Let’s not mention farming and agriculture …

 

One glance at our esteemed MSM’s front pages this morning sufficed to make me sick. If you want to share my misery, you can take a quick look here, where the bbc presents said papers every morning. Of course, some significant news haven’t made it into the papers – perhaps the Westminster editors think it might give people ideas? More on that below.

Instead, this morning I’ll pick up reports from news agencies. In other words, I’ll go to the sources which our desk-bound writers themselves use. They don’t use all of them, you understand. They only use the ‘approved’ western ones. Me – I’m not tied to Westminster ‘guidance’ so I’ll also look at those we’re told to shun, like TASS or Xinhua.

The Ukrainian war aside, there was one significant news item yesterday: the video conference between Biden and Mr Xi. Western media spin this meeting into ‘Biden told Xi off’, but as always, there’s another side. Firstly, here’s the Reuters report:

“U.S. President Joe Biden warned Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Friday of ‘consequences’ if Beijing gave material support to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the White House said, while both sides stressed the need for a diplomatic solution to the crisis. While the White House did not detail what those consequences could be, or how the U.S. would define “material support”, press secretary Jen Psaki indicated China’s massive trade flows could be impacted.” (link)

It must take a hugely confident and clever President like Biden to threaten China’s trade … after all, who needs Chinese tat anyway? Oh – you mean computer parts and stuff like that? Pah – there’s Taiwan, innit, and the US and therefore “we” can disregard Mr Xi’s warning that the Taiwan issue will need careful handling (link).

There’s an interesting commentary in the ‘Global Times’, the Chinese official propaganda instrument aimed at the west. It’s worth a look because it demonstrates the official Chinese attitude which couldn’t be mentioned in the diplomatic statement on the ‘result’ of the Biden-Xi meeting. The writer emphasises this point repeatedly throughout his commentary:

“By pushing China to denounce Russia and asking China to bear the responsibility for the fatal strategic mistake the US and NATO made in the construction of so-called European security, Washington has no intention of hiding its desire to sow discord between China and Russia. […] Washington knows that China cannot influence Russia or force it to do anything. But it has regarded the Ukraine crisis as a good chance to tear the two countries apart. The more discord Washington could sow between China and Russia, the more it will be in line with US interests.” (link)

I’m sure some cooler heads in Washington are well aware of this. Thus it looks to me as if we’re witnessing another fine theatre production, aimed at showing the weak-kneed nations which aren’t following the USA’s lead in regard to Russia that Biden is very serious indeed. After all, threatening their largest trade partner with trade sanctions, to the detriment of their own American people – that’s seriously serious, innit!

There’s another nation which is disregarding the USA’s sanctions edicts: India. Without much fanfare, Indian oil refineries have secured large deals with Russian oil exporters, or, in the words of an FT report:

“Already committed oil cargoes from Russia that can’t find buyers in Europe are being bought by India,” he said. “Exports to India surged in March before any official announcement by New Delhi.” (link)

There’s more. The BigPharma company Merck is now also ‘pausing investments’ in Russia while reassuringly saying they’d still manufacture ‘life-saving’ drugs:

“Merck joins a growing list of drugmakers, including Pfizer Inc (PFE.N), Eli Lilly (LLY.N), Novartis (NOVN.S) and Abbvie Inc (ABBV.N), which are pausing investments or scaling back their business in Russia after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.” (link)

Well, chances are that they’ll regret this decision. Russia’s ambassador to India remarked that Indian pharmaceutical companies might well decide to step in (link). I wonder if that’s why BigPharma feels the need to push for a fourth and more ‘booster’ vaccinations. After all, there are already reports about covid making a come-back.

Meanwhile ‘our journalists’ are falling over themselves to write about bad Putin and brave Mr Z and ‘our MSM’ are filling acres of pages with reports from ‘the front line’, even unto reporting about a kitten ‘rescued from the rubble’ (link). Now let’s all go: aaahhhh – how kind! How dastardly by Putin to bomb innocent kittens!

Having done that, let’s wonder why we don’t hear or read about protests by truckers and farmers … not in Canada or NZ but closer to home, in Spain, France and Greece (link). They aren’t protesting against covid measures but against ever rising fuel costs and costs for fertilisers and animal feed. This ought to set alarm bells ringing everywhere in Europe, here as well as in the EU:

“The situation has become unbearable,” said another farmer, Diamanto Kritikou. “We can’t work our fields, we can’t cultivate, we can’t put gas in our vehicles, and (we can’t buy) seeds, fertilisers… there will be a problem with food supply in the country,” she said. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has driven retail gasoline and diesel prices to record highs.” (link)

Well, it wasn’t ‘the invasion’ but the sanctions, but let that pass. While EU governments might do something about those fuel prices, with the PMs of Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece calling for an “urgent European Union-wide response to the energy crisis to come out of next week’s European Council meeting in Brussels.” (link), this is far more worrying:

“Russia is also a big producer of potash-, phosphate- and nitrogen-containing fertilisers, and a leader in fertiliser exports, accounting for 13 per cent of world output. This month, its trade and industry ministry told the country’s fertiliser producers to temporarily halt exports. As a result of the conflict in Ukraine, the United Nations food agency said last week that international food and feed prices could rise by up to 20 per cent.” (link)

Ah well, that’s just another small sacrifice, just as the bankruptcies of farms in Greece, Spain or France will be. I wonder if it has occurred to our geniuses in No 10 that the rise in international food and animal feed prices thanks to ‘sanctions’ might conceivably hit us in the UK as well.

I leave you with a few other news items illustrating the general hypocrisy of the west. There’s Norway which has just legalised sanctions against Russia but baulked at cutting off Russian state-owned media like RT and SputnikNews because “The sanctions against these outlets raise questions of principle and we need to take the time to assess this thoroughly.” (link). Are the Norwegians insinuating that the EU might perhaps not have principles?

Then there’s the UN General Secretary who ‘called for action against racial discrimination’ (link). Does he include the rampant hate against Russians and all things Russia in this appeal? Perhaps not – the report doesn’t say … And finally, for giggles, RT reported the tweet by the Chinese foreign ministry’s spokesperson (link).

The tweet is a suitable ending to this week’s ‘news’ and is actually p.d.g. Do check it out here. That’s all for now – Spring Equinox tomorrow.

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