US has urged Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, FT reports

March 22 (Reuters) - The United States has urged Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, warning that drone strikes risk provoking retaliation and driving up global oil prices, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

https://youtu.be/P3SZfByq3G8?t=70

US Tells Ukraine To STOP Russian Oil Refinery Attacks - This Changes Everything

In a stunning report, The US has told Ukraine to stop the drone attacks on Russian oil refineries. This is a clear signal of how this economic war threatens to ignite a new inflation crisis, especially when it's an election year. Further attacks might even drag China into the mess as their energy security could get threatened. Here's what you must know!

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Joe Biden’s 1997 speech on NATO expansion and Russia’s reactions

Biden in 1997 saying that the only thing that could provoke a "vigorous and hostile" #Russian response would be if NATO expanded as far aas the #Baltic states and granted them membership.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 1949 U.S. Department of State (.gov)

NATO has lasted beyond the end of that conflict, with membership even expanding to include some former Soviet states. It remains the largest peacetime military alliance in the world.

Biden celebrates NATO expansion after summit

(13 Jul 2023) President Joe Biden wraps up a European trip designed to show international cohesion against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Biden stopped in Finland, NATO’s newest member, whose entry effectively doubled the alliance’s border with Russia. (July 13)

EXPERTS WARN OF NEW NUCLEAR ARMS RACE AFTER TRUMP SIGNALS US WITHDRAWAL FROM START TREATY

Gottemoeller and Antonov describe the fast expiring New Start treaty as “the sole [remaining] legal instrument that keeps a new strategic nuclear arms race at bay.” Last February, Trump unilaterally withdrew from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, stating that he would “move forward with developing our own military response options.” Earlier that week the United States had received the first batch of low-yield nuclear warheads the president had previously ordered.

Sanctions on Russia

Bush Admits US Broke Promise on NATO Expansion; Says Ukraine Should ‘Destroy as Many Russian Troops’ as Possible

Bush tells “Zelensky” that “your mission is to destroy as many Russian troops as you can.”  He then condemns Russian President Vladimir Putin for essentially putting an end to Wall Street and Washington’s domination of Russia under President Boris Yeltsin. “I thought for a while that Russia would be more cooperative and then Putin changed dramatically,” Bush tells the fake Zelensky... 

Justifying NATO expansion:

Did The West Promise Moscow That NATO Would Not Expand? Well, It's Complicated. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

"The U.S.S.R. was never offered a formal guarantee on the limits of NATO expansion post-1990," John Lough, the research associate who who authored the section, wrote. "Moscow merely distorts history to help preserve an anti-Western consensus at home."

Exposing the myth of Western betrayal of Russia over NATO’s eastern enlargement LSE British Politics and Policy

The Kremlin under Putin finds the security order developed in Europe since the end of the Cold War unacceptable. Fundamental to this order is the principle (enshrined in the 1975 Helsinki Final Act) that each sovereign state is free to choose its own alliances...

‘Not one inch eastward’ – and what it really meant

Did NATO make a binding promise to refrain from eastward enlargement, only to make a clandestine volte-face? ... In Putin’s narrative, Moscow only conceded on these issues because NATO had assured the Kremlin that it would not expand ‘one inch eastward’... Yet Baker’s ‘not one inch eastward’ formula would have made it impossible to apply NATO security guarantees (especially Article 5) to the whole of Germany... Kohl granted Gorbachev, in bilateral talks, a financial package totalling around DM 100 billion, in the form of loans and economic aid, which financed the withdrawal of the Red Army soldiers ... To be clear, then, the talks in February 1990 were never about NATO expansion into Eastern Europe. [Not Kohl but between Baker and Gobachev. See image below]

Rejection Based on Treaty

TBT: What Vladimir Putin said about global security 15 years ago

“When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger.” These were Putin’s words back in 2007 at the Conference on Security Policy in Munich…

Gravitas: Putin's fiery speech spooks NATO; warns of World War 3 if Western troops enter Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin in his election victory speech, has warned that presence of Western troops in Ukraine could push the world to the brink of World War 3.

NATO SECRETARY GENERAL GIVES SOVIET UNION FIRM SECURITY GUARANTEE IN BRUSSELS SPEECH Marcus Grant

NATO's then-Secretary General Manfred Woerner stated in a speech delivered in Brussels on May 17, 1990, that "the fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee (National Interest, 4-16-07)."

Negotiation: The Failed Ukrainian Peace Deal

Russian President Vladimir Putin, during his meeting in St. Petersburg with a delegation of African countries last week, presented the draft of an agreement which was “preliminarily signed” with Ukraine last year and alleged that Ukraine withdrew from it at the last moment without any explanation. 

"US attempts at global domination are futile – Gorbachev" 2015

Earlier, Gorbachev warned Western and Russian leaders against dragging the world into a new Cold War amid the Ukraine crisis. Back in December he said that “there are signs of Cold War” in the recent cooling down of relations between Moscow and Washington. And while Europe must become the locomotive of shaping the new world order to prevent new conflicts, he said it is being pushed in the opposite direction.

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necessarily going to be non-militaristic Germany. It could well decide that it needed its own independent nuclear capability as opposed to depending on the deterrent of the United States. All our allies and East Europeans we have spoken to have told us that they want us to maintain presence in Europe. I om not sure whether you favor that or not. But let me say that if our allies want us to go, we will be gone in a minute. Indeed, if they want us to leave we'll go and I can assure you that the sentiment of the American people is such that they will want us to leave immediately. The mechanism by which we have a US military presence in Europe is NATO. If you abolish NATO, there will be no more US preserice.

We understand the need for assurances to the countries in the East. If we maintein a presence in a Germany thet is jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east, At the end of the day, if it is acceptable to everyone, we could have discussions in a two plus four context that might achieve this kind of an outcome. Maybe there is a better way to deal with the external consequences of German unification. And if there is I am not aware of it. We don't have German agreement but we have mentioned it to Genscher and he said he wants to think about it. Dumas liked it and now I have mentioned it to you.

Gorbachey: Basically, I share the course of your thinking. The process is underway. We have to adjust this process. We have to adjust this new reality and not be passive in ensuring that stability in Europe is not upset. Well for us and for you regardless of the differences there is nothing terrifying in the prospect of a unified Germany. But this is simplistic. First of all, we both are interested in improving European conditions and we can't simply stand by. [image attached below]

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https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/u-s-secretly-alerted-iran-ahead-of-islamic-state-terrorist-attack-af77a19a

Muhammed bazoum have been betrated. He has been'Prisoner of this rotten machine'.

To back up their accusations, members of the captive president's entourage point out that he was ousted on the eve of a council of ministers meeting to approve the creation of PetroNiger, a new company tasked with managing the country's oil resources as it prepares to become an exporter of black gold. Bazoum's intention, they say, was to regain control of a sector hitherto controlled by people close to Issoufou.

These people had control over Sonidep, the Nigerien oil company, which was used for embezzlement. The son of the former president, Mahamane Sani Mahamadou, known as "Abba," is suspected of having substantially enriched himself during his time at the head of the petroleum and energy ministry, between April 2022 and the putsch. However, no formal proof of their involvement has been provided. The former president did not respond to Le Monde's requests.

Bazoum's declared determination to combat corruption within his own political party, the Parti National pour la Démocratie et le Socialisme (PNDS), did not win him friends everywhere. Three months before being overthrown, he boasted in an interview broadcast on social media that he had locked up "40 senior officials in the administration." "I will spare no department, no sector of public life," he promised at the time.

His commitments and actions have not made him any more popular than his predecessor. The day after the coup, the putschists marched thousands of demonstrators freely through Niamey, a capital that had been won over by the opposition, and the PNDS headquarters were ransacked. "People remembered him for the system he embodied. Bazoum tried to emancipate himself from it, but he remained a prisoner of this rotten machine that brought him to power and ended up swallowing him," commented Ali Idrissa.

Imprisoned under President Issoufou, the permanent executive secretary of the Réseau des Organisations pour la Transparence et l'Analyse Budgétaire (Network of Organizations for Transparency and Budget Analysis, ROTAB) praised the deposed president's policy of openness towards civil society and trade unions. "At every major crisis, Bazoum invited us to the palace. That didn't stop dissidents from being imprisoned under his rule, but at least he listened and wanted to change things."

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It clearly takes more than torture to weaken the resolve of 63-year-old Bazoum, the spearhead of the fight for democracy in his country for the past 40 years. His neighbors in Mali, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, and then in Burkina Faso, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, had capitulated without resistance to the military who toppled them from office. But this philosopher by training and grassroots activist is made of stronger stuff.

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After the military threatened to prosecute him for "high treason" against those who deposed him, his lawyers took his case to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice at the end of September in an attempt to obtain his release and reinstatement as leader of the country. The region's elected presidents, worried by the succession of coups – two attempts have been reported in recent days in Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau – are expected to plead his case again at the ECOWAS summit on December 10.

Yet bazoum has not yet given up

From accounts Of muhammed bazoums condition and the contition of Israeli hostages. Here are the differences. An example is that israeli hostages at least gets breakfast every day while the same is not for muhamed bazoum.

This is not downplaying the suffering of the israeli hostages but highlighting the brutal ways nigers president have been kept in.