockade of Gaza is lifted.

The remarks came as the U.S. steps up its strikes on Houthi targets and ahead of President Joe Biden’s admission to reporters that so far, his administration’s military action was not having its intended effect.

“When you say working, are they stopping the Houthis?” Biden said in an exchange with reporters in Washington, D.C. “No. Are they going to continue? Yes.” The White House redesignated the Houthis as a terrorist organization on Wednesday, after delisting the group in 2021.

The U.S. carried out its fifth airstrike against Houthi targets in Yemen late Thursday night, with American jets targeting anti-ship missiles that U.S. Central Command said “were aimed into the southern Red Sea and prepared to launch.”

As if to validate Biden’s comments, the Iran-backed rebel group within hours launched two anti-ship ballistic missiles at a U.S.-owned tanker. The vessel, a small chemical tanker called the Chem Ranger, reported no injuries or damage to the ship.

It is “a great honor and blessing to be confronting America directly,” Houthi leader Abdul-Malek al-Houthi said in his defiant, hourlong speech that leaned heavily on religious rhetoric. He claimed that the U.S. and U.K. strikes on Yemen only sharpened his military’s technology, and that it proved the Houthis’ strategy — which targeted Israeli ships or those coming to or from Israel — was working.

The Houthis’ actions have certainly worked to disrupt transport and seaborne trade in the region: Major ocean carriers have suspended all Red Sea and Suez Canal transport, opting to sail around the continent of Africa instead, creating significant delays and supply bottlenecks and costing companies billions of dollars.

Al-Houthi also took a personal swipe at the American president, mocking Biden as “an elderly man that has trouble climbing the stairs of an airplane yet is travelling 9,000 miles to attack those that wanted to stand by the oppressed people of Gaza.”

The Biden administration along with the U.K. government began launching retaliatory strikes at the Houthis, who control most of Yemen, on Jan. 12 after the group spent a number of weeks carrying out dozens of attacks on ships traversing the Red Sea. The Yemeni rebels say their campaign is in response to Israel’s relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip and U.S. support for it.

The Houthi leader vowed to continue the attacks until Israel lifts its blockade of Gaza, saying that “nothing – not all the threats, the missiles, the pressure – will change our position.”

Israel’s offensive against Gaza began after Hamas militants from the Palestinian enclave launched a terror attack on southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and took another 240 hostage, of which 136 people remain in captivity.

The Israeli response, which included a complete siege of the already-blockaded territory and daily aerial bombardment, has killed more than 24,000 people and triggered severe food supply disruptions, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Source: Cnbc.com

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Conventional energy is vitally important for all that we do. Missing from news reports to the general public is an honest communication to try to explain the huge and enormous energy systems that we depend on each day and the impossibility of replacing conventional energy with wind and solar. To start 2024, I thought I would post a series on the Hard Truths of Energy. I borrowed the title from the 2007 National Petroleum Council report, led by Chairman, Lee Raymond, retired CEO of ExxonMobil. Petroleum, natural gas and coal were important in 2007 and they remain important today. The “Energy Density” of fossil fuels makes them indispensable to sustain our economy and our high quality of life.(4)

Fossil Fuels Provide 79% of U.S. Primary Energy

79 Quadrillion BTUs is the amount of energy we depend on from fossil fuels. This is my attempt to try to explain and illustrate what 79 Quadrillion BTUs of energy looks like. The number 79 Quadrillion is from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore Laboratory for energy use in 2022.(2) Below is a short summary of the amount of natural gas, petroleum and coal that we used in the U.S.A. in 2022.

How Huge is a Quadrillion?

I have discussed the steady U.S. energy demand of 100 Quadrillion BTUs per annum for decades and yes, 100 Quadrillion BTUs is the amount of energy we use each year and it has been steady for over 20 years.(6) Until now, I did not take the time to explain the enormity of a Quadrillion BTUs. Here is what one Quadrillion BTUs of energy is equivalent to:

Coal= About 50 million tons of coal. This would be a coal pile that would be one mile wide, ten feet high and 3.3 miles long.

Oil= 7.14 Billion gallons. See Lee Raymond quote below on the quantity of motor fuels used in the U.S. in a year

Natural Gas= 1 Trillion cubic feet. This is equivalent to 200 aircraft carrier sized LNG Tankers. More on the enormity of an LNG ship below.

It is a fact, in America, we use and need about 100 Quadrillion BTUs of energy each year.

36 Quadrillion BTUs of Petroleum

The single largest form of energy that we depend on is petroleum. About 20 million barrels per day. To visualize what 20 million barrels per day would look like, take a look at the photo of me and the 48″ Alyeska pipeline in Alaska. At its peak flow, about 2 million barrels per day flowed through the Alaska pipeline. So, to visualize 20 million barrels per day, picture in your mind, ten of these 48″ pipelines installed side by side.

Photo credit, Dick Storm circa 2007

Another illustration was offered by Lee Raymond, retired CEO of ExxonMobil when introducing the National Petroleum Council report “Facing the Hard Truths of Energy” in 2007. This explanation is offered by Mr. Raymond on You Tube, here. Mr. Raymond explained that the amount of motor fuels used in 2006 was about 150 Billion gallons. He then went on to state that if each gallon was placed in a one gallon tin can as he used in his youth to fill his lawnmower, the length of 10″ high cans, if placed end to end would circle the earth 1,000 times. That is the enormity of 150 Billion gallons of motor fuel. Mr. Raymond stated, (among other important points), “To replace current energy systems it will take a an enormous effort and a long period of Time.”(5)

The gasoline and Diesel motor fuels used in the U.S. has increased from the 150 Billion gallons consumed in 2007, to about 209 Billion gallons in 2022.

33 Quadrillion BTUs of Natural Gas

America used 33.4 Quadrillion BTUs of natural gas during 2022. Most of the natural gas used by the U.S. is distributed by a vast network of unseen, underground pipelines. Therefore, hard to visualize. So, let’s imagine that if we were to use all of our natural gas from shipments of LNG, (Liquified Natural Gas) how many huge LNG Super Tankers would it take? Such as the vessel Pan American shown below:

Pan American Specs: https://www.balticshipping.com/vessel/imo/9750232

This LNG tanker holds 174,000 cubic feet of liquified natural gas. LNG is 1/600th the volume of the gaseous state. The ship is over 977 feet long and the gross tonnage is 114,966. This is a ship about the size of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier. The energy equivalent of the cargo is about 6 trillion BTUs.

Now, imagine 6,600 ships like the Pan American above all lined up along the east coast. If the ships were placed touching, end to end, this would be about 1,220 miles of ships from New York City to south of Miami, Florida. That is the number of aircraft carrier sized LNG tankers that it would take to provide 33 Quadrillion BTUs of natural gas fuel. The 33 Quadrillion number is from 2022, the actual demand. The future will likely require more than 33.4 Quadrillion BTUs.

10 Quadrillion BTUs of Coal Power

Coal power has been important to the U.S. since the days of Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse. The American electric system, referred to as the “Grid” was built on the foundation of reliable, affordable, domestically supplied and environmentally clean steam power generation fueled by coal. This took over 125 years to build and has been described by the Smithsonian as, “The Largest Machine Ever Built”. Video here. As recent as 2011 about 50% of America’s electricity was produced by steam turbines with steam generation from coal fuel. In 2022 the coal powered electricity generation dropped to about 20%. Much of the total electricity generation which was once powered by coal fuel, has been switched to natural gas fuel.

As recent as 2011 America used about a billion tons of coal. In 2022 coal use declined by about 50% to about 512,000 million tons. Coal is important because of it’s enormous energy density. Another important fact, is that weeks and months of primary energy can be safely stored on site. Coal provides Dispatchable power and it is proven to be affordable. America has the largest coal reserves of any country. The U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of coal.

How much coal is 512,000 million tons? This is enough coal to fill about 5,000,000 coal cars such as the one shown below.

https://www.bnsf.com/ship-with-bnsf/ways-of-shipping/equipment/coal-cars.html

How long would a single train of 512,000,000 tons of coal be? About 50,000 miles, long enough to circle the earth two times at the equator.

Conclusions

The so-called energy transition from conventional to wind and solar is simply not possible with today’s technology. As Mr. Raymond stated in 2007, changing from our conventional energy systems to something else is an enormous effort that will take. a long time.

Net-Zero Carbon by 2050 is impossible. A previous blog post is here.

The largest energy density and provider of the greatest quantity of carbon-free energy is nuclear power. However, replacing the existing electric generation with nuclear will take decades to accomplish and massive roll back of Federal Regulations. It took about 40 years to develop, manufacture, construct and perfect the 93 operating commercial nuclear units in 54 plants. These currently provide about 20% of America’s electricity. Most of these are now over 30 years old and the last two units built by Southern Company (2,200MW capacity) took over ten years to build. A previous blog post discusses “Without New Thinking on Nuclear Power, Net Zero Carbon is Impossible”, here.

Electrifying Everything is not possible, even electrifying transportation is not practical for every vehicle and if they were, much more electricity would be required.

The so-called energy transition from conventional forms of energy to wind and solar is impossible and attempting to do so by forced laws (such as the IRA), increased Regulations and the continuing war on carbon will destroy our country.

It is my hope and prayer that after the next election some sanity to energy policy will return.

Source: Dickstormprobizblog.org

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(WO) – Vallourec, a global provider premium tubular solutions, has signed a contract with TotalEnergies for the supply of casing and tubing and associated accessories for the first phase of the Gas Growth Integrated Project (GGIP) in Iraq.

The post Vallourec to support TotalEnergies’ multi-energy project in Iraq appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

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Over 150 million Americans are under a winter chill advisory due to life-threatening temperatures. Every state besides Hawaii has issued some form of caution to residents as nearly 80% of the nation faces below-freezing weather. Extreme weather highlights the importance of fossil fuels, as there is NO reliable alternative.

Texas is on the verge of having another power grid failure of the ERCOT system. Around 11,000 Texans experienced power outages on Monday. In 2021, a winter storm devastated the state, millions lost power, and hundreds lost their lives, causing state leaders to move further from renewables. Governor Abbott blamed solar and wind energy reliance for thrusting the state into a lethal situation, and called the Green New Deal “a deadly deal for the United States of America.”

EV owners across the nation are already feeling the impact. Tesla owners in the Chicago area have been unable to charge their vehicles due to the extreme cold. The frigid temperatures have caused the charging stations to become congested with non-charging and abandoned cars, leading to a challenging situation for the owners. Cold weather, in general, will hurt the ability of electric vehicles to charge properly, requiring the battery to be preconditioned to accept a fast charge.

Yet, the US government wants to implement electric school buses and military vehicles.

California plans to ban gas-powered vehicles by 2035 under the Advanced Clean Cars II, which will ban ALL gas car sales. California has routinely seen its power grid weaken due to extreme weather. In the summer of 2022, the California Independent System Operator called for a “voluntary energy conservation” during the upcoming Labor Day weekend due to the failing power grid. They are asking residents to refrain from charging their cars between 4 PM and 9 PM, which is when demand peaks. “If left unmanaged, the power demanded from many electric vehicles charging simultaneously in the evening will amplify existing peak loads, potentially outstripping the grid’s current capacity to meet demand,” Cornell University’s College of Engineering stated.

The state estimates it will need 1.2 million charging stations by 2030, but they have a mere 80,000 currently. California does not have the infrastructure to implement this zero-emission ban without toppling the entire power grid. So, electric vehicles alone have the potential to take down California’s power grid.

Clearly, we are amidst a period of global cooling and not warming. This is part of nature’s cycle — we cannot intervene. The globalists have descended their private jets at Davos to discuss climate change and how they can eliminate the least desirable carbon — YOU. They will plot how to limit the public’s usage of essential resources, causing people worldwide to suffer under the belief that they must go without to save the world.

The New Green Deal has become deadly in America and all climate change initiatives threaten civilization at large. The globalists will never convince free thinkers that they must save the planet by limiting indispensable resources that are essential for certain states and nations to remain inhabitable.

Source: Armstrongeconomics.com

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Wyoming’s oil and gas industry could get slammed by more than $900 million in lost revenue and lose nearly 3,000 jobs under proposed changes in how federal land is managed in southwestern Wyoming.

The industry hasn’t ruled out the possibility of litigation to challenge the Bureau of Land Management’s “flawed data” used to develop its preferred plan. Oil and gas producers also say the Rock Springs Resource Management Plan is an attempt to take off the table a lion’s share of the 3.6 million acres managed by the BLM’s field office in the Rock Springs area.

In written comments about the BLM’s preferred Alternative B of the plan that leans heavily in favor of conservation, oil and gas companies say it could reduce economic activity in Wyoming’s oil and gas industry by $907 million annually. That would come with a loss of 2,920 jobs, according to an estimate provided by two energy trade groups.

The hit also equates to $211 million in less labor earnings in the planning area.

“These are not meaningless, rounding error impacts, but would have generational impacts to people living in the (Rock Springs area) and beyond,” wrote executives from the energy trade groups to the BLM on Wednesday.

“This is very bad for oil and gas. That’s very clear,” Pete Obermueller, president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, told Cowboy State Daily about the proposed BLM rule change.

He also says the plan is riddled with and based on flawed data.

“This (Biden) administration isn’t interested in hearing from oil and gas,” he said.

Rigged Reports

Obermueller’s group, along with the Western Energy Alliance, wrote in a Wednesday letter to BLM State Director Andrew Archuleta that their reaction to the proposed rules was “one of shock.”

Litigation hasn’t been ruled out as a response to Alternative B, through it may still be far off from actually happening.

Trona and mining groups, as well as Gov. Mark Gordon, also submitted feedback on BLM’s proposed Resource Management Plan (RMP) and raised concerns about its economic impacts. Among their gripes is that the BLM used flawed, incorrect and old data to make the numbers work.

Gordon concurred with the energy groups that the BLM data is “grievously out of date, and just plain wrong” and “is so far removed from reality.”

Gordon wrote that he could not support a plan that attempts to make such broad policy decisions based on outdated and easily refuted data.

Obermueller told Cowboy State Daily said that BLM is using the plan to “essentially end current and future leases” in the Rock Springs area.

According to the letter submitted by the two energy groups, BLM intends to close 2.5 million acres to future oil and natural gas leasing, and shut almost 800,000 acres currently leased when the terms of those contracts expire.

Wednesday was the deadline for public comment on the Rock Springs RMP.

Flawed Data

Obermueller says BLM’s analysis is riddled with flawed data.

New drilling in the area — or spudding — was overestimated by BLM by more than 1,800% and was based on old data tapped from 11 years ago, he said. Neither did the BLM consider more advanced drilling methods to draw oil and gas from the ground.

Based off the BLM data, the agency estimates 6,700 new wells being drilled over the current 20-year life of the RMP.

The trade groups reconstructed how many spuds were drilled using their own figures, coming up with an overestimation by the BLM of oil and natural gas development of 1,867%.

BLM Spokesman Micky Fisher said the agency’s proposed rule is far from complete, and changes are likely to happen with the final land management rule in Rock Springs.

Fisher conceded that BLM’s “preferred alternative” would stifle oil and gas development the most, but more work must be done before anything becomes final.

“It is really important to know that we just closed out public comment, and we received a ton of feedback from Wyomingites. Nothing is final,” Fisher said. “There are a whole range of alternatives on the table. BLM didn’t create this in a vacuum. It was a huge team effort.”

A spokesman with the Petroleum Association of Wyoming also doesn’t rule out litigation.

“The BLM relies on data that is more than a decade old. Several technological advances have happened in the last several years, and the data just isn’t accurate,” said Ryan McConnaughey, the association’s vice president and director of communications.

“We’ve not made our final determination” about litigation, he added. “The reality is that anything is on the table now. The impact that this plan could have on the industry are so astronomical both in the communities in southwestern Wyoming, and the industry as a whole.”

Source: Cowboystatedaily.com

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When environmental activists calling for less pollution sit in the streets, across Europe they are now abused and attacked, arrested and handed extreme and draconian sentences. When farmers contesting pollution rules block entire city centres and major roads and spray manure on government buildings, the authorities sit and wait for them to go home. Few, if any, are prosecuted, and those who are receive small penalties. The promise of equality before the law has seldom looked emptier.

The hard right and far right demonise people who challenge the status quo, and valorise those who seek to restore it. Governments and police forces across the rich world have proved all too responsive to their demands.

I understand the sense of threat felt by farmers, as environmental rules are belatedly enforced. In some cases, attempts across Europe to make farming greener, reducing its release of nitrogen, cutting diesel subsidies, limiting water abstraction and banning some pesticides, have been clumsily introduced and badly implemented. I understand that life is tough for many farmers, as it is now for workers in almost every sector. Like all of us, they have a right to protest. And other people, as in all cases, have a right to scrutinise their protests.

There are good reasons to do so. Farmers’ movements in several European nations are being influenced or exploited by political forces in ways that have chilling historical precedents. Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, Rassemblement National in France, the Sweden Democrats, Fidesz in Hungary, the Brothers of Italy, the Dutch far right and similar groups across the continent are cynically using farmers’ plight and protests as a means of building support. Farmers, some of these groups claim, embody the soul of the nation, but they are being uprooted by “globalist” forces, seeking to “replace” them with immigrants. The far right’s resurgence in Europe is fuelled to a large extent by what used to be called “agrarian populism”.

Farmers’ vehicles in Berlin, Germany, 15 January 2024, after a week of protests about diesel tax breaks. Photograph: Filip Singer/EPA

There are similar trends in the US. The Oath Keepers, and the Three Percenters, two of the militias that led the attack on the US Capitol building in January 2021, consolidated around an agrarian revolt against state and federal authorities. After the rancher Cliven Bundy was ordered to remove the cattle he had illegally herded on to public lands in Nevada, harming the brittle desert ecosystem, these militias arrived to defend him. In an armed confrontation on the freeway, they forced federal agents to back down. Then they stalked, harassed and threatened to kidnap officials: several had to flee the region and hide in safe houses. Though they committed crimes that in other circumstances would have been treated as terrorism, few were prosecuted or even arrested. Their impunity in Nevada is likely to have encouraged their attack on the Capitol.

As they did a century ago, these political movements exploit genuine crises: the accumulation of wealth by the few and impoverishment of the many, the erosion of workers’ rights and the stagnation of wages, public austerity and the multiple failures of public provision, the restriction of political choice as major parties cluster round neoliberalism, the destruction of small businesses – including small farms – by large ones, the environmental disasters now hammering many communities. They then use these crises as weapons against the very people seeking to address them: leftwing and environmental parties and protest movements.

Among their tactics are lurid conspiracy fictions. While, a century ago, similar political voices raged against “aliens” and “cosmopolitans” (Jews and other supposed “outsiders”), today these movements rage against “immigrants” and “globalists”. While demonising two plutocrats (Bill Gates and George Soros), today’s groupings align openly or tacitly with others, such as Elon Musk, Charles Koch and Donald Trump. A selective approach to financial power (demonising “Jewish bankers” while receiving funds from supportive plutocrats) was also a feature of 20th-century fascism.

It all looks horribly familiar. As the historian Robert Paxton points out, “It was in the countryside that both Mussolini and Hitler won their first mass following, and it was angry farmers who provided their first mass constituency.” Not all agrarian populism was right wing. In Russia, the US, France, Spain and Italy, there were socialist and anarchist strands. But while some progressive forms remain, the dominant varieties gravitate once more to the far right. And other agrarian strains, promoting conspiracy fictions, begin to sound like it.

In a podcast in 2021 with the anti-vaxxer and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr, with whom she has long campaigned, the celebrated agrarian advocate Vandana Shiva claimed that first Gates “locked us all in for one year”; now he is “taking all this to the next step”, to “create starvation and hunger through lockdown, so that there is no food”. At one point, she says Gates will “make the right to good food a crime”, and at another says he has a plan to “empty out” people’s minds “by mining data and patenting it and turning everyone into zombies”. There are solid reasons to criticise Gates – we don’t need to make stuff up. Of global financial institutions such as the World Bank, she says, “That’s how the Shylocks of the world work: get you into debt and then want the pound of flesh.”

The grimmest themes in European history are being shamelessly disinterred at or around the farmers’ protests. At the tractor blockade in Berlin this week, some people displayed the flag of the Landvolkbewegung, a 1920s antisemitic agrarian movement. It troubles me that so much has fallen down the memory hole: the disgusting race politics of Rudolf Steiner, who developed biodynamic farming; Germany’s Lebensreform movement, which claimed that Jews were “injecting putrefying agents into the nation’s blood and soil” (ours is not the first age in which bucolic and anti-vaccine sentiments have merged); the Artaman League, which sought to restore an imagined agrarian past, on which the Nazis built their blood and soil politics; and nostalgic British farming movements led by fascist sympathisers such as Rolf Gardiner and Jorian Jenks.

It’s also troubling to see how few people in the 2020s are prepared to confront the far right’s new agrarian populism. Those who should contest these politics cringe and cringe again: there seems to be a moral forcefield surrounding farmers’ protests, defending them from criticism. As the left seeks to avoid a clash with supposedly “authentic” and “rooted” movements, the far right exploits this timidity. George Santayana’s famous maxim haunts our days. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Source: Theguardian.com

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It can plausibly be hypothesized that Saudi Arabia’s unexpected decision to delay formal membership in BRICS is due to Western perceptions about this association, Iran’s involvement in the Red Sea Crisis, and Israeli-US pressure.

Saudi Commerce Minister Majid Al-Kasabi clarified on the sidelines of last week’s Davos Summit that his country hasn’t yet accepted BRICS membership despite being invited to join in August as a permanent member this year. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to a question about this by reaffirming that “The work on the integration of Saudi Arabia with the BRICS countries continues; we consider it very important. It was also discussed during [Russian] President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to Riyadh.”

Nevertheless, this development still caught a lot of observers off guard, especially those in the Alt-Media Community (AMC) who assumed that Saudi Arabia would join at the start of the year like all the other countries that were invited to do so apart from Argentina, whose new leader declined. Something clearly went wrong for the Kingdom to become the only notable exception among those that hadn’t explicitly turned this down.

BRICS’ pursuit of multipolarity isn’t akin to “anti-Westernism” like many in the West nowadays claim, but this perception might have still played in role in why Saudi Arabia suddenly got cold feet about joining. That’s not to suggest that it’ll ultimately decline membership like Argentina did, but just that it appears to have calculated that it’s best to wait a little bit for now. Another possible factor is the latest Israeli-Hamas war, which has since evolved into a regional Iranian-Israeli proxy war.

Saudi Arabia has thus far restrained itself from militarily reacting to the Houthis’ drone and missile launches through its airspace en route to Israel in order to avoid rekindling this nearly decade-long conflict, but it almost certainly believes that Iran emboldened them to carry out these attacks. Even though Iran has always denied arming that group and claims that its support for them is strictly political, only pro-Iranian members of the AMC actually believe that, with everyone else considering it to be false.

The resultant Red Sea Crisis that Saudi Arabia believes that Iran is responsible for via the influence that it exerts over the Houthis, not to mention its reportedly clandestine arms supplies to that group, might have made the Kingdom reluctant to join the same association as the Islamic Republic right now. Doing so could also further delay the resumption of its secret normalization talks with Israel, the successful outcome of which is a prerequisite for building the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC).

IMEC is expected to bring more tangible dividends to Saudi Arabia than permanent membership in BRICS, so if there’s a speculative zero-sum choice between them, then the Kingdom is expected to go with that megaproject over participation in this association. To be clear, no zero-sum choice objectively exists, but Israel and the US might make their geo-economic and financial support of IMEC conditional on Saudi Arabia staying out of BRICS as long as possible.

The Kingdom can proverbially have its cake and eat it too, however, since neither of those two limit their cooperation with BRICS-member India. It can therefore in theory participate in both BRICS and IMEC, but the reality might be altogether different if Israel and the US attach the aforementioned strings to their participation in the latter. Those two’s involvement is crucial, and this megaproject will fail to come to fruition without them, hence why Saudi Arabia might be partially under their influence right now.

Altogether, while the Kingdom’s calculations can’t be known for certain, it can plausibly be hypothesized that its unexpected decision to delay formal membership in BRICS is due to Western perceptions about this association, Iran’s involvement in the Red Sea Crisis, and Israeli-US pressure. None of these obstacles are insurmountable, but they’re still pretty formable, so Saudi Arabia might opt for a wait-and-see approach while retaining friendly ties with BRICS for now unless it finally decides to fully commit.

Source: Korybko.substack.com

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The post Why Did Saudi Arabia Clarify That It Hasn’t Yet Accepted BRICS Membership? appeared first on Energy News Beat.

 

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The Republicans could make support for more Ukrainian aid conditional on a joint investigation into these claims and thus doom any deal and/or the Biden Administration or the Zelensky regime could leak evidence if the other doesn’t do their bidding given their blackmail of one another due to these joint crimes.

Former Ukrainian MP Andrey Derkach dropped a bunch of bombshells about Biden’s corrupt dealings in Ukraine in a recent interview with Italian-American journalist Simona Mangiante. The takeaways can be read here, but they basically boil down to bribes and money laundering, among other crimes. While they might boost the Republicans’ impeachment efforts in the House where the opposition has a slim majority, their lack of a two-thirds majority in the Senate means that he won’t be removed from office.

Even so, these new allegations can still have an important impact on events, one that might be much more significant than his superficial impeachment by the House. Proceedings at that level have become politicized as proven by the Democrats’ witch hunt against Trump, which isn’t to say that the Republicans are carrying out their own against Biden, but just to emphasize that impeachment by the House has no tangible significance. At most, it’ll strengthen both parties’ efforts to get out the vote in November.

Where the actual importance of these latest allegations lies is in the larger context of the Ukrainian Conflict, which began to wind down late last year following the failure of Kiev’s counteroffensive and the consequent dwindling of Western aid. The Republicans already made their agreement on any more such deals contingent on robust border security reforms, but they might now also include the additional condition of a comprehensive joint investigation with Ukraine into Derkach’s bombshells about Biden.

If the opposition makes such a proposal, then there’s no way that the Democrats would agree, thus capsizing the possibility of any compromise on this issue until next year after November’s elections, which could shake up the congressional dynamics and potentially lead to Biden’s ouster as well. Furthermore, Zelensky’s regime can’t be counted on to assist any theoretical joint investigation in good faith since leading figures are also implicated in this corruption per Derkach’s revelations.

That particular point adds a curious twist to this scandal since it suggests that they might also be able to blackmail the Biden Administration, which provides a new layer of understanding to why the incumbent and his team have been so gung-ho about perpetuating NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine. Zelensky knows that any outcome short of the maximalist victory that he fantasizes about would kill his political career so he has self-interested reasons in wanting to turn this into a so-called “forever war”.

The US’ objective national interests aren’t served by depleting even more of its stockpiles and therefore reducing its ability to flexibly respond to foreign crises as they arise, or rather might even be provoked by America or its partners, hence why it’s become popular to talk about freezing the conflict. Former NATO Supreme Commander Admiral James Stavridis’ Korean-like “land-for-peace” armistice proposal last year could be a starting point but only if the West agrees to Russia’s security guarantee requests in Ukraine.

They’ve been reluctant to do so, however, hence why no progress has been made on this. One reason behind the US’ recalcitrance might not just be that it’s concerned about “losing face” upon reaching a pragmatic series of mutual compromises with Russia, but that Zelensky is blackmailing the Biden Administration that he’ll spill the beans if they dare to pursue this policy. Given his prior “godlike” status in the Western media, any corroboration of Derkach’s claims might be widely believed by Westerners.

They know that Zelensky isn’t a so-called “Russian agent” and have convinced themselves that he’s a “democratic freedom fighter” so it would be very damning to the incumbent Democrats’ reputation if he engaged in a “limited hangout” by sharing some relevant information. He of course wouldn’t implicate himself or his most loyal allies, but he could take down a couple less politically reliable officials in that event (perhaps as part of a purge) while possibly dooming Biden’s re-election and flipping the Senate.

Republican control of the White House and Congress coupled with what many regard as the right-leaning Supreme Court could lead to the Democrats’ worst nightmare of their opponents reversing most of Biden’s policies. Meanwhile, Zelensky’s worst nightmare is that Biden bows to the popular sentiment among Americans to scale back their country’s participation in this proxy war and coerce him to resume peace talks with Russia, so each can therefore keep the other in check through this mutual blackmail.

The legitimacy of both the Biden Administration and Zelensky’s regime is therefore dependent on each of them staying silent about their corruption scheme, but one or the other could at least in theory reveal some details about this if they begin to distrust the other or want to get rid of them. For instance, the Biden Administration could leak some information about Zelensky’s corruption to pro-Democrat media to pressure him into resuming peace talks or to pave the way for a “government of national unity”.

That proposal was pushed by a member of the influential Atlantic Council think tank last month in an article for Politico and could credibly be interpreted as a signal that the Biden Administration is beginning to get fed up with Zelensky. As for the Ukrainian leader, it was already explained that he might be the first to leak certain details about this scheme if he feels that the Democrats’ support for this proxy war is faltering, which could be one of his “nuclear options” in that case alongside a major false flag.

Circling back to Derkach’s latest corruption allegations, their impact in terms of the Ukrainian Conflict is much more important than the possibility of them aiding the Republicans’ efforts to impeach Biden in the House since they can’t remove him due to a dearth of support in the Senate. The Republicans could make support for more Ukrainian aid conditional on a joint investigation into these claims and/or the Biden Administration or the Zelensky regime could leak evidence if the other doesn’t do their bidding.

Source: Korybko.substack.com

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The post Biden Won’t Be Removed For Corruption In Ukraine But New Allegations Can Still Have An Impact appeared first on Energy News Beat.