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Less than 24 hours after The New York Times issued a provocative report citing unnamed US officials who are celebrating that American intelligence-sharing with Ukraine’s military has helped take out multiple Russian generals since the Feb.24 invasion, NBC News is out with yet another bombshell claim sourced to ~~the deep state~~ US intel officials.

Amid what seems escalation after escalation, and new revelations of Washington’s deepening and perhaps increasingly direct role in fighting Russia in Ukraine, NBC brings us this doozy… “Intelligence shared by the U.S. helped Ukraine sink the Russian cruiser Moskva, U.S. officials told NBC News, confirming an American role in perhaps the most embarrassing blow to Vladimir Putin’s troubled invasion of Ukraine.”

*Image later leaked of the April 15 sinking of the Moskva*

As a reminder of just how hugely significant the claim is – and just how dangerous in terms of representing a massive escalation – the Moskva was considered the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, had 510 crewmen on board before Neptune anti-cruise ship missiles scored a direct hit in mid-April, and was the most embarrassing single blow to President Putin’s war effort of the whole conflict thus far.’

“The attack happened after Ukrainian forces asked the Americans about a ship sailing in the Black Sea south of Odesa, U.S. officials told NBC News,” the report continues. “The U.S. identified it as the Moskva, officials said, and helped confirm its location, after which the Ukrainians targeted the ship.” This comes after the NY Times revealed in a report the night prior that much of the intel-sharing is focused on Russian troop and equipment movements.

According to further details based on anonymous US senior officials:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

World’s Largest Fertilizer Company Warns Crop Nutrient Disruptions Through 2023

May 5, 2022

World’s Largest Fertilizer Company Warns Crop Nutrient Disruptions Through 2023

The world’s largest fertilizer company warned supply disruptions could extend into 2023. A bulk of the world’s supply has been taken offline due to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. This has sparked soaring prices and shortages of crop nutrients in top growing areas worldwide; an early indication of a global food crisis could be in the beginning innings.

Bloomberg reports Canada-based Nutrien Ltd.’s CEO Ken Seitz told investors on Tuesday during a conference call that he expects to increase potash production following supply disruptions in Russia and Ukraine (both major fertilizer suppliers). Seitz expects disruptions “could last well beyond 2022.”

Seitz said the conflict plus Western sanctions on Russia and Belarus has reduced fertilizer supply on global markets and could reshape crop nutrient trade, thus creating even more supply uncertainty.

“Could there be a change in global trade patterns as a result? We think that’s a possibility,” he said.

Fertilizer disruptions could be a multi-year event. Already, farmers worldwide are reducing fertilizers, which may threaten yields come harvest time. The repercussions could be huge: Lower yields may exacerbate the food crisis.

Here are the latest signs commercial farmers worldwide are reducing fertilizer usage because of higher prices or shortages.

Revealed last week, SLC Agricola SA, one of Brazil’s largest farming operations, managing fields of soybeans, corn, and cotton fields in an area larger than the state of Delaware, will reduce the use of fertilizer by 20% and 25%.

Coffee farmers in Brazil, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Costa Rica, some of the largest coffee-producing countries, are expected to spread less fertilizer because of high costs and shortages. A coffee cooperative representing 1,200 farmers in Costa Rica predicts coffee output could slip 15% next year because of soaring fertilizer costs.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Empire of Lies Eager to Receive Mr. Sarmat’s Business Card

May 1, 2022

Empire of Lies Eager to Receive Mr. Sarmat’s Business Card

The only antidote to propaganda dementia is served by sparse voices of reason, which happen to be Russian, thus silenced and/or dismissed.

Especially since the onset of GWOT (Global War on Terror) at the start of the millennium, no one ever lost money betting against the toxic combo of hubris, arrogance and ignorance serially deployed by the Empire of Chaos and Lies.

What passes for “analysis” in the vast intellectual no-fly zone known as U.S. Think Tankland includes wishful thinking babble such as Beijing “believing” that Moscow would play a supporting role in the Chinese century just to see Russia, now, in the geopolitical driver’s seat.

This is a fitting example not only of outright Russophobic/Sinophobic paranoia about the emergence of peer competitors in Eurasia – the primeval Anglo-American nightmare – but also crass ignorance about the finer points of the complex Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership.

As Operation Z methodically hits Phase 2, the Americans – with a vengeance – have also embarked on their symmetrical Phase 2, which de facto translates as an outright escalation towards Totalen Krieg, from shades of hybrid to incandescent, everything of course by proxy. Notorious Raytheon weapons peddler reconverted into Pentagon head, Lloyd Austin, gave away the game in Kiev:

“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”

So this is it: the Empire wants to annihilate Russia. Cue to War Inc.’s frenzy of limitless weapon cargos descending on Ukraine, the overwhelming majority on the road to be duly eviscerated by Russian precision strikes. The Americans are sharing intel 24/7 with Kiev not only on Donbass and Crimea but also Russian territory…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

You Are Not Real

April 25, 2022

You Are Not Real

Shakespeare’s famously gory “Titus Andronicus” is replete with violence, including fourteen deaths. Yet it continues to be performed, and audiences continue to sign up for a frisson of fear and pity, because this is not real.

After the play, the actors get up, wash off the fake blood, and join the playwrights and directors for drinks or dinner.

If, like me, you’ve been wondering about why things are the way they are in today’s world, and how this relates, this is my explanation: For the actors, writers and directors who create real world narratives, the play is you. And you are not real.

Actors and Reality

Much has been made of the jarring dissonance between the heroic stand of the president and the people of Ukraine and the facile signaling of the Social Justice crowd. Feel free to pick your favorite exemplar, from the merely stupid banning of Russian cats and renaming of White Russian cocktails to the more sinister cancelling of Russian performers, or the horrific threats and vandalism to places serving Russian food. There’s no shortage of content here. And, as we’ll get to shortly, that’s the point.

Ukraine’s policy goals do not map fully to those of the United States (think Azov Battalion, for starters), and we can and should carefully consider our response with that awareness. But this does not change Ukrainian heroism. Zelensky wants planes, a no-fly zone, and he would no doubt love NATO boots on the ground. Prudence may dictate we provide him none of these, but it is worth noting that any of us in his circumstances would likely be asking for the same things. Any of us who stayed during the onslaught, that is.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

It’s Not Just High Oil Prices. It’s a Full-Blown Energy Crisis.

April 24, 2022

It’s Not Just High Oil Prices. It’s a Full-Blown Energy Crisis.

Credit…Sebastian Castaneda/Reuters

Americans are worrying about their gas prices. Germans are turning down their heating. Peru has seen violent protests — and a violent crackdown on them — over rising fuel costs. Nigeria’s national energy grid recently collapsed. And that’s just this spring. Focused on the future, the United Nations Intergovernmental Planet on Climate Change warned in a report on April 4 that too much investment is going into fossil fuels and too little into the energy transition that could prevent a devastating increase in global temperatures.

This persistent, simmering crisis around energy, its cost and the politics around it will not end soon.

Vladimir Putin has escalated this crisis. His invasion of Ukraine has pushed up prices and forced Europe — until now the largest importer of Russian natural gas — to begin an attempt to end its longstanding dependence on Russian gas. But Mr. Putin didn’t cause this crisis alone. For nearly a year before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, supply struggled to meet demand, causing prices to surge. For the best part of a decade, the American shale boom met the world’s rising energy needs, but in 2020 shale oil output slumped and the rate of growth of shale gas fell.

President Biden’s hope that he could focus his presidency on the climate, not fixing the world’s oil supply, shattered. Unable to resurrect a nuclear deal with Iran that would have restored Iranian oil to world markets, Mr. Biden began last year to ask other producers to increase their output. His pressure was to no avail. Meanwhile, China’s demand for gas imports grew by 20 percent over 2021, helping push European gas prices up nearly sixfold between March and December.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ukraine war: World Bank warns of ‘human catastrophe’ food crisis

April 23, 2022

Ukraine war: World Bank warns of ‘human catastrophe’ food crisis

The world faces a “human catastrophe” from a food crisis arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, World Bank president David Malpass has said.

He told the BBC that record rises in food prices would push hundreds of millions people into poverty and lower nutrition, if the crisis continues.

The World Bank calculates there could be a “huge” 37% jump in food prices.

This would hit the poor hardest, who will “eat less and have less money for anything else such as schooling”.

In an interview with BBC economics editor Faisal Islam, Mr Malpass, who leads the institution charged with global alleviation of poverty, said the impact on the poor made it “an unfair kind of crisis… that was true also of Covid”.

“It’s a human catastrophe, meaning nutrition goes down. But then it also becomes a political challenge for governments who can’t do anything about it, they didn’t cause it and they see the prices going up,” he said on the sidelines of the IMF-World Bank meetings in Washington.

The price rises are broad and deep, he said: “It’s affecting food of all different kinds oils, grains, and then it gets into other crops, corn crops, because they go up when wheat goes up”.

There was enough food in the world to feed everybody, he said, and global stockpiles are large by historical standards, but there will have to be a sharing or sales process to get the food to where it is needed.

Mr Malpass also discouraged countries from subsidising production or capping prices.

Instead, he said, the focus needed to be on increasing supplies across the world of fertilisers and food, alongside targeted assistance for the very poorest people.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Rockefeller Foundation President Starts Countdown Until All Hell Breaks Loose

April 23, 2022

Rockefeller Foundation President Starts Countdown Until All Hell Breaks Loose

Rockefeller Foundation President Rajiv Shah told Bloomberg Television’s David Westin a “massive, immediate food crisis” is on the horizon.

Shah provides what could be a timeline for the next global food crisis that could begin “in the next six months.”

He said global fertilizer supply disruptions caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine would have an “even worse” impact on the crisis, slashing crop yields worldwide.

Shah said debt relief and emergency aid for emerging market countries are needed to mitigate the effects of the food crisis.

Shah’s appearance on Bloomberg is interesting because of the foundation’s repetitive talk about the need for the global food supply to be reset to a more sustainable one. The foundation has closely aligned views with the World Economic Forum (WEF), advocating for a ‘global reset‘.

WEF founder Klaus Schwab famously said in early 2020, months after the virus pandemic began, “The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future.”

While Schwab and other global elites have been calling for a global reset, Rockefeller Foundation’s managing director of Food Initiative Sara Farley has echoed the same message.

Farley’s note published on WEF’s website titled “How to reimagine our food systems for a post-COVID world” outlined the need to “redesign supply chains with nutrition and human health in mind.”

Rockefeller Foundation’s senior vice president of Food Initiative Roy Steiner recently said, “the world is spending far too much on foods that are bad for people and bad for the planet.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ukraine war: World Bank warns of ‘human catastrophe’ food crisis

April 22, 2022

Ukraine war: World Bank warns of ‘human catastrophe’ food crisis

The world faces a “human catastrophe” from a food crisis arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, World Bank president David Malpass has said.

He told the BBC that record rises in food prices would push hundreds of millions people into poverty and lower nutrition, if the crisis continues.

The World Bank calculates there could be a “huge” 37% jump in food prices.

This would hit the poor hardest, who will “eat less and have less money for anything else such as schooling”.

The price rises are broad and deep, he said: “It’s affecting food of all different kinds oils, grains, and then it gets into other crops, corn crops, because they go up when wheat goes up”.

Mr Malpass also discouraged countries from subsidising production or capping prices.

Instead, he said, the focus needed to be on increasing supplies across the world of fertilisers and food, alongside targeted assistance for the very poorest people.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Will We Have Food Shortages In America?

April 21, 2022

Will We Have Food Shortages In America?

Green milling tractor. — *Aerial shot of a milling tractor (Tom Fisk/Pexels).*

Higher Food Prices And Shortages?

Our system has been betting on higher food prices since earlier this year, and of course the war in Ukraine has put upward pressure on food an energy. But now one of our Twitter correspondents warns we may have food shortages in America as well. Let’s start with the case for higher prices, then consider his warning of shortages and what to do about them.

Betting On Higher Food And Energy Prices

A month before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, our system’s top names had shifted to an energy and food focus, as we noted in a post here at the time (Why Civilizations Collapse).

In that post, we noted we had two oil E&P stocks (Laredo Petroleum (LPI) and Antero Resources (AR)), two oil ETFs (ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil (UCO) and VanEck Vectors Oil Services (OIH)), and a coffee ETN (iPath Series B Bloomberg Subindex Total Return (JO)) and a corn ETF (Teucrium Corn Fund (CORN)) in our top ten names.

Screen capture via the Portfolio Armor on 1/28/2022.

Since then, the energy and corn names have ripped higher (though coffee has cooled off a bit).

Of course, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has played a role here. In addition to being one of the world’s top exporters of wheat (along with Ukraine), Russia is also one of the top exporters of agricultural inputs such as oil, natural gas, and fertilizer. The war, plus the sanctions regime in response to it, have raised food and energy prices and raised the prospect of food shortages in countries such as Egypt, which are dependent on wheat imports. America, as an agricultural superpower, seemed less likely to suffer food shortages.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

David Stockman on Inflationary Hell That’s About to Break Loose

April 21, 2022

David Stockman on Inflationary Hell That’s About to Break Loose

It is only a matter of time before Kiev surrenders to the Russians, with or without their clown-car president signing the armistice. But that deal will be so onerous from Washington’s perspective that it will not mark the end of the sanctions war, but will be an excuse for its actual intensification and indefinite prolongation.

When that becomes the reality, however, inflationary hell will break out all over the place. And the Fed’s decades-long experiment in egregious, inflationary money-pumping will splatter ignominiously all over the Eccles Building (Fed headquarters).

It now appears that commodities markets have been so drastically roiled by the action to date that Washington’s war on the global trading and payments system is now open-ended and can theoretically go on for years.

That’s because the Russian-loathing, Putin-demonizing Dems now in charge of policy in Washington cannot even see straight when it comes to the real issues of the conflict.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with partitioning Ukraine and Crimea, nor with Putin’s proposed new security arrangement that would have NATO move its missile bases to the pre-1999 status quo and the re-garrisoning of US and Western military forces to the old NATO territories.

But these plausible solutions are so far removed from the war fevers now raging on the Potomac that there is no chance of Washington embracing a negotiated solution to the Ukrainian war. It will actually take a historic GOP sweep in the 2024 elections to clear the decks of Putin/Russian demonization, and even that would not make a difference if the blood-thirsty neocons and military hawks retained control of the GOP.

Meanwhile, just like that, the price of oil recently hit $130 per barrel.

Here’s the thing.

Double-digit inflation is now guaranteed and it will be long-lasting.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

One-Third of Ukraine Farmland May Go Unplanted As Russia Begins ‘Second Phase’ Of War

April 20, 2022

One-Third of Ukraine Farmland May Go Unplanted As Russia Begins ‘Second Phase’ Of War

About one-third of Ukraine’s farmlands may not be harvested or cultivated this year as Russia begins the second phase of the conflict in the war-torn country.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) noted in a report on Tuesday that the “vast destruction of crops and infrastructure due to the war jeopardizes food production.”

FAO estimates approximately 33% of the crops and agricultural land may not be harvested because of the escalating war.

In March, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged farmers to sow as many fields as possible to protect the food supply, but that appears to be a challenging task considering the displacement of people (labor shortage), bombed-out fields, severely damaged infrastructure, and shortage of everything (diesel, seeds, & fertilizer).

Ukraine is considered the world’s second-biggest shipper of grains and the biggest exporter of sunflower oil. The planting season has already begun — its crop production is vital to the global food supply.

Even if farmers were to sow as many fields as possible, their ability to export crops would be severely impacted during the harvest season due to damaged infrastructure, such as bombed-out rail systems, highways, bridges, and ports. Also, buyers of grains can barely get dry bulk carriers insured to transit the Black Sea to a Ukrainian port because of soaring war risk premiums.

Besides FAO, some private ag forecasters have warned crop harvests could be halved.

Forecast data from ag expert UkrAgroConsult show Ukraine’s corn output could be as low as 19 million tons, about half of last year’s 41 million tons.

There’s no question in our minds the impacts of continuing war will boost global food prices to new record highs. Ukraine is a top producing grains country and what this may spell next is a worldwide food crisis.

Global Rice Production Set To Plunge 10%, Threatening Half Of Humanity

April 20, 2022

Global Rice Production Set To Plunge 10%, Threatening Half Of Humanity

Farmers in China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Vietnam — the largest rice-producing countries could experience reduced output due to soaring fertilizer prices.

The International Rice Research Institute warns that harvests could plunge as much as 10% in the next season, equating to about 36 million tons of rice, or enough food to feed a half billion people, according to Bloomberg.

Chemical fertilizers, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, are the most applied nutrients for high-yielding rice cultivation. Farmers have been particularly vulnerable to soaring fertilizer prices as some have reduced the amount of nutrients to save costs. This threatens future harvests as production declines could stoke food inflation for a crop that feeds half of humanity.

Humnath Bhandari, a senior agricultural economist at the institute, said the 10% drop in global rice production is a “very conservative estimate.” He said if the Ukraine conflict continued and fertilizer prices remained high and supply limited, then the decline of rice output could be even more severe. This may trigger a full-blown global food crisis, similar to the one that the UN has been warning about.

Russia and Belarus are big suppliers of every major type of crop nutrient. Western countries have sanctioned both, which have limited fertilizers shipments to the rest of the world, crimping supply and why prices are soaring. On top of this, Moscow has reduced or halted nutrient exports.

Nguyen Binh Phong, the owner of a fertilizer shop in Vietnam’s Kien Giang province, said nutrient costs have soared three-fold over the past year, forcing farmers in the region to reduce fertilizer use by up to 20% because of rising prices.

“When the farmers cut fertilizer use, they accept that they will get lower profit,” Phong said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

3 Factors Which Are About To Make The Coming Food Shortages Even Worse

April 19, 2022

3 Factors Which Are About To Make The Coming Food Shortages Even Worse

A confluence of circumstances has come together to create a “perfect storm” for global food production, and now that “perfect storm” is about to get even worse. For months I warned that this crisis was coming, and in recent weeks I have been documenting how dire conditions have already become all over the globe. The head of the UN World Food Program is warning that this is going to be the worst worldwide food crisis since World War II, and even Joe Biden is admitting that the approaching food shortages “are going to be real”. Unfortunately, there have been some new developments which threaten to significantly escalate things.

In recent days, the number of newly confirmed COVID cases in China has soared to record highs, and Chinese authorities have responded to this with unprecedented lockdowns.

As a result, almost 400 million Chinese are now “under full or partial lockdown”…

Nearly 400 million people across 45 cities in China are under full or partial lockdown as part of China’s strict zero-Covid policy. Together they represent 40%, or $7.2 trillion, of annual gross domestic product for the world’s second-largest economy, according to data from Nomura Holdings.

Analysts are ringing warning bells, but say investors aren’t properly assessing how serious the global economic fallout might be from these prolonged isolation orders.

Chinese lockdowns are a lot more brutal than lockdowns in the western world.

By now, you have probably seen video footage of Shanghai residents literally screaming from their apartment windows.

I have never seen anything like that before, and these lockdowns will continue as long as COVID keeps spreading.

To put this in perspective, the number of people that are currently locked down in China is greater than the total population of the United States.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Putin Driving Up Oil Prices Is An “Outrageous Lie”: USF Geology Professor Dr. Marc Defant

April 4, 2022

Putin Driving Up Oil Prices Is An “Outrageous Lie”: USF Geology Professor Dr. Marc Defant

“I read a lot of the literature on global warming and for AOC to come out and say 2 or 3 years ago that the world was going to end in 12 years – that’s just hysterical craziness.”

About two weeks ago, I published an interview with Dr. Marc Defant about why he thought President Biden’s oil policies were “bat-shit crazy” and creating more turmoil than they were helping alleviate problems in markets.

This past weekend, I was happy to welcome him onto my podcast for a discussion about the current state of energy in the U.S., including pros and cons of natural gas, fracking, shutting down pipeline projects in the U.S. and the cost benefit analysis of extreme activist environmentalists.

Why We are Alone in the Galaxy | Marc Defant | TEDxUSF - YouTube

Dr. Marc J. Defant is a professor of geology/geochemistry at the University of South Florida. He worked for Schlumberger Well Services and Shell Oil for three years, with two years at Shell working as an exploration geologist.

He has been funded by the National Science Foundation, National Geographic, the American Chemical Society, and the National Academy of Sciences, and has published in many internationally renowned scientific journals including Nature. He has written a book entitled Voyage of Discovery: From the Big Bang to the Ice Age and published several articles for general readership magazines such as Skeptic and Popular Science and appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. You can reach him via this contact form.

First, we talked about how the price of oil got so high to begin with.

Dr. Defant told me: “Gas was up 40% and oil was up 80% before the Ukrainian war started. What got me a little incensed was that Biden is going around saying the price of gasoline is due to to Putin.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What War in Ukraine Means for Energy and Money

April 3, 2022

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