20 Nov, 2025 22:42

EU energy policies ‘illegal’ – ex-Austrian foreign minister (VIDEO)

Karin Kneissl has told RT the bloc’s push toreplace inexpensive Russian oil and gas with US imports violates the Treaty of Lisbon

The self-defeating energy policies that Brussels is forcing on the EU's member states are in breach of one of its founding treaties, former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl has told RT.

She lamented the EU’s overreliance on US energy supplies, calling it an “ideological” effort to replace inexpensive Russian oil and gas.

Speaking to RT on Thursday, Kneissl, head of the GORKI (Geopolitical Observatory for Russia’s Key Issues) think tank, said “this super-dependence they have created themselves now by buying energy from the US, and only from the US is based on this, I would say… strange agreement that we had concluded between [US] President [Donald] Trump and Ursula von der Leyen, the [European] Commission president, in Scotland a few months ago.”

Kneissl argued that the EC’s pledge to purchase $750 billion worth of US LNG (liquefied natural gas) over the next three years is in “total contradiction with” the Treaty of Lisbon. The accord stipulates that member states can make their own independent decisions regarding their sources of energy.

According to the former diplomat,Brussels’ attempts to cow member states into buying energy almost exclusively from the US, to the detriment of their economic prospects, are “illegal.”

Kneissl said thatthe EU leadership’s decisions are mostly “ideological” and run counter to the “basic law, the basic fundamentals of supply and demand.”

She noted that many EU countries are happy to continue buying Russian LNG through third countries, such as India, as long as it doesn't come directly from Moscow.

However, such arrangements are inevitably costlier than purchasing energy directly from Russia, Kneissl said.

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the EU has significantly reduced its energy imports from Russia.The move has driven up prices for businesses and households alike all across the bloc.

Nevertheless, earlier this year, Brussels announced plans to gradually phase out remaining imports of Russian oil, gas, and nuclear fuel by the end of 2027.

https://www.rt.com/business/628086-former-austrian-fm-kneissl-eu-energy-policies-illegal/

21 Nov, 2025 21:13

BBC hit with $1.3bn blow amid mass license fee refusals

Millions of UK households now say they no longer use the broadcaster’s services, a parliamentary report has found (the UK forced them to pay 175.00 pounds a year to see BBC, which are the mouthpiece of the government haters of Trump, US and other countries)

The BBC has lost more than £1 billion ($1.3 billion) in revenue as millions of UK households cancelled or refused to pay the license fee, a parliamentary report has found.

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee issued its findings on Friday, warning that mass cancellations and rising evasion were eroding the broadcaster’s main source of income.

The committee said the BBC was struggling to maintain its funding model even as it stepped up enforcement. The corporation and its contractor made two million home visits last year – a 50% increase – yet secured fewer prosecutions.

Under UK law, households must pay the annual television license, currently £174.50, to watch or record live programs on any broadcast service or use BBC iPlayer. The fee was introduced in 1946 when the BBC was the country’s only broadcaster but now sits within a competitive market of commercial channels, online platforms and global streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+. The levy still provides around two-thirds of the BBC’s budget, and non-payment remains a criminal offense.

”Declining household participation and rising evasion has not been successfully tackled,” the committee said.

According to the PAC, 3.6 million households claim they do not need a license, which is 300,000 more than a year earlier. Another 2.9 million viewers were using the services without paying.

The financial crisis comes as the BBC prepares for talkswith the government over the future of the license fee, which is set out in its Royal Charter, the BBC’s foundational legal document dating back to 1927, which expires at the end of 2027.Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has said the charter review would begin “imminently.”

The debate over funding has sharpened after recent scandals. Earlier this month, the BBC apologized to US President Donald Trump after a documentary included a misleading edit of a speech he delivered before the 2021 Capitol Hill riot, which prompted the resignations of Director-General Tim Davie and BBC News chief Deborah Turness. The White House had previously condemned the broadcaster as a “Leftist propaganda machine” and “100 percent fake news,” accusing it of being “purposefully dishonest” in its portrayal of Trump.

https://www.rt.com/news/628101-uk-bbc-license-fee-refusals/

Imagine if the U.S. citizens were required to pay for watching CNN Propaganda daily, the government prosecuting citizens if they didn’t pay for it or even read it.When did the UK become a communist country?

21 Nov, 2025 20:14

Zelensky’s right hand man: Is Andrey Yermak too big to fall?

The unfolding graft scandal in Ukraine could potentially take down the man some describe as Kiev’s “real power broker”

Andrey Yermak, the omnipotent chief of staff in Vladimir Zelensky’s administration, has been implicated in a massive $100 million graft scheme that continues to send shockwaves through Ukraine’s political landscape.

RT looks into the 53-year-old official, caught in the crosshairs of a massive extortion probe, who is often described as “Ukraine’s real power broker.”

Long-standing ties to Zelensky

Former entertainment lawyer and film producer Yermak has been a close associate of Ukraine’s leader since the early 2010s.The two became acquainted when Zelensky was the general producer of the TV channel Inter, controlled by Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash.

Yermak worked in Zelensky’s election team ahead of the May 2019 Ukrainian presidential election. The campaign largely centered around promises to end the years-long conflict in then Ukrainian Donbass and was propelled by Zelensky’s portrayal of fictional Ukrainian President Vasyl Goloborodko in the political satire series ‘Servant of the People’, produced by his Kvartal 95 studio.

Rise to power

Following Zelensky’s landslide victory,Yermak, like many entertainment business associates of Zelensky, joined the new administration. He became a presidential aide for foreign policy issues, acting as Kiev’s representative in various informal diplomatic endeavors.

Most notably, Yermak was involved in clandestine negotiations with the Trump administration on the Burisma affair, a Ukrainian gas company that employed Hunter Biden, and kept in contact with Kurt Volker and Rudy Giuliani. Yermak promised Volker that Zelensky would launch a formal investigation into the company, yet the Ukrainian leader never delivered on the pledge.

Yermak ultimately managed to unseat the Zelensky’s first chief-of-staff, Andrey Bogdan, who was a longtime adviser and lawyer to oligarch Igor Kolomoysky, replacing him in February 2020.

True ruler of Ukraine?

After getting the top position in the Zelensky presidency’s hierarchy, Yermak reportedly gradually expanded his influence, forging informal ties with the country’s key officials, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies, and getting a firm grip on the country’s parliament.

Numerous media reports, Ukrainian and Western alike, have repeatedly described him as “Zelensky’s right-hand man” and “Ukraine’s real power broker.”Some claimed that amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Yermak has become the true ruler of the country, with no decisions made without his input. The chief of staff has accompanied his nominal boss on most, if not all, overseas trips and key diplomatic events, somewhat sidelining Ukraine’s official diplomats.

Graft scandal

The graft scandal that hit Ukraine last week, when the Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) announced a probe into a “high-level criminal organization,” has heavily damaged the positions of Zelensky and his right-hand man.

A criminal ring allegedly led by Timur Mindich, a former business associate of the Ukraine’s leader, allegedly siphoned some $100 million from state-owned nuclear power operator Energoatom. Yermak has been implicated in the scandal as well, with opposition lawmaker Yaroslav Zhelezhnyak claiming Yermak was among the individuals captured on incriminating recordings made by NABU. The chief of staff was purportedly “well aware” of the graft scheme and was referred to as “Ali Baba” – an apparent wordplay on his given name and patronymic, Andrey Borisovich, and the popular Arabic folk tale ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves’.

Yermak’s downfall imminent? Not so fast

The alleged involvement of Yermak in the Energoatom graft affair prompted Ukraine’s opposition to demand his dismissal. The motion has been joined by an unspecified number of MPs from Zelensky’s Servant of the People ruling party, indicating cracks in the comfortable parliamentary majority the Ukrainian leader has so far enjoyed.

Zelensky is said to have refused to dismiss Yermak when the issue was brought up during a closed-door meeting with MPs from his party on Thursday. According to opposition MP Aleksey Goncharenko, the dissenting members of Servant of the People issued an ultimatum to Zelensky, demanding Yermak’s dismissal or promising to quit the party.

(https://www.rt.com/russia/628077-yermak-zelensky-power-explainer/

Has this whole war been a farce?Everyone involved in Ukraine were in the movie and TV business. How did anyone of them run a government?

>>23886747

My guess is Ukraine will have exposures of much more corruption and it will not end for a long time, which shows Zelensky going along with the U.S. plan and settle the war with Russia. The EU is involved and their outrage about Russia getting off the hook is driving them nuts. The exposure will reveal that everything Russia was fighting for was to expose the ongoing crimes in Ukraine.

The EU foolishly thinking they have a say on this settlement will be notified if not already, by Trump and US, stay out of this, unless you want to be exposed how you lied to all of Europe to keep a useless war going.

(The Putin Picture Says it All)

21 Nov, 2025 17:41

Putin responds to US Ukraine peace proposal

The plan for conflict resolution could serve as the foundation for a final peace settlement, the Russian president has said

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the US plan for resolving the conflict in Ukraineis an updated version of a proposal developed following his meeting with US President Donald Trump in Alaska.

”During the discussions, the American side asked us to make certain compromises,” Putin said, during a meeting with the Security Council.Back in Anchorage, Moscow confirmed its agreement with the peace proposals, Putin noted. However, after the Alaska talks, the American side paused due to Ukraine's rejection of Trump's plan.

Putin also mentioned that Moscow had received the text of the new Trump plan,but it has not yet been discussed “in detail.” “I believe it could also form the basis of a final peace settlement,” the president said.

Vladimir Zelensky has also responded to the plan, saying that Ukraine must brace for a tough choice between accepting it or risking losing a key backer.

According to Reuters, the White House has threatened to cut off Ukraine from intelligence and military aid, should Kiev reject it.

The US submitted the plan as Zelensky’s legitimacy at home has been significantly undermined by a corruption scandal while Ukraine’s forces on the conflict frontlines have suffered a series of setbacks.

In recent months, Russian forces have been steadily advancing in the Donetsk People’s Republic, making significant gains. The Ukrainian military, by contrast, is facing severe personnel shortages.

https://www.rt.com/russia/628145-putin-responds-to-us-ukraine/

The US/EU are preserving peace for 30 years in Bosnia — will we now repeat the scenario in Ukraine?

The lawmakers in Ukraine are fighting against peace. Z is in a spot of do or die what the U.S. negotiated.

19:27

https://rumble.com/embed/v6zvefs/?pub=4

From Diplomacy to Reality: George Papadopoulos Reviews the Updated U.S. Peace Strategy For The War In Ukraine

4:57

https://rumble.com/embed/v6zvp8e/?pub=4

Ryan Thorpe, Christopher F. Rufo

“The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer”

How some of the state’s welfare funds ended up in the hands of a terror group

Nov 19 2025

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Minnesota is drowning in fraud. Billions in taxpayer dollars have been stolen during the administration of Governor Tim Walz alone. Democratic state officials, overseeing one of the most generous welfare regimes in the country, are asleep at the switch. And the media, duty-bound by progressive pieties, refuse to connect the dots.

In many cases, the fraud has allegedly been perpetrated by members of Minnesota’s sizeable Somali community. Federal counterterrorism sources confirm that millions of dollars in stolen funds have been sent back to Somalia, where they ultimately landed in the hands of the terror group Al-Shabaab. As one confidential source put it: “The largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.”

Our investigation shows what happens when a tribal mindset meets a bleeding-heart bureaucracy, when imported clan loyalties collide with a political class too timid to offend, and when accusations of racism are cynically deployed to shield criminal behavior. The predictable result is graft, with taxpayers left to foot the bill.

If you were to design a welfare program to facilitate fraud, it would probably look a lot like Minnesota’s Medicaid Housing Stabilization Services program. The HSS program, the first of its kind in the country, was launched with a noble goal: to help seniors, addicts, the disabled, and the mentally ill secure housing. It was designed with “low barriers to entry” and “minimal requirements for reimbursement.” Nonetheless, before the program went live in 2020, officials pegged its annual estimated price tag at $2.6 million.

Costs quickly spiraled out of control. In 2021, the program paid out more than $21 million in claims. In the following years, annual costs shot up to $42 million, then $74 million, then $104 million. During the first six months of 2025, payouts totaled $61 million.

On August 1, Minnesota’s Department of Human Services moved to scrap the HSS program, noting that payment to 77 housing-stabilization providers had been terminated this year due to “credible allegations of fraud.” Joe Thompson, then the Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, went even further, stating that the “vast majority” of the HSS program was fraudulent.

On September 18, Thompson announced criminal indictments for HSS fraud against Moktar Hassan Aden, Mustafa Dayib Ali, Khalid Ahmed Dayib, Abdifitah Mohamud Mohamed, Christopher Adesoji Falade, Emmanuel Oluwademilade Falade, Asad Ahmed Adow, and Anwar Ahmed Adow—six of whom, according a U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson, are members of Minnesota’s Somali community. Thompson made clear that this is just the first round of charges for HSS fraud that his office will be prosecuting.

“Most of these cases, unlike a lot of Medicare fraud and Medicaid fraud cases nationally, aren’t just overbilling,” Thompson said at a press conference announcing the indictments. “These are often just purely fictitious companies solely created to defraud the system, and that’s unique in the extent to which we have that here in Minnesota.”

Thompson said many firms enrolled in the program “operated out of dilapidated storefronts or rundown office buildings.” The perpetrators often targeted people recently released from rehab, signing them up for Medicaid services they had no intention of providing. He noted many owners of companies engaged in HSS fraud had “other companies through which they billed other Medicaid programs, such as the EIDBI autism program, the . . . Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health Services program, the . . . Integrated Community Support program, the Community Access for Disability Inclusion . . . program, PCA services, and other Medicaid-waivered services.”

“What we see are schemes stacked upon schemes, draining resources meant for those in need. It feels never ending,” Thompson said. “I have spent my career as a fraud prosecutor and the depth of the fraud in Minnesota takes my breath away.”

On September 18, the same day that the HSS fraud charges were announced, the U.S. Attorney’s Office reported that a man named Abdullahe Nur Jesow had become the 56th defendant to plead guilty in the $250 million Feeding Our Future fraud scheme.…

Very long article

https://www.city-journal.org/article/minnesota-welfare-fraud-somalia-al-shabaab

Davos assured Trump ‘woke’ topics were off the agenda 1/2

US officials told organisers that President’s attendance in January depended on programme

Donald Trump agreed to attend Davos in Januaryafter organisers gave assurances that overtly “woke” topics would not feature prominentlyat the annual Alpine gathering, according to people familiar with the talks.

At a meeting in the autumn, Trump administration officials asked World Economic Forum officialsto scrub or pare back unwanted agenda themes as a condition of the US president’s participation, multiple people familiar with the negotiations told the Financial Times.

Washington announced last week Trump would return to the Swiss event in personfor the first time in six years. His last appearance was a virtual address days after his inauguration in January,when he called on the gathered business elite to make their products in the US or face tariffs.KEK

Senior US officials asked Davos management to tone down or avoid discussions on areas including female empowerment and diversity, the green transition, climate changeand international development finance as a condition of his participation, two of the people said.

“The US side wanted to make sure Trump’s appearance at the elite, progressive event would still play well with his Maga base,” one of the people said.

One of the people said the WEF, which had already become more pragmatic about the global geopolitical backdrop, was able to offer such “reassurances” to Trump administration officials.KEK

The Trump administration’s pressure on WEF regarding these issues echoed demands made in other multilateral forums as the price for continued US participation, a third person said.

Klaus Schwab first developed the WEF’s global competitiveness report in 1979 Under Trump the US has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement and suspended large swaths of American foreign aid — including programmes linked to climate change mitigation, women’s and girls’ health and rights, and global development. He has also ordered an end to federal government diversity efforts.

“As President Trump remarked at the UN, the world would benefitfrom adopting America’s focus on economic security, secure borders,and peace through strength over woke ideology,” a White House spokesperson said in response to questions regarding negotiations with the WEF.

The WEF said: “no government influences our editorial independence or the agenda of our meetings”, adding: “We select meeting themes and topics based on global relevance.”

Another person familiar with the discussionsdescribed the talks as “routine” for officials representing the heads of state attending the invitation-only event.

https://archive.is/MOV2Z#selection-1581.0-1585.89

I can’t describe how much I respect and love our President Donald J. Trump, and how much he makes me laugh!

>>23887295

2/2

“The WEF would never agree to any requests to shape or change the agenda, however it is normal that topics and discussions for stakeholders attending the summit would come up at such a meeting,” the person said.

The 2026 Davos meeting’s theme is “A Spirit of Dialogue”. Discussions will be centred around five global challenges: co-operation in a contested world, unlocking new sources of growth, investing in people,deploying innovation responsibly and building prosperity “within planetary boundaries”. (WTF?)

In previous years the forum has leaned more heavily into climate and social-agenda themes. In 2019 student activist Greta Thunberg delivered a speech warning that “our house is on fire” and urged leaders to act on the climate crisis.

In 2020 the forum launched the “Great Reset” of capitalism, a post-pandemic initiative promoting sustainability, inclusion and systemic change. The recovery plan inspired false rumours about the creation of a globalist, elite plot to dismantle capitalism.

WEF reported revenues of SFr469mn ($585mn) for the year ending June 2025. It has diversified global sponsorship including some big US companies.

The WEF has been embroiled in turmoil for nearly 18 months, triggered by whistleblower allegations that prompted two formal investigations into the organisation’s governance and the conduct of its founder, Klaus Schwab.

Schwab stepped down after more than five decades at the helm earlier this year. The probes — which found no material wrongdoing but cited minor irregularities — have continued to overshadow the institution.

The WEF is now attempting to steady itself with new interim leadership.In August it named BlackRock boss Larry Fink and Roche vice-chair André Hoffmann as its new co-chairs and pledged tighter oversight.

The forum said in October that registration for the event had already reached a record high.It expects to have more than 60 heads of state and government attend in January, as well as 300 government leaders and 1,600 representatives of businesses and NGOs.

https://archive.is/MOV2Z#selection-1581.0-1585.89