– Russia warns of Europe gas delivery cut over Ukraine debt (PressTV, April 27, 2014):
Russia says Ukraine’s failure to pay its growing gas debt may impact gas delivery to European countries.
Russia’s Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Saturday that Moscow may be forced to cut off natural gas supplies to Europe over Ukraine’s mounting unpaid gas debt.
According to Novak, Ukraine currently owes Russia over USD 2.230 billion in unpaid gas bills and the debt is to rise, as the figure does not include 1.3 billion for deliveries made in April.
The Russian Energy Ministry also said Ukraine’s debt could lead to a situation where not enough gas would be pumped into Ukrainian underground storage facilities, which could then result in an undersupply of gas to Southeastern Europe.
Russia provides about half of Ukraine’s gas and 30 percent of Europe’s total gas demand with major pipelines on the Ukrainian territory.
The Russian Energy Minister’s comments came after Novak together with Russia’s Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and other Russian officials met with representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Moldova.
During the meeting, the parties discussed other gas transportation ways to European consumers, primarily the South Stream project.
Gazprom’s 45-billion-dollar South Stream project is expected to transport gas from Russia to the EU member states of Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece and Hungary, as well as Serbia via the Black Sea.
The line is due to open in 2015 and will reach its full capacity by then to deliver 64 billion cubic meters of gas, accounting for 15 percent of Europe’s gas needs.
The US is showing itself to be a poor player against this very intelligent chess player, Putin. He keeps making his moves while the US rages against him fruitlessly.
This latest “sanction” is so pathetic, and most of the EU won’t play at all, which is why it is so watered down……the US is making itself a joke around the world. Putin just stays silent, and continues to do what he does so well, move quietly ahead.
Putin has his people, many of those in the Ukraine as well, and much of the world behind him. China is his ally as are many of the growing nations of the world.
Obama has nobody. The American people are being kept totally in the dark, US media isn’t covering a word of this on TV. All the suckers who get their news from the TV are hearing nothing but tabloid, obfuscation and outright lies. If they knew Obama was doing all in his power to start a completely unwarranted war with Putin, they would be outraged. Americans are war weary, and sick of these endless wars that continue to bankrupt millions. So, Obama’s solution is to tell them nothing until Putin finally responds, perhaps even with an attack on US shores, and then claim Putin acted without motive……. creating another false 911.
It won’t work. The real war is economic, and began four years ago in VZ by Hugo Chavez. I was paying close attention at the time, I follow the money. Chavez was the head of a tiny alliance of small nations in South America, and Cuba called the South American Trade Alliance.
He introduced the first electronic currency, the Sucre, for member nations to use. For the first time, members could trade with each other using their own currency, leaving the dollar out. The Sucre merely translated the value of each currency during the transaction, making conversion first to the dollar no longer necessary, and obsolete. The SATA was small, about $500K a year, and flew under US radar.
Russia and China, seeing the Success of the Sucre, followed suit in November of 2010. China went on to recruit Turkey, and many other middle eastern, emerging African and South American nations. Iran, a very rich nation (and a fruitful trading partner to most of the world economies) thanks to the Iraq war, was already accepting most currencies, and they were glad to join.
When the US set another unwarranted round of sanctions on Iran, India and Japan joined as well. A few months later, Obama gave Japan a “pass” for their behavior, whatever that means.
Today, less than half the world economy uses the dollar at all. US media has managed to keep most of their TV audience completely in the dark about this as well. I went on line last night to find some information on the Sucre, and the resulting electronic currencies that have emerged from the Sucre in Russia and China, ETC., and found it was all cleaned up…..there is very little about it, and no reference to Russia or China can be found. Just like Enron accounting, another practice I followed carefully at the time, it has been minimized and cleaned up.
The US is already sitting on piles of paper money nobody wants, and the FED is carrying 80% of the US national debt or more. Before that reassures anyone, please note the FED is a private bank, not part of the US government at all. Rising interest rates are just beginning to be felt, and it is only the beginning. The US is quickly becoming insignificant, and its status as a world power is vanishing. If it forces this unnecessary and unwanted war with Russia, it will crash the dollar, and destroy the economy, causing devastation for millions more………
The remaining two allies of the US, the UK and Israel, will not get involved in a conflict with Putin, and both are strangely silent on the subject. The EU has allowed toothless sanctions, but nothing more…….Germany has told the US to butt out of the Ukraine.
The US has become the rogue nation, no longer trusted, and despised around the world. The heavy handed Bush Doctrine, attacking nations at will that have done nothing to cause it has destroyed our credibility around the world. Obama promised to end it, instead, he has built upon it. Putting a puppet government into the Ukraine the people there don’t want or support is the height of folly. Most of the Ukraine consider themselves Russian, as they have been for many years. A CIA backed war against Putin won’t fool him, he was head of the KGB for years, and there are no tricks he has not seen. He will have a response, but it won’t be anything the US imagines……he is far smarter than the gaggle of fools running the US. He also has much support in the Ukraine.
Last week, Putin allowed the Russian Central bank to fail instead of printing money with nothing behind it to save it. How I wish the US had done the same in 2007. He also raised interest rates, making the hard choices now to stabilize and solidify the Russian economy. Pity we have nobody in power who cares what happens to the US economy, or currency.
The war has been economic, and it has been quietly established and wrought since 2010. It was 2010 when China and Russia both started building their military powers once again. It goes together, and every time Ass Kerry makes more threats of sanctions against nations that no longer use the dollar makes him look more like a fool. Don’t they know this? If I do, why don’t they? They sound downright delusional.
The sanctions have caused many rich Russians living abroad to move their money home to avoid Obama stealing it. Money is flowing into Russia, and flowing out of the US as nobody will invest here any longer.
Interest rates are going up in the US, regardless the TV is mute on the subject. I went to the CNBC website and found ARMs have doubled in the past few months. For those with Jumbo loans (not unusual in CA, NY and the like) the rate is listed at 5.9%. That is for those who have never had a late mark on any payment………otherwise, the rate is higher.
For every point interest rates go up, monthly payments go up 13%. For years, many Americans have been riding on 1-2-3% loans, suddenly, they are over 5% and heading higher. There will be another round of foreclosures and job losses, but the greedy bankers don’t care, they have no allegiance to any nation or cause……just their own profits. They are now going to suck the wannabe greedy guts dry…..the next round of vulnerable Americans are going to hit the pavement. They have been waiting for the recovery, another real estate boom, many have lived on credit cards and promises………..the bankers will suck them dry. Bankruptcies do not include credit card debt, they are immune, just like taxes and student loans.
These are the folks who have been buying and holding on to multiple properties waiting for the recovery the TV promises, but has not yet materialized……it will never happen now. The US has been plundered, and now those people are going to get it. This career based economy is no more, the corporations have taken over everything that shows any profit. There is no opportunity for new businesses, and the fools who are awaiting the real estate recovery have been carrying properties for years that don’t pay for themselves. Any rents do not cover the mortgages, and now with rising interest rates……….it will not be pretty.
We have fools in power, and Russia has a master chess player with a strong background with the KGB and international power games. Here is the article about the stupid sanctions.
http://rt.com/news/155316-obama-sanctions-putin-calculus/
As Germany moves closer to Russia and Putin, and he quietly builds an academic and personal relationship with German leaders, they both have in mind the same thing…….world leadership. Germany thought they could buy it by backing the broken nations in the EU, but all that did was raise their debt to GDP, because all nations lied about their true worth. So, an alliance with Russia is the other alternative to dominate the world, and this article spells it out very clearly. Putin is making every correct move while Obama makes it more personal between him and Putin……and the world sneers at his absurd posturing.
Read this, it explains it far better than I can.
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/4/russia-vladimir-putineurasiagermanymerkel.html