Vladimir Putin

On the heels of Thursday's move by Belgium, France, and Austria to freeze Russian state assets in connection with the disputed Yukos ECHR ruling, Moscow vows to retailiate in kind, while the chairman of the former Yukos holding company pushes the US to join Europe in enforcing the arbitration court's decision. 

Both France and Belgium have moved to freeze Russian state assets on Thursday, prompting an angry response from Moscow and serving to further inflame tensions between Russia and Europe amid escalating violence in Ukraine and an increasingly aggressive stance towards the Kremlin on the part of Washington and NATO.

Greece completes stage one of the dreaded "Russian pivot" as energy ministers from Athens and Moscow ink an MOU on Gazprom's Turkish Stream pipeline. Meanwhile, Gazprom signs a deal with Shell and others to double the capacity of the Nord line, a move which will, over time, decrease the energy giant's dependence on Ukraine for transport.

"Both the US and China have a vital interest in reaching an understanding because the alternative is so unpalatable," Soros wrote in an article for the New York Review of Books, with the danger imminent if Chinese economic reforms fail forcing President Xi Jinping to "foster some external conflicts to keep the country united and maintain himself in power." These "conflicts" would present themselves in the form of a Sino-Russo alliance which could draw the entire world into war.

Somehow, in the stupor of false patriotic pride, Americans are unwilling to accept that their enemy is not scattered around the seven seas, as they are being told, but has pitched its bivouac tent right here at home; government and most endearing American institutions having been hijacked by a ruling elite that have placed Washington under their thumb. For self-preservation, America’s ruling elite might consider optimizing its position, not just domestically but internationally, by accepting conviviality as its foreign coup. A farfetched proposition...?  Of course; but world peace can benefit us all.

With his back against the wall, and with Syriza party hardliners apparently no closer to backing concessions, Alexis Tsipras looks set to once again play the ‘Russian pivot” card, as the Kremlin says a “working meeting” between the Greek PM and Russian President Vladimir Putin is now scheduled for Friday in St. Petersburg.

"Since the very beginning of the establishment of the G7, it has been a rich-man's club that consists of Western major powers and aims to maintain the collective hegemony of the US-led West. Whether the G7 will become a geopolitical tool or a Cold War relic largely depends on European countries. Unlike the US, Europe shares a closer geopolitical and economic links with Russia. If the G7 becomes a platform for the confrontation between the West and Russia, it will undoubtedly be a disaster for Europe."

"...a bigger bundle of platitudes and insincerities has not been served up since the heyday of Nixon. As the politicians are so fond of saying these days, make no mistake, Hillary is the New Nixon."

The narrative being sold through the media is that Greece is to blame, that German taxpayers are on the hook for Greek debts (while they’re really on the hook for German banks’ losing wagers). And that is, no matter how you twist it, not the same story. It’s again just a narrative. Brussels is toxic - and so is the IMF - and Greece should leave as soon as possible, as should Italy, Spain, Portugal. We should all resist the spin-induced attempts to demonize Putin, Athens and China any further, and instead focus on the rotten apples in our own basket(s). In short, the propaganda we should be worried about is not Russia’s, it’s our own. And it comes from just about every news article we’re fed. We’re much less than six degrees removed from Orwell.

For the first time since the Cold War, the US is set to store heavy military equipment in Eastern Europe in a stepped up effort to deter 'Russian aggression.' While this marks a very meaningful escalation in the standoff between Moscow and the US, one former NATO commander was quick to point out that "nothing is as good as troops stationed full time on the ground."

Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab has released a detailed report that outlines how spyware (which some suggest originated in Israel) was used to infiltrate the hotels that hosted the Iran nuclear negotiations. From the report: "Earlier this year, during a security sweep, Kaspersky Lab detected a cyber intrusion affecting several of its internal systems. Following this finding, we launched a large-scale investigation, which led to the discovery of a new malware platform. Notably, some of the new 2014-2015 infections are linked to the P5+1 events and venues related to the negotiations with Iran about a nuclear deal."

As Russia adjusts to Western sanctions stemming from the conflict in Ukraine, Gazprom is now settling all crude sales to China in renminbi. At the intersection of the petrodollar's death and yuan hegemony is: the PetroYuan...

As Republican presidential hopefuls ramp up their campaigns, GOP candidates will likely point to Vladimir Putin as the embodiment of everything that’s wrong with Democrats’ foreign policy and Clinton’s famous “reset” button ceremony in Geneva provides the perfect opportunity for the GOP to tie the presumed Democratic nominee to a failed attempt at reconciliation with America’s Cold War nemesis.

Earleir today in confirmation that a crack down on yet another market for gross manipulation is imminent, the Post reported that the Department of Justice fresh from doing all it can do prevent Vladimir Putin from blowing $10 billion in the bottomless hole that is World Cup 2018 infrastructure spending, is probing the Treasury market for possible manipulation.

Earlier today, Barack Obama, together with 6 of the world's most powerful leaders (but certainly not Vladimir Putin) congregated in the Bavarian town of Krun where they will for the next two days hunker down at the luxurious Scholss Elmau for the latest G-7 meeting, covering an agenda dealing with climate change, global extremism, and of course, solving the Ukraine crisis (with or without instructions from George Soros on how to proceed). Serious stuff. Obama, however, decided to keep it "folksy" and the lame duck president, content with the direction the world is going, pulled a page right out of National Lampoons European vacation and kicked it back.