🔹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.

🔹Russia’s 🇷🇺 crude grades from the Arctic, which used to be sold in Europe, are now heading to China 🇨🇳 & India 🇮🇳, being sold at deep discounts. Both countries have refused to join the G7 price cap on Russian oil.

🔹Indian refiners imported last month the first-ever cargo of the Varandey crude 🛢blend from the Russian Timan-Pechora oilfields.

🔹The slowdown in U.S. crude oil production & the prospect that U.S. shale can no longer respond quickly to changing market conditions has emboldened OPEC.

Last reported on this channel:

💠 The US 🇺🇸 Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) has not been this low since Dec. 30, 1983.

💠 Russia 🇷🇺 has banned the supply of Russian oil & oil products to countries that impose a price cap.

💠 Chinese 🇨🇳 refiners see refining profit margins jump, due to discounts for Russian crude.

💠 Japan 🇯🇵 in discussions with local refineries to buy oil from Russia's Sakhalin-2 project.

💠 Russia has discretely assembled a "shadow fleet" 🚢 of more than 100 tanker ships.

🔹The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 (KSA) oil giant Aramco & French TotalEnergies plan construction of an $11 billion dollar world scale petrochemical facility in Saudi Arabia. At the same time Europe is de-industrializing.

🔹The KSA 🇸🇦 lowered prices for Arab light crude grade 🛢it sells to Asia.

🔹Due to rising world-wide copper demand, the KSA plans to ramp up copper mining.

🔹The market cap of Arab stock exchanges exceeded 📈 $4 trillion ending 2022. The KSA's market cap was $2.63 trillion.

🔹Western media publishes warnings of the KSA's 🇸🇦 growing ties with Russia 🇷🇺 & China🇨🇳.

Last reported on this channel:

💠 The Shanghai Gold Exchange will be used by the KSA 🇸🇦for its yuan to gold transactions.

💠 President Xi Jingping 🇨🇳 boosts cooperation in energy supply chains with the KSA during his state visit.

💠 The KSA leads OPEC+'s 2 million barrels of oil 🛢 per day production cut.

💠 The KSA's 🇸🇦 energy minister warns nations who use emergency oil reserves to manipulate prices.

🔹Russia 🇷🇺 plans to expand cooperation with Venezuela in all areas, including energy sectors.

🔹Iran 🇮🇷 & Venezuela to share technological advances in petrochemicals, oil & gas sectors.

🔹Venezuela's oil exports 🛢declined 2.5% in 2022 due to infrastructure outages & U.S. sanctions.

🔹The Venezuelan embassy in the US 🇺🇸, run by 'interim Venezuelan President' Juan Guaido since 2019, has ended its operations.

🔹Colombia 🇨🇴 to reopen 4 consulates in Venezuela after border blockade removed by Venezuela.

🔹Venezuela plans to re-open an air route with Brazil 🇧🇷.

Last reported on this channel:

💠 Trinidad & Tobago 🇹🇹 asked the US for approval to import Venezuelan gas so as to not end up on US sanctions.

💠 Venezuela 🇻🇪 scraps oil-for-debt deals with EU nations.

💠 London's 🇬🇧 High Court has rejected Venezuela's efforts to repatriate over $1 billion of Venezuela's gold reserves stored in the Bank of England.

🔹Finland's 🇫🇮 newest nuclear reactor 🏭 Olkiluoto 3 (OL3) is being tested at full power over this weekend & will then be shut down for about one month. "The tests cover several different conditions, from normal operation to abnormal disturbances. The power generated today is above consumption load💡. (Finland's grid operator data).

🔹When OL3 is down for another month, concerns arise of grid limitations or electricity shortages during winter. Finns have since summer hoarded torches, heat pumps, timers, solar panels and firewood 🪵.

🔹People in Finland have cut back electricity consumption by around 📉10% in Dec. '22 vs Dec. '21. “Finland used to bring a third of its energy from Russia and now we are close to zero,” — Finnish ministry of economic affairs.

Last reported on this channel:

💠 Finland 🇫🇮 has proposed a temporary 30% windfall tax on profits from the country's electricity companies.

💠Finland terminated a contract with Russia's 🇷🇺 Rosatom to build a nuclear facility in Finland.

🔹China 🇨🇳 reported an increase 📈 in its gold reserves again after its first reported purchase in more than 3 years. China raised its holdings by 30 tons in December. This follows November’s addition of 32 tons. The recent official purchases bring the nation’s holdings to a total of 2,010 tons.

🔹There has been speculation since 2014 & 2015, that the actual gold reserves of China 🇨🇳are much higher. China went years between announcing official gold reserves, & the updated amounts don’t reflect in-country gold production and imports.

Last reported on this channel:

💠Central banks are scooping up gold 📈at the fastest pace since 1967.

💠 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.

Video courtesy Sean Foo

🔹Brazil 🇧🇷 - Supporters of the former president Jair Bolsonaro has overcome police barriers & stormed the the Brazilian Congress HQ in Brasilia as a demonstration against the new Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

🔹One pro-Bolsonaro group marched from the army HQ in Brasília towards, the Three Powers Plaza, which houses the supreme court, the presidential palace & congress. A report of Federal Police helicopter dropping tear gas bombs towards protesters

🔹Bolsonaro, who flew to Florida 🇺🇸, ahead of Lula’s inauguration, has not yet commented on the ongoing situation. President Lula da Silva, & his wife, are visiting, the city of Araraquara, which is 314 km from the capital of the Brazilian 🇧🇷 state of São Paulo.

Last reported on this channel:

🔹Millions of Brazilians hit the streets as protests erupt in Brazil 🇧🇷over alleged election fraud. President Bolsonaro lost to Lula da Silva, by 50.9% to 49.1%.

Video compilation courtesy Intel Slava Z

🔹The Swiss 🇨🇭 National Bank (SNB) reported a loss of 132 billion Swiss francs ($143 billion) for 2022. It represents the biggest loss in the central bank’s 116-year history & equates to roughly 18% of Switzerland’s projected GDP.

🔹As a result it will not make its usual payouts to the Swiss 🇨🇭gov't & member states, with payments to its shareholders also set to be affected.

🔹The USD/CHF (Swiss Franc) pair is likely to continue its downside journey below the immediate support of 0.9267 as investors have underpinned the risk-appetite theme in the market.

🔹The SNB's foreign exchange reserves fell 📉 in December to 784.006 billion Swiss francs from 791.193 billion francs in November.

Last reported on this channel:

💠Swiss 🇨🇭 based investment bank Credit Suisse, to undergo a multi-year restructuring program partly funded by Saudi Arabia's 🇸🇦National Bank .

Video courtesy Bannon's War Room.

🔹China 🇨🇳 is snapping up cargoes of crude that would normally head to Europe, spooking European physical oil traders as imports from Russia 🇷🇺 is cut due to sanctions and when local demand is rising. China already bought 5 million barrels of mostly-Kazakh 🇰🇿 crude for collection from a port in the Black Sea next month, a grade that is preferred by European refiners.

🔹China issued a second batch of 2023 crude oil 🛢import quotas, raising the total for this year by 20% compared to the same time last year.

🔹"It is naive to think that China will not be seeking to control the price of oil, that it would not want to conduct trade in the currency that it controls." as yuan based trade is rising in Russia, Asia and the Middle East.—Kpler oil analyst

🔹Philippine 🇵🇭 President Marcos has held talks with Chinese 🇨🇳leader Xi Jinping during his 3-day state visit. Mr Xi said China is ready to resume oil and gas talks with the Philippines.

Video courtesy WION

🔹Container shipping 🚢 rates registered a marginal increase at the start of 2023, but now sit below the 10-year average. Drewry’s composite World Container Index (WCI) rose 0.7% in the week ended 5 January, ending 43 weeks of consecutive falls 📉 in the index.

🔹The WCI now stands at $2,135 per feu having plunged 79% from a high of $10,377 per feu in September 2021. (Note: Tanker shipping rates are at record highs due largely due to the sanctions against Russia 🇷🇺).

🔹After a record-breaking boom for ocean carriers during the 'pandemic', a glut in capacity & slowing demand for freight has caused what supply chain management co. Flexport said is a "great recession" for shipping. The average container shipped 🏗 is now about 70% full.

🔹Flexport —This is the result of the "shortage of everything" bullwhip effect.

🔹The cost to send a container from Asia to the US 🇺🇸 on the demand-sensitive spot market has tumbled more than 80% from its Sept. peak above $20,000 for a 40-foot container.