UN: Risk of Nuclear War at Record High. Please Engage in Peace Talks, Russia and Ukraine.

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Well, folks, don’t look now, but the “risk of a nuclear weapon being used is currently higher than at any time since the depths of the cold war,” according to the United Nations High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Izumi Nakamitsu.

The war in Ukraine — obviously — is what is driving that risk. Based on reports made during the UN’s security council on Friday, that war isn’t ending any time soon — as if there were any doubt of that. Americans should know it is not going to end any time soon, our commander-in-chief has said that our tax dollars and equipment will be supporting Ukraine in its battle against Russia for “as long as it takes” — whatever that means. The Swamp wants this war to continue — and so it will.

While Biden has been banging the war drums, Putin has been chatting with its neighbors and new BFF Belarus. Now, reports indicate that Russia will be stationing non-strategic nuclear weapons within Belarus territory. According to the UN, those will be in place for aerial use by July. . .

“We are pursuing cooperation with Belarus without violating obligations,” Russian ambassador and Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia said on Friday. “We are not transferring nuclear weapons. We are talking about the retrofitting of airplanes and training teams in the construction of a storage facility on the territory of Belarus.”

Yet he did make sure to note that Russia would respond to any “provocative measures” as it saw fit, while adding, “A nuclear war cannot be won.” (Read more from “UN: Risk of Nuclear War at Record High. Please Engage in Peace Talks, Russia and Ukraine.” HERE)

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US Lays Claim to Ammo Seized From Iran, Alleges ‘Sophisticated’ Iranian Smuggling Operation

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The U.S. is seeking to keep fuses, fuel and more than one million rounds of ammunition seized from Iran in December, according to a Justice Department (DOJ) forfeiture complaint released Friday.

On Dec. 1, U.S. 5th fleet forces operating routinely in the Middle East discovered more than one million rounds of ammunition, nearly 7,000 proximity fuses for rockets and over 2,100 kilograms of rocket propellant disguised aboard a fishing trawler headed from Iran to Yemen, according to a statement. Friday’s forfeiture action, which means the U.S. will confiscate the weapons, is part of a larger investigation into a “sophisticated scheme” to “clandestinely ship weapons to entities that pose grave threats to U.S. national security,” DOJ said in a statement.

“The United States disrupted a major operation by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to smuggle weapons of war into the hands of a militant group in Yemen,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in the statement. “The Justice Department will be relentless in holding accountable those who break our laws and threaten our national security.”

Providing weapons to the Houthi militants in Yemen violates international law and United Nations resolutions, according to the Navy. The Houthis, backed by Iran, have been waging a civil war against the Yemeni government and a Saudi-led, U.S.-backed international coalition since 2015, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Saudi Arabia has been accused of striking civilian targets and contributing to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The Houthis have in turn struck civilian sites in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, jeopardizing U.S. interests, according to the DOJ and U.S. military.

(Read more from “US Lays Claim to Ammo Seized From Iran, Alleges ‘Sophisticated’ Iranian Smuggling Operation” HERE)

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Xi World Order: China, Brazil Strike Deal to Ditch Dollar for Trade

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The governments of Brazil, now under the leadership of radical leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and communist China announced an agreement on Wednesday to no longer use the U.S. dollar to conduct trade, instead relying on the Chinese yuan and Brazilian real.

China is Brazil’s largest trade partner, meaning the deal will significant decrease Brazil’s use of the dollar generally. The deal is one of several between the two countries planned to be announced this week, when Lula was expected to travel to Beijing for meetings with dictator Xi Jinping. Lula, 77, was forced to cancel his travels after being diagnosed with influenza-induced pneumonia this week.

The move follows aggressive efforts in the past five years by China to limit the influence of the U.S. dollar and slowly convince the world to use commerce using the yuan. Beijing has long counted on Brazil as an ally and friend – and fellow member of the BRICS economic and political coalition, whose members have pushed for the eradication of the dollar in global trade – even through the tepid relations with conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro. Towards the end of his term last year, Bolsonaro administration officials stated they had a “great interest” joining China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global debt trap plan to erode poorer nations’ sovereignties through predatory loans meant for infrastructure development.

According to the Brazilian news outlet G1, China and Brazil will create a “clearing house” mechanism with the power of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) to rapidly exchange reals into yuan and vice versa, eliminating the need for the dollar. Currently, any trade between Chinese and Brazilian businesses, including loans and purchases, requires each side to convert their national currency into dollars to send to the other side. G1 noted, citing Lula administration officials, that China has already established similar “clearing houses” in Chile and Argentina, countries that have officially joined the Belt and Road Initiative. (Read more from “Xi World Order: China, Brazil Strike Deal to Ditch Dollar for Trade” HERE)

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Zelenksy Says May Be Forced to Negotiate Peace Deal if Ukraine Loses Bakhmut

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine may be forced to start peace talks if it loses control of Bakhmut, in a two-day conversation with AP journalists on March 28-29.

In Moscow, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned colleagues that they should get ready for a possible “forever war” according to a report in The Guardian.

The battle for Bakhmut has been going on for seven months with neither side gaining much advantage, leading some analysts to ask why Kyiv is expending so many resources to maintain control of the relatively strategically insignificant town. Zelenskiy told the AP journalists that if Ukraine gives up the town it may be forced to sue for peace.

He predicted that if Russia defeats Ukraine in Bakhmut, Putin would set out to “sell” a victory to the international community.

“If he will feel some blood, smell that we are weak, he will push, push, push,” Zelenskiy said during a two-day train trip with the journalists (video here), adding that the pressure would come not only from the international community but also from within his own country. (Read more from “Zelenksy Says May Be Forced to Negotiate Peace Deal if Ukraine Loses Bakhmut” HERE)

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Xi Jinping Says He Is Preparing China for War

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Chinese leader Xi Jinping says he is preparing for war. At the annual meeting of China’s parliament and its top political advisory body in March, Xi wove the theme of war readiness through four separate speeches, in one instance telling his generals to “dare to fight.” His government also announced a 7.2 percent increase in China’s defense budget, which has doubled over the last decade, as well as plans to make the country less dependent on foreign grain imports. And in recent months, Beijing has unveiled new military readiness laws, new air-raid shelters in cities across the strait from Taiwan, and new “National Defense Mobilization” offices countrywide.

It is too early to say for certain what these developments mean. Conflict is not certain or imminent. But something has changed in Beijing that policymakers and business leaders worldwide cannot afford to ignore. If Xi says he is readying for war, it would be foolish not to take him at his word.

The first sign that this year’s meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference—known as the “two-sessions” because both bodies meet simultaneously—might not be business as usual came on March 1, when the top theoretical journal of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) published an essay titled “Under the Guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Strengthening the Army, We Will Advance Victoriously.” The essay appeared under the name “Jun Zheng”—a homonym for “military government” that possibly refers to China’s top military body, the Central Military Commission—and argued that “the modernization of national defense and the military must be accelerated.” It also called for an intensification of Military-Civil Fusion, Xi’s policy requiring private companies and civilian institutions to serve China’s military modernization effort. And riffing off a speech that Xi made to Chinse military leaders in October 2022, it made lightly veiled jabs at the United States:

In the face of wars that may be imposed on us, we must speak to enemies in a language they understand and use victory to win peace and respect. In the new era, the People’s Army insists on using force to stop fighting. . . . Our army is famous for being good at fighting and having a strong fighting spirit. With millet and rifles, it defeated the Kuomintang army equipped with American equipment. It defeated the world’s number one enemy armed to the teeth on the Korean battlefield, and performed mighty and majestic battle dramas that shocked the world and caused ghosts and gods to weep.

(Read more from “Xi Jinping Says He Is Preparing China for War” HERE)

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China Creates a New World Order as Biden Ignores the Threats

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. . .Once the repository of American and European hopes, Beijing has shown no interest in restraining Russia and restoring the pre-war European order.

Instead, it has leveraged the Ukraine war to begin building an alternative, Sino-centric system.

Its efforts are bearing fruit: As Chinese President Xi Jinping told Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of their three-day summit in Moscow last week, “Right now we’re seeing a change we haven’t seen for 100 years, and we’re driving this change together.”

The change Xi references is most evident in the Middle East, where Russia’s war on Ukraine is driving America’s Gulf ally Saudi Arabia into the embrace of China. . .

Iran has seized on the Ukraine war to qualitatively upgrade its military. In return for supplying Russia with drones, munitions and — possibly — ballistic missiles, Iran will receive fourth-generation fighter jets and other advanced systems from Russia, potentially including sophisticated air defenses that could safeguard its nuclear sites. (Read more from “China Creates a New World Order as Biden Ignores the Threats” HERE)

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Chinese Parents of Schoolchildren Forced to Sign Pledge of Atheism

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Parents of kindergarten students in Wenzhou City, China, have been forced to sign a pledge of atheism as a condition for their children staying in school, Bitter Winter reported Friday.

The pledge, which was issued earlier this month, is called a “Kindergarten Family Commitment Not to Believe in Religion” and must be signed by the parents, who must in turn indicate the names of their children.

The text of the document declares that parents “do not hold a religious belief, do not participate in any religious activities, and do not propagate and disseminate religion in any locations,” ChinaAid reported.

The parents also promise to raise “civilized families” who “do not believe in religion, do not participate in any religious activities, do not teach religion to children.” Parents promise to avoid “feudal superstition” and to teach kindergarten children faith in science, socialism, and the Chinese Communist Party.

“In the past, the higher-level education department made it compulsory for kindergartens not to be superstitious and not to participate in cult organizations,” an unnamed kindergarten teacher in Wenzhou told ChinaAid, “but did not mandate kindergarten children’s families not to believe in religion or participate in any religious activities.” (Read more from “Chinese Parents of Schoolchildren Forced to Sign Pledge of Atheism” HERE)

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Iran Proxies Fire Missiles at US Base in Syria After Airstrikes Kill Eight Militants

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Iran-backed proxy groups fired missiles at a U.S. military base near Al-Omar oil field in Syria on Friday after the U.S. killed eight militants in retaliatory airstrikes.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby called the Friday missile attack ineffective. No U.S. injuries were reported, according to Reuters.

The attack came after the United States delivered airstrikes against what the U.S. military said were facilities belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). The American airstrikes hit a munition warehouse, a control building, and an intelligence-collection site, killing eight militants, according to The New York Times.

U.S. forces suffered one casualty after a drone of “Iranian origin” struck a U.S. coalition base on Thursday afternoon. Five U.S. service members and another contractor were also injured in the attack.

The family of the dead contractor was notified Thursday night, Kirby said during a Friday morning appearance on CNN. The contractor was an American citizen. (Read more from “Iran Proxies Fire Missiles at US Base in Syria After Airstrikes Kill Eight Militants” HERE)

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China Threatens ‘Serious Consequences’ After US Warship Sails by Contested Paracel Islands

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China threatened the U.S. Navy on Friday with “serious consequences” after a warship passed through the South China Sea near the contested Paracel Islands.

For the second day in a row, Beijing accused the U.S. of violating the sovereignty and security of the island, which it currently occupies but which Taiwan and Vietnam also lay claim over.

The U.S. rejected China’s accusations and said its passage through the waters is permitted under international law and falls under a “freedom of navigation operation” – which challenges attempted restrictions by all three nations to enforce a policy of permission or advanced notice by any military vessel before it can pass by.

“Unlawful and sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea pose a serious threat to the freedom of the seas, including the freedoms of navigation and overflight, free trade and unimpeded commerce, and freedom of economic opportunity for South China Sea littoral nations,” spokesperson Lt. j.g. Luka Bakic for the U.S. 7th Fleet said in a statement.

“The United States challenges excessive maritime claims around the world regardless of the identity of the claimant,” he added. (Read more from “China Threatens ‘Serious Consequences’ After US Warship Sails by Contested Paracel Islands” HERE)

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Where Is the Russian Banking Crisis?

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Sanctions were supposed to kill the Russian financial sector. It did, and it didn’t.

It did insofar as any globally ambitious Russian money center bank or asset manager had their expansion plans curtailed by sanctions. Doing business as a Westerner with a Moscow or St. Petersburgh-based bank is next to impossible now. Sanctions hurt.

“Because of the sanction environment, global banks, vendors, partners are extremely careful in dealing with Russia-based or connected counterparts, and always ask a lot of questions,” says Neri Tollardo, a former executive at Tinkoff Bank in Moscow, now living and working in Mexico as of mid-2022. “Banks do not process or accept payments in and out of Russia, and often times global counterparts have self-imposed compliance standards that are much stricter than the law,” he says.

So in this way, sanctions have hurt Russia’s financial institutions.

But a Russian banking crisis, one that looks like we have seen in the U.S. recently with Silicon Valley Bank and in Switzerland with Credit Suisse, has not occurred. There were never any runs on Russian banks. The ruble strengthened. And while most banks are protected by the state – led by Sberbank and VTB – the Russian Central Bank has spent much of the last decade working to clean up the financial system. This house cleaning, led by Central Bank president Elvira Nabiullina, which led to the closure of hundreds of private banks, is arguably why sanctions didn’t ruin Russian finance. Elvira had already taken the weak links out of the system. And there were many. For this reason, Russian banks have survived the West’s sanctions regime and stock market delistings better than anyone would have imagined. For a cynical Russian, watching Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse burn down while their bankers are gainfully employed is like smirking before the camera lens in front of a burning building. (Read more from “Where Is the Russian Banking Crisis?” HERE)

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