The White House on Friday had characterized as “inaccurate” the WSJ’s first report of a planned Chinese surveillance outpost in Cuba focused on intercepting electronic communications, including emails and radio transmissions, in the southeast U.S. However, White House officials told the outlet Saturday that the Biden administration has worked to tamp down on China’s repeated attempts to spy on the U.S. since Biden took office, and said China has had a surveillance operation in Cuba since at least 2019.

“This is an ongoing issue, and not a new development, and the arrangement as characterized in the reporting does not comport with our understanding,” the White House told the WSJ, referencing the outlet’s prior reporting.

After coming into office, the administration received briefings in 2021 from intelligence officials regarding Beijing’s global intelligence agenda, including efforts to establish surveillance sites in the the Atlantic Ocean, Latin America, the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa and the Indo-Pacific, according to the WSJ.

“This effort included the presence of PRC intelligence collection facilities in Cuba,” the administration official, granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue, said, according to Politico. “In fact, the PRC conducted an upgrade of its intelligence collection facilities in Cuba in 2019. This is well-documented in the intelligence record.”

That effort is ongoing as of today, the White House said.

Beijing “will keep trying to enhance its presence in Cuba, and we will keep working to disrupt it,” an official told the WSJ. The U.S. has taken steps to “slow down” China’s progress in creating an intelligence foothold around the world, including in Cuba, adding that the Trump administration efforts were deemed insufficient.

“This is an issue that this administration inherited,” the official said, Politico reported.

“We think the PRC isn’t quite where they had hoped to be,” the White House added, according to Politico. “Our experts assess that our diplomatic efforts have slowed the PRC down.”

Issued a statement as Vice Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence w/ Chairman @MarkWarner after reports China & Cuba reached an agreement allowing to establish an electronic eavesdropping facility on the island, less than 100 miles from FL.https://t.co/zF1uewIpL7 pic.twitter.com/6I5AVjFfQM

— Senator Marco Rubio (@SenMarcoRubio) June 8, 2023

Information on the Chinese spy operation and Cuba’s role in planning appeared in classified intelligence reporting only in recent weeks, the WSJ reported, citing people familiar with the matter. That intelligence has been shared with some lawmakers on intelligence committees.

Republican Rep. Michael Warner of Ohio, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said the reports have been contradictory in a statement to Politico following the Saturday report.

“In less than 48 hours, officials from the Biden administration have contradicted themselves multiple times about whether or not the Chinese Communist Party is spying on the United States. This is unacceptable,” he told the outlet.

China is “not aware” of a new spy base in Cuba, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Friday, accusing the U.S. of “chasing shadows and meddling in other countries’ internal affairs.”

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].

Voice of America (VOA) reported that the group – which consists of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – will touch on common currency during the 15th BRICS summit scheduled this coming August in Johannesburg, South Africa. At least three of the BRICS group’s members – Russia, China and Brazil – are backing the effort, it added.

Naledi Pandor, South African International Relations Minister, said a move away from the dollar could empower other countries. She, however, acknowledged that the project is challenging.

“I don’t think we should always assume the idea will work because economics is very difficult, and you have to have regard for all countries,” Pandor said. “It’s a matter we must discuss, and discuss properly.”

A common currency established by the BRICS group could take some time before being adopted, said Isaah Mhlanga, chief economist for the South African investment bank Rand Merchant Bank. He told VOA that the common currency the group is pushing to upend the U.S. dollar’s dominance was “just not founded by any economic fundamentals that we know of.”

Mhlanga also pointed out that given the different economic and political systems of the BRICS nations, “it’s quite difficult to have a common currency.” A more likely prospect, he remarked, is individual states conducting more bilateral trade using their respective local currencies. The chief economist’s projection is already happening, with several nations dropping the petrodollar in favor of local currencies for petroleum trading.

Nations reconsidering the use of dollar after its weaponization against Russia

Since the end of World War II, the U.S. dollar has been the world’s dominant currency – affirmed by the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. Eighty percent of international transactions are conducted in U.S. dollars, and nearly two-thirds of all currency reserves in central banks worldwide are in the greenback.

However, the dollar’s weaponization against Russia following its special military operation in Ukraine raised doubts among many nations. These countries feared that if it could happen to Russia, then it could also happen to them in the future. Political economist Aly-Khan Satchu, who is based in Kenya, thinks this sentiment has contributed to the idea of a BRICS common currency.

“The freezing of their reserves by the Americans, and a similar scenario unfolding in Europe, forced the Russians to look for a different payment solution outside the U.S. system,” he said.

“I think it’s difficult to underestimate the level of shock that various countries have experienced when Russia’s reserves were frozen. China saw that and thought: ‘Look, if they can do it to Russia they can do it to us.’”

According to Satchu, drafting a common currency “is not an easy task.” He elaborated: “There’s a question of how its composition will be constructed. There’s a lot of talk about having a commodity-based currency and therefore there will be complexities around the weighting of the various commodities.”

Lesetja Kganyago, the governor of the South African Reserve Bank, remarked that the BRICS common currency would spur debate about the creation of a central bank and where that would be located. The New Development Bank based in Shanghai, China led by its President Dilma Rousseff currently serves this purpose. (Related: BRICS New Development Bank ditching US dollar by offering loans in local currencies.)

“I don’t know how we would talk of a currency issued by a bloc of countries that are in different geographical locations because currencies are national in nature,” he said. “For the euro area to arrive at that, they had to establish a treaty where the other countries had to all surrender their currencies.”

Watch this news clip about Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva advocating for a common currency among BRICS member nations.

This video is from the Thrivetime Show channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

• Potential BRICS expansion could mark end of dollar as world’s pre-eminent currency.
• U.S. dollar rapidly losing world reserve currency status; China, Russia (BRICS) to replace it.
• Putin says BRICS countries are establishing new global reserve currency to replace U.S. dollar.
• BRICS nations rapidly working to create common currency to counter US dollar’s global hegemony.
• BRICS member nations are creating new reserve currency to challenge the dollar, Andy Schectman tells Mike Adams.

Sources include:

• VOANews.com
• Brighteon.com
• NATURAL NEWS

Now, a second balloon has been confirmed flying over Latin America. Rumors of a third balloon flying over Canada have many people considering the possible reasons behind China’s aggressive actions. I discussed these on today’s episode of The JD Rucker Show. Here are the four theories I proposed:

1. It really is just a massive spy balloon collecting data. It’s definitely collecting more than pictures; the various arrays attached to the balloon are far more than mere cameras. Part of its path over Montana took it over three of our nation’s nuclear silos.
2. These balloons are capable of carrying a nuclear device. If just one or a few of these devices could be detonated over the United States, the electromagnetic pulse would take down our power grid, internet, and other important pieces of infrastructure, making us ripe for invasion.
3. Some have said there are biological potentials here. In other words, they could have biological weapons or even a new disease that could be dropped on the people. I’m not a scientist but this one seems far-fetched.
4. Could there be new hacking technology onboard? If China has developed (or likely stolen) technology that could be used to hack via line-of-sight connection, these balloons could be the easiest way to make it happen at a wide scale.

Here’s an article by our premium news partners at The Epoch Times detailing the revelation of the second confirmed balloon…

Another Chinese Spy Balloon Traveling Over Latin America, Pentagon Says

by Eva Fu

A second Chinese spy balloon is currently traversing Latin America, Pentagon confirmed late on Feb. 3 amid rising concern about a Chinese surveillance balloon hovering eastward across the continental United States.

“We are seeing reports of a balloon transiting Latin America. We now assess it is another Chinese surveillance balloon,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said in a statement to media outlets.

The comment came hours after Ryder was pressed at a briefing with reporters about a Canadian defense ministry statement on Friday that they were monitoring a “potential second incident,” and whether the United States is doing the same. Ryder in response referred the question back to the Canadian authorities.

The first Chinese balloon, which military officials described to be a “high altitude surveillance balloon,” appeared earlier this week above the state of Montana, home to one of the country’s three nuclear missile silo fields.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday postponed a trip to Beijing that would have marked the highest profile U.S. visit to China over the balloon, calling the balloon “irresponsible” and “a clear violation of U.S. sovereignty and international law.”

“[China’s] decision to take this action on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have,” he told reporters.

The Department of Defense wouldn’t confirm the balloon’s exact location, its size, and other details on Friday other than saying that the balloon is maneuverable, has changed course at some point, and that it is currently flying at 60,000 ft eastward across the country.

President Joe Biden was first briefed on the matter on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Jan. 3, and was given the “strong recommendation” by military leaders not to shoot it down due to the risk that falling debris may harm civilians.

A senior defense official said the U.S. has taken unspecified mitigation measures against the balloon, adding that it was assessed that the device had “limited additive value from an intelligence collection perspective over and above what [China] can do through other means.”

The Chinese regime has claimed that the balloon over the United States is a civilian meteorological balloon from China that was blown off course. In response, Ryder said, “The fact is we know it’s a surveillance balloon.”

Costa Rica Reports

Ryder didn’t specify which country the balloon is currently hovering over, but local reports have cited sightings of a white balloon of mysterious origin over Costa Rica, which the country’s civil aviation authorities said doesn’t have a fly authorization.

“My big concern with the Chinese balloon flight is if this is a test to see how fast we react and what we do,” Art Thompson, CEO of California-based company Sage Cheshire Aerospace which provides stratospheric balloon launching and research services, told The Epoch Times.

The two balloons appear to have been launched from different locations, he said. The photos Thomson examined of the two balloons, over the United States and Costa Rica, show that they are very similar in style.

“When I look at the trajectory, the question is, where did they launch it from? And it could have been launched from mainland China, and then just drifted over and would have done a little oscillation in its flight,” he said.

Thompson has advocated for the United States to shoot down the balloon currently moving eastward over the nation with laser weapons. He believes that U.S. authorities still have several days to take action before the balloon reaches international waters, but the one over Costa Rica would have a much shorter timeline.

“It’s going to be out of touch fairly quickly because in Costa Rica, they’re going to be across into the gulf pretty fast,” he said.

“The Chinese are definitely testing us and preparing for something.”

Alternative Video Sources:

With Second CCP Spy Balloon Confirmed, Theories Emerge About Their Evil Intentions https://t.co/S5tqQGntjx

— JD Rucker (@JDRucker) February 4, 2023

Burns said that Xi’s order to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) military may not represent his timeline for the CCP’s invasion of Taiwan, but it demonstrates his “seriousness” in pursuing this goal.

“Our assessment at CIA is that I wouldn’t underestimate President Xi’s ambitions with regard to Taiwan,” Burns said at an event at Georgetown University in Washington.

Burns said he believes that Xi was likely “unsettled” by the Russian military’s performance in the Ukraine war and that he likely tried to evaluate the effectiveness of Russia’s weapons systems in Ukraine for his ambition toward Taiwan.

The CIA chief also warned against underestimating the motivation behind the China-Russia “no limits partnership” declared last year.

“I think it’s a mistake to underestimate the mutual commitment to that partnership, but it’s not a friendship totally without limits,” Burns noted.

China has refrained from condemning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, citing Russia’s “legitimate concerns on security issues” as justification. In February 2022, the two nations declared a “no limits” partnership.

According to their joint statement, Russia said it recognized Taiwan as “an inalienable part of China” and rejected Taiwan’s independence “in any form,” while the CCP backed Russia’s opposition to the enlargement of NATO.

Taiwan’s Independence

Taiwan has been a self-governing democracy since the Chinese civil war ended in 1949. Still, the CCP regards Taiwan as a breakaway province that must be united with mainland China by any means necessary.

Chinese incursions into Taiwan have occurred almost daily as the CCP has increased military pressure on the self-ruled island. Taiwan’s military detected 23 Chinese aircraft and four vessels on Feb. 2, with 17 of the aircraft crossing the Taiwan Strait’s median line.

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said on Jan. 18 that China is “more likely” to make a move against Taiwan in 2027 as he believed that Xi might see aggression against Taiwan as a way to leave a legacy from his third term in office.

“In 2027, Xi Jinping is likely to go into his fourth term. And if in his previous three terms, he cannot claim any achievement during his office, he might need to think about something else for him to claim as his achievement or his legacy,” Wu said in an interview with Sky News.

Suspected CCP Spy Balloon

Burns said that China represents the “biggest geopolitical challenge” to the United States, and that global competition with the CCP could be “more intense” than it was with the Soviet Union.

“Competition with China is unique in its scale, and that it really, you know, unfolds over just about every domain, not just military, and ideological, but economic, technological, everything from cyberspace, to space itself as well,” he said.

Separately, the U.S. Department of Defense announced on Thursday that it had been monitoring a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that had been hovering over the continental United States.

The balloon was detected over Montana on Wednesday. Pentagon press secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the U.S. authorities “acted immediately” to protect against the collection of sensitive information, but he did not elaborate.

A senior defense official said the U.S. government has communicated with the CCP regime about the issue “with urgency.” It also appears that this is not the first time such a balloon has been seen above the United States.

“Currently, we assess that this balloon has limited additive value from an intelligence collective collection perspective,” the official said, according to the DOD. “But we are taking steps, nevertheless, to protect against foreign intelligence collection of sensitive information.”

The U.S. authorities decided not to shoot down the balloon and instead allowed it to keep floating over the country following recommendations from defense officials.

“We did assess that it was large enough to cause damage from the debris field if we downed it over an area,” the official said. “I can’t really go into the dimension—but there have been reports of pilots seeing this thing, even though it’s pretty high up in the sky. So … it’s sizable.”

Reuters contributed to this report. Article cross-posted from The Epoch Times.

Alternative Video Sources:

CIA Chief Warns of China’s ‘Serious’ Intent to Invade Taiwan by 2027 https://t.co/SJ6q5mOfeb

— JD Rucker (@JDRucker) February 3, 2023

Although the US over the past year has supplied the Zelensky dictatorship with weapons, this wasn’t unlimited. Now, it looks like it is well on the way to becoming so.

Here is a statement from Secretary of State Anthony Blinken about the new aid: “The United States is announcing a significant new security assistance package to help Ukraine continue to defend itself against Russia’s brutal war. Pursuant to a delegation of authority from the President, I am authorizing our 30 th drawdown of U.S. arms and equipment for Ukraine since August 2021. This assistance package will provide Ukraine with hundreds of additional armored vehicles, including Stryker armored personnel carriers, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, and High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled vehicles. The package also includes critical additional air defense support for Ukraine, including more Avenger air defense systems, and surface to air missiles, as well as additional munitions for NASAMS that the United States has previously provided. The package also contains night vision devices, small arms ammunition, and other items to support Ukraine as it bravely defends its people, its sovereignty, and its territorial integrity.

This package, which totals $2.5 billion, will bring total U.S. military assistance for Ukraine to an unprecedented approximately $27.5 billion since the beginning of the Administration.

The United States also continues to rally the world to support Ukraine. We have seen incredible solidarity from our allies and partners, including at today’s Ukraine Defense Contact Group, and we applaud the more than 50 countries who have come together to make significant contributions to support Ukraine.”

The Russians aren’t taking this lying down. “The speaker of Russia’s parliament warned Sunday that countries supplying Ukraine with more powerful weapons risked their own destruction, a message that followed new pledges of armored vehicles, air defense systems and other equipment but not the battle tanks Kyiv requested.

‘Supplies of offensive weapons to the Kyiv regime would lead to a global catastrophe,’ State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said. ‘If Washington and NATO supply weapons that would be used for striking peaceful cities and making attempts to seize our territory as they threaten to do, it would trigger a retaliation with more powerful weapons.’

Ukraine’s supporters pledged billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine on Friday, though the new commitments were overshadowed by defense leaders failing at an international meeting in Ramstein, Germany, to agree on Ukraine’s urgent request for German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks.

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of the Russian Security Council, said the meeting in Ramstein ‘left no doubt that our enemies will try to exhaust or better destroy us,’ adding that “they have enough weapons’ to achieve the purpose.

Medvedev, a former Russian president, warned on his messaging app channel that Russia could seek to form a military alliance with foes of the United States. He didn’t name the nations he had in mind, but Russia has defense cooperation with Iran and Venezuela, an existing military alliance with Belarus and strong ties with North Korea.. Since invading Ukraine, Russia also has increased both the scope and the number of its joint military drills with China.

‘In case of a protracted conflict, a new military alliance will emerge that will include the nations that are fed up with the Americans and a pack of their castrated dogs,’ Medvedev said.”

As Tyler Durden has pointed out, the new policy constitutes a large-scale war against Russia by the US and its European allies. The German Foreign Minister acknowledged this. “German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock bluntly stated in fresh remarks that Western allies are fighting a war against Russia. The remarks came during a debate at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Tuesday amid discussions over sending Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.

While Baerbock’s words were largely ignored in mainstream media, a number of pundits on social media noted with alarm that the German foreign minister just essentially declared war on Russia.

Ironically other German officials have long sought to emphasize their country is not a party to the conflict, fearing uncontrollable escalation.

Contradicting this official stance, Baerbock said the quiet part out loud, and introduced the comments with: ‘And therefore I’ve said already in the last days – yes, we have to do more to defend Ukraine. Yes, we have to do more also on tanks.’

And that’s when she asserted: ‘But the most important and the crucial part is that we do it together and that we do not do the blame game in Europe, because we are fighting a war against Russia and not against each other.’

Interestingly, both Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his former defense minister who recently resigned, Christine Lambrecht, have been seen as weak on arming Ukraine – repeatedly declaring an unwillingness to get pulled deeper into the proxy war aspect to the conflict. But now it seems the more hawkish Baerbock is willing to at this point be much more open with the reality of what’s happening.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova seized on the comments, saying this is yet more proof that the Western allies were planning a war on Russia all along…

‘If we add this to Merkel’s revelations that they were strengthening Ukraine and did not count on the Minsk agreements, then we are talking about a war against Russia that was planned in advance. Don’t say later that we didn’t warn you,’ Zakharova said.

One thing is for sure, things are moving fast…” See this.

It’s clear that the Russians aren’t bluffing. A hostile Ukraine is an existential threat to them but it isn’t to America. What goes on in that region of the world is not a security threat to us. As Benjamin Abelow, the author of the excellent short book How the West Brought War to Ukraine, notes: “Even from a blinkered American perspective, the whole Western plan was a dangerous game of bluff, enacted for reasons that are hard to fathom. Ukraine is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a vital security interest of the United States. In fact, Ukraine hardly matters at all…. In contrast, for Russia—with its 1,200-mile shared border and its history of three major land-route invasions from the West, the most recent of which, during World War II, caused the death of roughly 13 percent of the entire Russian population—Ukraine is the most vital of national interests. (pp. 60–61, emphasis removed)”

Some people, though I’m sure not LRC readers, will say, “Don’t we have to defend the brave democrat Zelensky against the brutal Russian invasion? In fact, Zelensky is a cruel dictator engaged in religious persecution. Here is account of what he is doing to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church: “On January 2, an Orthodox church in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, was covered in blood. In the morning, a man burst into the church and turned the crucifix over, broke several icons, threw banners on the floor, and finally cut the priest’s throat with a razor. A few days earlier, in the city of Chornomorsk, parishioners of an Orthodox church only at the last moment disarmed a man who was about to stab the priest with a knife. In the village of Chechelnyk, a man in camouflage brutally beat a priest right on the street, breaking his nose and shouting curses.

There is a backstory to the above. Stand-up comedians at Kvartal 95, the film studio co-founded by now President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, recently released a video where they obscenely insulted Orthodox priests and publicly wished them death. The video is a news parody in the style of The Daily Show that mocks the church and refers to its clergy as ‘Russian agents.’ Many experts see a direct connection between the appeals of the actors and the recent violence.

The target of all these attacks is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which used to be in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate but has had an independent and autonomous status for more than 30 years.

The religious situation in modern Ukraine is complicated. The country has been considered Orthodox since 988, when the bishops of Constantinople baptized this land, which was then ruled by the Kievan Rus. The Russian Orthodox Church originates from Kyiv. The first metropolitans of this church had their sees there, and only centuries later were they transferred to Moscow. It was not until 1686 that the Greek patriarch entrusted the Kyiv Metropolis, which was then subordinate to the church of Constantinople, to the Russian church.

Under the USSR, the Orthodox Church in Kyiv was almost destroyed, but it was resurrected after the fall of the Soviet regime. In 1990, the Russian church granted full administrative independence to its Ukrainian bishops under the name of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Although many call it the ‘Moscow Patriarchate’ by inertia, it is a completely independent structure in terms of governance. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church elects its primate and bishops on its own with no regard for Moscow. There is no ‘Moscow Patriarchate’ in its official name.

For the first six months of the war, Zelenskyy and Ukrainian officials emphasized that the UOC is a Ukrainian denomination that completely took the side of its people. That took a U-turn at the end of 2022. The central authorities brought down repressions on the UOC; in comparison, Poroshenko’s methods seemed like child’s play.

Cathedrals and monasteries were searched by Ukrainian SBU officers, who reported that they allegedly found evidence of collaboration between bishops and priests of the UOC and the enemy. These findings were often ridiculous. Security officials exhibited photos of children’s bibles, prayer books, old liturgical books, archival collections of newspapers and magazines featuring the words ‘Russian,’ and Christmas or Easter sermons of the Russian Church patriarch. In cases where there was nothing to find, the special services planted compromising evidence themselves.

For instance, in the church of Hlynsk village, near Rivne, the security services planted ‘enemy’ leaflets while the pastor was busy purchasing cars for the Ukrainian army with money raised by his community. ‘I received a call from the headman, who said that he was not allowed into the temple. People from the SBU examined the church themselves, then called the headman and led him to the closet, where they took out two packs of leaflets, which they had put there on their own because there could not be postcards of such content in our church,’ rector priest Vasyl Nachev told us.

The true details of these searches are practically unknown to Ukrainians. Instead, it is widely reported in all media that the special services find much evidence of collaboration with the enemy in UOC churches. Thus the UOC is cast as an enemy in Ukrainian society, the consequences of which we described above.

Fox News journalist Tucker Carlson assessed the situation accurately: ‘Zelenskyy’s secret police have raided monasteries across Ukraine, and even a convent full of nuns, and arrested dozens of priests for no justifiable reasons whatsoever and in clear violation of the Ukrainian Constitution, which no longer matters. And in the face of this, the Biden’s administration has said nothing. Not one word. Instead, they continue to push to send Zelenskyy more tax dollars.’

Carlson is absolutely right. The president, in violation of Ukrainian laws, imposed sanctions against Ukrainian bishops and then revoked the Ukrainian citizenship of some other bishops, despite the fact that this clearly contradicts the constitution.

The situation is even more absurd because the UOC is doing everything to help its people in this unjust war. According to official data, the church renders great assistance to the army, internally displaced persons, and the needy. The assistance to the army has reached nearly a million dollars, and 180 tons of humanitarian aid have been delivered for the Armed Forces of Ukraine—impressive given that people in Ukraine are not at all rich and their donations to temples are very scarce. In addition, at the UOC’s main council in May 2022, it adopted a number of decisions to break off canonical spiritual ties with the ROC.

However, it seems that Zelenskyy is set to completely outlaw and destroy the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. On January 20, a bill on the de facto ban of the UOC was submitted to parliament. The initiator of the law was no ordinary parliamentarian but the prime minister, Denys Shmyhal. It marks a return to a shameful era when a state in the center of Europe intends to crack down on the religion of its own people.”

We must do everything we can to reverse military aid to the Ukraine. Let’s save the world from nuclear war!

About the Author

Article cross-posted from Lew’s blog.

In the past year, Egypt has been hit exceptionally hard by soaring oil and commodity prices resulting from global economic turmoil. Foreign portfolio investors have already pulled out around $22 billion from Egyptian debt markets. (Related: Egypt joins BRICS-owned New Development Bank, expresses interest in becoming full-fledged member of BRICS.)

In response to the economic turmoil, Egypt devalued its currency in March and then again by around 18 percent in late October, causing the $400 billion economy to face the worst foreign-exchange crunch in over half a decade.

Egypt has asked the IMF to provide it with more support – on top of a previous $12 billion IMF loan the country is still paying back.

The executive board of the IMF noted that it will send the approximately $3.1 billion bailout in tranches, and the first disbursement of about $347 million will be provided immediately.

As part of the loan agreement, Egypt has acquiesced to several loan conditions. This includes committing to “a permanent shift to a flexible exchange rate regime to increase resilience against external shocks and to rebuild external buffers.”

The Central Bank of Egypt has also promised several changes, including more efforts to control inflation and stabilize commodity prices, improve efficiency of the nation’s monetary policy and remove a requirement for importers to acquire letters of credit to buy goods from abroad.

Furthermore, the government of Egypt has introduced structural reforms to reduce government spending, level the playing field across all economic agents, facilitate more private sector-led growth and strengthen governance and transparency in the public sector.

IMF bribing Egypt to stop de-dollarization efforts

Holly Seeliger of “Zoon Politikon” noted that BRICS enticing other developing economies like Egypt to join their economic union is part of a global de-dollarization effort to topple the American dollar’s position as the world reserve currency.

“Egypt stepping up as de-dollarization efforts seem to have sent shockwaves to the West,” said Seeliger. “So, now the IMF has arrived to rescue the petrodollar by bribing Egypt to stop its de-dollarization efforts.”

Michael Mahanta, writing for TFIGlobal News, agreed with Seeliger. He wrote: “It is well known how IMF often secures or advances U.S. interests by using its economic clout. It has done it again, the case of Egypt, in the name of economic assistance.”

Official statements from the IMF and Egypt claim that the $3.1 billion loan will catalyze about $14 billion in additional financing from the country’s international and regional partners. This includes new financing from allies in the Gulf states “through the ongoing divestment of state-owned assets as well as traditional forms of financing from multilateral and bilateral creditors,” claimed the IMF.

Learn more about BRICS and international finance at CurrencyReset.news.

Watch this episode of “Zoon Politikon” as host Holly Seeliger discusses the IMF’s attempt to bribe Egypt into staying in the West’s sphere of influence.

This video is from the Zoon Politikon channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

• BRICS nations moving rapidly to circumvent the US dollar as the World Reserve Currency.
• End of petrodollar edges closer as Saudi Arabia looks set to join new China-dominated ‘BRICS’ economic alliance.
• Economists warn: IMF, World Bank may have little space to maneuver as they lend record amounts to poorest countries.
• BRICS member nations are creating new reserve currency to challenge the dollar, Andy Schectman tells Mike Adams.
• Argentina, Iran apply to join BRICS group of emerging economies.

Sources include:

• Brighteon.com
• CentralBanking.com
• Bloomberg.com
• TFIGlobalNews.com
• NATURAL NEWS

#1 Serbia

Are you ready for another war in the Balkans?  Ethnic tensions have risen to the highest level in more than two decades, and the president of Serbia just convened an emergency gathering of his national security council…

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has met his national security council as tensions rise in Kosovo between the authorities there and ethnic Serbs.

On Saturday a stun grenade was thrown at EU police in north Kosovo, where Serbs form a majority, and local police exchanged fire with unknown groups.

Ethnic Serbs set up road blocks after Kosovan police were deployed in a dispute over car number plates.

Some in the region now believe that war is “inevitable”, and Kosovo is already asking NATO to step in and intervene…

At a news conference in Kosovo’s capital Pristina on Sunday, Prime Minister Albin Kurti asked the Kosovo Force (KFOR), a NATO-led international peacekeeping force, to guarantee “freedom of movement,” as he accused “criminal gangs” of blocking roads.

A fragile peace has been preserved in Kosovo since it declared independence from Serbia in 2008 following the 1998-99 war in which NATO intervened to protect Kosovo’s Albanian majority. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence.

#2 The Disputed Border Between China And India

On Tuesday, we learned that there has been yet another violent clash along the hotly disputed border between China and India…

Soldiers from India and China clashed last week along their disputed border, India’s defense minister said Tuesday, in the latest violence along the contested frontier since June 2020, when troops from both countries were killed in a deadly brawl.

Rajnath Singh, who addressed lawmakers in parliament, said Friday’s encounter along the Tawang sector of eastern Arunachal Pradesh state started when Chinese troops “encroached into Indian territory” and “unilaterally tried to change the status quo” along the disputed border near Yangtze.

The Chinese just can’t seem to stop provoking India, and a full-blown conflict between the two nations could escalate out of control very rapidly.

Let us hope that does not happen, because both China and India possess nuclear weapons.

#3 Taiwan

For a long time, we have been warned that China will eventually invade Taiwan.

Unfortunately, tensions in the region just continue to escalate, and on Tuesday the Chinese sent more bombers into Taiwan’s air defense zone than ever before…

China sent a record 18 nuclear-capable bombers into Taiwan’s air defence zone, Taipei said on Tuesday (Dec 13), just days after Beijing banned more Taiwanese imports in the latest sign of deteriorating ties.

Democratic Taiwan lives under the constant threat of invasion by China, which sees the self-ruled island as part of its territory to be seized one day.

#4 Iran

There will be a war between Iran and Israel.

Of course the IDF has already been regularly hitting Iranian-backed forces inside Syria on a regular basis, but we should be thankful that a full-blown war in which missiles are flying back and forth between the two nations hasn’t started yet.

Unfortunately, we are closer than ever to that point.  In fact, it is being reported that Israel is actually warning that it may bomb the airport in Beirut “if it determines that Iran is smuggling weapons on civilian planes”…

According to Israeli media reports, Israel has warned Lebanon that Israel Defense Forces could bomb Beirut’s airport if it determines that Iran is smuggling weapons on civilian planes destined for the terrorist group Hezbollah. The alleged weapons smuggling was reported by a London-based Arabic language newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, which quoted Israeli sources who said Israel issued the warning.

When a full-blown war between Iran and Israel finally starts, there will be no holding back by either side.

The death and destruction such a war will cause will shock the entire world, and the global oil trade will be thrown into a state of complete and utter chaos.

#5 Ukraine

The United States and Russia both continue to escalate the horrifying conflict in Ukraine.

Now that Russia is bombing the living daylights out of Ukraine’s power grid, the U.S. is choosing to respond by giving Patriot missiles systems to the Ukrainians…

Pentagon officials are in the final stages of preparing a plan to send a Patriot air defense missile system to Ukraine to counter Russian aerial assaults, U.S. officials told CBS News.

The plan has not yet been approved by either the Pentagon or the White House, but that could come as early as this week.

This represents a major escalation, and it is also being reported that the Biden administration has given the Ukrainian government the green light to conduct drone strikes deep inside of Russia.

Needless to say, the Russians are not pleased at all about having to deal with drone strikes deep inside their own territory.  In fact, some prominent Russian voices are warning that the U.S. and Russia are getting dangerously close to the unthinkable.  The following comes from a British news source…

Mad Vlad Putin’s henchmen have fired a warning shot that the Ukraine conflict could turn into a “full-scale nuclear war.”

They made the stark comments after the US gave the go-ahead for Kyiv to kick off drone strikes into Russia.

We don’t see such talk on U.S. television.

The Biden administration continues to assure all of us that the risk of nuclear war is extremely low, but the Russians see things very differently…

One source in Putin’s circle said: “This is playing with fire, risking full-scale war which could easily go nuclear.”

Another added: “Who will now give Moscow the green light for strikes against Ukrainian decision-making centres?”

Most people never imagined that World War I would get as bad as it did.

And most people never imagined that World War II would result in tens of millions of deaths.

Now we have entered the early stages of a third world war, and this time the major participants are armed with nuclear weapons.

If we don’t pull back from the brink, the consequences could potentially be far beyond what most people could even imagine right now.

So let us pray for peace, because a global war in which hundreds of millions of people die is not an acceptable option.

***It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned)  When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends.  Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible.

I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.

I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Article cross-posted from End of the American Dream.

• Donated clothing enters a stream of garments, many of which are shipped to poor countries where they are sorted and sold or dumped in landfills creating small mountains of waste along beaches
• Fast fashion, or cheap copies of high fashion garments sold at affordable prices, is a large contributor to the fashion industry’s dirty secret that only 1% of all clothing is recycled and most textiles ultimately end up in landfills
• The fashion industry’s goal is to make people unhappy with their clothing and feed an addiction to purchasing new clothes as often as possible. Although several companies are exploring the idea of renting clothing, this fundamentally means the clothing must be well-made and durable
• You can lower the impact of fast fashion by taking several steps, including purchasing high-quality, sustainably made clothing, repairing and reusing your clothes, swapping and exchanging clothes with friends and family and donating to local charities that keep the clothing in your community

Studies conducted during the on-again, off-again lockdowns of COVID-19 revealed how damaging social isolation was to most people. A reporter from The Conversation¹ did an informal review of 33 published studies that included nearly 132,000 people from around the world and found that social restrictions increase your risk of depression over 4.5 times and the odds you would experience loneliness nearly doubled.

During this time, many people turned to what has been called “retail therapy,” or shopping for clothing, much of which occurred online during the lockdowns. While some suggest that buying new clothes could make you feel better, most people agree those positive feelings seldom last long.

What does last is the impact fast fashion has on your pocketbook and the environment. Underneath all the glamor in the store windows and beautiful photos online are dirty secrets the fashion industry doesn’t want you to know or understand. If you’re like many people, you haven’t considered what happens to your clothes after you donate them.²

You might feel like you’re doing your part by donating unwanted clothes to charity or dropping them off at a take-back bin. But the sad reality is that a large portion of these discarded clothes simply ends up in a landfill somewhere.³ The overabundance of donated clothing is the result of the push for cheap clothing by manufacturers whose sole goal is to create demand and boost their income. These actions have made them a major contributor to environmental pollution.⁴

In 2014, Americans bought 500% more clothing than in the 1980s⁵ and Canadians bought 400% more clothing.⁶ Although the problem is significant, there are potentially effective options from which to choose. Before discussing these ideas, let’s discover why it’s crucial we make changes to the way we buy, use, and discard clothing.

What Happens to Donated Clothing?

Stacy Dooley is a BBC investigative reporter whose 2018 documentary, “Fashion’s Dirty Secrets,”⁷ shone a light on the damage retail therapy is doing in developing countries. You might be surprised to learn that fashion is second only to oil as the top five most polluting industries in the world.

As shops can quickly produce copies of high fashion items at affordable prices, people are tempted to update their look. This feeds their insatiable appetite, increasing the potential that retail therapy becomes even more addictive. Unfortunately, of the massive amount of fast fashion that reaches take-back bins and charity shops, less than 1% will eventually get recycled into new garments.

Much of the cast-offs ends up along the coast of Ghana, which Bloomberg reports is one of the largest importers of used clothing.⁸ As clothing gets cheaper and more disposable, the fashion industry produces more than 100 billion items each year. Bloomberg reports this is approximately 14 pieces of clothing for every person walking the Earth. Shockingly, this is more than twice the number produced just a little over 20 years ago in 2000.

Once the clothing arrives, it undergoes sorting by brokers and processors whose business is to export the clothing to developing countries where it will be purchased and worn. Once clothing has entered the deluge of garments transported to Ghana and India, there is no way to track what happens to it.

Mark Burrows Smith, chief executive officer of Textile Recycling International, spoke with a reporter from Bloomberg, noting that in his experience with a company that processes 400 million garments annually in the U.K. and Ireland,⁹ “I think it needs to be understood that all textiles, whether new or recycled, will ultimately end up in landfill. The key is to keep the garment in use as long as possible.”

The cast-offs that arrive by the bale from industrialized nations are known in Ghana as obroni wawu, or dead white people’s clothes. It’s almost incomprehensible to the people of Ghana that so much clothing could be thrown away.

Accra is the capital of Ghana and just south is Chorkor Beach along the Gulf of Guinea. There you’ll find a wall of clothing more than 6 feet high. The rags have been packed down through exposure to the weather and are degrading in a putrid pile. It is here that people have built a small town on a foundation of rags.

Solomon Noi is the city’s head of Waste Management and he believes that 40% of all the used clothing that moves through the port of Accra is not worn or repurposed. Although the country doesn’t have the infrastructure to take care of the waste, banning the imports would shut down a trade that supports many people’s livelihoods.

Recycled Clothing Is a Myth Perpetuated by Retailers

Old clothing rarely gets recycled into new garments because the technology does not exist to handle the waste produced at scale. Additionally, different fibers require different chemicals to break down the product for recycling. Many garments are made with two or three types of fiber, making recycling nearly impossible.¹⁰

Instead, clothing enters a supply chain supported by workers in third-world countries to prolong the life of the material before it eventually ends up in a landfill or piled high along the beach. The recycling myth was created and perpetuated by companies that want people to continue to purchase clothing without feeling guilty about what happened to the clothes they discard.

Bloomberg reports¹¹ that in 2013, H&M began a used clothing collection program across 40 countries to tap into growing environmental awareness. The H&M’s blog once claimed: “H&M will recycle them and create new textile fiber, and in return you get vouchers to use at H&M.”¹²

Today, H&M acknowledges that only 1% of garments collected are recycled each year and most end up in landfills,¹³ but the damage has already been done. Other fashion chains began their own recycling campaigns and none acknowledged that the capability of recycling at that scale did not exist. In 1950, New York department store tycoon, Earl Puckett said:¹⁴

“It’s our job to make women unhappy with what they have in the way of apparel. Basic utility cannot be the foundation of a prosperous apparel industry. We must accelerate obsolescence.”

In 1974, Norman Wechsler, president of Saks Fifth Avenue, said obsolescence in women’s fashion was “the name of the game.”¹⁵ By the 1980s, the Spanish clothing company Zara had pioneered a model that allowed them to roll out thousands of designs each year.

Rancid Piles Fed by Fast Fashion Pleasure-Inducing Compulsion

The new production model changed the shopping habits of Zara consumers as they began visiting the store four times the usual number each year. A 2007 study¹⁶ found that the company had inadvertently tapped into strategies that support addictive behavior.

The researchers found that the decision to purchase a product was related to how much the individual anticipated they would gain and lose. A consumer purchase could be predicted by looking at specific patterns of brain activation that showed they weighed a combination of preference for the item and price considerations. In other words, your brain likes to find a bargain.

Bloomberg reports¹⁷ that in the past 20 years, the average number of times a person wears their clothes before getting rid of them has dropped by 36%. In America, that equates to wearing clothing less than 50 times on average. In China, the average number of times an individual wore their clothes dropped from over 200 to just 62 times.

With a greater eye on the environmental impact, several companies have explored the idea of renting your wardrobe. The business model is described by researchers as “providing consumers with the ability to focus on using their products instead of ownership.”¹⁸ One research team surveyed 362 adults¹⁹ born between 1997 and 2002 and found the attitude of the Gen Z consumer helped mediate the intention to use a rental service.

However, while this may help feed the consumer’s desire for new clothing and keep a particular garment in circulation longer, the fundamental idea of rental clothing means the garment must be well-made and durable.

The fashion industry used to have four seasons but today collections are updated on a nearly weekly basis. In a 2018 CBC Marketplace report,²⁰ journalist Charlsie Agro investigated the claims made by retail take-back programs and took a Canadian family behind the scenes to show them the journey clothes donated at their local charity take on the way to Africa or India.

Claudia Marsales, senior manager of waste and environmental management for Markham, Ontario, believes the take-back programs are a losing proposition and nothing more than a form of greenwashing. It does nothing to address “the broken business model of fast fashion,”²¹ and is really just circumventing rather than addressing the real problems.

In short, the industry business model is the root issue, and recycling programs are a simple way to make the industry appear more responsible without actually altering the way they do business.

Help Lower the Impact of Fast Fashion

In addition to being chemically dependent and conventionally produced, cotton also needs water — lots of water. Chemicals and toxic dyes are released from these textiles, adding to our global water pollution problem. At the end of the day, the answer to lowering global waste lies with every individual doing their part to reduce total consumption.

The solution requires consumers to purchase high-quality, sustainably made clothing that is cared for and worn much longer than fast fashion. When you purchase clothes, seek fabrics that are made with organic cotton, hemp, silk, wool and bamboo. Consider exchanging clothing with your family and friends, especially when you have clothes hanging in your closet that have not been worn for more than 6 months.

Find ways to repair and reuse your clothing and consider selling or swapping online. Keep in mind that most donated clothing ends up in landfills, so consider seeking out reputable charities that serve the needs of your local community, such as your local church.

In the past I didn’t give much thought to my clothing, but I’ve since dedicated myself to wearing sustainably produced organic clothing and supporting the “Care What You Wear” movement through Regeneration International.²² I added a line of organic clothing grown and sewn in the USA to my webstore, and we support the SITO brand — a GOTS-certified organic clothing brand by the biodynamic certification agency Demeter.

The Mercola-RESET Biodynamic Organic Project is also helping 55 certified organic farmers in India convert to biodynamic production of cotton on 110 acres of land. Biodynamic farming is organic by nature, but it goes even further, operating on the premise that the farm is regenerative and entirely self-sustaining.

Biodynamic farming brings animals and plants together to form a living web of life, a self-sustaining ecosystem that benefits the surrounding community. RESET (Regenerate, Environment, Society, Economy, Textiles) will pay all organic biodynamic farmers in our project a 25% premium over conventional cotton prices, which will be paid directly to the farmers.

So, going forward, give some serious thought to cleaning up and “greening” your wardrobe. Your choices as a consumer will help guide the fashion industry toward more humane and environmentally sane manufacturing processes, and not just stopping short at a façade of sustainability through take-back recycling programs that do very little to curtail our global textile waste and environmental pollution problems.

• ¹ The Conversation, April 11th, 2022
• ^{2, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17} Bloomberg, November 2, 2022
• ³ CBC, January 19, 2018
• ⁴ UN Environment Program, November 12, 2018
• ⁵ The Atlantic, July 18, 2014
• ⁶ YouTube, January 19, 2018 Min 3:54
• ⁷ BBC, October 9, 2018
• ¹³ H&M, Let’s Close the Loop
• ¹⁶ Neuron, 2007; 53(1)
• ¹⁸ Sustainability, 2021;13(15)
• ¹⁹ Study Finds, August 12, 2021
• ²⁰ CBC News January 19, 2019
• ²¹ YouTube, January 19, 2018 min 9:40
• ²² Regeneration International

Documents show McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund received $2,500,000 from someone at FTX, the crypto company that fell in disgrace last week.

.@LeaderMcConnell got some of that tax payer FXT Ukraine money.
Now you know why the uni-party @GOP @DNC didn’t want a audit of Ukraine money & had to get rid of Trump. pic.twitter.com/Aos1H4KkhK

— Dr. Interracial (@billysandytodd) November 14, 2022

The money goes from taxpayers, is sent as “aid” to Ukraine, which gives a good chunk of the laundered money to FTX, which contributes to the Uniparty Swamp. This prompts the Uniparty Swamp to repeat the process, and as we’ve seen over the past several months, it’s working wonders. Corporate media barely reports on all the money getting laundered there on a weekly basis. No Democrats and very few Republican politicians bring up the issue. Nearly everyone is on the take.

McConnell is among the top recipients that we’ve found so far.

If you’re going to run a con, you have to keep people from following the money. Sadly, if FTX hadn’t collapsed it’s very likely this con would have continued unabated for years, even decades. That’s the state of geopolitics today.

Leave a comment about this post on our new Substack.

The statement came just two days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced his country’s intention to apply for fast-track NATO membership.

War Approaches: Ukraine Applies For “Accelerated” NATO Membership

If Ukraine joins NATO, that will be crossing one of Russia’s “red lines” and could lead to a more aggressive war concerning more countries. Nonetheless, certain states seem fine with advancing a world war. “We firmly stand behind the 2008 Bucharest NATO Summit decision concerning Ukraine’s future membership,” the presidents of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia said. “We support Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion, demand Russia to immediately withdraw from all the occupied territories, and encourage all Allies to substantially increase their military aid to Ukraine,” the statement said.

• Russia Says Security Guarantees For Ukraine Are A “Prologue To Third World War”

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, commenting on Zelensky’s NATO bid, emphasized that “any decision on membership has to be taken by consensus” of all 30 members. Stressing that NATO “has an open door policy,” Stoltenberg said that currently, the top priority of the bloc is “to support Ukraine,” both militarily and financially. He believes that this is also “the best way to respond” to Russia’s actions. –RT

Zelensky’s announcement of the NATO membership bid came on the same day that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties on the inclusion of two Donbass republics, and Kherson and Zaporozhye Regions, into Russia.

• Pope: The Russia-Ukraine War Is A “World War”

The United States seems apprehensive about the timing of Ukraine’s request to join NATO. The U.S. is committed to the “open door” policy when it comes to NATO, but now is the wrong time to consider Ukraine’s membership application, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Friday.

Moscow, which considers the enlargement of NATO a direct threat to its national interests, cited Ukraine’s potential membership in the alliance as one of the reasons for its military offensive. That means that this was done as a way to further ignite a war that’s going to involve the whole world.

Article cross-posted from SHTF Plan.