RT News - December 30th 2022

"The best in history" and 'Withstanding all tests' - that's the summary of Russian and Chinese bilateral relations from Vladimir Putin, after a friendly video chat held with his counterpart.

India's Air Force successfully tests an upgraded version of their newest air to surface supersonic missile. The country's military says it will ensure "dominance on future battlefields.

"We reject Israel's racist ethnic cleansing guidelines" - That's Palestine's position on the Israeli government's new priority policy of settlement expansion in the West Bank. Tor Wennesland noted that this year has been the most violent against Palestinians.

An investigation confirms foul play in FDA-approved Alzheimer's drug. US health officials’ approval process for Biogen Inc’s drug was “rife with irregularities,” and raised concerns about protocol lapses at the agency. The FDA collaborated excessively with Biogen while assessing the drug, called Aduhelm. Aduhelm was cleared despite objections from a group of outside medical experts who advised the FDA not to allow the drug on the market.

France's ex-Pres. Hollande told Reuters the same thing as Mrs. Merkel told Politico and then everyone else, that the Minsk U.N. mandated protocols were never intended to be adopted as a peace basis but to buy time to fund, arm and train Kiev. 14,000 lives lost because of this treachery, 2014-February 2022.

Africa: Uganda. The International Criminal Court has upheld a 25 yr sentence against a Ugandan insurgent commander. The LRA - the group he was aligned to, are responsible for more than 100,000 deaths and the displacement of more than 2.5 million people. The LRA operates in more than once country in Africa. Sad report.

Türkiye: Ankara is very ticked off having found French officials attending rallies with Kurdish flags. Report.

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Below 1) --- Putin invites Xi for state visit
2) --- Minsk comments on Ukrainian missile 'provocation'
3) --- Online influencer detained on suspicion of human trafficking – Reuters
4) --- Russia warned NATO leaders about expansion in 2001 – Times
5) --- China breaks ground on massive desert solar and wind power base
6) --- Wall Street wraps up worst year since financial crisis
7) --- European stocks end worst year since 2018
8) --- NATO chief suggests ‘weapons for peace’ in Ukraine
9) Ex-French president names real reasons for 2014 Donbass truce
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via RT website 30 Dec, 2022 12:04

1) --- Putin invites Xi for state visit

Russia would be glad to host the Chinese leader next spring, the president has said

The Russian president has proposed that his Chinese counterpart visit Moscow next year. Vladimir Putin extended the invitation to Xi Jinping during a video call on Friday.

In his initial remarks, Putin noted that he and Xi had regular contacts, both in person and via calls.

“Intensive bilateral exchanges will continue next year. I am certain that you and I will find an opportunity to meet in person. We are expecting you…my dear friend, for a state visit in Moscow in the spring of next year,” he said.

Responding to the Russian president, Xi also called him a friend. He remarked that under their joint leadership “the comprehensive Chinese-Russian partnership and strategic cooperation in a new age demonstrates maturity and resilience to stress.”

Both leaders expressed their satisfaction with the rapid development of relations between the two nations, stating that it benefited the peoples of both China and Russia and helped create a better future for the world.

Putin and Xi met in person twice in 2022. In February, Putin visited Beijing during the Olympic games hosted by the Chinese capital. In September, they both participated in a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
https://www.rt.com/russia/569184-putin-invites-xi-state-visit/
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30 Dec, 2022 09:44

2) --- Minsk comments on Ukrainian missile 'provocation'

Kiev’s forces may have fired into Belarusian airspace as a provocation, its air defense chief has said

An incident in which a Ukrainian missile was downed in Belarusian air space may have been a deliberate provocation, a senior Minsk military official has said. The projectile was reportedly intercepted by Belarusian air defense forces on Thursday.

Kirill Kazantsev, who commands the Belarusian air defenses, said in a video statement that “questions remained” about the nature of the episode.

The commander explained that the possibility of an intentional provocation by Ukraine was one of two considered by Minsk. The other option was an accident stemming from weapon malfunction or the poor skills of Ukrainian troops, he said.

The missile was fired by an S-300 anti-aircraft system and was shot down by Belarus over the bordering Ivanovo district in the Brest Region, the country’s Defense Ministry previously reported.

The incident happened amid a reported Russian missile barrage directed at targets in Ukraine. Kiev’s air defense fires have missed the mark on several other occasions, with neighboring nations affected as a consequence.

In mid-November a missile hit a Polish border village, killing two residents. Kiev claimed that it originated from Russia, but Polish authorities confirmed it to be an S-300 missile that was “most likely” fired by the Ukrainian military.

Similar incidents occurred in Moldova in late October and early December, though neither resulted in casualties. Chisinau declined to identify the projectiles involved in either case.
https://www.rt.com/russia/569163-ukraine-provocation-missile-belarus/
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30 Dec, 2022 10:33

3) --- Online influencer detained on suspicion of human trafficking – Reuters

Controversial ‘manosphere’ guru Andrew Tate was handcuffed in Romania on Thursday

Former British kickboxer and controversial social media star Andrew Tate was detained in Romania together with his brother Tristan Tate on Thursday. Prosecutors suspect the pair of human trafficking and rape, Reuters has reported.

Tate was photographed in handcuffs while being escorted by Romanian police officers in Bucharest. The brothers’ lawyer confirmed their arrest to the news agency.

Tate has been described as the voice of the ‘manosphere,’ an online community of male influencers that is often accused of spreading toxic masculinity and misogynistic ideas. “If you put yourself in a position to be raped, you must bear some responsibility. I’m not saying it’s OK you got raped,” Tate tweeted in 2017.

The former kickboxer was banned from YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in 2022 for violating community guidelines. He was reinstated on Twitter after Elon Musk took over the company this year.

According to some reports, a video Tate made criticizing Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg helped police to locate him. In a clip posted on Wednesday, Tate appeared eating pizza bought at Romanian restaurant chain Jerry’s Pizza, with its name visible on the box.

“This is what happens when you don’t recycle your pizza boxes,” Thunberg tweeted after news broke of Tate’s troubles.

Romania’s law enforcement agency DIICOT said on its website on Thursday that two British and two Romanian nationals were detained on a suspicion of forming an organized criminal group, human trafficking and rape. Without mentioning Tate by name, the agency said prosecutors ordered the four held for 24 hours.

Authorities said the suspects tricked women into believing they wanted relationships with them. The victims were then held on properties outside Bucharest, where they were physically and psychologically abused. They were “forced to engage in pornographic acts with the goal of producing and disseminating such materials on social media platforms,” DIICOT alleged. It added that six victims have been identified so far.

According to the newspaper Libertatea, Romanian police discovered two young women in Tate’s villa in April. The women claimed that Tate and his brother had held them against their will. Police questioned Tate at the time and released him, but the investigation has continued, the paper said.
https://www.rt.com/news/569174-andrew-tate-human-trafficking/
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30 Dec, 2022 13:49

4) --- Russia warned NATO leaders about expansion in 2001 – Times

However, Britain continued to dismiss Russia’s concerns until Moscow launched its military operation in Ukraine

NATO leaders have known since 2001 that Russia would “take appropriate steps” against further expansion of the alliance, according to documents recently declassified by the UK and reported by The Times.

A year into Putin’s presidency, then-Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev told his NATO counterparts that the alliance’s continued expansion into the territory of the former Warsaw Pact would be a major political error, the newspaper stated on Friday. Sergeyev warned that Moscow would “take appropriate steps” to respond to this enlargement, the article continued.

The largest expansion of the alliance to date would take place three years later, with Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joining the US-led military bloc.

In his speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007, Putin described this expansion as “a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust,” although the leaders of NATO insisted that their alliance was defensive in nature. After Ukraine refused to abandon its aspirations of joining – which Moscow viewed as an unacceptable security threat – and NATO insisted that Kiev would one day become a member, Russia sent troops into Ukraine in February.

During the dying days of the USSR, Western leaders promised their Soviet counterparts that NATO would not expand into Eastern and Central Europe. As recently as this year, the US denied that this promise was ever made, and insisted that NATO’s membership books must remain open – even for states bordering Russia.

The UK also dismissed Russia’s warnings up until the start of the Ukraine conflict. “Russia has expressed concerns about potential NATO aggression, but we have been clear that those concerns are fundamentally unfounded as NATO is a defensive alliance at its heart," a spokesman for then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared in January.

NATO has since accepted membership applications from Finland and Sweden, and Ukraine formally submitted its own application in September.
https://www.rt.com/news/569191-nato-expansion-putin-warning/
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30 Dec, 2022 07:57

5) --- China breaks ground on massive desert solar and wind power base

Beijing aims to produce 450 gigawatts of renewable energy to slash carbon emissions

A massive renewable energy project worth more than $11 billion kicked off construction in China's seventh-largest desert in the province of Inner Mongolia on Wednesday. The project is part of the country’s ambitious clean energy agenda.

The solar and wind power base with an overall installed capacity of 16 million kW will be the world's largest renewable electricity generation facility of its kind in a desert area, according to the construction company. It will combine solar, wind, and upgraded coal power to produce 40 billion kWh of electricity for Beijing and the provinces of Tianjin and Hebei annually.

The project in the Kubuqi Desert will be developed by the China Three Gorges Corporation and Inner Mongolia Energy Group. According to Chinese media reports, the desert is already home to the country’s largest solar power station comprising 196,000 panels which has generated 2.3 billion kWh, which is equivalent to 760,000 tons of standard coal.

The company hasn’t specified the timeframe for the construction, saying the first phase will include one gigawatt of solar capacity equipped with energy storage.

China has substantial wind and solar power generation capacity and the clean energy base is part of the country’s ambitious investment program to produce a total of 450 gigawatts of renewable power in its spacious desert areas.

Beijing plans to produce 33% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2025 in order to reduce carbon emissions, and is already approaching this target as clean energy production reached 29.4% last year.
https://www.rt.com/business/569139-china-renewable-energy-project/
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30 Dec, 2022 17:18

6) --- Wall Street wraps up worst year since financial crisis

Major US indices had a tough 2022, posting their biggest yearly losses since 2008

US stocks dropped on Friday as investors made their final trades in what was the worst year for the market since the financial crisis of 2008 amid growing recession fears.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 280 points, or 0.8%, on the last trading day of 2022, and finished down over 9% for the year. The S&P 500 shed 1.1% on Friday, and lost almost 20% for the year, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.4% on Friday. The tech-heavy index nosedived by over 30% for the year.

The three major indices finished what has been their worst year since 2008, as soaring inflation and aggressive rate hikes from the US Federal Reserve battered growth and weighed on investor sentiment.

Inflation in the US hit a four-decade high this year, with consumer prices soaring by over 9% in the summer in annual terms. The inflation rate slowed towards the end of the year. However, experts expect it to remain above the pre-pandemic levels and believe that it will take a few years for price growth to return to 2019 levels.

Meanwhile, although some investors expect next year to herald a market recovery, many others warn that stocks could hit new lows in 2023.

“We’re sort of stuck in neutral right now, because there are more unanswered questions than there are known entities,” a senior market strategist at Riverfront Investment Group Rebecca Felton told CNBC.

“We’ve got a lot riding on this coming earnings season, when we think about the pressures that are going to exist on margins,” she explained.

“There are a lot of questions as we head into the new year, but we certainly will be happy to see 2022 over,” Felton added.
https://www.rt.com/business/569203-us-stocks-bad-year/
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30 Dec, 2022 10:44

7) --- European stocks end worst year since 2018

Leading indices have sold off on high inflation, geopolitical tensions, and tightening monetary policy

Major European stock indices struggled in 2022, with most showing their worst performance since before the Covid-19 pandemic, CNBC reported on Friday.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index began the last trading day of the year down more than 12% versus a year ago, its worst yearly drop since a 13.24% plunge in 2018, according to the media outlet.

The French CAC 40 is on pace to register a 12% plunge for the year, while the German DAX is on track to lose 18% in 2022, the worst performance in five years in both cases. The UK’s FTSE 100 has done slightly better, but is still set to lose 2% for the year.

Analysts attribute the poor performance to this year’s geopolitical troubles, in particular the conflict in Ukraine and the subsequent sweeping sanctions against Russia by the West. The resulting global surge in food and energy prices has sent inflation in many countries to multi-decade highs, quickly ushering in a full-blown cost-of-living crisis in Western countries.

Meanwhile, the steps taken globally to stem the surge of inflation, such as interest rate hikes, which many central banks enacted this year, are seen by many as inadequate. Meanwhile, both the rising prices and higher borrowing costs have significantly affected industrial activity, causing many economists to warn of a looming global recession.

The lingering Covid-19 lockdowns in China, which were only recently lifted, also contributed to the uncertainty in stock markets.

Market experts say that the subdued appetite for riskier investments, such as stocks, that was seen throughout most of this year may remain in place in 2023.

“Investors are going into 2023 with a cautious mindset, prepared for more rate hikes, and expecting recessions around the globe. And then there’s China and its U-turn on Covid prevention. It’s been quite the shift from fighting every case to living with the virus and that creates enormous uncertainty for the start of the year,” Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at the forex trading platform OANDA, told Bloomberg.
https://www.rt.com/business/569176-european-stocks-bad-year/
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30 Dec, 2022 10:14

8) --- NATO chief suggests ‘weapons for peace’ in Ukraine

Jens Stoltenberg has told German media that continuing to arm Kiev will help bring the conflict to an end more swiftly.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said that Western military aid to Ukraine is what is needed to bring peace to the Eastern European country in the shortest time possible. He claimed that Russia will only agree to peace talks when it faces a situation in which it cannot achieve its goals militarily.

In an interview with German news outlet DPA, parts of which were published on Friday, Stoltenberg said: “It may sound paradoxical, but military support for Ukraine is the quickest way to peace.”

The Western military bloc’s chief claimed that for the conflict to end, Russian President Vladimir Putin has to come to the conclusion that his forces are unable to take over Ukraine. It is only then that the Kremlin would be ready to negotiate a settlement.

On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov rejected out of hand a ten-point “peace formula” floated by Ukrainian president Zelensky that envisages the withdrawal of Russian troops from Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions.

Lavrov told reporters that Moscow will “not talk to anyone” under the conditions previously proposed by Ukrainian president.

He stressed, however, that the Kremlin has not refused in principle to engage in negotiations with Ukraine, adding that Kiev must first recognize the new reality on the ground.

Stoltenberg also defended recent Ukrainian strikes on military targets deep inside Russian territory. He argued that “every country has the right to defend itself,” insisting that the attacks were justified.

When asked whether Ukraine should be given intermediate-range ballistic missiles, Stoltenberg revealed that individual NATO member states and Ukraine are engaged in dialogue regarding specific systems, which he declined to name. He also pointed out that several members of the military bloc have already supplied Kiev with weapon systems that have a longer range, such as US-made M142 HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems and drones.

On Thursday night, US President Joe Biden signed off on a massive $1.7 trillion spending bill, which earmarks $45 billion for “crucial assistance to Ukraine.” Of this amount, $9 billion will go directly toward training and equipping the Ukrainian military.

Russia insists that Western weapon deliveries only serve to prolong the conflict, warning Ukraine’s backers that these shipments could potentially result in an all-out military confrontation between Russia and NATO
https://www.rt.com/news/569161-nato-chief-weapon-deliveries-ukraine-peace/
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30 Dec, 2022 18:42

9) Ex-French president names real reasons for 2014 Donbass truce

Francois Hollande agreed with Angela Merkel’s description of the Minsk agreements and hoped for their “resurrection”

The 2014 Minsk Agreement was indeed a ploy to buy Ukraine time and should be credited for Kiev’s “successful resilience” now, former French president Francois Hollande said on Friday. Confirming former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s assessment of the truce, Hollande also blamed US weakness for the failure to deter Russia.

Earlier this month, Merkel described Minsk as “an attempt to give Ukraine time” to build up its military. Speaking with the Kyiv Independent, a pro-government Ukrainian outlet, Hollande agreed, saying Merkel was “right on this point.”

“Since 2014, Ukraine has strengthened its military posture. Indeed, the Ukrainian army was completely different from that of 2014. It was better trained and equipped. It is the merit of the Minsk agreements to have given the Ukrainian army this opportunity,” Hollande said, adding that it also stopped the advance of Donbass “separatists” on Mariupol.

Hollande was president between 2012 and 2017, choosing not to run for re-election after polls showed him as the least popular French leader in recent history, with a 97% disapproval rating. In Friday’s interview, he credited himself for wanting “maximal” sanctions against Russia, while other EU leaders were reluctant.

Here Hollande diverged from Merkel, pointing out she greenlit the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in 2015, while he canceled the sale of Mistral-class ships to Moscow. The former French leader also had harsh words for his American counterparts, accusing Barack Obama of “American withdrawal from the international scene” in Syria, Donald Trump of undermining NATO, and Joe Biden of “the rout in Afghanistan” that signaled “weakness in the Western camp” to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

By contrast, Hollande praised Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky for the “ability to appeal to the whole world and mobilize the Ukrainian nation,” saying this will be “central to the outcome of the war and the respect of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”

According to Hollande, the conflict will end when Russia fails, and then the Minsk agreements “can be resurrected to establish a legal framework already accepted by all parties.”

Moscow has yet to comment on the former French leader’s statements. Putin has responded to Merkel’s revelations by saying he had thought her honest, and that trust between Russia and the West was currently “almost at zero,” making future negotiations difficult at best. He also said her comments vindicated his decision to send troops into Ukraine and that in hindsight, the military operation should have started sooner.
https://www.rt.com/news/569201-hollande-merkel-minsk-ukraine/
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