United States Seeks to Protect Europe’s Energy Supplies If Russia Invades Ukraine

Reuters January 25, 2022 By Humeyra Pamuk, Steve Holland and Dmitry Antonov

WASHINGTON/MOSCOW, Jan 25 (Reuters) – Western leaders stepped up preparations for any Russian military action in Ukraine on Tuesday, with the United States focusing on how to protect energy supplies and Britain urging other European nations to get economic sanctions ready.

Tensions remained high after NATO said on Monday it was putting forces on standby and reinforcing eastern Europe with more ships and fighter jets in response to a Russian troop build-up near its border with Ukraine.

Russia, which denies planning an attack, said it was watching with “great concern.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov repeated Moscow’s line that the crisis is being driven by U.S. and NATO actions, not the Russian troop build-up.

The United States and the European Union have threatened economic sanctions if Russia launches an invasion and Western leaders say unity is paramount, though differences have emerged among European nations over how best to respond.

“It is absolutely vital that … the West is united now, because it is our unity now that will be much more effective in deterring any Russian aggression,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told parliament, urging “our European friends” to be ready to deploy sanctions as soon as there was any incursion.

He said Britain was discussing the possibility of banning Russia from the Swift global payments system with the United States, one of many potential measures to punish Moscow if it launches an offensive.

In Washington, senior Biden administration officials said the United States was in talks with major energy-producing countries and companies around the world over a potential diversion of supplies to Europe if Russia invades Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters on a call, the officials did not name the countries or companies involved in discussions to protect supplies to Europe but said they included a broad range of suppliers, including sellers of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

“We’ve been working to identify additional volumes of non- Russian natural gas from various areas of the world; from North Africa and the Middle East to Asia and the United States,” a senior administration official said, on condition of anonymity.

“Correspondingly, we’re… in discussions with major natural gas producers around the globe to understand their capacity and willingness to temporarily surge natural gas output and to allocate these volumes to European buyers.”

The European Union depends on Russia for around a third of its gas supplies. Any interruptions to Russia’s gas supply to Europe would exacerbate an existing energy crisis caused by shortages.

“To ensure Europe is able to make it through the winter and spring, we expect to be prepared to ensure alternative supplies covering a significant majority of the potential shortfall,” the official said.

MILITARY ASSISTANCE

Russia has tens of thousands of troops near Ukraine and is demanding security guarantees from the West, including a promise by NATO never to admit Ukraine. Moscow sees the former Soviet republic as a buffer between Russia and NATO countries.

The tensions over Ukraine have been felt on financial markets and the price of oil in recent days. An escalated conflict between Russia and Ukraine would be likely to further increase energy costs for many countries, keeping headline inflation rates elevated for longer, said Gita Gopinath, First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.

In a sign of concern that an attack may come soon, Canada said it was temporarily withdrawing families of its diplomats in Ukraine and Sweden’s foreign ministry said it was advising against all non-essential travel to Ukraine, and all travel to Crimea and two regions in eastern Ukraine.

The U.S. State Department has said it is ordering diplomats’ family members to leave and Britain has said it is withdrawing some staff and dependents from its embassy in Kyiv.

The United States has committed more than $650 million of security assistance to Ukraine in the past year and more than $2.7 billion in total since 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula.

A U.S. plane carrying military equipment and munitions landed in Kyiv on Tuesday, the third shipment of a $200-million security package to shore up Ukraine.

The U.S. Department of Defense said on Monday about 8,500 U.S. troops had been put on heightened alert and were awaiting orders to deploy to the region, should Russia invade Ukraine.

So far, NATO has about 4,000 troops in multinational battalions in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, backed by tanks, air defenses and intelligence and surveillance units.

More:

https://gcaptain.com/united-states-seeks-to-protect-europes-energy-supplies-if-russia-invades-ukraine/

Italian Shipping Magnate Makes Daring Attempt Into Passenger Aviation

Bloomberg January 25, 2022

By William Wilkes and Daniele Lepido (Bloomberg) —

The Italian billionaire who turned a one-boat cargo operation into the world’s biggest shipping company thinks he can save an airline operation that’s landed a profit just once in 75 years of flying.

Gianluigi Aponte’s Mediterranean Shipping Co. is teaming up with Deutsche Lufthansa AG to bid for ITA, the successor to Alitalia, a one-time symbol of Italian glamour that’s cost the Italian state billions of euros in unrecovered bailouts and failed takeover attempts. Armed with MSC profits earned amid sky-high shipping rates, MSC founder Aponte, 81, is betting his firm can turn a profit in an Italian aviation market that’s a key battleground for low-cost carriers like Ryanair Plc and Wizz Air Holdings Plc.

“It’s a curious one,” said Peter Sand, chief analyst at Xeneta, a shipping data and analytics company. “You’d expect them to make acquisitions in the field of air cargo, not air passengers.”

MSC recently became the world’s largest container line after the coronavirus pandemic unleashed port disruption and unprecedented demand for consumer goods, pushing cargo rates to record highs. The Geneva-based company started out with one ship in 1970 and steadily bought vessels during the crisis, bringing its fleet to 638 boats, the largest in the world.

Belly Freight

Shipping rivals A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S and CMA-CGM Group have recently expanded in air-freight to capture a bigger slice of the growing market and reposition themselves as end-to-end logistics providers. CMA is even establishing a fleet of wide-body freighters, but neither has gone so far as to buy a passenger airline.

By using the below-deck capacity of ITA passenger jets, MSC would also gain access to a higher-speed mode of transport and profit from long-haul routes from Europe to the U.S. and Asia, said Alfredo Altavilla, executive chairman of the state-owned Italian carrier.

“MSC could materially boost its business, making its cargo shipping interoperable worldwide through an owned airline like ITA,” Altavilla said in a telephone interview.

Acquiring ITA would also benefit MSC’s cruise-line business, enabling it to move its passengers to terminals, he said.

An MSC spokesman declined to comment.

With an industry reputation for shrewd business acumen and a secretive manner, the Aponte clan is one of Italy’s richest business dynasties. Gianluigi, who handed over day-to-day running of the company to his son Diego in 2014, remains executive chairman.

A resident in Switzerland, Gianluigi has a net worth of $10.3 billion, making him the 216th wealthiest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Munich Threat

Lufthansa, Europe’s largest airline by fleet size, would be MSC’s industrial partner in the proposed deal, but with a minority stake at most. The German airline flirted with Alitalia for years, but refused to invest until the loss-making company was restructured and bloated labor costs reduced.

Lufthansa’s longstanding interest centers on its desire to protect long-haul earnings, particularly at its Munich hub. Its executives have long feared a rival transatlantic operation from Milan could suck in passengers from Munich’s wealthy alpine catchment areas, denting Lufthansa profits.

A strategic plan for ITA would instead center on establishing a major Italian hub at Rome’s Fiumicino airport, a safe distance from Lufthansa’s lucrative German bases, according to people familiar with the matter. The companies would work together to optimize flight schedules and operations, allowing ITA to benefit from connecting flights with Lufthansa and its Swiss, Brussels Airlines and Austrian Airlines subsidiaries.

The Brussels unit, for example, which flies to central and western Africa, would complement ITA’s links into north Africa. ITA could also join Lufthansa’s Miles & More loyalty program, bringing more Italian customers into the fold.

For ITA, a partnership would likely prompt a switch to the Lufthansa-led Star Alliance and transatlantic-revenue-sharing venture, away from Delta Air Lines Inc.’s Sky Team.

Since coming aboard last year, ITA’s Altavilla has made progress thinning down the predecessor’s payroll and set plans to modernize the fleet with a deal for 59 Airbus SE jets. Still, he has said the company is too small to survive alone.

More:

https://gcaptain.com/italian-shipping-magnate-daring-attempt-passenger-aviation/

>>117079

Thalidomide and Vioxx were both FDA approved

>>117091

>>117095

Nah, the nazis split for Argentina, think more like unemployed but greedy Stasi

>>117112

Um….

The Black Goo is a conspiracy theory revolving aroud a supposed demonic entity that is blamed for many paranormal events - almost always of a malevolent nature, the entity itself is said to be a tar-like mass of black goo with sapience, its origins are considered to either be Satanic, extraterrestrial or a form of artificial intelligence depending on the conspiracy theory at play.

The Black Goo is popularized in 1990s culture via the Purity virus from the hit sci-fi TV show The X-Files and derives its name from the Chemical A0-3959X.91-15 substance in the lore of the famous Alien science fiction horror film franchise (which is also simply known as "Black Goo").

As can be expected from a conspiracy theory so connected with mass culture as a whole it is often seen as a hoax, a publicity stunt, or delusion - though it does have a small following that believe the entity to truly exist, some go as far as claiming media depictions of Black Goo (such as in X-Files and Aliens) is all part of the entity's larger plan to desensitize humanity to its presence and prepare them for a future dystopian takeover,

The Black Goo is a mysterious and evil entity that causes victims to become sick, drives them mad or corrupts them into performing every manner of criminal activities - often it is said to emit the smell of sulphur and moves of its own accord - the entity is said to actively take interest in the corruption of those around itself and is linked to either a demonic conspiracy to take over the world or aliens, who also wish to conquer the world : some theories also speculate it as a rogue artificial intelligence akin to the Grey Goo, or a secret weapon utilized by the Illuminati.

The Black Goo is often said to emerge from cracks in the earth but there are also disturbing reports of Black Goo falling from the sky as "rain" or even arriving via space - some have even claimed to witnesses Black Goo materialize out of seeming nothing, wherever it does arrive sickness and unease follows : often when it falls from sky it causes animals and people to get sick and if it washes up on beaches it may cling to skin and cause both mental and physical injuries, to more skeptical minds, these phenomena suggest Black Goo is a pollutant of some description, which is given "malevolent intent" by people's ignorance or panic when encountering such strange phenomena.

Of course on a more symbolic level Black Goo is likely used by many in the conspiracy world to symbolize "big oil" and government greed, which they blame for many (if not all) misfortunes in the modern world.

The most common crime that the Black Goo seems to incite victims into committing is acts of murder, with many who come across the substance claiming that it was influencing their thoughts towards homicide or other acts of extreme violence.

https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Goo

>>117119

Funny thing is my daughter wanted help to make some little cases for her to make black mushrooms. Don't remember if they were supposed to ferment or what but learned to be wary when she was binge watching cooking shows

>>117117 (me)

Found some video:

X_files goo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3BNRC6PAiM

Russia Stages Snap War Drills Near Ukraine As NATO Backs Off Military 'Option'

by Tyler Durden Wednesday, Jan 26, 2022 - 02:45 AM

Russia is flexing its military might further with snap war exercises near Ukraine and in Crimea announced on Tuesday, also as its navy conducts pre-planned joint drills much further south with China and Iran in the Arabian Sea.

Russian language news agencies announced that some "6,000 troops and 60 warplanes have been deployed for so-called combat readiness drills stretching across three regions near Ukraine and in Crimea, which Moscow seized from Ukraine in 2014."

The massive buildup of 🇷🇺 forces towards 🇺🇦 continues. Here it’s older T72 tanks on their way to the confrontation zone. Eurooe hasn’t seen a concentration of military forces of this magnitude since decades. pic.twitter.com/HipXARtmCB

— Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) January 24, 2022

Russian fighter jets will also be involved in the large-scale exercises, including squadrons of Su-27SM, Su-30SM2 and Su-34 fighters, which will "refine interaction when performing missile strikes at a maximum distance," the military said.

Additionally, as English-language Moscow Times details:

More than 1,500 Southern Military District soldiers will also maneuver to proving grounds “at a considerable distance from their points of permanent deployment,” according to Interfax.

Separately, the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet said T-72B3 battle tank crews staged shooting drills at a Crimean firing range.

It comes a day after a handful of NATO countries including Spain, Denmark, Lithuania and possibly France began sending limited military assets including jets and frigates toward Eastern Europe. The Biden administration also put 8,500 troops on "prepare to deploy" orders, but has yet to send them East.

However, NATO appears to be rapidly backing off its threatened military "option" and deployments toward Eastern Europe reported Monday…

NATO chief @jensstoltenberg draws a line: “NATO will not deploy NATO combat troops to Ukraine," he tells @amanpour

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) January 25, 2022

NATO willing to "sit down and discuss arms control, disarmament, transparency on military activities, risk reduction mechanisms and other issues which are relevant for European security….But we are not ready to compromise on core principles," he says

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) January 25, 2022

As for the Russian drills in the Black Sea region, which have ramped up to the point of becoming almost regular and routine of late, the US State Department recently said they go "in exactly the opposite direction" of de-escalation. There's further preparations underway for major Russia-Belarus drills previously announced for February.

On Monday and Tuesday Russia's Navy also kicked off joint drills in the Arabian Sea with China and Iran…

However, the Biden administration has for now continued to express hope for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, while also threatening severe sanctions, including the imposition of export controls on Russia, hitting especially its ability to access US chips - which would strain the Russian population's access to common electronics, iPhones, and even cars. Likely in such an unprecedented move, Moscow would begin to rely more heavily on China.

Meanwhile, in the White House press briefing room, we hear bellicose talk of protecting "our" Eastern flank countries…

“Our eastern flank countries” 🤦🏻‍♂️ https://t.co/Y4SZZgDAx4

— Chase Madar (@ChaseMadar) January 25, 2022

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russia-stages-snap-war-drills-near-ukraine-tensions-edge

>>117141