Ahmed Adel | The price cap imposed by the West on oil from Russia will actually have negative consequences in the long term as it once again reaffirmed to the international community that Western-centric banking and shipping insurance schemes cannot be trusted as reliable partners. Western oil sanctions went into effect on December 5, with the European Union stopping all shipments of Russian oil arriving by sea. In addition, the EU, as well as G7 countries and Australia, imposed a limit on the price of oil transported by sea at $60/barrel. The West expects that this will cripple the Russian economy and force Moscow to end its special military operation in Ukraine. ● However, this will spectacularly fail. Sanctions have not instigated an end to the military operation, and in fact they have forced financial mechanisms independent of western institutions to be established. Although the world economic system was already slowly heading towards de-Dollarisation, the anti-Russia sanctions have only sped up the process as important economic players like China, India and Egypt have found methods to bypass western sanctions.

■ How G7 Price Cap Started Disrupting Global Oil Flows While Failing to Slash Russia's Earnings
■ Harebrained Price Cap on Russian Oil (Stephen Lendman)(12/05/22)

Mass riots hit Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar on Monday, when protesters broke into the government palace and attacked law enforcement officials. | Protests have been going on in the city for three days now, as the authorities investigate an alleged massive theft of exported coal, but they hadn’t turned violent until now. ● Footage circulating online shows scores of people demonstrating in front of the government palace in central Ulaanbaatar, demanding transparency in the coal scandal investigation and publicly naming the suspects. ● According to media reports, some 6.5 million tons of coal were smuggled out of the country under the alleged corruption scheme, with a vast portion of that heading to neighboring China while bypassing customs. The stolen coal is estimated to be worth some $1.8 billion.

■ Mongolia opens new railway to China
■ Mongolian union boss sets himself on FIRE to protest sale of country's coal mining industry
■ China eyes more coal imports from Mongolia as supply shortage bites
■ On Why Mongolia Winning Battle for China’s Coal Market

PolitSatirCa (ПолитСатирКа) | Unrest suddenly erupts in Mongolia. | The occasion was the theft of coal supplies to China. ● Despite the fact that China quickly found and executed all those involved in the fraudulent scheme, the situation has not yet fully returned to normal. On the contrary, there are signs of a 'colour revolution' (similar to the unrest in Kazakhstan this winter). ● China and Russia have the situation under control. Nobody wants another hotspot with an out-of-control government (or rather one run from overseas). (Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator) (free version)

Director Oliver Stone called the United States the real culprits of the events in Donbass 💬 "The United States is an expert at condemning any country in the world when it crosses international norms, that they call the rules, and America breaks all the rules when it wants to, and you know it. I don't want to go into the bigger story of what's going on in Ukraine, because it's not easy at all, and everyone is just screaming, "The Russians have attacked." And who provoked it? What has been happening there in the Donbass since 2014 and how many people have left because the United States heavily armed the Ukrainian army. Since 2014, Ukraine has stopped to be neutral, it has been against the Russians, and this is precisely what upset the balance of military equipment and hence the war begins. Every war has a cause and effect, but we don't even pay attention to it yet."

Russian missiles hit energy infrastructure across Ukraine after the blasts | Explosions hit two Russian air bases deep inside Russian territory early Monday morning, killing three Russian soldiers and damaging two aircraft, the Russian Defense Ministry said. ● Blasts were reported at the Dyagilevo airfield in the Ryazan Oblast and Engels airfield in the Saratov Oblast, two locations that are over 250 miles from the Ukrainian border. The Russian Defense Ministry said the attacks were carried out by Ukraine using a number of drones. ● Kyiv hasn’t taken official credit for the attack, but an anonymous senior Ukrainian official speaking to The New York Times said Ukrainian forces were responsible. The official said the drones were launched from Ukrainian territory and claimed one strike was made with the help of Ukrainian special forces inside Russia. The Times report said that the Engels airfield houses some Russian long-range nuclear-capable bombers. ● Drone attacks have been reported throughout the war in Russian regions near the Ukrainian border, but the incident on Monday is significantly further inside Russia than previous attacks.

■ Ukraine appears to expose Russian air defence gaps with long-range strikes
■ Attacks on Russian air bases will have psychological impact- Western officials

Israel’s Elbit Systems was among the world’s top arms manufacturers last year, leading a Middle Eastern region that saw weapons sales grow more than anywhere else in the world, according to research published Monday. | Globally, sales of arms and military services among the world’s top 100 arms companies grew to $592 billion in 2021, according to the latest report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). ● The 1.9 percent rise came even as the industry was limited by worldwide supply issues related to the pandemic, with the war in Ukraine increasing demand while worsening supply difficulties. ● Meanwhile, sales from the eight largest Chinese arms companies rose 6.3% to $109 billion in 2021. European companies took 27 of the spots on the top 100, with combined sales of $123 billion, up 4.2% compared to 2020. The report also noted a trend of private equity firms buying up arms companies, something the authors said had become increasingly apparent over the last three or four years. This trend threatens to make the arms industry more opaque and therefore harder to track.

■ Israel lobby moves to label NGOs exposing Zionist crimes as "terrorists" (Vanessa Beeley)
■ Drones and Death: The Israeli Connection (Ed Kinane)(02/06/10)
■ For Israel, a reckoning (John Pilger)(01/17/10)

The green agenda is taking inspiration from the illiberal days of lockdown. | Today, planners are gripped by an anti-car ideology. Their focus is less on helping people get around than in reducing our use of cars by any means necessary. To this end, Oxfordshire County Council, which is run by Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, wants to divide the city of Oxford into six "15-minute" districts. In these districts, it is said, most household essentials will be accessible by a quarter-of-an-hour walk or bike ride, and so residents will have no need for a car. On the surface, these 15-minute neigbourhoods might sound pleasant and convenient. But there is a coercive edge... Under the new proposals, if any of Oxford's 150,000 residents drives outside of their designated district more than 100 days a year, he or she could be fined £70. Run by a Labour administration, Oxford City Council takes a similar line. Its Local Plan 2040 "places a strong emphasis upon the concept of the 15-minute city." ● So where did this ‘15-minute city’ concept come from? The answer is: from an unholy mix of the UK Labour Party, the American plutocracy, the United Nations and French academia.

Brendan O'Neill | Hold the front page – old lady asks woman in African clothing where she’s from! | Does anyone else get the feeling that the identitarians have overplayed their hand in the Lady Hussey affair? It is now five days since 83-year-old Lady Susan Hussey was unceremoniously ousted from the royal household, an institution she had faithfully served for more than 60 years, for the crime of repeatedly asking black charity worker Ngozi Fulani where she’s from. And what I’m hearing from people is that this is no way to treat an old lady. That Lady Hussey may have been brusque, yes – posh people often are – but to damn her in the twilight of her life as a racist unfit for public life is out of order. It feels like there’s a lot of sympathy for Hussey, and anger at the arbitrary power of the new elites to destroy reputations on a whim.