RT News - October 15th 2022

China is set to open its 20th Congress with its decisions defining the next five years of Beijing's domestic and foreign affairs.

Important feature: South Africa is being pushed by the West into an unfavourable energy transition deal, taking on high-interest loans the developing country can't afford, as well as endangering its economic growth.

Starlink, Ukraine, Elon Musk and "Up yours Buddy". Tucker Carlson calls "The Emperor's New Clothes".

Pres. Zelensky accuses the Red Cross of a lack of leadership whilst he urges them to visit the POW camps holding the AZOVs and other POWs (QueenStreet comment - if they report back with facts and even pictures and testimony the Red Cross will then be called "traitors" in the same way as Human Rights Watch and other reporters, no doubt)

Terrorists recruiting terrorists, at public expense.

(QueenStreet comment: $1,500 a day is the going rate for "mercenaries" who go to Ukraine to kill Russians, all Russians, any Russians, though RT say it's $1,500 a month, that's not what it says on the many recruitment sites. Ukraine hasn't been able to service any of it's debts for years so of course it comes to the public in the countries whose governments back Ukraine to pay for them (and there are thousands from all over the world))

In Gaza much of the water has become polluted and unpotable due to Israeli strikes leading to serious shortages.

Lady's headscarves are allowed to be banned in the workplace, says the European Court of Justice. Simultaneously the EU is to target Iran in response to protests sparked by an Iranian woman's death.

Alex Jones to pay nearly $1bn for broadcasting "conspiracy theory"
==========

Update on Nord Stream 2 sabotage, the report from Sweden. Via RT website (and not available in the "approved press" for some reason)

14 Oct, 2022 21:24 RT : Sweden explains rejection of joint Nord Stream probe :

Sweden explains rejection of joint Nord Stream probe

Stockholm’s own investigative results have been deemed too confidential to share with other nations, a Swedish official has said.

Stockholm has rejected a plan to set up an official joint investigation team together with Germany and Denmark to look into the explosions that damaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in late September, Reuters reported, citing a Swedish investigator. Sweden reportedly argued that its own findings are too sensitive to share even with other EU nations.

The EU’s agency for criminal justice cooperation, Eurojust, recently came up with a proposal to establish a Joint Investigation Team (JIT) to launch a probe into the Nord Stream explosions, Reuters said, adding that Sweden blocked the initiative. On Friday, Mats Ljungqvist, a Swedish prosecutor involved in the nation’s probe into the incident, told the news agency that this development would impose unwanted obligations on his nation.

“This is because there is information in our investigation that is subject to confidentiality directly linked to national security,” Ljungqvist said, adding that his nation is already cooperating with Germany and Denmark on the matter anyway.

According to the prosecutor, establishing a JIT would involve signing a legally binding information-sharing agreement. Eurojust says on its website that a JIT mechanism indeed includes a legal agreement between the involved parties for the purposes of conducting criminal investigations.

Earlier, citing “security circles,” Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine said that Sweden considered the sensitivity level of its own probe’s findings to be “too high to share them with other countries.” News portal Tagesschau, owned by the German ARD broadcaster, also reported on Friday that Germany, Sweden, and Denmark initially wanted to investigate the incident together but “that’s not the case now.”

According to Tagesschau, Denmark also eventually opposed the idea of a joint probe. Now, all three nations will conduct their own separate investigations, it added. Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson denied the reports, however, adding that “we are working together with Germany and Denmark on this issue.”

Earlier, all three nations refused to grant Russia access to the probe, prompting Moscow to summon their ambassadors. Russia also said it would not recognize the results of any probe unless its specialists were allowed to participate. Andersson said on Monday that Stockholm would not share its investigation results with Moscow.

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were damaged and rendered inoperable following a series of powerful underwater explosions off the Danish island of Bornholm. No nation conducting a probe into the incident has officially named any suspects that could have been involved in the alleged attacks on the pipelines.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously hinted at a potential “beneficiary.”

“One can now force the liquefied natural gas from the US on to European countries on a much larger scale,” he said earlier this week. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the incidents a “tremendous opportunity” for Europe “to once and for all remove dependence on Russian energy.”

via RT https://www.rt.com/business/564697-sweden-reject-nord-stream-probe/

(QS comment: Also it's been reported that Sweden, Denmark and Germany will conduct investigations into the incident separately. This is wild stuff now eh?)