..
Germany will turn to coal-based power to make up for Russian gas shortage
By Darryl Coote
Last week, Russian gas company Gazprom said that it reduced supplies to Germany via its Nord Stream 1 pipeline
to 67 million cubic meters a day, which is a substantial decline. File Photo by Igor Golovniov/Shutterstock
June 20 (UPI) -- Germany has announced a slew of measures aimed at reducing its gas consumption, including turning to coal-fired power plants for energy, as Russia continues to throttle supplies to Europe amid its war in Ukraine.
Robert Habeck, Berlin's economy and climate minister, revealed the measures Sunday in a statement, saying to reduce the use of gas in producing electricity, they will have to resort to coal-fired power plants -- a decision he called "bitter" but "necessary" to ensure storage tanks are full this winter.
"Security of supply is currently guaranteed, but the situation is serious," he said. "We are therefore further strengthening precautions and taking additional measures to reduce gas consumption."
He said the coal-fired plants will be used for a "transitional period." Other measures include a gas auction model to be launched this summer to encourage industrial consumers to reduced their use of gas as well as strengthening the storage of gas through offering loans secured by a federal guarantee to Germany's gas market operator.
The announcement comes as Russia continues to limit gas to Europe where nations have repeatedly sought to punish Moscow over its war in Ukraine.
On Friday, Italy and Slovakia said Gazprom, Russia's state-owned energy company, had halved their gas deliveries.
On Thursday, Gazprom said in a statement on its official Telegram account that it reduced gas supplies to Germany via its Nord Stream 1 pipeline to 67 million cubic meters a day, which is a substantial decline.
Gazprom said it stopped the Siemens gas turbine engine for repairs.
Habeck, however, called the move by Russia in a statement as an obvious "strategy to unsettle and drive up prices."
"The quantities can be procured on the market, albeit at high prices," he said late last week. "Security of supply is guaranteed. But we are monitoring things very closely and are in close contact with the relevant actors about the crisis structures."
He said that the current situation shows the need to conserve energy and that they will take other mitigating measures.
Does it really show the need to conserve energy, or does it show the need to end the Ukraine war and restore sanity with Russia? How far will this set the climate change strategy of reducing CO2 in the atmosphere back? With Germany as an example, much of the rest of Europe will also resort to coal-fired energy plants.
This has everything to do with the madness of NATO, the USA, and Europe's lack of real leaders. NATO and Washington are happy to smother Europe with coal dust and smog in order to keep the war in Ukraine going. Think of all that war inventory that keeps moving.
Western leaders warn war in Ukraine could last years
By Daniel Uria
Smoke from shelling rises near a mine waste bank in the Luhansk area of north-east of Severodonetsk. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Sunday urged Western allies to maintain support for Ukraine, warning its war with Russian invaders could span years. Photo by Oleksandr Ratushniak/EPA-EFE
June 19 (UPI) -- Russia's war in Ukraine could extend for several years, a pair of Western leaders warned on Sunday.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged the international community to maintain its support for Ukraine as it fights to fend off Moscow's invasion, warning it is nearly impossible to tell when the conflict will come to an end.
Johnson wrote in the Sunday Times of London that Ukraine's allies must work to ensure that it "has the strategic endurance to survive and eventually prevail" over Russian forces" in a prolonged conflict.
"I am afraid that we need to steel ourselves for a long war as [Russian President Vladimir Putin] resorts to a campaign of attrition, trying to grind down Ukraine by sheer brutality," he said.
Johnson said that allies must also increase efforts to make sure Ukrainian forces are properly trained to operate advanced equipment, adding that Britain hoped to train "up to "10,000 soldiers every 120 days."
It was estimated that Russia now controls 80%-90% of the Donbas region going into Sunday and at least 4,509 civilians have been killed and 5,585 civilians have been injured, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights since the war began on Feb. 24.
However, the Ukrainian military said that a Russian regiment was forced to withdraw from the eastern front "to restore combat capability" after sustaining heavy losses, while Ukrainian forces had destroyed "30 units of various equipment and weapons of the enemy" in a 24-hour period beginning Friday morning.
Stoltenberg told German newspaper Bild am Sonntag that Western nations "must not let up in supporting Ukraine" noting that Ukrainian forces were fighting bravely and could push Russian troops out of the Donbas region.
He said the support must persist "even if the costs are high, not only for military support but also because of rising energy and food prices" noting that those costs could not compare "to the price that the Ukrainians have to pay every day with many lives."
What insanity! NATO, and countries that have no risk of losing personnel or civilians are prepared to drag this war out for years, killing thousands more civilians and soldiers, and destroying more infrastructure and economies, so they can sell more weapons.
NATO will meet in Madrid for two days beginning June 29 to address security concerns and the strategic direction of the alliance over the next decade, Stoltenberg added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a message to fathers who "protect and defend" during the war in a Father's Day message posted Sunday.
"Being a father is a great responsibility and a great happiness," said Zelensky, a father of two. "It is strength, wisdom, motivation to go forward and not to give up. And no matter how difficult it is -- to protect and defend the most precious. Thank you, our heroes."
On Saturday, the U.S. State Department said it had reviewed photos and videos appearing to show two Americans who had been captured after traveling to Ukraine to voluntarily join the war effort.
The agency had previously described the two men, Alex Dreuke, 39, and Andy Tai Ngoc Hyunh, 27, as "reportedly captured by Russia's military forces in Ukraine, after they were reported missing by their families last week but declined to comment on the authenticity of the images or the men's conditions.
American officials, however, remained in contact with the men's families, Ukrainian authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross, a State Department spokesperson said.
NATO admits it’s been preparing for conflict with Russia since 2014
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that increases in deployments and military spending
were carried out with Moscow in mind
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Wednesday that increases in military spending and rising numbers of troop deployments in Eastern Europe since 2014 were carried out in anticipation of a conflict with Russia.
Speaking after a meeting of NATO members and partner states in Madrid, Stoltenberg accused Moscow of “using force in the eastern Donbass since 2014,” despite the fact that Kiev’s forces have been shelling cities in the region ever since the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics declared independence from Ukraine that year.
Nevertheless, Stoltenberg said that the US-led military bloc decided in 2014 to start beefing up its forces in Eastern Europe.
“The reality is also that we have been preparing for this since 2014,” he stated. “That is the reason that we have increased our presence in the eastern part of the alliance, why NATO allies have started to invest more in defense, and why we have increased [our] readiness.”
According to NATO figures, the bloc’s European members and Canada have increased their military expenditure by between 1.2% and 5.9% every year since 2014. However, only 10 out of 30 NATO states currently meet the bloc’s target of spending 2% of GDP on defense.
The increase in expenditure has been most noticeable in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, with Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania all meeting the target for the first time in 2022.
And where does this astonishing amount of money go? To the Military Establishment Complex. It comes from taxes on the common people and goes to the uber-wealthy war-mongers. It's a wealth transfer system that will leave the filthy rich even filthier and richer, and will leave the common families poorer.
Earlier on Wednesday, NATO members agreed to adopt a new Strategic Concept. This policy blueprint sets out the alliance’s stance toward partners, non-members, and adversaries, with the 2022 iteration naming Russia as the “most significant and direct threat” to the bloc.
On the other hand, Moscow has labeled NATO’s expansion into former Soviet states since the end of the Cold War – which Western leaders explicitly promised in the early 1990s would not happen – as a threat against its own security. NATO’s official position on Ukraine, set out in the 2008 Bucharest Declaration, is that it and Georgia “will become members of NATO” at an unspecified future date. Russia has cited Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership as a key factor behind the current conflict.
Despite the alliance’s post-Cold War march into the former Eastern Bloc, Stoltenberg claimed on Wednesday that “NATO has strived for a better relationship with Russia for decades.”
Yes, and I have a tropical island on the coast of Labrador for sale cheap!
No comments:
Post a Comment