🔹Russia 🇷🇺 will start purchasing yuan on the currency market in 2023 if the country's oil and gas revenues meet expectations. The Bank of Russia will buy yuan if budget revenues from oil and gas exports exceed 8 trillion rubles ($116.57 billion).

🔹The share of the US dollar in spot transactions has halved from 84% to 42% on the Moscow Exchange. The share of the Belarusian 🇷🇺 ruble is up 📈 110X, Chinese 🇨🇳 yuan 41X, Turkish 🇹🇷 lira 17X, Kazakh 🇰🇿 tenge 13X.

🔹Russia in February stopped intervening on the currency market after its use of foreign exchange reserves was restricted by Western sanctions. Russia has since accelerated its shift toward China's currency.

🔹The 🇨🇳 yuan's share of the Russian currency market has risen to as much as 45%, up from less than 1% at the start of the year. The ruble slipped to 72 rubles:1 USD 🇺🇸, its lowest level against the dollar since April 29th. It is still trading 4% higher than it did in January.

Video courtesy Sean Foo

🔹Hungary's 🇭🇺 PM Viktor Orban concerned over the deaths of Hungarians killed in Ukraine. Ukrainian military has been disproportionately connoscripting ethnic Hungarians from the Transcarpathian Oblast, Ukraine.

🔹Ukraine's new regulation targets Hungarians with dual Ukrainian-Hungarian citizenship, as they are no longer allowed to cross the Ukrainian border with a Hungarian passport .

🔹The Hungarian Cultural Association of Transcarpathia & the Hungarian Democratic Alliance of Ukraine 🇺🇦 criticize a new minority law passed by Ukraine. Interpretation of the law will lead to ethnic Hungarian communities & organizations from the exercise of institutional political, educational & linguistic rights.

🔹The law not only reinforces the restrictions on rights previously codified in the Education & Language Law that was hurtful to Hungarian communities, but also introduces new ones, and it “does not guarantee the preservation of compact nationality settlement areas, nor the use of nationality symbols.

🔹Russia 🇷🇺 & Iran 🇮🇷 are building a new transcontinental trade route and are rapidly expanding supply chains, having stepped up mutual cargo deliveries across the Caspian Sea. Russia and its ally Iran have been able to bypass the Western trade sanctions as the two countries began shipment 🚢 of goods via the North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) that connects Moscow with Asian and Persian markets.

🔹A trilateral deal was signed by Azerbaijan 🇦🇿, Russia, and Iran to facilitate the development of the INST). Azerbaijani FM: From Jan-Oct. 2022, the INSTC trade turnover exceeded $3 billion, thus growing by 20%. Discusses with Russia's FM to promote the INSTC.

🔹Kazakh 🇰🇿Minister of Trade and Integration hindrances to INSTC need to be addressed. There is a need to eliminate bottlenecks along the INSTC, it is necessary to digitalize the process of controlling cargo flow at the borders, harmonize customs procedures and coordinate tariff policy.

🔹A traditional informal summit of the leaders of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has started in St. Petersburg, Russia🇷🇺. President Putin said, “unfortunately, challenges and threats in this area, coming primarily from outside, are growing every year”. Against this backdrop, he added that CIS intelligence agencies and other security institutions have been engaged in “close contacts.” Armenian 🇦🇲 PM & President Putin meets on the sidelines.

🔹Uzbekistan 🇺🇿 is developing cooperation with partners within the CIS in three dimensions: in politics and security, economic and humanitarian spheres". The country considers the establishment of a full-fledged free trade zone and the strengthening of transport interconnectivity in the CIS as priority tasks.

🔹Kazakh 🇰🇿president said, "we believe that we should work substantively on the elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers, preventing protectionism. We should establish cooperation in food security,".

🔹European traders are evading sanctions with fake paperwork claiming Russian🇷🇺/Belarussian 🇧🇾firewood is from Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan.

🔹France 🇫🇷 issues vouchers for firewood to help families cope.

🔹Bulgarians 🇧🇬 stock up on firewood due to less coal received from the Donbas, Russia.

🔹Fears rise in Germany 🇩🇪 over firewood theft.

Previous reports on this channel:

💠 Demand for firewood soars in Austria🇦🇹. 40% increase in wood burning stove sales in the UK .

💠 On the Swedish 🇸🇪 marketplace site Blocket, the word "firewood" 🪵 became the most searched term on the site.

💠 Firewood / wood pellet prices & demand drastically increase in Sweden 🇸🇪, Estonia 🇪🇪, Belgium 🇧🇪 & UK 🇬🇧. Germany google searches for firewood skyrockets.

💠 Centuries old forests in the Gurghiu mountains in Romania,🇷🇴 are being exploited for firewood as demand soars.

🔹Russia 🇷🇺 & Türkiye 🇹🇷 have begun working on a proposal for a natural gas distribution hub based in Türkiye. The gas hub will help to ensure transparent & fair pricing in the natural gas market.

🔹Türkiye 🇹🇷 made a new natural gas discovery in the Black Sea & upgraded estimates for an already discovered field in the basin. It's reserves in the Black Sea have now increased to 710 billion cubic meters.

🔹President Erdoğan said, "we have 7 international pipelines, 4 LNG terminals & 2 UGS facilities to become an energy hub”.

Last reported on this channel:

💠 The US 🇺🇸has said that they expect Türkiye to sanction Russia, & that the US can impose embargoes to stop Türkiye's violations.

💠 Saboteurs attempt to blow up 🧨 Turkstream Pipeline infrastructure.

💠 Hungary 🇭🇺 has agreed with Russia's 🇷🇺 Gazprom to re-route gas transit to Hungary via the TurkStream pipeline

🔹Russia 🇷🇺 has banned the supply of Russian oil & oil products to countries that impose a price cap, allowing deliveries to those nations only on the basis of a special permission.

🔹Russia’s actions are a response to what the decree described as unfriendly actions of foreign states & international organizations that contradict international law, & are designed “to protect the national interests of Russia”.

🔹Kremlin —"Russia has the sovereign right to respond to the G7 oil 🛢price cap, and it hasn’t consulted with OPEC+ over the response".

🔹The EU and G7 banned shipping 🚢 of Russia’s crude oil to third countries if the oil is bought above the price cap of $60 per barrel, & the EU imposed an embargo on Russian seaborne oil imports.

🔹Meanwhile the US 🇺🇸used 📉 218 million barrels of oil from it's Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR). It now contains the least amount of crude oil since December 1983 (375 million barrels).

Video courtesy RT News

🔹President 🇨🇳 Xi Jinping said during a video conference with President 🇷🇺 Putin, that China and Russia should ramp up cooperation in the trade-economic and energy sphere. Both leaders expressed their satisfaction with the rapid development of relations between the two nations.

🔹"Moscow and Beijing share the same vision of the global transformations now underway"— President Putin. When highlighting the West’s unprecedented provocations, Putin emphasized that Russia 🇷🇺 & China 🇨🇳 are defending their positions of principle & national interests.

🔹"China is ready to gradually resume the normal [cross-border] traffic with all countries, including Russia," Xi Jinping said.

🔹The Russian president would hold several more working meetings with President Xi, which will be of a non-public nature.

🔹Russia & China's space agencies recently inked a cooperation deal on mutually supplementing the Glonass & BeiDou global satellite 🛰 navigation systems. Two lunar missions are planned in 2026-2030.

🔹Finland 🇫🇮 has proposed a temporary 30% windfall tax on profits from the country's electricity companies. The tax would apply to any profits exceeding a 10% return on capital in 2023.

🔹International arbitration panel DRB, has refused to file financial claims against Russia's 🇷🇺 nuclear energy company Rosatom. Finland had earlier this year terminated a contract with the Rosatom to build the Hanhikivi-1 nuclear facility in Finland. The DRB ruled the Finnish termination of the contract to be illegal.

🔹The Finnish Fennovoima consortium, in which Rosatom owns a 34% minority stake, terminated the contract. Each side initiated legal proceedings against the other, claiming billions of dollars in damages.

🔹The Olkiluoto 3 nuclear reactor in 🇫🇮 Finland has begun test production of electricity again following a disruption of two months. The plant 🏭 is expected to start permanent production on 8 March 2023. This reactor has been under construction in Finland since 2005.

Video courtesy TFI Global

🔹Türkiye 🇹🇷 has agreed to fully withdraw its troops from northern Syria 🇸🇾 following tripartite talks involving Moscow, Ankara and Damascus. The three countries’ defense ministers met in Moscow 🇷🇺 for the first meeting of its kind since the outbreak of the Syrian conflict in 2011.

🔹Ankara and Damascus 🇸🇾also expressed a common view that the Syrian-based Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey associates with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), “are agents of Israel and the US, and pose a grave threat to both Türkiye and Syria.”

🔹Turkish 🇹🇷 Defense Minister said that “one shouldn’t expect that everything will be solved at once in a single meeting.” "The Foreign Ministers of Russia 🇷🇺 and Türkiye held a phone conversation to discuss plans for foreign policy cooperation in 2023, including further coordination of steps to facilitate a Syrian settlement.

Video courtesy AL24 News

🔹Central banks are scooping up gold 📈at the fastest pace since 1967. The flight of central banks to gold “would suggest the geopolitical backdrop is one of mistrust, doubt and uncertainty” after the US 🇺🇸 and its allies froze Russia’s 🇷🇺 dollar reserves.

🔹The international section of the 🇨🇳 Shanghai Gold Exchange will be used by Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦for its yuan to gold transactions.

🔹Gold in its role as a stable medium of exchange: Priced in US dollars, not only has the price of crude been incredibly volatile but before the Lehman crisis by June 2008 it had increased fifty-four times. Measured in gold it had merely doubled (photo).

Last reported on this channel:

💠 Central banks of China 🇨🇳, Turkey 🇹🇷, Uzbekistan 🇺🇿 & India 🇮🇳 increase gold purchases.

💠 Prof. Everisto Benyera on the shift in relationship between Africa, gold & the USD.

💠 BRICS 🇧🇷🇷🇺🇮🇳🇨🇳🇿🇦 plan an international reserve currency based on a basket of the national currencies, backed by commodities such as gold.

🔹"One must consider whether Western claims about the Russian economy are valid or whether perhaps Western leaders are trying to distract their populations from the collapse of their own economies." -Pan-Arab News Network Al-Mayadeen, based in Lebanon 🇱🇧.

🔹Europeans 🇪🇺 have come to see the "messaging" of endless sanctions as "perfectly rational". They have been hypnotised into "You are either ‘with the narrative’ or ‘against it’."

🔹Russia's 🇷🇺 MIR payment system aims to ensure the uninterrupted processing of transactions performed with international payment card systems in Russia. Russia has been able to redirect its supply of crude oil 🛢, being sold to Europe to Asia.

🔹The Bank of Russia decided to cut the interest rates in the country to 7.5%, in line with the levels that existed prior Feb 2022. The Ruble has already recovered to pre-sanction levels. Despite Western sanctions and blackmail, economic turnover between Russia and China 🇨🇳 has reached historic highs.

Video courtesy RT News.

🔹The US 🇺🇸 has tapped over 240 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in 2022 to lower domestic petrol/diesel prices. This is the first time that the reserve has fallen below 378 million barrels since Dec. 30, 1983.

🔹Rising oil prices, potentially pose challenges to the US plan to begin refilling the SPR using fixed-price contracts. Bullish factors include rising demand in China 🇨🇳, where tight COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted in recent weeks, and the prospect of reduced oil output from Russia 🇷🇺 in retaliation against the G-7-led price cap on Russian oil, which could send prices up further.

🔹The SPR was established after the 1973 oil 🛢 embargo, for emergency shortages, acts of terrorism, and natural disasters.

Last reported on this channel:

💠 The US 🇺🇸used 📉 218 million barrels of oil from it's SPR.

💠 Oil inventories in developed economies are at their lowest level since 2004.

🔹USA 🇺🇸- Supply chain upset alert. California’s Air Resources Board to enact clean air regulations by banning large trucks and buses built before 2010 from California roads. Estimated 200,000 trucks and busses this applies to, representing 10% of commercial vehicles currently registered in the state.

🔹California has carried out its own de-kulakization by eliminating the businesses of the state’s estimated 70,000 independent truck drivers 🚚. These entrepreneurs own and operate their own trucks, carrying cargo from California ports and manufacturers to the rest of the U.S. Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5) compels independent drivers to surrender the companies they’ve built and seek employment in large firms that can hire them.

🔹Only a few independent truckers are likely to survive AB 5. And other state regulations are likely to finish them off. Regional air-quality boards have declared California’s ports 🚢— the largest in the U.S. — off-limits to trucks older than three years.

🔹External debt in sub-Saharan Africa has reached unsustainable levels. The stock of outstanding external debt of sub-Saharan countries, which stood at $322 billion in 2010, had risen to $790 billion by 2021.

🔹Surge in debt service payments for African countries means that already squeezed fiscal resources will be exhausted to fund development projects like energy, health, and education. The dollar’s 💵 strength adds to the challenge. “With most debt in Africa being dollar dominated, the situation is bound to get worse.

🔹An excessive focus on the US's 🇺🇸 "African Growth and Opportunity Act", which offers market access to countries that enact market reforms, has been sometimes counterproductive to African interests.

🔹Africa’s over-reliance on food 🌾 imports worsening hike in food prices. The surge in the cost of importation is due to the persistent currency depreciation vs the USD and a general increase in the cost of production.

Video of Professor Michael Hudson courtesy Xtraordinary Africa

🔹UK 🇬🇧 PM Sunak plans to announce legislation to mandate a proportion of union members to continue working to retain "minimum service levels" in six sectors. Strikes would be deemed illegal if unions refused to comply.

🔹The rail union accused the gov't of waiting until after this week’s rail strikes 🚂 before resuming talks.

🔹More than 17,000 UK shops closed last year, equivalent to 47 a day, the highest total in 5 years.

🔹PM Sunak has pledged to halve inflation, grow the U.K. economy and said Ukraine 🇺🇦could count on the UK to continue to support it for the long term.

Last reported on this channel:

💠 NHS, Border Force, Rail, Royal Mail and Port workers strikes cause disruptions in UK's 🇬🇧 economy during Dec. 2022.

💠 ONS data indicates that 63% of British adults were using less gas & electricity 🔌 because of increases in the cost of living.

💠Consumer prices surge across UK and British North Sea Oil 🛢 & Gas companies face revenue cuts amid increased taxes.

Video courtesy Al Jazeera

🔹Russian 🇷🇺 electricity supplies to China 🇨🇳 & Mongolia 🇲🇳will see an overall 20% jump by the end of 2023. The volume of electricity export to China in 2022 amounted to 3.97 billion kWh, which was 29.9% more than in 2020 (up 16% in 2022 vs 2021).

🔹Coal & power trade between China and Russia has also been on the rise. In 2022, bilateral trade in both natural gas and coal has increased more than 60% year-on-year.

🔹A massive, $12 billion-dollar wind, solar, energy storage and coal-fired power generation energy project is underway in Dalate Banner, Ordos City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China 🇨🇳. The Kubuqi Base project is being built by China Three Gorges (CTG) and Inner Mongolia’s Mengneng Group.

🔹Russia's Deputy FM —"The West takes efforts to undermine Mongolia’s 🇲🇳 friendship & cooperation with Russia but Moscow is confident that Mongolian partners have sufficient wisdom to avoid the traps set by opponents".

🔹Electricity 🏭 generation in Russia increased by 0.8% in Jan-Nov 2022.

🔹For at least five days now, the Bank of Japan 🇯🇵 (BOJ) has been making massive unscheduled bond purchases after it announced a widening of the range in which the 10-year yield can trade to about 0.5% from 0.25%. Now the BOJ is struggling to keep the yen from rallying too much, too fast and slamming Japan’s exporters.

🔹The BOJ said that it bought more than 111 trillion yen 💴, or about 840 billion dollars, of government bonds in 2022. That was up 37 trillion yen from the previous year & the biggest in 6 years.

🔹Japan 🇯🇵 is currently the third-largest economy in the world and the second-largest economy in Asia, behind China. The yen is one of the most popularly traded and held currencies, with the IMF estimating that it is the third-most commonly held reserve currency in the world.

🔹For subscribers who want a better understanding of Japan's 'economic transformation' & it's Central Bank deliberately manufacturing a crisis to accomplish this, I recommend you watch the "Princes of the Yen" Documentary.

🔹Part 5 of the attack on Christian Orthodoxy🙏.

🔹Ukrainian gov't is inciting hate against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church over accusations of connections to Russia. A priest in his Vinnytsia church, was attacked & his throat cut.

🔹The west politically created the Orthodox Church of Ukraine 🇺🇦 (OCU) (to foster neo-Nazi style nationalism) & undermine the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) (Moscow 🇷🇺 Patriarchate).

🔹Ukraine's SBU continues to raid UOC's in Khmelnitsky to remove 'Russian influence'.

🔹Zelensky blasts Russian Orthodox Church call for Christmas truce as Putin orders cease-fire.

💠 Part 4: Ukraine proposes law to ban the UOC as the church is a threat to national security.

💠 Part 3: Ukraine's 🇺🇦 SBU, raids the largest UOC monastery in Ukraine.

💠 Part 2: Ukrainian militants shell St. Nicholas ⛪️, shot 3 monks in Svyatogorsk, held 800 monks hostage & seized Popelnya UOC.

💠 Part 1: The West’s silence about multiple attacks against Russian Orthodox Churches around the world.

🔹The Mexican 🇲🇽 military captured Ovidio Guzmán, the son of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and allegedly one of the country’s top fentanyl traffickers. But in a sign of the cartels’ strength, the arrest sparked a wave of retaliatory violence in western Sinaloa state, with gunmen throwing up roadblocks, seizing cars from terrified residents and firing at planes at the airport ✈️ in Culiacán, the capital.

🔹Flights in the northern state of Sinaloa were canceled after the arrest of Guzmán. Local authorities to ask all residents to stay home and avoid being out on the street. The U.S. 🇺🇸 Consulate General reminds U.S. citizens that Sinaloa is classified as Level 4: Do Not Travel.

🔹Intermittent gunfire continued in Culiacan as Mexican 🇲🇽security forces continued to clash with cartel gunmen and few people ventured out.

🔹Three years ago, he was briefly detained in Culiacán, then set free as Sinaloa cartel gunmen seized control of much of the city.

Video: Mexican Army ambushed in Tamaulipas.