RT News - December 13th 2022 Late

In Donetsk, five civilians have been killed and more have been wounded in the latest attacks on civilian only areas of the city.

Trade wars : "Dangerous and counter productive." China hits back at a US move to block sales of computer chips by launching a suit against Washington at the World Trade Organization.

A corruption scandal engulfing the EU Parliament claims its first victim, with the deputy chairman dismissed from her post. But the European Commission seems to be overlooking the issue. Report from Rachel Marsden.

The EU is preparing another round of sanctions against Russia even though those harmed the most seem to be the citizens of the member states and Britain. Austria's ex vice Chancellor says the sanctions are not having the desired effect and are taking people into hardship and poverty. Some companies are being forced to close down and this leads to unemployment, leaving citizens with feelings of insecurity.

The Zelensky .gov anti-Russian Orthodox church campaign continues with senior clerics now the target. Seven clergymen have been sanctioned by Kiev.

The U.S. is considering sending more troops to Kiev to track weapons given. Apparently some troops are there but only two locations outside Kiev have been visited. More than $100 billion has so far been given to Ukraine and that's official, from USA. $100,000,000,000 from USA alone.

Israel admits it's 'highly probable' its troops accidentally killed a teenage Palestinian during a weekend raid in the West Bank city of Jeneen. 13 bullets were used to kill her, four hit her body. The official Israeli line is "the killing was unintentional."

Peru declares a state of emergency after two protesters die in clashes with police with crowds demanding immediate elections. Analysis/report from Ben Norton.

Google refuses to change the National Anthem shown for China in search results. (QS - this is just nasty of Google)

Valdai starts today. I will try to get more info/video as it becomes available.
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Below : 1) Angela Merkel and trust
2) Strikes in UK
3) Russia's nuclear power generating ambitions
4) Defining a woman
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via RT website 13 Dec, 2022 14:18

1) Fyodor Lukyanov: How can we explain Angela Merkel’s bombshell revelations about the Ukraine peace deal?

Long the dominant politician in Western Europe, the ex-CDU leader may be taking some artistic license to suit the prevailing mood of today.

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel's remarks in an interview with the newspaper Die Zeit have caused a stir among commentators: “The 2014 Minsk agreements were an attempt to give Ukraine time,” she admitted. “And it used that time to become stronger, as you can see today. Ukraine of 2014/2015 is not the Ukraine of today.”

Thus, Frau Merkel confirmed the words of Ukrainian officials, above all those of ex-President Pyotr Poroshenko, that Kiev was never going to implement the peace deal, but was just playing games.

The former long-serving head of the German government was not forced to make such a declaration. So we have every right to interpret her remarks literally – that is, as an admission of deceit, or rather of conscious deception. This backs up what Moscow has been saying for a long time – that Ukraine was just pretending to engage in the peace process but was actually preparing for revenge, while the Western countries (Germany and France as direct participants and the US as an indirect curator) were assisting this duplicity.

We would venture to guess that this is a greatly simplified interpretation and that the reality was somewhat different. In some ways, though, it is worse, because consciously chosen behavior is easier to understand than the more chaotic alternative. It’s reasonable to suspect that Merkel had no special ulterior motive either when the peace deals were signed or when they were not implemented. In both cases, Berlin and Paris sincerely believed that they were working hard for peace and security in Europe.

The Minsk agreements, which managed to be put into effect on the second try, were the result of Ukraine's military defeats, meaning the task of its Western backers was therefore to stop the fighting by any means necessary. In some quarters at the time it was said that Merkel had actually advised Poroshenko not to sign the proposed document because she understood that the terms enshrined therein were beneficial to Moscow. The idea that the special conditions for the return of Donbass to Ukraine spelled out in Minsk would allow Russia to have a kind of “stop valve” to block further geopolitical moves by Kiev suited the Russian side.

The Kremlin did appear to believe this was possible, although there were also opponents of the approach. The Ukrainian side was guided by its traditional political culture, which believes there is no such thing as a final agreement. So what difference does it make – i.e. we will sign now and then we will see.

Was there some sort of cunning plan conjured by Berlin (Paris, then represented by François Hollande, should not be considered separately – the French president was acting as a sidekick of Merkel at the time)? Hardly. Rather, there were two instincts at work.

The first was that Ukraine was a priori in the right and Russia was in the wrong, whereas the specific circumstances were unimportant. The second was to find a way to brush it all under the rug so that there would be no need to constantly worry about how to resolve the issue and be distracted by a subject that was, in general, secondary to the broader European politics of the time.

The latter method did not work, as we can see now. In reality, things worked out along the lines of what Merkel is saying now: The Minsk agreements bought time to rearm Ukraine and prepare it for war with Russia. But to assume that this was the original intention is to embellish the strategic talents of the Western Europeans.

Of course, if the Minsk agreements had been seen by the participants as a serious tool to achieve certain goals (albeit ones different from what they are now saying), perhaps they would have played a useful role. However, because all sides had an actual agenda in addition to the one being proclaimed, the process really did become a smokescreen for something entirely different.

Paradoxically, the loser was the one with the smallest gap between its two agendas. Russia's declared and true objectives differed less from each other than was the case for the others. And Moscow did push for Minsk to be implemented as close to the letter of the agreements as possible, whereas the others – from what Merkel said – saw them at the very least as nothing more than a way to buy time.

Why Angela Merkel is now saying such things is clear. In the current Western frame of reference, diplomacy with Putin, even retrospectively and with seemingly good intentions, is considered criminal collusion. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who since the days of Gerhard Schröder’s chancellorship had invested a lot in “rapprochement through mutual dependence,” has simply apologized: saying he was wrong and sorry.

Merkel, however, is looking for rational excuses, or rather making them up, by reshaping the situation as it was back then to suit the present one. But she is doing it in such a way that actually supports what Putin has been pointing out: How can we negotiate at all then? But that is already of no interest to anyone.

The Minsk agreements are a thing of the past because they brought to a close one phase of the conflict, whereas now another, qualitatively different, one is raging. It is very difficult to imagine that it will end with something similar to the negotiations of 2014-2015. Indeed, so far, it is not at all clear what is even meant when there is talk about negotiations. Negotiate about what? All sides in the standoff have already declared it existential – so what compromises can there be? Nevertheless, it is useful to remember the political lessons of the Minsk agreements, and not at a later date, but now.

This article was first published by Profile.ru

By Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club.
https://www.rt.com/news/568160-angela-merkel-revelations-ukraine/
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via RT website 13 Dec, 2022 16:01

2a) UK endures worst strikes in a decade

Official figures show a sharp rise in the number of working days lost over labor disputes

The UK has been experiencing its most widespread public-sector strikes in more than a decade, data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Tuesday shows. In October alone, 417,000 working days in the public sector were lost.

This was overshadowed only by November 2011, when nearly a million workers walked out over austerity measures. The October figure dramatically outpaced the 209,000 registered in September, when some labor actions were postponed due to the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

The five-month period of June-October saw more than 1.1 million working days lost, the most in the UK since 1990. The figures are expected to grow even further, as strikes have continued throughout Britain in recent weeks, with a further 40,000 railway workers beginning their latest round of walkouts on Tuesday.

The latest ONS figures also revealed a record-breaking wage disparity between public- and private-sector workers. In the three-month period to October, the wages of some 5.8 million state workers grew only by 2.7%, while those in the private sector enjoyed a rise of around 6.9%.

Outside of the height of the pandemic period, this is the largest growth rate seen for the private sector and is among the largest differences between the private sector and public sector growth rates we have seen,” the ONS said.

UK Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt has repeatedly defended the government’s policy of holding back pay rises for the public sector, insisting that doing so is necessary to tackle soaring inflation, which ran at 11.1% in October.

“My number one responsibility as chancellor, the number one job of the government, is to make sure that we tackle inflation, and that will deal – I think – with the underlying anger that many people feel,” Hunt told Sky News on Monday.
https://www.rt.com/news/568175-uk-worst-strikes-statistics/
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via RT website 13 Dec, 2022 12:20

2b) UK politicians are using ‘Putinophobia’ to dismiss dissent

British nurses must drop their demands for better pay to “send a message to Putin,” a minister has said, By Timur Fomenko, a political analyst

Britain’s nurses are soon set to go on strike. The proposed disruption is just one of a growing wave of worker unrest that has been sweeping the country. Bogged down with shrinking wages, stagnating GDP, and high inflation, British workers are not happy, and rightfully so.

The politicians running the country, however, have other ideas. Conservative Party Chairman and Cabinet Minister Nadhim Zahawi recently accused those going on strike of helping Russia, stating: “This is a time to come together and to send a very clear message to Mr. Putin that we’re not going to be divided in this way.”

The comments were not a one-off but in fact part of a routine that has government politicians blaming the country’s shrinking standards of living on the Russian president and demanding that British people endure hardships on behalf of Ukraine. As disgraced former Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated in August: “If we’re paying in our energy bills for the evils of Vladimir Putin, the people of Ukraine are paying in their blood.”

The pattern is quite clear, anyone showing dissatisfaction must be told to “put up and shut up” to oppose Russia because it’s really all Putin’s fault. This has become the primary retort to any criticism of government policy or the country’s economic situation. The British people are expected to make gruesome sacrifices for a conflict they have nothing to do with, showing how the country’s absurd levels of Russophobia are allowing politicians to play the public for fools.

In Britain, support for Ukraine is among the most fanatical in Europe beyond the former Soviet bloc states. While things are not so clear-cut among the general population of France, Germany, and some other countries, Britain embraces zero-sum confrontation with Russia out of ideological motivation, being the US’ primary backer in the process. In doing so, the British government made a number of faulty assumptions that because it was less “directly” exposed to Russian energy supplies, it would not be impacted by the conflict in the same way continental states were.

This has aged poorly. Markets operate based on supply and demand. Thus, even if you do not buy X product from a given source, a shrinking in the overall supply of that product has the impact of driving up the price. This meant that even without buying Russian gas, the UK got hit by an energy crisis anyway which has led to surging levels of inflation and put the country into a technical recession. This has led to wave after wave of strikes, from railway workers to postmen, to nurses.

And what is the instinct of British politicians facing this situation? That’s right, to blame Russia for it. Now, this comes from a political playbook developed before the current Russian military operation, consolidated in 2016. Mainstream politicians learned that they could use the bogeyman of so-called “Russian interference” to dismiss political outcomes they disapprove of as being the product of malign foreign influence (In particular, Donald Trump and Brexit). Such a narrative not only vastly exaggerates the scope and capabilities of the designated adversarial power but also deliberately paints over the UK’s own socio-economic failures and grievances which led to that political outcome in the first place.

As such, it has become an opportunistic and low-hanging fruit for British politicians to dismiss or oppose political developments they dislike by saying it either A) is Russia’s fault or B) will help Russia, as if nothing could possibly be wrong with the governing policy, and as it happens the advent of the Ukrainian conflict has now made it easier than ever for the Conservative government to do this. The British people are simply expected to foot any bill, make any sacrifice and refrain from complaining about anything, all on behalf of the Kiev regime, even as their own country’s economy crumbles in the process.

If the British people willingly accept such an outcome, it is because they have allowed themselves to be duped by this one-sided, manipulative rhetoric. Russophobia has become a political blind spot for Britons, created by their leaders to fanatically antagonize Russia at every turn.
https://www.rt.com/news/567835-uk-nurses-message-putin/
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via RT website 13 Dec, 2022 15:44

3) Russia reveals nuclear power ambitions

Moscow says it is seeking to boost its export potential

The Russian government plans to increase the share of nuclear power in the country’s total energy mix to 25% by 2040, according to Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak.

In an article for the Energy Policy magazine on Tuesday, Novak wrote that the growing trend of expanding the use of civilian nuclear energy can provide a powerful impetus to further improve the industry in Russia and build up its export potential.

“Russia is already a leader in the global nuclear industry, possessing colossal technological and scientific potential in this area,” Novak wrote.

The deputy PM explained that the share of nuclear generation in Russia currently stands at around 20%, “whereas in the European part [of Russia] it is almost 40%, this being the biggest source of clean energy in the country.”

He also said that Russia’s share in the global market of low-power nuclear reactors would reach 20% by 2030. Small modular reactors are among state corporation Rosatom’s most promising areas of activity and are expected to become one of Russia’s main exports. Such nuclear reactors are designed for remote areas where the network infrastructure is underdeveloped. Their carbon-free energy production makes them environmentally friendly.
https://www.rt.com/business/568166-russia-global-nuclear-energy/
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via RT website 13 Dec, 2022 18:15

4) Dictionary expands definition of ‘woman’

A woman is now also defined as ‘an adult who lives and identifies as female’ even if born otherwise, Cambridge Dictionary says

Cambridge Dictionary appears to have entered the gender wars with a recent update that expands its definition of ‘woman’ to include “an adult who lives and identifies as a female” even though they “may have been said to have a different sex at birth.”

Manhattan Institute fellow Chris Rufo put the change on blast in a tweet on Monday, attracting a firestorm of criticism.

The conservative influencer posted a snapshot of the new definition, which appears on the dictionary’s website after the more commonly-used meaning “adult female human being” – but before the ‘informal’ definition meaning “a wife or female sexual partner.”

Daily Caller reporter Diana Glebova responded with the observation that the entry for 'man' had received the same treatment, posting a screenshot of Cambridge’s definition: “an adult who lives and identifies as male even though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth.”

Another user pointed out that Cambridge was also describing the use of the term 'female' to refer to women and girls as “offensive.”

While a few users attempted to defend the change by arguing that dictionaries reflected how words were popularly used or pointing out that Cambridge hadn’t deleted the original definition, many ridiculed the move, likening it to Orwellian ‘newspeak’, a totalitarian government’s initiative to control thought by limiting the range of words in use.

A spokesperson for Cambridge Dictionary told British media outlets that its editors made the change in October having “carefully studied usage patterns of the word” and concluding that the expanded definition is one that learners of English “should be aware of to support their understanding of how the language is used.”

Cambridge is not the first linguistic authority to tweak the definitions of sex and gender, however. A California man was arrested in April for making “hate-filled” threats to dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster, whose entries for “female” and “girl” had been recently modified to account for “gender identity.”

Americans with more traditional views may remain cautiously optimistic, however, as Cambridge’s ‘American Dictionary’ still defines ‘woman’ solely as “an adult female person.”
https://www.rt.com/news/568188-cambridge-dictionary-redefines-woman-gender/
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