Geopolitical crisis : A moribund NATO

 

As we have explained on other occasions, NATO is still there, of course, but only because there are no better options at hand. Everyone wants to be rid of it – the Europeans who want a common European defence[1] and Donald Trump who wants Europeans to participate more in their own defence. They are all contributing to a slow process in which NATO continues to get in the way whilst Europeans dither between several strategies:

• To increase their share[2] and thus acquire an equal say with that of the US within NATO (with the long-term aim of separating off to form a European NATO[3]). Problem: For this strategy to have a chance of success, much greater cohesion is needed in the European camp – something that is still a long way off at the moment.

U.S. government plutonium stolen out of truck never recovered: Report

How is it that radioactive weapons grade plutonium went missing from a government truck at such an opportune time?

SAN ANTONIO, Tex. (INTELLIHUB) — It’s not the first time that U.S. plutonium has gone missing but more than a year later the radioactive material which can be used to make a dirty bomb has not been recovered, according to a new report.

Your Friend and Neighbor

 

VIENNA/BERLIN (Own report) – The United Nations is protesting against the surveillance of its Vienna-based institutions conducted for years by the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND). The Vienna International Center (“UNO City”) “expects” that member states “respect the organization’s independence as well as the inviolability of its premises.” According to recent reports, from 1999 to 2006, the BND had monitored at least 2000 communication lines in Austria including those of the Vienna Chancellery and 128 telecommunication lines of the United Nations. The BND’s espionage in Austria has been known since 2015, but never clarified, because the competent German authorities, including the German Chancellery, refused to render Vienna the necessary assistance. The BND is accused of repeatedly refusing to tell the intelligence service monitors their reasons for spying, for example, on a “public body” of an EU member state. At the time of the large-scale spying in Austria, the current German President bore the highest responsibility for BND activities.

OPEC’s Clash With U.S. Oil Is Nearing Its Day of Reckoning

 

• Strategy of cartel has helped to deplete half surplus stocks
• Bolstering prices is emboldening American shale-oil drillers

The clash between OPEC and America’s oil industry is reaching a day of reckoning.

The U.S. shale revolution is on course to be the greatest oil and gas boom in history, turning a nation once at the mercy of foreign imports into a global player. That seismic shift shattered the dominance of Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel, forcing them into an alliance with long-time rival Russia to keep a grip on world markets.

Eastern Europe & World War III

 

Europe could become the site of a new global war in the East as tensions build there against refugees and the economic decline fosters old wounds. The EU is deeply divided over the refugee issue and thus it is fueling its own demise and has failed to be a stabilizing force. After five days of demonstrations, Romania’s month-old government backed down and withdrew a decree that had decriminalized some corruption offenses. They were still acting like typical politicians and looking to line their pockets. After one month, the people have rising up saying “We can’t trust this new government.”

On the eastern border of the EU, only a few hundred kilometers from Berlin as well as Vienna, there is a growing danger that the world will stumble into a global war primarily from through the incompetence of the politicians in the EU as well as in the East. The EU is more concerned about punishing Britain and trying to hold on to overpaid political jobs that to address the real issues facing Europe.

Trump poses no real threat to nuclear deal, Iran official claims

In other words, the last eight years has bought Iran enough time to make the course its on set in stone.

 

A Donald Trump presidency would be “constrained by realities” and could not seriously impact the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization said.

“I think whoever gets into the … office of the president in the United States will have to move according to the realities on the ground,” Ali Akbar Salehi told a panel discussion in Vienna on Sept. 28, according to Reuters.

Eastern Europe: The Last Barrier between Christianity and Islam

• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is the Eastern nemesis of the European elite. No one else in Europe except him speaks about defending “Christianity.”
• “Those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims … This is an important question, because Europe and the European identity is rooted in Christianity.” — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
• The last chance to save Europe’s roots might well come from the former communist members of the EU — those who defeated the Ottomans in 1699 and now feel culturally threatened by their heirs.
• Cypriots know much better than the comfortable bureaucrats of Brussels the consequences of a cultural collision. Ask about their churches on the Turkish side of the island; how many of them are still standing?

Austria’s fate is now at stake.

Perhaps it was a coincidence that Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna and tipped to be the next Pope, chose September 12, the anniversary of the Siege of Vienna, when Turkey’s Ottoman troops nearly conquered Europe, to deliver a most dramatic appeal to save Europe’s Christian roots.

Does Iran Have The Upper Hand In OPEC Oil War

Traditional rivals, Saudi Arabia and Iran, continue to fight to prove their supremacy in OPEC. Neither gives up an opportunity to hurt the other, whenever and wherever they can, and oil seems to be their favourite playground.

With Saudi Arabia scuttling any chances of a production freeze in Doha in April, Iran has followed suit by thwarting attempts by Saudi Arabia to introduce a production ceiling on OPEC production in Thursday’s meeting held in Vienna.

Iran, which is close to its pre-sanction levels of production, had earlier agreed to discuss being part of any production freeze after it reached its desired output. However, in yesterday’s meeting, Iran refused to adhere to any production ceiling, which led to OPEC abandoning the idea.

Why Did Saudi Arabia Kill OPEC?

The OPEC meeting is only a week away, but the chances of a positive result are as remote as ever. Rising oil prices, the heightened rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and Saudi Arabia’s willingness to go it alone will make a deal all but impossible.

First of all, Iran is not in a cooperative mood. According to the IEA, Iran has managed to boost oil production to 3.56 million barrels per day in April, its highest level since November 2011. Oil exports also jumped 600,000 barrels per day to 2 million barrels per day. Importantly, Iran’s output now stands at pre-sanctions levels, a key threshold that the Iranian government says it needs to reach before it would consider any cooperation on production limits with OPEC. However, Iran thus far does not see it that way, insisting that it still has more ground to make up.

Turkey? In the EU?

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (left) recently made affectionate statements expressing admiration not for the European Union, but for the last Islamic caliphate — the Ottoman Empire, an expansionist Islamic realm that committed massacres, rapes, and sexual slavery of people in the lands it invaded. The question is when the EU will start acting like a self-respecting institution, and consider Turkey according to what it actually says and does? Pictured right: European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

 

• “What is the conquest?” Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked his audience. “The conquest is Hijrah [expansion of Islam through emigration, following the example of Muhammad, the founder of Islam, and his followers from Mecca to Medina]. The conquest is Al-Andalus [Muslim Spain]. … The conquest is Salah al-Din al-Ayubbi [Saladin]. … It is to hoist the flag of Islam in Jerusalem again. … The conquest is to have the courage, tenacity and sagacity to defy the entire world even at the hardest times.”
• “The EU needs Turkey more than Turkey needs the EU. Let everyone know it like that.” — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

On April 25, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek, while speaking at the High-Level EU-Turkey Economic Dialogue meeting in Istanbul, said that the full membership process to the European Union was Turkey’s most crucial strategic target.

How the Kremlin Manipulates Europe’s Refugee Crisis

Russian intelligence is detectable in the huge migration wave hitting Europe. What does this mean for Western security?

None can now deny that the refugee crisis that descended on Europe over the last year has changed the continent’s political landscape. The arrival of millions of migrants, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, with the encouragement of some European leaders, has birthed a political earthquake that promises to reshape Europe’s politics in important ways.

Even Europeans who initially supported the efforts of Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor and the most powerful politician in the European Union, to welcome millions of refugees have begun to express public doubts about this enterprise. This week, Austria’s foreign minister, whose country only months ago was welcoming tens of thousands of migrants, expressed Vienna’s position concisely: “The concept of no borders is not going to work.”

The Internal and External Ring

BERLIN (Own report) – Within the EU, the mounting pressure to ward off refugees, is intensifying the debate about a possible dismantling of the Schengen system. It is yet unclear, whether Berlin can reach its objective of stopping refugees at the external borders of Greece to be immediately deported to Turkey. Alternately, attempts are being made to turn Macedonia into a buffer state against refugees, while threatening Greece’s exclusion from the Schengen system. The establishment of a “Mini-Schengen” is being considered as an emergency solution. Even while officially continuing to reject such a “Mini-Schengen,” the German government is already involved in its planning, which the Netherlands is officially directing. Any option beyond effectively sealing off Greece’s external borders, i.e. abandoning part of the Schengen-system, would be a first retreat – with unforeseeable consequences. According to observers, this could seriously weaken the EU.

Is Europe Choosing to Self-Destruct?

• Europe has voluntarily begun the process of giving up its liberal and hard-fought-for freedoms. Free speech no longer exists, only — straight out of totalitarian ideologies — “responsible” free speech: “free” only if it does not “offend” anyone.
• The desire of many Europeans and other self-declared devotees of “human rights” to cover up, downplay or explain away what is happening in Europe, in fact represents the opposite of respect for others and equality before the law.
• Absolving such criminal behavior is not only the very opposite of justice, it is also a kind of “inverted racism” — against its own native Europeans.
• In 2014 and 2015 Jews in Europe were murdered, raped, beaten and stalked — just for being Jewish. Signs in the street read, “Sale Juif” (“dirty Jew”), “Death to the Jews,” and “Jews to the gas.” None of these side effects of Muslim immigration seems to concern the liberals, the media, or the purported defenders of human rights — who so loudly claim to be against “racism.” Or, once again in Europe, does “racism” not include Jews?

After the mass sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve in the European cities of Cologne, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Bielefeld, Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Vienna, Salzburg, Zürich, Helsinki and Kalmar, it is clear that something profoundly disturbing has occurred in Europe. By Sunday, in Cologne alone, 516 women had filed criminal charges — around 40% of them relating to sexual assaults.

Putin heading to Iran for first time in eight years

Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Tehran and attend a summit of countries exporting gas, Reuters quoted his aide Yuri Ushakov as saying on Friday.

Putin has not visited Iran since 2007 and while in Tehran is expected to hold talks with the Islamic Republic’s President Hassan Rouhani, Ushakov said.

OPEC is About to Crush the U.S. Oil Boom

After a year suffering the economic consequences of the oil price slump, OPEC is finally on the cusp of choking off growth in U.S. crude output.

The nation’s production is almost back down to the level pumped in November, when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries switched its strategy to focus on battering competitors and reclaiming market share. As the U.S. wilts, demand for OPEC’s crude will grow in 2015, ending two years of retreat, the International Energy Agency estimates.