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Austrian Defense Minister Warns Europeans Are Unprepared For Days-Long Blackouts

December 30, 2022

Austrian Defense Minister Warns Europeans Are Unprepared For Days-Long Blackouts

Leaving one third of citizens unable to “supply themselves.”

SOPA Images via Getty Images

The Austrian defense minister has warned that Europeans could face blackouts that go on for days, leaving one–third of citizens unable to “supply themselves.”

Klaudia Tanner made the comments during an interview with German news outlet Die Welt.

“The question is not whether it (the blackout) will come, but when it will come,” said Tanner, blaming the war in Ukraine.

“For Putin, hacking attacks on Western power supplies are a tool of hybrid warfare. We must not pretend that this is just a theory. We must be prepared for blackouts in Austria and Europe,” she added.

Austrian armed forces are set to establish 100 self-sufficient barracks by 2025 that are capable of sustaining themselves for a minimum of two weeks if energy supplies are seriously disrupted.

Tanner spoke to how unprepared Europeans were for crippling elongated blackouts by warning, “one-third of citizens would not be able to supply themselves on the fourth day of a blackout at the latest.”

While Vladimir Putin remains the convenient scapegoat, others have pointed to Europe’s overdependence on ‘green energy’ and its shutting down of traditional coal-fired and nuclear plants as one of the primary reasons for increasing the risk of blackouts.

In Germany for example, the country only has three remaining operational nuclear power plants, with MPs even having to vote to extend their life span into 2023 after previous plans to shut them down.

As we previously highlighted, Germans buying up electric heaters in anticipation of the gas supply being cut off is threatening to cause huge spikes in demand that could lead to widespread blackouts.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Austria Looks To Ban Oil And Coal Heaters From 2023

November 4, 2022

Austria Looks To Ban Oil And Coal Heaters From 2023

Austria’s government is looking to ban the use of new fossil fuel heaters as of next year and replace very old oil and coal heaters with climate-friendly options by 2025, Euractiv reports.

Austria, like the other EU countries, aims to cut its reliance on Russian gas as soon as possible. The government says that abandoning Russian gas should happen simultaneously with adopting renewable heat options.

Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Austria received around 80% of the natural gas it consumed from Russia. As of August, this high dependence on Russian gas flows had dropped to below 50%, the government said.

The ban on new fossil fuel heaters, however, would need the approval of at least two-thirds of the Austrian Parliament because the draft bill would require amendments to the constitution, Euractiv’s Nikolaus Kurmayer notes.

“The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine has shown how vulnerable our energy supply is. The answer to that can only be ‘get rid of Russian gas’,” Austria’s Energy and Climate Minister Leonore Gewessler said on Wednesday.

With the Renewable Heat Act (EWG), Austria is now taking another big step on this path, Gewessler added.

Under the new act, gas heaters cannot be installed in new buildings as of 2023, the minister said, adding that by 2040, Austria would switch all heaters in the country to climate-friendly alternatives, getting rid of oil and gas boilers, and moving to use heat pumps, district heating, or pellets.

Austria will support the proposed heaters switch program by making available around $1.95 billion (2 billion euros) by 2026, the minister said.

The Renewable Heat Act (Erneuerbaren-Wärme-Gesetz, EWG) says that fossil-fuel heating such as coal, oil, and gas heating should be phased out in Austria by 2040.

Presenting the initial draft of the bill, minister Gewessler said earlier this year that heating currently accounts for around one-quarter of Austria’s gas consumption.

Russian Gas Stops Flowing To Italy After ‘Problem’ In Austria

October 1, 2022

Russian Gas Stops Flowing To Italy After ‘Problem’ In Austria

Russian energy giant Gazprom PJSC suspended natural gas deliveries to Eni SpA, Italy’s largest oil company, on Saturday, reported Bloomberg.

“Gazprom informed that it is not able to confirm the gas volumes requested for today, stating that it’s not possible to supply gas through Austria. Therefore, today’s Russian gas supplies to Eni through the Tarvisio entry point will be at zero. Eni will provide updates in case supplies will be restored,” Eni wrote in a statement on its website. 

An Eni spokesperson told Bloomberg that Austria is still receiving NatGas from Gazprom:

“We are working to check with Gazprom whether it is possible to reactivate the flows to Italy.” 

Gazprom said NatGas flows from Austria to Italy were suspended because the Austrian operator refused to confirm “transport nominations” after recent regulatory changes in the landlocked country in the southern part of Central Europe.

It’s important to note most of the Russian NatGas delivered to Italy flows through Ukraine via the Trans Austria Gas Pipeline to Tarvisio in northern Italy on the border with Austria. Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Italy imported 95% of its NatGas, of which 45% came from Russia.

Those figures are drastically different today as Italy rejiggers its energy supply chain away from Russia and finds alternative supplies of NatGas from North Africa. Before this weekend, Russian NatGas accounted for only 10% of Italy’s imports. The new suppliers will help Italy boost storage levels ahead of winter.

“Outgoing Prime Minister Mario Draghi has been scouring the globe to secure gas supplies to protect Italy from potential supply interruptions from Russia, which has been putting pressure on the European Union over several rounds of sanctions in response to the invasion. Italy has been one of the most successful countries to source alternative supplies,” Bloomberg noted.

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

Sweden, Austria Start Bailing Out Energy Companies Triggering Europe’s “Minsky Moment”

September 3, 2022

Sweden, Austria Start Bailing Out Energy Companies Triggering Europe’s “Minsky Moment”

Last weekend, Credit Suisse repo guru published what may have been the most insightful snippet of the entire European energy crisis (to date) when he extended the infamous “Minsky Moment” framework to Europe, and specifically Germany, which he said “can’t cover its payments without Russian gas and the government is asking citizens to conserve energy to leave more for industry.” He then elaborated that “Minsky moments are triggered by excessive financial leverage, and in the context of supply chains, leverage means excessive operating leverage: in Germany, $2 trillion of value added depends on $20 billion of gas from Russia… …that’s 100-times leverage – much more than Lehman’s.” (Zoltan’s entire note is a must read for everyone with a passing interest in what comes next).

But while Germany still pretends it can somehow avoid a devastating crisis this winter besides bailing out Uniper, one of the country’s biggest utilities (after all, admission would make Trump’s 2018 warning accurate and prescient, and everyone knows that according to Western intellectual snobs Trump can’t possibly ever be correct), other European nations are succumbing to what Zoltan dubbed a “supply-chain Minsky moment.”

On Wednesday it was Austria, which announced it would bail out the country’s main energy supplier with a two-billion-euro ($2 billion) loan, the AFP reported. Chancellor Karl Nehammer said the loan to Wien Energie was an “extraordinary rescue measure” to ensure its two million customers – mainly Vienna households – continue to receive electricity. It will run until next April.

Wien Energie asked for a bailout this weekend after suffering financial trouble amid soaring energy prices and speculation the company mismanaged their funds. Nehammer said Wien Energie, which is owned by Vienna, would have to answer questions as to how they got into trouble.

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

Austrians Being Stopped Randomly By Authorities And Forced To Prove They Are Vaccinated

February 9, 2022

Austrians Being Stopped Randomly By Authorities And Forced To Prove They Are Vaccinated

It is now ILLEGAL in the country to be unvaccinated

After Austria became the first European country to mandate COVID vaccines for the ENTIRETY of its population, details have emerged on how the government plans to enforce the measure.

Reports note that citizens will be stopped randomly in the street and pulled over in their vehicles and forced to comply with vaccine status checks by the ‘authorities.’

If, heaven forbid, a person is found to be unvaccinated they will be fined on the spot, with the penalty increasing for each violation.

A first ‘offense’ will mean a €600 ($687) fine, with subsequent violations reaching up to €3,400 ($3,890).

The Austrian government will check citizens’ vaccination status against their vaccine registry. Anyone found to not have two vaccines plus a booster will be punished accordingly.

The development confirms previous reports that the Austrian government will hire people to “hunt down vaccine refusers.”

Indeed, this is merely an official confirmation of what has already been happening in the country. After the government placed the unvaccinated under an unprecedented lockdown, footage emerged showing police patrolling shops and highways checking people’s vaccination status.

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

Pathologized Totalitarianism 101

November 24, 2021

Pathologized Totalitarianism 101

So, GloboCap has crossed the Rubicon. The final phase of its transformation of society into a pathologized-totalitarian dystopia, where mandatory genetic-therapy injections and digital compliance papers are commonplace, is now officially underway.

On November 19, 2021, the government of New Normal Austria decreed that, as of February, experimental mRNA injections will be mandatory for the entire population. This decree comes in the midst of Austria’s official persecution of “the Unvaccinated,” i.e., political dissidents and other persons of conscience who refuse to convert to the new official ideology and submit to a series of mRNA injections, purportedly to combat a virus that causes mild-to-moderate flu-like symptoms (or no symptoms of any kind at all) in about 95% of the infected and the overall infection fatality rate of which is approximately 0.1% to 0.5%.

Austria is just the tip of the New Normal spear. Prominent New-Normal fascists in Germany, like Der Führer of Bavaria, Markus Söder, and Minister of Propaganda Karl Lauterbach, are already calling for an allgemeine Impfpflicht (i.e., “compulsory vaccination requirement”), which should not come as a surprise to anyone. The Germans are not going sit idly by and let the Austrians publicly out-fascist them, are they? They have a reputation to uphold, after all! Italy will probably be next to join in, unless Lithuania or Australia beats them to the punch.

But, seriously, this is just the beginning of the Winter Siege I wrote about recently. The plan seems to be to New-Normalize Europe first — generally speaking, Europeans are more docile, respectful of all authority, and not very well armed — and then use it as leverage to force the new pathologized totalitarianism on the USA, and the UK, and the rest of the world.

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

Austria Rises Up – Resistance is NOT Futile

November 19, 2021

Austria Rises Up – Resistance is NOT Futile

The police and army are rising up against the government in Austria. What we need is a good old fashion military coup dragging these politicians out in some countries to put the fear of revolution in the rest of them. That is how even a Political Contagion unfolds. Only when the military and police decide to defend the people’s way of life instead of destroying the future of their own children, will justice ever rise from the ashes.

The police and the army have stood up and refused to enforce these health passes especially when Bill Gates has admitted that getting vaccinated does not prevent a COVID infection nor does it prevent spreading COVID. So there is no difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated.

The Austrian military and the police are the first in the world to stand for human rights against this foreign agenda. They have come to the aid of their country in the name of “freedom and human dignity” which is really fighting a foreign invasion. The Swiss need to raid the World Economic Forum and then we will see all the evidence of how there is a coordinated global assault upon our freedoms.

Austria bucking Trend Against Digital Currency

December 17, 2020

Austria bucking Trend Against Digital Currency

The Austrian National Bank has started an information campaign to support cash. It remains to be seen whether it is on a collision course with the ECB. There will be rising resistance to this scheme to eliminate paper money and force everyone into a digital currency. I would expect you will see the same resistance rise in the United States and if the Democrats try that again, this will be simply one of the reasons to justify rebellion. They have crushed the economy with their lockdowns which have hurt the lower classes most of all who cannot work from home remotely. But this is typical of elites for they judge the world only by their own class and will never talk to anyone from the Great Unwashed.

These financial terrorists know they have a short fuse. They are going to push very hard to get their agenda 2030 going by 2022. Schwab has sent his book to every world leader and to the governors and premiers of every state/province around the world. This is his Communist Manifesto how he thinks the world should run – the typical arrogant academic with no real-world experience just like Marx. It always these types of people who feel nothing about the hardship and loss of life they unleash on the world. He claims the world MUST accept his manifesto to “avoid revolutions” which in fact will take place because of this man. I do not understand how academics can be so elitist as to justify war as long as it leads to their land of dreams. He has even enrolled the Pope which was raised in communism. The pope has abandoned religion and thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s good for Marxism.

Hyperinflation, Money Demand, and the Crack-up Boom

December 15, 2019

Hyperinflation, Money Demand, and the Crack-up Boom

In the early 1920s, Ludwig von Mises became a witness to hyperinflation in Austria and Germany — monetary developments that caused irreparable and (in the German case) cataclysmic damage to civilization.

Mises’s policy advice was instrumental in helping to stop hyperinflation in Austria in 1922. In his Memoirs, however, he expressed the view that his instruction — halting the printing press — was heeded too late:

Austria’s currency did not collapse — as did Germany’s in 1923. The crack up boom did not occur. Nevertheless, the country had to bear the destructive consequences of continuing inflation for many years. Its banking, credit, and insurance systems had suffered wounds that could no longer heal, and no halt could be put to the consumption of capital.1

As Mises noted, hyperinflation in Germany was not stopped before the complete destruction of the reichsmark. To illustrate the monetary catastrophe, one may take a look at the exchange rate of the reichsmark against the US dollar. Before the start of World War I in 1914, around 4.2 marks would buy 1 US dollar. As soon as war action began, the convertibility of the mark was suspended and paper marks (papiermark) were issued, largely for financing war-related outlays. In 1918, after the end of World War I, 8.4marks bought 1 US dollar.2 In December 1919, the mark had depreciated to 46.8 per US dollar, and in December 1920 to 73.4 per dollar.

In July 1922, the US dollar cost 670 marks. When French and Belgian troops occupied the Rhineland at the beginning of 1923, however, the exchange rate of the mark plummeted to 49,000 marks per US dollar. On November 15, 1923, when hyperinflation reached its peak, the currency reform effectively made 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) papiermarkequal to 1 rentenmark, and as 4.2 trillion papiermark exchanged for 1 US dollar at that time, 4.2 rentenmark would equal 1 US dollar.3

Increases in the Money Supply

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

Two Events That Will Determine Oil Prices

June 24, 2019

Two Events That Will Determine Oil Prices

offshore rig

Two big events over the next two weeks will determine the trajectory for oil prices in the second half of the year. One of those events will take place in Japan, the other in Austria.

U.S. President Donald Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jingping on the sidelines of the G-20 conference next week in Osaka, Japan. Nothing less than the health of the global economy hangs in the balance.

Both leaders have powerful forces pulling them in opposite directions. On the one hand, both have a domestic political constituency invested in confrontation, or, at least, in not backing down from a trade fight. Neither wants to lose face. Trump campaigned on taking on China, and at least part of his political base may be disappointed if he comes home short of victory. In Beijing, Xi is also under tremendous pressure. The protests in Hong Kong leave him little room for error, and being seen as backing down to Trump would be highly damaging.

However, both leaders are also under pressure to end the trade war. Trump has a presidential election right around the corner, and farm country has been hit hard by sinking agricultural prices related to tariffs. China’s economy has also been hit hard by American tariffs, so Xi would likely be relieved to reach a compromise.

The stakes are high. The global economy is slowing down. Manufacturing data is weak, the auto market has slumped badly, trade volumes are sharply down globally. If the talks fail and the U.S. and China decide to escalate the pressure – Trump has threatened to hike tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese goods – a full-blown recession is possible.

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

Austria Wants To Ban Online Anonymity, And Urges The World To Follow In Its Footsteps

April 15, 2019

Austria Wants To Ban Online Anonymity, And Urges The World To Follow In Its Footsteps

Convinced that Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t quite yet have enough user data, Austria is now considering a new law that would require large internet platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to register their users, effectively banning anonymity on social media sites. The new law would be targeted at depriving “those behind hate posts of anonymity,” according to The Local. 

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said: “Unfortunately there have been an increasing number of clear violations, denigrations and humiliations online in the past under the cover of anonymity. That’s why we need a framework for more responsibility online.”

But isn’t the anonymous denigration and humiliation of others a founding principle of the internet, and part of what makes it great?

The law, if passed, would go into effect in 2020 and would make it mandatory for users of popular social media sites to register their users. The platforms would have flexibility on how they register their users, but Austria seeks to give its authorities access to a user’s identityin the event of “hate postings or on suspicion of other laws being broken”.

The report didn’t say what, exactly, qualified as a “hate posting”. 

Gernot Bluemel, minister in charge of EU affairs, art, culture and media said: “The online space should not be a space without laws.” He continued, saying that Austria aimed to set a precedent for other countries in the matter.

In Austria, the law would have to be approved by both MPs and the European Commission to ensure that it is in line with EU guidelines that stipulate that member states cannot regulate a platform provider more strictly than its country of origin. The law would only apply to internet platforms with a reach of more than 100,000 users or a turnover of more than 500,000 Euros in Austria. It would also apply to platforms that get more than 50,000 Euros in state aid. 

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

“We’re Going To Have To Do Something”: Erdogan Warns Austrian Mosque Closures Could Lead To Religious War

June 11, 2018

“We’re Going To Have To Do Something”: Erdogan Warns Austrian Mosque Closures Could Lead To Religious War

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted Austria’s decision to close mosques and expel Turkish-backed Imams as anti-Islamic and promised a response, saying the measures announced by Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz could lead to a “war between the cross and the crescent.” Erdogan’s comments came a day after the Austrian government said it would expel up to 60 Turkish-funded imams and shut down seven mosques as part of a crackdown on “political Islam”, leading to widespread fury in Ankara.

“These measures taken by the Austrian prime minister are, I fear, leading the world towards a war between the cross and the crescent,” Erdogan said in a speech in Istanbul, suggesting that a return of the Ottoman Empire is among the many ambitious “to do” items in Erdogan’s calendar: after all that was the last time the “crescent” decided to take on the “cross”, and coincidentally, the Turkish ambitions reached as far as Vienna before the Hapsburgs crushed the Ottoman ascent.

Austrian Interior Minister Herbert Kickl of the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), the junior partner in Austria’s coalition government, said the move concerned imams with alleged links to the Turkish-Islamic Cultural Association – or ATIB – a branch of Turkey’s religious affairs agency, Diyanet. Kickl said he suspects the organization of violating a ban on the foreign funding of religious organizations. A spokesman for Turkey’s president said on Friday that the decision was “a reflection of the anti-Islam, racist and discriminatory populist wave in this country.” At the time, Kurz claimed the decision was meant to fight radicalization and “parallel societies”.

Erdogan

Meanwhile, other conservative European leaders praised the move, including France’s Marine Le Pen and Italy’s Matteo Salvini. However, even Austria’s opposition parties supported the decision, with the center-left Social Democrats calling it “the first sensible thing this government has done.”

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

Huge Hub Explosion Sparks Surge In UK NatGas Prices

December 12, 2017

Huge Hub Explosion Sparks Surge In UK NatGas Prices

It has been a tough week already for those that heat their homes in Britain (and those that trade Natural Gas). Following extreme weather warnings and the forties pipeline crack shutdown, an explosion at one of the Europe’s biggest gas hubs further tightened supplies sending gas futures prices up by the most in 8 years.

As Bloomberg reports, gas futures rose the most in more than eight years in Britain, which already is struggling to absorb the impact of a crack that shut down a North Sea pipeline network. After snow fell for two days in London, cooler-than-normal temperatures spread from the Alps to Scandinavia, raising demand for heating fuels.

An explosion at around 9am at Austria’s main gas pipeline hub, left one person dead and 18 injured, according to police.

The facility about 50 kilometers (31 miles) northeast of Vienna transports the equivalent of a 10th of Europe’s gas demand.

Fire engines, ambulances and a rescue helicopter have reportedly been deployed to the area, and all work has been halted at the site.

 “Eighteen people are injured and one is dead,” police chief Markus Haindl said, as quoted by Sputnik.

He added that “technical problems” caused the explosion, and that there was “no indication of terrorism.”

Several media outlets previously put the number of people injured at around 60.

”It is the worst possible time for a big gas hub to burn, since capacity is needed ahead of the winter and it changes the expectations of how much gas there will be available,” said Arne Bergvik, the chief analyst at Swedish utility Jamtkraft AB.

“If weather turns colder and capacity is unavailable, it will absolutely drive up power prices.”

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

The myth of a nuclear-free Austria

October 25, 2017

The myth of a nuclear-free Austria

Since Austria passed a law banning the importation  of nuclear electricity in 2015 it has claimed to be 100% nuclear-free. But 25% of the electricity Austria imports and over 8% of the electricity it consumes is still of indisputably nuclear origin. Austria’s claim to be 100% nuclear-free is either deliberate misrepresentation or an implicit admission that the Austrian government has no idea how Europe’s electricity grid works. (Inset: Austria’s Zwentendorf nuclear plant. Completed in 1978. Never put into operation. Now a museum.)


In the recent Apple, Google, and how not to go 100% renewable post I described how Apple and Google were gaming the system to claim that they are powered by 100% renewables when in reality they are nowhere close. But gaming the system isn’t confined to business corporations (or the Dutch Railways). Austria does it too, but with a twist. Instead of purchasing “Guarantees of Origin” (GOs) to pretend that it’s bringing renewable energy in, Austria purchases them to pretend that it’s keeping nuclear energy out.

First a little history. In December 1978 the Austrian Parliament voted in favor of a ban on nuclear fission until March 1998, in July 1997 it unanimously passed legislation to remain a nuclear-free country, and since then it has embarked on a crusade to make the rest of Europe nuclear-free too. In 2011 it threatened to file suit to shut down nuclear plants in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, and in the same year it did file suit to shut down Slovakia’s Mochovce plant. In 2014 Austria threatened to use “all political and legal means” to stop construction of a nuclear waste dump in the Czech Republic. In 2015 it sued the UK in an attempt to stop Hinkley Point, and just recently it filed another suit to stop the expansion of the Paks nuclear plant in Hungary. Why is Austria suing everybody? Why can’t it mind its own business?

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

Austrian Court Orders Rerun Of Presidential Election After Finding “Widespread” Voting Fraud

July 1, 2016

Austrian Court Orders Rerun Of Presidential Election After Finding “Widespread” Voting Fraud

In yet another slap in the face for an already reeling Europe, moments ago Austria’s Constitutional Court ruled on Friday that the presidential runoff election must be held again, handing the Freedom Party’s narrowly defeated candidate another chance to become the first right-wing head of state in the European Union. Norbert Hofer of the anti-immigration FPO lost the May 22 vote to former Greens leader Alexander Van der Bellen by less than one percentage point, or around 31,000 votes, all due to mailed-in ballots.

This prompted a loud outcry of allegations that the vote had been rigged. As it turns out the allegations were spot on.


Austrian Freedom Party presidential candidate Norbert Hofer 

As a reminder, one month ago – in the aftermath of the Freedom Party candidate’s loss by a negligible margin in the Austrian presidential runoff election – five voting districts were being investigated over postal vote irregularities in the close-run presidential election. Allegations of fraud arose from the far-right Freedom party of defeated candidate Norbert Hofer, after the Green candidate Alexander Van der Bellen just scrapped ahead with 31,000 votes when the postal ballot was counted. As a result, the anti-immigrant Freedom Party had challenged the election result earlier this month, alleging “catastrophic” violations of election law, especially in how mail-in ballots were processed.

“The challenge is granted,” chief justice Gerhart Holzinger said in announcing the verdict in Vienna

The decision comes a week after Britain delighted anti-EU groups such as the Freedom Party (FPO) by voting to leave the bloc. Concerns about immigration and jobs featured prominently in the Brexit referendum, as they did in Austria’s knife-edge election.

As Reuters adds, the court said that widespread irregularities in the counting of the more than 700,000 postal ballots cast meant there was enough doubt over the election’s outcome for a re-run to be ordered.

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

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