Miscellaneous News

Overbom said:

Thanks, everybody

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1585357147743080448

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This reporter is making her job very difficult, and that guarantees us a lot of laughs.

The dispute over reparations “does not cloud our relations,” said Greece’s Prime Minister Mitsotakis during a visit by German Chancellor Scholz. Photo: Michael Varaklas/AP/dpa
The issue has still not been settled, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said after a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Athens on Thursday. This applies above all to a forced loan that the Greek central bank had to grant the occupiers in 1942. At the same time, Mitsotakis emphasized: “However, that does not cloud our relationships.” Berlin has rejected such demands for years.

Scholz had already said before his visit to the newspaper “Ta Nea” (Wednesday): “The question of reparations is legally and politically closed. I am very grateful that Greeks and Germans are united in friendship and partnership in Europe today.”

According to calculations by the Greek Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank as well as a parliamentary committee, the claims are between 269 billion and 332 billion euros.

RIA Novosti: "Putin gave advice to Europeans and Americans: fight for higher wages and don't believe that Russia is your enemy"

RIA Novosti: "Putin said he considers it possible to create a single humanitarian and economic space from Lisbon to Vladivostok: Hope is the last one to die"

Putin, when discussing the Cuban missile crisis, was asked if he could imagine himself in the role of Khrushchev. He replied "no way" and laughed.

Putin on allegations of possible use of nuclear weapons by Russia: We have a military doctrine. It's just you read

Putin: There was no military convenience for the US to use nuclear weapons against Japan - they did it because they thought it was in their interest

Putin: We talk about the “dirty bomb” that Kiev is creating for a reason, we know everything, including knowing where it is being made. I instructed Shoigu to call foreign colleagues and warn them of the threat of this provocation.

Putin: We don't need to launch a nuclear attack on Ukraine, there's no point in it - neither political nor military

I'm tired of posting the source.

Putin: Losing its supremacy, the West is becoming a minority on the world stage.

Putin: The world economy and trade must become freer

Putin on the West: Confidence in One's Infallibility Is a Very Dangerous State

Putin: The West is characterized, as Solzhenitsyn said, by "a continual blindness of superiority"

Putin: The US has nothing to offer the world other than dominance.

Putin: Every day the Western order multiplies chaos and becomes more and more intolerant, even with Western countries themselves, which are trying to demonstrate independence

Putin: They killed Soleimani - an Iranian general. They killed him and said yes, we killed him. What is this? What world are we living in?

Putin: The West always plays for escalation: incitement to war in Ukraine, worsening situation around Taiwan, intensifying energy crisis and destruction of gas pipelines

Putin: The Nazis even burned books. Now the Western fathers of liberalism have come to Dostoevsky's ban

Putin: Cancel culture does not allow for the development of alternative thinking. In the West, any alternative point of view is declared subversive.

Finland will grant NATO the possibility to place nuclear warheads on its soil

According to the Energy Information Administration as of October 14, 2022, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve holds 405 million barrels of crude oil, the lowest inventory level since June 1984.

This is due to recent failures to force Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and even Iraq to increase oil production, as well as loosen sanctions on Venezuela and Iran. The US was left to squander its reserves like there was no tomorrow.
The tendency is to decrease after the midturn elections, giving a sharp increase in the cost of living for the population.
source:

Sinnavuuty said:

According to the Energy Information Administration as of October 14, 2022, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve holds 405 million barrels of crude oil, the lowest inventory level since June 1984.
View attachment 100343
This is due to recent failures to force Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and even Iraq to increase oil production, as well as loosen sanctions on Venezuela and Iran. The US was left to squander its reserves like there was no tomorrow.
The tendency is to decrease after the midturn elections, giving a sharp increase in the cost of living for the population.
source:

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On the one hand, "China is going to invade Taiwan before the end of the year"

On the other hand, "Lets sell all our strategic oil reserve"

Overbom said:

On the one hand, "China is going to invade Taiwan before the end of the year"

On the other hand, "Lets sell all our strategic oil reserve"

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You fail to see this genius of this move. If China does invade before the end of the year, they can use the lack of strategic oil reserve as an excuse not to intervene.

This is why plebs like you and I can't ever hope to become state officials.

Sinnavuuty said:

According to the Energy Information Administration as of October 14, 2022, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve holds 405 million barrels of crude oil, the lowest inventory level since June 1984.
View attachment 100343
This is due to recent failures to force Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and even Iraq to increase oil production, as well as loosen sanctions on Venezuela and Iran. The US was left to squander its reserves like there was no tomorrow.
The tendency is to decrease after the midturn elections, giving a sharp increase in the cost of living for the population.
source:

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Even with reduced production from OPEC there was no need to empty the SPR. It was a decision Biden made to keep gas prices artificially low to help him win the midterms.

Americans have forgotten what it was like during the embargo after which the SPR was created. Then there was an actual shortage of fuel with long queues at gas stations. The SPR was created to prevent that exact scenario, not to be used to manipulate energy markets for political gain.

Anyway the effect will be temporary. At some point the SPR will need to be refilled, and when it is prices will increase.

Sanctions on biotech, quantum computing and AI are next

Semiconductor export curbs hitting China to be followed by biotech and AI restrictions: US official​

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• American national security, rather than ‘economic destruction of China’, drives ‘targeted shutdown’ of industry, senior official contends
• Effectiveness of unilateral controls said to depend on unified stance from key allies, including advanced chip tool maker Japan

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Sweeping export controls announced earlier this month on high-end semiconductors and chip-making tools to China will almost certainly be followed by similar curbs on quantum computing, high-end biotechnology and artificial intelligence software given an overriding US focus on protecting national security over trade or the implications for US companies or the Chinese economy, a senior US official said Thursday.

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The administration of President Joe Biden has announced these rules unilaterally, but is aware their effectiveness depends on a unified stance from key allies, including advanced chip tool makers Japan and the Netherlands, with a multilateral agreement expected soon, said Alan Estevez, industry and security undersecretary at the US Commerce Department, adding that the intent is not to impede China economically

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“Will we end up doing something in those areas? If I was a betting person, I would put money on that,” said Estevez, who oversees the Bureau of Industry and Security charged with crafting and enforcing the new rules.

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“That is not, despite some of the views out there, about the economic destruction of China,” he added. “This is about national security.”

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The US official said he hoped China would recognise that the measures were targeted and carefully designed.

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Fake news alert, again!

“I don’t want to conjecture what they’re going to do,” said Estevez. “It’s not a massive shutdown of Chinese industry. It’s a targeted shutdown of using our capability against us, and we hope that they’re going to respond, take that into account.”

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Estevez, speaking at the Centre for a New American Security, likened Washington’s expanded use of hi-tech export restrictions to “an anaconda slowly squeezing and squeezing and squeezing”

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Daaamn my portfolio...

KYli said:

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China should ban their overpriced crap and be done with it. China is the largest luxiry market and Italy does not have any irreplaceable high-tech stuff, so squeezing out their companies is easy - the only valuable thing they have is brand name.