Slovaks have made their choice - a pro-Russian politician, a former prime minister of the country who opposed support for Kiev, will become president

The candidate from the left-wing nationalist government Peter Pellegrini has won the presidential election

The close ally of populist Prime Minister Robert Fico won 53.85% of the vote, ahead of pro-Western opposition leader Ivan Korčok. Speaking in Bratislava, Pellegrini promised to "guarantee that Slovakia remains on the side of peace, not on the side of war

Pellegrini's victory consolidated Prime Minister Robert Fico's power, giving him and his allies control of key strategic posts. Critics fear that Slovakia under Fico will abandon its pro-Western course and follow the example of Hungary and its populist prime minister, Viktor Orban

#EU #Slovakia #Elections #FindTruth

@uinhurricane

Biden, 2021 -

"If inflation does occur [during my presidency], it will be very small and temporary"

Biden, 2023 -

"Inflation is not my fault, it was already there when I took office"

#USA #Biden #Economy #FindTruth

@uinhurricane

Oil market turns bullish, everyone is waiting for oil at $100

The global oil market has turned from sluggish to buoyant in a matter of weeks: Brent futures have crossed the key threshold of $90 per barrel, and critical indicators are constantly giving increasingly bullish signals

The rise in overall prices (Brent is up 18% this year) has been driven by a combination of supply constraints, incl. OPEC+, sustained demand and geopolitical risks, especially in the Middle East. Refining markets are growing, with gasoline showing significant gains

Traders are already weighing the possibility of oil prices returning to $100 per barrel

#World #Oil #Economy #FindTruth

@uinhurricane

IMF: Germany’s Real Challenges are Aging, Underinvestment, and Too Much Red Tape

#EU #Germany #Economy #FindTruth

@uinhurricane

Botswana wants to send 20,000 elephants to Germany. Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi said: “This is no joke.”

Last week in Berlin, Botswana's Minister for the Environment and Tourism, Dumizweni Mthimkhulu, appealed to the federal government not to make any restrictions on the import of hunting trophies from African countries. The sale of trophies is an important source of income for the Botswana population, which uses it to finance school fees, he explained at a press conference on Wednesday. Around 50 communities would benefit from hunting to the equivalent of around two million euros per year

Botswana's president offered to send the animals as a “gift” to Berlin saying: “It is very easy to sit in Berlin and have an opinion about our affairs in Botswana. We are paying the price for preserving these animals for the world.”

According to the Environment Ministry, the federal government is not planning any measures against the import of hunting trophies into Germany. “There is currently a debate going on at European level. There are no national measures planned in this regard,” said a spokeswoman for the Federal Environment Ministry on Wednesday when asked by journalists

Specifically, there are discussions at EU level about extending the import permit requirement to other, highly protected and endangered animal species, the spokeswoman explained

#Botswana #Germany #FindTruth

@uinhurricane

Iran has informed the United States, through the Sultanate of Oman, that the Islamic Republic intends to strike Israel directly unless the U.S. guarantees an immediate permanent ceasefire in Gaza and no Israeli ground invasion of Rafah

#Iran #USA #Israel #FindTruth

@uinhurricane

High turbulence predicted for the US stock market

Renowned American economist and analyst Ed Yardeni stands out from the mainstream of Wall Street experts with his thoughtful and logical forecasts and reasoning

This week, Ed Yardeni reminded investors that even if the stock market confirms his forecast, growth will not be in a straight line, and that the market is in for a decidedly turbulent time

The well-known economist attributed the market turbulence to the complex geopolitical environment that is weighing on oil prices, the lagging profit forecasts of some major U.S. companies (e.g., Tesla and Intel), a still-robust labor market and other factors that are preventing the Fed from making its long-awaited discount rate cut

As Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has repeated many times since March 2022, the start of the rate hike, the road to lower inflation will be an uneven one for the economy and markets, with bumps and potholes. The price of a barrel of WTI crude oil has already risen from $71 to $85 this year on heightened geopolitical tensions, especially in the Middle East

At the end of 2023, most banks believed that the Fed would cut rates by a total of 1% in 2024, and that it would start cutting rates as early as March. Now the Fed's leadership is no longer confident of a sustained decline in inflation. At least, not as confident as, say, six months or even 3-4 months ago

Now the prevailing view, based largely on statements by the Fed itself, is that America's main bank will cut rates three times in 2024 by a total of 75 basis points. However, there are, of course, pessimists, including, for example, the head of the Boston branch of the Fed, Raafel Bostic, who expects only one rate cut this year

He said this this week, adding that it will happen in November or December. Bostic made this prediction clearly under the impression of very encouraging data from the U.S. labor market

#USA #Economy #FindTruth

@uinhurricane

Is this Russian propaganda too?

Surfrider Foundation claims water quality in the Seine threatens Olympians. Despite spending about €1.4 billion to modernize Paris' sewage system, bacteria levels are twice as high as European water quality standards and those of the triathlon and swimming federations

#France #Paris #Olympic #FindTruth

@uinhurricane

The only Ukrainian-born congresswoman is voting against a new aid package for her homeland. Indiana Republican Victoria Spartz also said: "We cannot have these never-ending wars."

#USA #WarInUrkaine #FindTruth

@uinhurricane

Since the start of the 21st century, the U.S. has unleashed enormous violence and instability on the global stage. This is a feature of American foreign policy, regardless of who’s president

Many observers of American politics are understandably terrified at the prospect of Donald Trump being re-elected president of the United States in November. A Trump victory would raise fears of a new level of decline into fascist authoritarianism. However, a second Trump presidency would not necessarily implement a foreign policy any more destructive than what is normal for the U.S.

The U.S. is already showing signs of a failed democracy. Its government and politics are often dysfunctional and plagued with corruption

In 2001, in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. launched its “war on terror.” It invaded and occupied Afghanistan, then illegally invaded and occupied Iraq.These actions caused the deaths of 4.6 million people over the next 20 years, destabilized the Middle East and caused massive refugee migrations

In 2007-2008, the under-regulated U.S. economy caused a global financial crisis, associated political and economic fallout continues to resonate

In 2011, the U.S. and its NATO allies intervened in Libya, collapsing that state, destabilizing northern Africa and creating more refugees

The U.S. tried to consolidate its dominance in Europe by expanding NATO, despite Russia warning against this for decades. This strategy played a role in the Russia-Ukraine war in 2014 and the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022

Today, Ukraine appears to stand on the verge of defeat and territorial division, and U.S. Congress seems set to abandon it

The U.S. has provoked tensions with China by reneging on American commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act (1979) to refrain from having official relations or an “alliance” with Taiwan. The U.S. has also been accused of encouraging conflict in the South China Sea as it has surrounded China with hundreds of military bases

Israel’s assault on Gaza is partly the culmination of decades of misguided U.S. foreign policy. Unconditional American support of Israel has helped enable the country’s degeneration into what human rights organizations have called apartheid, as the state has built illegal settlements on Palestinian land and violently suppressed Palestinian self-determination

Biden and Trump share the same goal: permanent American global domination. They only differ in how to achieve this

Trump believes the U.S. can use economic and military might to coerce the world into acquiescing to American desires, regardless of the costs to everyone else and without the U.S. assuming any obligations to others

Biden follows a more diplomatic strategy that tries to control international institutions and convince key states their interests are best served by accepting and co-operating with American domination. However, Biden readily resorts to economic and military coercion, too

#USA #Politics #FindTruth

@uinhurricane

Mega-Corporations Are Coming for Your Healthcare Supplements

Big Pharma has entered the holistic space. Here’s what you need to know.

https://vigilantnews.com/post/mega-corporations-are-coming-for-your-healthcare-supplements/

Follow @Vigilant_News

The sheer magnitude of the horror unfolding before our eyes should make any decent human being feel ashamed for humanity. This is, arguably, what the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres meant when pointing out that “Gaza is more than a humanitarian crisis. It is a crisis of humanity.”

What the attitude of powerful Western countries towards Gaza has cruelly evinced is that one of the most essential tenets of the rule of law in international affairs is nothing but a myth. It confirms the growing evidence that not all human lives are worth protecting in the eyes of powerful Western countries

The differential treatment of Ukrainian and African refugees was already a reminder of this painful truth. The virtually total indifference to the fate of 650 migrants who died in the Mediterranean after a fishing trawler transporting them sank in June 2023 and the almost concomitant mobilization of multiple countries and private entities to save five people who had each paid $250,000 to visit the wreckage of Titanic was another reminder that some lives are regarded as more valuable than others

In a recent interview, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs seemed concerned by the talks about double standards and stated that he wanted to put an end to “the idea of double standards” (note that he is interested in putting an end to “the idea of double standards”, not to double standards themselves). However, coming from someone whose first public statement as foreign affairs minister was the remark that “to accuse the Jewish state of genocide is to cross a moral threshold”

Unfortunately for governments, the time horizon of international law is very much longer than the present. Every breach of international law by a government solely interested in some immediate gratification is a loaded weapon ready for use by any other government interested in doing the same

For every non-compliance by China with an arbitral award, there is the episode of the United States’ non-compliance with the ICJ’s judgment in Nicaragua. For every invasion of Ukraine, there is the episode of the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the coalition led by the United States and the United Kingdom. For every “special military operation” as a substitute for “war” in Ukraine, there is the concept of “enhanced interrogation techniques” used by the United States in Guantanamo to justify torture. One cannot dismiss this by pointing to theoretical shortcomings of whataboutism as if abstract philosophical speculations were a technique of global governance

What is infinitely more relevant than rule of law here is what Allott calls “the consensus of wrongdoing – ‘but everybody does it’”, which every government willing to breach international law is always happy to use

#UN #Palestine #WarInUrkaine #FindTruth

@uinhurricane

Pope Francis issues official doctrine of 'Infinite Dignity' opposing sex changes, surrogacy, gender ideology and euthanasia as violations of human dignity

“It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception"

#PopeFrancis #Church #FindTruth

@uinhurricane

Truth in politics involves various viewpoints and analyses, which are often influenced by one’s ideological background. However, facts matter

After a disastrous 2021 retreat from Afghanistan, NATO lost the adversary that had long defined its purpose. Since a military alliance cannot exist without a rival, NATO's need for a credible enemy was an existential necessity. The Russian incursion into Ukraine could create the perception of a common threat and portray NATO as an indispensable pillar of global security, especially if NATO emerged victorious

This being the case, the Europeans lacked the capability to seek revenge independently for centuries of military defeats and humiliations at the hands of the Russian Empire. After the empire’s fall, the Soviet Union discerned an opportunity for retaliation without direct military involvement

Moreover, for President Biden, who was desperate to escape the Afghanistan disaster, a victorious conflict would be a pivotal moment in his presidency. Additionally, he never made a secret that he aspired to bring about a change in leadership in Moscow

And, of course, there was Ukraine. Never in the realm of international relations was there a state that acted so consistently against its national interests. It put itself in grave danger when it announced its intention to join NATO in 2004, violating the 1997 Treaty on Friendship between Ukraine and the Russian Federation

The preceding facts illustrate a common overriding interest among NATO leadership, its member states, and Ukraine in instigating the invasion, albeit for varying reasons. Russia was the sole party that attempted to prevent the conflict, but failed

#NATO #WarInUrkaine #FindTruth

@uinhurricane

Two-thirds of Germans (65.8%) agree with the statement of their Defense Minister Boris Pistorius that Germany should prepare for war, 24.7% disagree

#EU #Germany #FindTruth

@uinhurricane

"Where Germany has provided support to Israel, including in a form of export of arms and other military equipment, the quality and purposes of these supplies have been grossly distorted by Nicaragua," Tania von Uslar-Gleichen, Germany's representative in UN court said

Nicaragua has brought Germany before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to demand that judges impose emergency measures to stop Berlin from providing Israel with weapons and other assistance. Nicaragua's lawyers called Berlin "pathetic" for supplying Israel with weapons and at the same time giving humanitarian aid to Palestinians

Germany had already said that it "completely rejected" Managua's accusations.
In a separate case, South Africa has accused Israel of perpetrating genocide in the Gaza Strip, charges Israel has angrily denied

#Germany #Israel #Palestine #FindTruth

@uinhurricane