🔹 Türkiye 🇹🇷’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu strongly criticized the United States for leading a Western media campaign to manipulate Turkey's upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. Minister Soylu recently said Turkiye has eliminated the institutions that the West has penetrated and which the West created, with the help of President Erdogan.

🔹 On May 8th, Ankara rejected US proposal to transfer Russian 🇷🇺 S-400 air defense system from Türkiye to Ukraine 🇺🇦. Türkiye 🇹🇷’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said the proposal was "unacceptable as it sought to infringe on Turkish sovereignty."

🔹 Last week, the interior minister blamed Washington 🇺🇸 for a failed coup attempt in Türkiye in 2016. He further accused the US of involvement in the military coups of 1960 and 1971.

🔹This week Türkiye has opted to defer until 2024 as much as $600 million in payments to Russia for natural gas deliveries.

Deteriorating relations between Türkiye & the US, reported on this channel:

💠 Interior Minister Soylu claimed that "the whole world hates America" while suggesting that Europe is merely a pawn of the US 🇺🇸.

💠 Türkiye was the only NATO member state without an invite to the US's 🇺🇸 Summit for Democracy.

💠 Russia & Türkiye 🇹🇷 working on an alternative to replace the Russian payment system MIR after the US threatened Türkiye with sanctions for servicing MIR cards.

💠 Türkiye confronts the US 🇺🇸 ambassador over US meddling in country's internal affairs.

💠 US warns Türkiye of potential embargo if it doesn't implement sanctions on Russia.

💠 Türkiye lambasts the US for ‘bullying’ it's own ally, Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦.

Video source - Sami Handi

🔹President E. Raeisi says Iran 🇮🇷 and Indonesia 🇮🇩 aim to increase their trade value to 20 billion dollars, stressing that both sides are resolute on promoting exchanges using national currencies. The Iranian president, is on an official visit to Indonesia at the head of a high-ranking politico-economic delegation. His visit to Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, comes in the shadow of fresh EU 🇪🇺 sanctions this week on Iran.

🔹In the presence of Raeisi 🇮🇷 and Indonesian president J. Widodo, senior officials of Iran and Indonesia signed 11 documents and agreements to strengthen cooperation in preferential trade, cancellation of visas, cultural exchanges, supervision over the pharmaceutical products, science and technology as well as oil and gas.

💠 Indonesia 🇮🇩 & Iran applies to join the BRICS group and Indonesia is interested in joining the BRICS Bank (NDB).

💠 Iran and Russia 🇷🇺 have signed an agreement on the construction of the Rasht-Astara railway, within the framework of the International North-South Transport Corridor.

💠 The Bank of Indonesia will launch its domestic card payment system to reduce dependency on foreign systems.

Video source - PressTV

🔹Germany 🇩🇪, is confirmed to be in a recession. GDP fell by 0.3% in Q1 '23 when adjusted for price & calendar effects, following a decline of 0.5% in Q4 '22. Household consumption was down 1.2% quarter on quarter after adjustments.

🔹Inflation reached 7.2% 📈 in April, which has been fuelled by the increased cost of energy. R. Habeck, Germany's economy minister, blames previous high dependency on Russian 🇷🇺 energy for the recession. Analysts hoped that mild winter temperatures, a rebound in China 🇨🇳, easing supply chain problems would get the economy out of the recessionary danger zone.

🔹Germany had some of the highest electricity💡costs in Europe. The number of new startups is declining due to excess bureaucracy & financing difficulty. Patent data shows that Germany’s ability to stay at the forefront is fading. Escalating signs of economic malaise in Europe sent the euro 💶 to multi-month lows against the US dollar 💵.

🔹Germany's 🇩🇪economic decline is heavily related to energy, which include:

🔸Blowing up of the Nordstream 1 & 2 gas pipelines.

🔸 Implementing sanctions on Russian 🇷🇺 energy companies and cutting off oil & gas supplies from Russia. Paying higher prices for pipeline gas from Norway & much more expensive LNG from the US.

🔸Shutting down all nuclear power plants 🏭, pushing "green solutions" such as wind & solar despite Germany's limitations by its relatively small coastline and lack of sun.

🔸Cascading shutdown of carbon based industry leading to losing investment capital to other countries.

💠 Check out my 7-part series of posts thus far on the de-industrialisation of Germany 🇩🇪.

Video source - Bloomberg