Trudeau Should Cut His Losses on the Trans Mountain Pipeline

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Justin Trudeau is in over a barrel. In 2015, he made a deal with Alberta. He would get an oil pipeline built to a coast if the province joined his pan-Canadian climate plan. After his election this past April, Conservative Alberta Premier Jason Kenney ripped up Alberta’s side of the bargain and declared war on Trudeau’s climate plan.

What should Ottawa do now after being jilted by Alberta?

Should the Liberal government maintain its side of the bargain, and proceed with the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline from Edmonton to the Vancouver area and lose credibility as a climate warrior? Or should it kill the pipeline expansion now and say this was a bargain gone bad?

In the long run, the latter course would save Ottawa lots on further subsidies. But there’s that little short-run thing – the looming federal election on or before Oct. 21.

How could Trudeau explain taking a big loss of taxpayer money on a pipeline that no private sector investor would touch last year? Either choice will look bad. No good options is a predicament.

Kicking the can down the road beyond the federal election is one way out. But Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi promised a decision by June 18.

Remember Justin Trudeau’s grand entry onto the world stage at the Paris Climate Summit in November-December 2015? Canada is back, my friends. That was just six weeks after his stunning electoral upset, leapfrogging his party from third to first place, winning a solid majority.

In Paris, Trudeau and Environment Minister Catherine McKenna promised to catapult Canada from environment laggard under Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper to a global climate leader. While most rich countries at the Paris talks aimed to limit global warming to a 2 C rise above pre-industrial levels, Canada joined low-lying island states to champion a stricter 1.5 C global limit.

Canada’s Trans Mountain Pipeline, Civil Society to Justin Trudeau: “The Time for Investment in New Fossil Fuel Infrastructure Is Over”

How then did Trudeau get stuck with a pipeline that makes no environmental or financial sense?

The pipeline is not going to change the fundamental disadvantages of Alberta’s oilsands. At $90 a barrel for new projects, their break-even cost is among the highest in the world. And their emission intensity is through the roof. Environment and Climate Change Canada scientists found that CO2 emissions were more than 60 percent higher than industry had calculated.

The sands are in a remote part of a remote, landlocked province. Their main market – the U.S. – where 99.9 percent of Canadian oil exports now head, is now their main competitor. The U.S. produces cheaper, lower-emissions oil.

The idea that the Trans Mountain expansion would open new markets in Asia is illusory. The price of heavy, sour crude oil in the Far East is $1 to $3 a barrel lower than on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Transport costs via the Trans Mountain line and tankers will be at least $2 a barrel higher to Asia. China does not have the capacity to refine bitumen. Besides, the world is swimming in light crude oil.

In recent years, only a few oil tankers have left Vancouver harbour. Most of that oil has gone to the U.S., not China. So the premise behind the Trans Mountain pipeline is faulty. The pipeline expansion will likely be a white elephant, owned or subsidized by taxpayers.

The pipeline expansion could cost up to $10 billion, in addition to the $4.4 billion purchase price that the auditor general said was $1 billion too much.

If by some miracle the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is built, gets filled to capacity and finds markets, it would encourage the production of 590,000 barrels a day more oil from Alberta’s sands. That would add another 13 to 15 megatonnes of carbon pollution.

So it doesn’t make environmental sense either.

The Trudeau government got a special exemption in the new NAFTA (USMCA) to enable it to subsidize the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Why would a government so publicly committed to climate action throw more good money at a dodgy pipeline expansion, especially when Alberta has torn up its side of the climate understanding? Better to cut your losses now.

Gordon Laxer is a political economy professor emeritus at the University of Alberta and author of the Council of Canadians report “Billion Dollar Buyout. How Canadian taxpayers bought a climate-killing pipeline and Trump’s trade deal supports it.”

Featured image is from Canadian Dimension

The original source of this article is The Star (Opinion)

Copyright © Gordon Laxer, The Star (Opinion), 2019

CANADA’S TRUDEAU DECLARES CLIMATE EMERGENCY… THEN APPROVES MAJOR OIL PIPELINE

Source

http://www.blacklistednews.com

SOURCE: OIL PRICE

By Nick Cunningham

June 19, 2019

Canada declared a national climate emergency on Monday. The next day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave the greenlight to a massive oil sands pipeline.

The House of Commons, with strong support declared climate change a “real and urgent crisis.” A week before, Justin Trudeau proposed a ban on single-use plastics, which, if implemented, would be the latest in a growing number of bans on plastic that could put multibillion-dollar bets on plastics and petrochemicals by the oil industry at risk.

But Trudeau has never really stood in the way of Canada’s oil industry, despite years of platitudes about addressing climate change. That was clear on June 18, when he gave the approval to the Trans Mountain Expansion (not for the first time), a $4.5 billion twin pipeline that would run along an existing line from Alberta to the Pacific Coast in British Columbia.

The Trans Mountain Expansion is one of a few high-profile pipeline projects that have run into serious trouble. Trudeau first gave the greenlight in 2016, but the project ran aground amid legal challenges from First Nations and environmental groups. Last year, Kinder Morgan, the original owner of the project, headed for the exit, threatening the cancel the project altogether.

Desperate to keep it alive – and the clearest example imaginable of how much the Canadian government depends on the oil industry – Trudeau moved to nationalize the project in mid-2018, buying it off of Kinder Morgan’s hands. A year later, here we are, with Ottawa once again trying to push it forward.

“This isn’t an either/or proposition. It is in Canada’s national interest to protect our environment and invest in tomorrow while making sure people can feed their families today,” Trudeau said on Tuesday. Despite Trudeau’s plea, many see it precisely as an either/or proposition. Faced with a binary choice, Trudeau could either anger the oil industry, or anger First Nations and environmental groups. He chose the former, even though that was mostly expected.

The approval comes as no surprise—the federal government owns the pipeline after all,” Scotiabank’s Rebekah Young wrote in a note. The Canadian government has vowed to build the project with a Crown corporation, then turn it over to private investors or some other company.

But the next step is unclear.

The approval from Trudeau’s government is a “positive step” for the project, but “project execution risk remains elevated,” Goldman Sachs wrote in a note to clients. The investment bank said that while the government plans to begin construction this year, Goldman is not factoring the project into its base-case forecasts, “given prior uncertainty in the outlook of this project.”

“Today’s decision is a positive development for Canada’s western oil sector, but it will have little impact on short term production,” Rebekah Young for Scotiabank said. The expansion will triple the pipeline system’s current capacity, taking it up to 890,000 bpd. “However, with the earliest completion date only by 2022,” Young added.

Still, commencing construction on the project would be seen as a breakthrough for Canada’s oil industry. “We would also anticipate that reaching surety in construction of TMX would provide oil sand producers confidence to commence re-investing in production growth, given the capital constrained budgets most companies are now operating under,” Goldman analysts said. “That said, we continue to see pipeline shortages until at least 2022…and during this period from now until then, see light-heavy differentials wider than pipeline economics.”

The inability to build a new pipeline had diminished production growth in Canada’s oil sands, and could limit output in the long run. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) just released its 2019 Crude Oil Forecast, and lowered its estimate for production growth to 1.44 percent annually through 2035, less than half its prior estimate from 2014. “Pipeline constraints, a lack of market diversity, and inefficient regulations are largely responsible for holding back Canada’s oil sector,” CAPP said.

Oil forecasts aside, the Trans Mountain Expansion will still run into stiff resistance from First Nations and environmental groups. “The Trudeau government does not have the right to put a pipeline through unceded Secwepemc land,” spokeswoman Kanahus Manuel said, according to Reuters. More lawsuits and protests are inevitable.

Moreover, the pipeline needs permits from British Columbia, where the government has opposed the project.

“[T]he project still faces significant political, regulatory, and judicial challenges, and ultimately we see a tremendous amount of execution risk up until the oil starts flowing,” Gavin MacFarlane, a VP with Moody’s Investors Service, said in comments circulated to reporters.

Meanwhile, the other pipeline that could potentially add takeaway capacity from Alberta – Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement – hit another snag. State agencies in Minnesota said on Tuesday that they would not issue permits until a revised environmental review was completed, following a recent court order that said the state had failed to adequately assess the potential impact of an oil spill. In short, permits could be delayed longer than expected.

If Line 3 fails to move forward for any reason, that increases the stakes and importance for the Trans Mountain Expansion as the only route left for new pipeline capacity. And vice versa.

‘As if Germany is a US colony’: Bundestag energy chief lashes out at Russia sanctions

“The Americans are using politics to realize their own interests in this field.”

Source

http://www.rt.com

16 May, 2019

FILE PHOTO: The laying of Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline ©  Reuters / Axel Schmidt

Only the US – not Germany or the EU – is interested in economic sanctions against Russia, the head of the Bundestag’s economy and energy committee has said. German MPs are looking at ways to lift the restrictions, he added.

Bundestag energy and economy chief Klaus Ernst of Die Linke party accused the US of behaving as if Germany is its colony, as Washington tries to bully Europeans out of buying Russian gas.

“Those measures don’t only target Russians, they deliberately target Europeans, for example, German energy companies involved in Nord Stream 2,” he said at a conference on the prospects of energy cooperation between Russia and the EU, organized by the Russian Gas Society – an association of Russian energy companies, relevant research institutions and local administrations.

ALSO ON RT.COMUS must prevent construction of Nord Stream 2 pipeline to counter Russia – Pompeo

US officials, including President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Berlin ambassador Richard Grenell, have mounted an offensive against the Russian-led Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that is expected to be completed in 2019. With the stated goal of countering Russian “leverage,” they are threatening European companies with sanctions if they continue investing in the project.

“The actions of the US ambassador to Germany are simply unacceptable,” Ernst said, as cited by Russian media.

It’s as if Germany is a US colony.

The real goal, according to Ernst, is to make the EU buy American gas instead: “The Americans are using politics to realize their own interests in this field.”

The threats have had no effect so far, with Nord Stream 2 construction continuing to surge ahead. The Gazprom-owned pipeline’s operator stated that each of its European partners, which include German, French, British, Dutch and Austrian companies, have invested around a billion euros in it.

Speaking of other economic measures in place against Russia, Ernst noted that the US is the only party that wins from them.

“There are currently discussions about this in the Bundestag economy committee, and it is growing stronger – how sanctions against Russia can be lifted. Neither Germany, nor Europe is interested in these sanctions. The only ones winning from these sanctions are the Americans.”

‘Shame on Trudeau’: Anger Stirred as Canada’s Energy Board Approves Trans Mountain Pipeline

“We have a duty to protect what we’ve all been blessed with in British Columbia in regard to the pristine beauty of the environment,” said one First Nations leader. “We will rise to the challenge.”

Naomi Klein✔

This is the problem with drinking the Kool-Aid served by politicians who are masters of progressive symbolism but evade substance. Once in power, they can be counted on to do substantive harm. On climate (and much else) we do not have even 1 more year to waste on these imposters.

Source: ‘Shame on Trudeau’: Anger Stirred as Canada’s Energy Board Approves Trans Mountain Pipeline

Common Dreams

by Julia Conley, staff writer

February 22, 2019

The National Energy Board of Canada on Friday recommended approval for the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion project. (Photo: Greenpeace)

Indigenous tribes and green campaigners were angered but not surprised Friday when Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) recommended that the government move ahead with its planned expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline—despite acknowledging that the project will negatively affect the environment.

The decision paved the way for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration to increase fossil fuel emissions, endanger wildlife, and threaten the lives and livelihoods of the eight million people who live in the pipeline’s path.

The NEB argued that the pipeline is in the public interest and provided the government with a list of 16 conditions that it must meet as it prepares to expand the 1,150 kilometer (714 mile) pipeline, tripling the amount of oil the tar sands pipeline will carry from Edmonton, Alberta to Burnaby, British Columbia—but critics including Burnaby mayor Mike Hurley argued that the NEB has no intention of protecting the environment or wildlife by enforcing strict regulations on the construction.

“This is the problem with drinking the Kool-Aid served by politicians who are masters of progressive symbolism but evade substance. Once in power, they can be counted on to do substantive harm.” —Naomi Klein

The conditions will not “prevent significant public safety risks and harms to marine life and other environmental impacts,” Hurley told the Vancouver Sun.

The board noted that the Trans Mountain pipeline is likely to have a significant negative impact on the Southern resident orca, whose population in the Salish Sea off the coast of British Columbia is rapidly dwindling; on the Indigenous population in the area, especially in the event of an oil spill; and on the environment, with fossil fuel emissions rising as cargo ships carry the oil after it travels from Edmonton.

Outcry from First Nations and campaigners ensued when the NEB initially approved the project in 2016, and opponents rejoiced last summer when the Federal Court of Appeals temporarily blocked construction. The court argued that Trudeau’s administration and Kinder Morgan, which sold the pipeline to the government for $4.5 billion last year, had not sufficiently considered its effects on Southern orcas and indigenous tribes.

But Friday’s approval—which came after what one campaigner called a rushed process with a “compressed hearing schedule” that allowed for little input from the public—was not unexpected among critics.

“This entire process is a joke,” Peter McCartney of the Wilderness Committee told the Sun. “I don’t think anybody’s surprised to see the NEB green lighting this pipeline—it’s what they were designed to do.”

Kwikwasut’inuxw Haxwa’mis Chief Bob Chamberlin, vice-president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, said Trudeau has indicated his government will stop at nothing to complete the project.

“The troubling part for me and First Nations concerned about their water and their territories is the fact that Trudeau has stated this pipeline will be built, full stop. It makes an absolute mockery of the consultation process that was court ordered and has been accomplished today,” Chamberlin told the Sun.

In a press conference, Grand Chief Stewart Philip also said indigenous tribes will not relent in their “deeply entrenched opposition” to the pipeline, which will threaten food sources of the 29 tribes that live in the path of the proposed route.

“We are proud British Columbians and we have a duty to protect what we’ve all been blessed with in British Columbia in regard to the pristine beauty of the environment,” Philip said. “We will rise to the challenge.”

“I understand in British Columbia, this pipeline will provide a way of having an income,” said Noel Purser of the Suquamish Tribe, which joined four other Northwest U.S. tribes in challenging the project in 2013. “But is it worth the potential of a spill, that risk? Is it really worth that? Because that will impact everybody, not just here in British Columbia. It will impact us in Suquamish; it will impact our relatives in Alaska.”

“Once again, Canada’s NEB has sided with short-term Big Oil profits instead of the long-term health of the Pacific Northwest’s people, climate and orcas,” said Marcie Keever of Friends of the Earth. “Shame on Prime Minister Trudeau, his government, and the National Energy Board of Canada for ignoring widespread opposition and serious concerns in favor of this destructive pipeline. Canada’s decision will likely bring about the extinction of the Northwest’s iconic killer whales and drive us further towards the brink of climate chaos.”

Author Naomi Klein argued that the Trans Mountain pipeline project should offer a lesson to voters who have been convinced by politicians who exude “progressive symbolism” while campaigning “but evade substance” when asked how they will initiate a bold, ambitious agenda to protect the planet and human rights.

Paul Watson @wherewarlives

Pipeline Prime Minister @justintrudeau is a serial liar whose phoney energy regulators support sacrificing iconic wildlife in order to expand tar sands exports that fuel catastrophic global warming. He must be stopped for the sake of us all. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-neb-says-trans-mountain-pipeline-expansion-in-public-interest-despite/ …

Finian Cunningham: Trump Plays Russian Card Too

So, the Trump administration is warning European companies they face punitive sanctions if they continue doing business with Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas project.

Source: Trump Plays Russian Card Too – Sputnik International

sputniknews.com

Finian Cunningham

Jan 15, 2019

© Photo: nord-stream2

So, the Trump administration is warning European companies they face punitive sanctions if they continue doing business with Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas project.

The latest American bullying act came with the US ambassador in Berlin, Richard Grenell, writing to German companies to tell them of the danger of future economic penalties for participating in the ambitious gas pipeline project.

That was not the first time Grenell has issued such a warning. His boss, Donald Trump, has also previously made threatening sounds of economic sanctions against European companies involved in constructing Nord Stream 2.

Trump has castigated Germany in particular for allegedly being beholden to Russia owing to its abundant import of Russian gas and oil. When the Nord Stream 2 project — a 1,222-kilometer pipeline under the Baltic Sea — is finished within the next year, Germany will be able to double its gas consumption from Russia.

The Trump administration claims that this prodigious role for Russia as an energy supplier will give Moscow undue political leverage over Europe. Washington alleges that European national security is being undermined by dependence on Russian energy fuel.

Here is where a glaring contradiction emerges. Trump is warning Europe about an alleged Russian menace over its geopolitics. But hold on a moment. Isn’t Trump supposed to be a Russian puppet?

The relentless, and lately intensifying, narrative from Trump’s political enemies in the US is that he is a stooge for Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

The New York Times recently reported that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had opened a file on Trump back in 2017 probing into whether he was “working on behalf of the Russians”.

Then the Washington Post appeared to coordinate the pressure by also running reports that Trump had gone to extraordinary lengths to keep secret his conversations with Putin when the pair met at conferences. It was even claimed that Trump confiscated the notes taken by his interpreter after he met with Putin on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg in July 2017.

These recent claims come on top of two congressional investigations and the probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller — conducted over the past nearly two years — which allege that Trump colluded with Russia either wittingly or unwittingly to win the 2016 presidential election.

A phalanx of politicians and pundits in Washington have continually sought to paint Trump as some kind of surrogate for the Kremlin, giving “foreign enemy” Russia strategic sway over American politics and America’s European allies.

Sceptics point out that this fantastical depiction of Trump as a Russian puppet has never been substantiated with any evidence, despite the unremitting probes and media obsession. Even the New York Times admitted in its recent attempt to link Trump to Russia that there is no evidence.

Trump has repeatedly dismissed the Russian collusion claims as “fake news”. In response to the recent reports in the New York Times and Washington Post, the president told reporters this week: “I don’t work for Russia!” He said the claims were a “big fat hoax”.

The evidence that Trump does not work for Russia is plain to see. If he were a stooge for Moscow then why is Trump trying his utmost to undermine Russia’s strategically important energy market in Europe?

Why is the American president and his envoy in Berlin portraying Russia as a malign actor towards European security if Trump were somehow in Putin’s pocket?

The sinister inference from Trump’s warnings to Europe over the Nord Stream 2 project is that Russia is a menace and a malignant power. Trump is thus using the “Russian Card”. That is, he is using the “bogeyman” demonization of Russia to blackmail Europe into spurning Russian energy supplies.

Of course, Trump is abusing a Cold War caricature of Russia for entirely self-serving American interests. He wants to discredit and displace Russia as a legitimate energy supplier to the European market so that the Americans can step in with their much more expensive and uncompetitive gas exports.

If Washington were to abide by free-market capitalism — as it claims to do — then American gas supplies to Europe would not stand a chance against Russia’s abundant and much more economical supply, especially after the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is completed. What the Americans have to do — and Trump is brazenly making this pitch — is to use propaganda devices to warp the market in their favour.

Trump is playing the Russian Card as ruthlessly and as unscrupulously as any Cold Warrior in Washington.

Now, how is it plausible for any of his domestic enemies to maintain that Trump is a stooge for Moscow when he is trying to steal Russia’s lucrative energy market in Europe?

However, the contradiction works both ways. Yes, Trump’s political enemies are shown to be flogging a dead horse of a story about him being an agent for malign Russian interference in US and European politics. Trump himself dismisses that spurious fantasy.

Yet, Trump is shamelessly using a similar propaganda fiction about Russia being a villain when it comes to him touting for American energy business in Europe. Shame on all the American politicians.

The views and opinions expressed by the contributor do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.

Finian Cunningham: It’s a Gas… Germany Outraged by US Colonial Arrogance

The glaring reality is it’s the Americans who are driving horses and coaches of interference through their supposed allies, who are evidently vassals.

Source: It’s a Gas… Germany Outraged by US Colonial Arrogance

Reproduced with permission

http://www.strategic-culture.org

Finian CUNNINGHAM

Jan 15, 2019

It’s a Gas… Germany Outraged by US Colonial Arrogance

This time the outspoken US ambassador in Berlin may have gone too far to be ignored. The German government has denounced as a “provocation” letters that the American envoy sent to companies involved in the Nord Stream 2 project warning them of possible US sanctions.

The German government reportedly told the project companies to “ignore” the missives dispatched by Ambassador Richard Grenell.

Nord Stream 2 is the 1,222-kilometer pipeline being laid in the Baltic seabed which will greatly increase delivery of natural gas from Russia to Germany. It will double Germany’s import of Russian gas when complete. But the Trump administration has repeatedly voiced its objection to the project, claiming that it will give Moscow undue political leverage over Europe. Trump has warned of sanctions on participating companies, which include German and Austrian firms.

The flagrant ulterior agenda is seen as the US trying to undermine German-Russian energy trade, for the purpose of selling more expensive American liquefied natural gas to Europe. So much for American free-market capitalism!

Grenell’s letters to the German firms – received at the weekend – are viewed as an unprecedented threat to the nation’s conduct of private business. The US embassy denied it was a threat, saying the letters were merely stating Washington’s policy of imposing sanctions.

It is but the latest furore involving the maverick envoy who has been accused in the past of violating diplomatic protocol by meddling in Germany’s domestic affairs. German media have previously blasted Grenell for seeking “regime change” in Berlin because of his open support for the anti-immigration party, Alternative for Germany (AfD).

When Grenell took up his diplomatic post in Berlin last May, he immediately provoked a political firestorm when he tweeted that German companies doing business with Iran “should wind down operations” or face punitive American sanctions. That was at the time President Trump pulled out of the international nuclear accord with Iran. “Never tell the host country what to do, if you want to stay out of trouble,” snapped Wolfgang Ischinger, Germany’s former ambassador to Washington.

Only a few weeks after that dubious debut, Grenell gave an interview to the pro-Trump Breibart News outlet, boasting that he wanted to “empower other conservatives throughout Europe”. That was taken as an endorsement of the AfD in Germany, which has emerged as a serious challenger to the political establishment in Berlin.

Martin Schulz, the former leader of the Social Democratic Party, was among several political figures who then demanded Grenell’s dismissal. “What this man is doing is unheard of in international diplomacy… he’s behaving like a colonial officer of the far-right,” said Schulz. He added a fair point by noting: “If a German ambassador were to say in Washington that he was there to boost the Democrats, he would have been kicked out immediately.”

Grenell’s high-profile media interventions concerning German politics and business do appear to constitute a brazen breach of the 1964 Vienna Convention which stipulates that diplomats must remain neutral on matters of policy concerning host nations. Officially, an ambassador’s role is to lobby discreetly on behalf of his government, and to always adopt a low-profile.

Of course, this would not be the first time that US embassies and envoys have violated the Vienna Convention in host countries. Washington habitually uses these outposts for fomenting regime change.

Richard Grenell, however, has openly flouted these norms and acted as an unabashed mouthpiece for Trump, echoing the president’s contempt for the German government of Chancellor Angela Merkel. The upshot, according to Der Spiegel, is that Grenell has become politically isolated in Berlin. Merkel “keeps him at a distance” and most politicians, except for the AfD, have shunned his contact.

After the latest controversy of writing warning letters to German companies, it may be the final straw for Berlin’s tolerance.

Already, the German media have been commenting on how the “trans-Atlantic partnership” is finished under Trump.

Business newspaper Handelsblatt commented previously: “Nothing in trans-Atlantic relations is normal any longer… Berlin has for too long clung to the illusion of trans-Atlantic normalcy… the era of close ties is now over”.

Moreover, there are increasing calls among German politicians and media for a “strategically autonomous Germany and Europe” unfettered by Washington’s policies.

Such a development is long overdue and its necessity long predates Trump. Since the end of the Second World War, Germany has resembled an occupied country for American military power and a subordinate to Washington’s political objectives. The primary objective has always been to prevent Germany from developing a natural partnership with Moscow, previously with the former Soviet Union, and subsequently the Russian Federation.

The absolute disregard for German sovereignty was perhaps best demonstrated not by the Trump administration, but during the presidency of Barack Obama when it emerged that American intelligence agencies were tapping the personal phone calls of Chancellor Merkel. If that’s not colonial arrogance, then what is?

Yet the German political and media establishment barely protested over that infringement by Washington on the country’s sovereignty and its leader.

What Trump and his cipher-envoy in Berlin have done is take the arrogance to an unbearably overt level. Trump has been kicking Germany for alleged “unfair trading practices”, denigrating Merkel over her refugee policy, browbeating Berlin to double its spend on NATO military budget, and lambasting German businesses for not complying with Washington’s hostile foreign policy towards Iran and Russia.

Trump in his boorish style is merely laying bare the long-presumed US hegemony over Germany. And it’s not a pretty sight. Berlin is being shamed into having to be seen to stand up to this American bullying.

The absurdity is that the US and its NATO acolytes have been foaming at the mouth for the last two years about alleged and unproven Russian interference in domestic politics of Western states. Whenever the glaring reality is it’s the Americans who are driving horses and coaches of interference through their supposed allies, who are evidently vassals.

“Life Canada” vs. the Kinder-Morgan Oil-Tar Scheme

If it was refined first in Alberta to a form where it is not irreversibly polluting to perhaps the most beautiful  mountain-and-sea life and waterways in  the world, and if it provided  long-term productive jobs at the top end for Albertans at the same time, you could understand why such an oil-tar extraction-export scheme made economic sense in a falling world.

But it does the opposite on all counts.

It is a maximum-risk disaster with oil tar every step of the way through Canada’s most beautiful lands and waterways and perhaps history’s.

And it ships all the refinery jobs necessary to purefy it for market as well as Canada’s primary mountain and water heritages of beauty and life out of Canada to a massive Texas oil-control conglomerate.

The reason you never hear a word of the life-coherent, eco-economic and real job-creating option from the mouths of PM Trudeau or Notley or the corporate media or the Fraser Institute or vassal CBC news is that it may be the biggest-lie project of looting and polluting the life-ground of Canada in its history.

*

Prof. John McMurtry PhD (London) is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the author of books and articles published and translated from Latin to Japanese, including the three volumes of Philosophy and World Problems for UNESCO Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems and The Cancer Stage of Capitalism. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. 

Former Central Banker: Oil Pipeline Protesters Will Be Killed. So Be It.

Source link

theantimedia.com

Common Dreams

Written by Andrea Germanos

June 15, 2018

(CD) — As Canada’s controversial Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project faces ongoing opposition, the former governor of the Bank of Canada said that protesters may die but that the government should push the project through anyway.

Speaking at an event Wednesday, David Dodge said, “We’re going to have some very unpleasant circumstances,” the Edmonton Journal reported. “There are some people that are going to die in protesting construction of this pipeline. We have to understand that.”

“Nevertheless, we have to be willing to enforce the law once it’s there,” Dodge said. “It’s going to take some fortitude to stand up.”

In an interview with the Journal, he elaborated by saying, “We have seen it other places, that equivalent of religious zeal leading to flouting of the law in a way that could lead to death.”

Dodge’s comments prompted outrage from climate activists.

Author and 350-org co-founder Bill McKibben warned, “North American governments have shown the ‘fortitude’ necessary to kill indigenous people often enough that this is no idle threat,” while Canandian author Naomi Klein called the threat a “disgrace.” She added, “If the worst happens, we now know they went into this with their eyes wide open.”

Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Mike Hudema, meanwhile, wondered if Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would weigh in on Dodge’s remarks.

Mike Hudema‏Verified account @MikeHudema

Is Prime Minister @JustinTrudeau going to condemn these comments from former Bank of Canada governor basically saying – ‘We need this pipeline. If people need to die because of it. Well so be it that’s the cost of doing business.’ https://buff.ly/2JLcxmH  #cdnpoli #bcpoli

1:06 PM – 14 Jun 2018

Trudeau was the target of sharp criticism from environmental advocacy groups after announcing last month that the government would purchase the pipeline and expansion system, which will roughly triple the system’s capacity. That $4.5 billion buyout, commented the B.C.-based Dogwood Initiative, makes every taxpayer “partial owner of a leaky 65-year-old pipeline—and the proponent of a still uncosted oil tanker expansion project.”

Dodge, for his part, has been described as “not inclined to hold his tongue.”

His comments about the pipeline protesters come days after he accused climate activists of making it harder to enact policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and said Canada should “sell our hydrocarbons, which we produce, to foreigners at the highest possible market price….including the sale of bitumen from the oilsands, while demand for oil is robust and still growing.”

By Andrea Germanos / Creative Commons

No need for Europe to buy US gas at triple the price, will continue imports from Russia – Austria

RT.com

5 Jun, 2018

© Issei Kato / Reuters

The US is force-feeding Europe its liquefied natural gas, which is three times more expensive that buying it from Russia, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen said after signing a gas-supply contract with Moscow until 2040.

While US politicians are accusing Europe of being dependent on Russian gas, they forget that “American liquefied gas is two or three times more expensive than Russian gas. Under such circumstances, it makes little sense in purely economic terms to replace Russian gas with American LNG,” Van der Bellen said at a press conference after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vienna on Tuesday.

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Why American LNG is no substitute for Russian gas in Europe

Putin noted that Austria is a major transportation hub for Russian gas being exported to Europe. “Austria has become one of the key, if not to say, one of the most important units of Russian gas transportation to Western Europe and plays an important role in ensuring the energy security of the entire European continent,” Putin said.

He recalled that Russia has exported more than 200 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Austria in the past 50 years. After the meeting, Russia’s Gazprom and Austria’s OMV signed a gas supply contract until 2040.

Before Putin’s trip to Austria, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz also spoke about the importance of Russian gas shipments to his country. “I would like to note that fruitful cooperation of the two very important companies – OMV and Gazprom – which seems to me extremely beneficial for both sides,” the chancellor told TASS news agency in an interview.

OMV and Gazprom are now implementing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which seeks to double the capacity of the existing Nord Stream. The project has faced opposition from the US, which is seeking to ramp up LNG exports to Europe.

The Canadian Pension Plan: The Deadly Hand of the Market. Investing in Weapons and Fossil Fuel

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A recent article in the Toronto Star and its accompanying photo bear comment. The reaching hands are not of rioting, starving people grasping for food but of stockbrokers on the trading floor. The article, about protecting individual portfolios, counsels people to know of their options though “the majority of investors have little or no understanding of puts and calls and, in most cases, don’t want to be bothered.” A number of practices keep the public uninformed, including a plethora of neologisms that defy comprehension, lack of transparency, and skewed computations that omit life’s crucial externalities. Economics has been called the “dismal science,” but “abysmal” more fittingly describes its deadly impact on people worldwide.

The Canadian Pension Plan (CPP) is believed by many to represent the caring face of Canada, while it is lauded as the “New Masters of the Universe” and “Maple Revolutionaries” by the OECD, G20, and the World Bank.

“OECD analysts describe these Canadian funds as ‘pioneers in infrastructure investing’ that helped to establish infrastructure as an important and increasingly popular asset class.”¹

It is no exaggeration to state that the CPP is “banking on death,” the title of Robin Blackburn’s comprehensive history of pensions. The Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade lists CPP investments in seventy three corporations (and here) supporting Israel’s military/police/surveillance/prison industrial complex. The CPP is also a big investor in nuclear weapons and in Canada’s fossil fuel and mining sectors which are wreaking havoc in indigenous communities worldwide.

The Capitalist System

At its core is the pricing of human life in the capitalist system. George Monbiot succinctly explains it in his article about Britain’s chief economist Nicholas Stern’s influential report on climate change and the economy: Stern calculated that Heathrow airport expansion makes economic sense because it lessens the time that a rich person has to wait for a flight as his time is worth much money, so this wealth far outweighs the monetary loss if many impoverished people die due to aviation’s carbon emissions.

In 2016, private pension assets in OECD countries reached their highest-ever level at over $38-trillion (U.S.). Pension funds are part of a closed political economic system and its facilitating legalities. Representative are the links between the CPP, Imperial Oil, universities and think tanks, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) to “free, prior and informed consent.” While information is essential, particularly for indigenous people subject to land theft and to environmental contaminants, UN declarations are non-binding and unenforceable. Nonetheless, Anglo-Saxon democracies were the last to sign.

The importance of “informed consent” derives from the infamous longitudinal Tuskegee syphilis experiments on Black men who were not informed that they would not be treated for syphilis even though treatments were available. In practice, informed consent has been turned on its head as it is often configured to protect power.

Indigenous consent is obstructed by many loopholes: the state’s claim of eminent domain, the Doctrine of Discovery justifying European expropriation of supposedly “empty” land (terra nullius), a clause of Canada’s Delgamuukw ruling on Aboriginal title that allows the Canadian government to infringe on title under specific circumstances, the Carter doctrine asserting U.S. entitlement to Canadian resources for national security purposes, trade agreements that pre-empt national laws, the Canadian Mining Act which “does not require that the holder of an exploration permit inform property owners of its existence … and that the permit can be acquired via the Internet with a simple click [so] that First Nations, property owners, and municipalities are ever informed or forewarned of the acquisition of a land claim on their land or territory.”² The Canadian National Energy Board is made up of industry people whose consultations with Indigenous people and the general public are minimal.

CPP investments are also opaque. Private equities have privacy protections, ostensibly to protect trade secrets.

“The CPPIB’s (Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board) private equity team is a blessing to the oil patch. In addition to holding shares in Canada’s largest oil, gas, and coal companies, the most impressive CPPIB contribution to the sector comes from their private equity arm.”

The Canadian Pension Plan is a major investor in Imperial Oil, with its tar sands operations, pipelines, and refineries wreaking destruction on indigenous communities in Canada and abroad. An investigation into the Imperial Oil refinery adjacent to the Aamjiwnaang First Nations in Sarnia, Ontario, just published on May 5th, revealed that it emits ten times more fine particulate matter, seven times more carbon monoxide, and 49 times more sulphur dioxide than the nearby Detroit plant. Imperial Oil owns four facilities within 2 to 7 km from Aamjiwnaang. Forty per cent of Canada’s petrochemical industry surrounds this small community.

The water is so contaminated that it affects endocrine balance: two girls are born for every boy, and the effects on health have been substantiated by medical and legal reports and a charter challenge launched on behalf of the 800 member Aamjiwnaang community. In 2017 Imperial Oil’s flaring caused a five-hour massive explosion. Over 500 incident reports had been filed in 2014 and 2015 for spills and leaks in the Sarnia area: yet only one public warning had been issued through the municipality’s alert system. The government has still not installed an effective monitoring and warning system.

Critical Information is Withheld or Concealed

The Canadian government fired public health physician Dr. John O’Connor for informing the public of rare forms of cancer in Chippewa First Nations communities downstream from the tar sands, nor is it broadcast that preeminent climate scientist James Hansen states that tar sands development means “game over” for the planet. Pam Palmater, indigenous lawyer and Chair in Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University, writes of the latest pipeline expansions:

“Trudeau’s approval of the Kinder Morgan expansion is proof – once and for all – that even the most charming leader, with the biggest tears and sincerest sounding apologies, who is ‘absolutely’ committed to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples – can and will ignore those rights in the name of corporate interests every single time.”

Imperial Oil is 69.6% owned by Exxon-Mobil, the corporation associated with Rex Tillerson and with deception of the public about climate change. Oil was discovered in Ontario in 1858, a year before Titusville Pennsylvania, and by 1880 the Imperial Oil Company was producing, distributing, and refining oil. In the 1950s Imperial Oil and smaller companies banded together to lease some 2 million acres in the tar sands and by the early 1960s there were generous, publicly funded incentives and loose regulations to promote extraction. Imperial’s Board of Directors come from Exxon-Mobil, from the conservative C.D. Howe Institute, from executive positions at the major universities. In 1975, the chair of Imperial Oil led other CEOs to form the Business Council on National Issues, now the Canadian Council of Chief Executives with close ties to the Canadian and U.S. governments. In 2014 Exxon published a detailed report that brushed aside concerns about climate change, “saying oil and gas will remain the dominant sources of energy through 2040…”³

The former president and CEO of the CPPIB, Mark Wiseman, was also “bullish on the fossil fuel sector.” Wiseman recently left the CPP to join his wife at BlackRock, the world’s largest investment manager. A Code Pink petition states that BlackRock is “making a killing on killing!” with its investments in Lockheed, Raytheon, Northrop Grunman, Elbit, and General Dynamics – exactly the same investments as the CPP.

The current head of CPPIB is Heather Munroe-Blum. She is Principal and Vice-Chancellor of McGill University and her directorships include the Association of American Universities, the Conference Board of Canada, Rio Tinto, CGI (oil and gas sector), the Royal Bank of Canada (mining). She is a vocal opponent of the academic boycott of Israeli universities. Her combined pension entitlements gave her the richest package of any university president in Canada at a time when Quebec universities were being asked to absorb $124-million in cuts.

Social Security

The main variables in providing social security have been whether to provide universal or selective coverage, to what degree it should be publicly funded, and the sources of funding. Traditional communities characteristically developed a range of ways to care for their members, whereas nation states came late, if at all, to take on social security, and originally only for selected groups like military men or senior state functionaries. “It was not until the epoch of the French Revolution and its Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen that the first proposals were heard for the paying of pensions as of right to all citizens who had reached an advanced age and were in want.” It was the “unlikely executor of the social legacy of French republicanism … Otto von Bismarck, who established the first universal pension system in 1889.”⁴ The modest 1935 U.S. Social Security Act provided a minimal benefit. Initially it did not cover non-waged women’s work or Black people. Its strengths were that it was a federal program, that it was comprehensive and not voluntary, and that it had its own autonomous administration.

Despite hopes that social security would be a stepping stone to a socialized society, insufficient benefits necessitated supplementary pensions. From the 1970s, pension fund managers took advantage of the erosion of New Deal protections and of the inflow of capital from abroad,⁵ and by the 1990s pension funds became a powerful driver of financialization. The trajectory has been from state responsibility for universal benefits at one end, to private pension funds based on individual contributions. In the cases of the Enron and Nortel Network bankruptcies, pensioners took huge losses as their plans were not guaranteed, and money from asset sales were prioritized for paying legal fees, creditors, and fund managers.

The erosion of state responsibility for social security was further exacerbated by the concerted assault on unions, a factor in the decline of cross-border class solidarity. The inclusion of union representatives on pension boards does not effectively change the “fund-first” principle of fiduciary duty that weights profit over social justice and the public interest.⁶ Not untypical is the case of American and Canadian pension fund investments in Chile’s privately owned water utilities despite a mass social movement within Chile to re-nationalize water.⁷

Currently, divestment victories are politically significant and a result of public pressure. Unlike corporate shareholders and coop members, contributors to pension plans do not have a vote. System change is urgent: fossil fuel impacts are already transforming ocean circulation, the jet stream, even the stratosphere, and are amplifying positive feedbacks. An adequate social security system at this calamitous time needs to go beyond monetary benefits, to go beyond mere reform, and ensure across national borders housing, food, and healthcare for all. It is intolerable that the knowledge- and morally- compromised few “bank on death” of the majority human population.

*

Judith Deutsch is a member of Independent Jewish Voices, and former president of Science for Peace. She is a psychoanalyst in Toronto. She can be reached at judithdeutsch0@gmail.com.

Notes

1. Kevin Skerrett, “Canada’s Public Pension Funds: The ‘New Masters of the (Neoliberal) Universe’,” in Kevin Skerrett, et al., eds., The Contradictions of Pension Fund Capitalism Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017, p. 122.
2. Alain Deneault and William Sacher, Imperial Canada Inc: Legal Haven of Choice for the World’s Mining Industries Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2012, pp. 146-47.
3. Andrew Nikiforuk, Slick Water: Fracking and One Insider’s Stand Against the World’s Most Powerful Industry Berkeley: Greystone Books, 2015.
4. Robin Blackburn, Banking on Death New York: Verso, 2002, pp. 39-47.
5. Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of American Empire New York: Verso, 2013, pp. 175ff.
6. Johanna Westar and Anil Verma, “Labor’s Voice on Pension Boards,” in The Contradictions of Pension Fund Capitalism, pp. 186-87.
7. Skerrett, “Canada’s Public Pension Funds,” p. 133.

All images in this article are from the author.

Trudeau’s Reckless Support for Kinder-Morgan. Billions of Tax Dollars to Buy an Unbuildable, Financially Doomed Pipeline

Narrow-minded and stupid Trudeau might just have lost the next election, as he will lose 18 seats from BC.

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With permission from

With his reckless support for Kinder Morgan and other oil pipelines, Trudeau has willingly compromised his own commitments to address climate change and pursue reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous peoples. Now he’s willing to risk billions of public tax dollars as well.

Recently Trudeau’s Finance Minister, Bill Morneau, announced that Canada was willing to write a blank cheque from Canadian citizens to Texas-based oil pipeline company Kinder Morgan to indemnify the company against political risks to the Trans Mountain project. Over the past month, he’s been negotiating behind closed doors to work out some sort of deal to save the project. Canada has repeatedly promised to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and next month is hosting this year’s G7 Summit, where world leaders have already promised to end handouts for oil, gas, and coal. A move to indemnify Trans Mountain from risk would represent a massive new fossil fuel subsidy, breaking the Trudeau government’s commitments.

Amid serious questions about the financial viability of the Trans Mountain project and Kinder Morgan’s inability to finance its more-than-$7.4-billion price tag, few analysts expect Kinder Morgan to actually proceed. In April, the company vowed to walk away if political risks to the project were not eliminated by May 31st, but since then obstacles and opposition have only grown. Canada’s offer to indemnify Kinder Morgan’s risk doesn’t appear to be sufficient to save the project, and no other companies have stepped forward.

Canada’s Deal to Purchase Kinder Morgan Assets

That likely leaves only one, crazy option on the table.

Are Canadians about to find themselves shelling out billions of tax dollars to a Texas-based company to buy an unbuildable, financially doomed pipeline? We’re likely to find out before tomorrow, when Finance Minister Bill Morneau plans to speak in downtown Calgary.

Outside Canada’s oil-soaked political bubble, this all sounds completely absurd. It’s baffling to watch a seemingly progressive, stable, wealthy country like Canada twist itself into pretzels, risk billions in public money, and edge towards a constitutional crisis all for the benefit of a handful of private oil interests. With a diversified, service-based economy and a highly educated workforce, Canada has much more to offer than dirty fossil fuels. But oil money buys an awful lot of influence.

Canada’s oil industry is a cornered, wounded animal. Unprecedented opposition to new export routes that would feed tar sands expansion – including Keystone XL, Line 3, and Kinder Morgan, all of which are being heavily resisted by Indigenous peoples and millions more – has blocked all the exits. Investment in new growth has dried up. A coming global energy transition is an existential threat.

As we all know, wounded animals can be dangerous. The oil industry is calling in all of its political favours, and its outsized influence on Canada’s government could lead to crazy things. We’re about find out just how far Prime Minister Trudeau is willing to go to indemnify Big Oil.

Our thanks to Oil Change International for this incisive report

The original source of this article is Oil Change International

Copyright © Adam Scott, Oil Change International, 2018

Trump Gives Merkel An Ultimatum: Drop Russian Gas Pipeline Or Trade War Begins

Oil pipelines in Europe

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http://www.zerohedge.com

by Tyler Durden

05/17/2018

It became clear just how important it is to the US for Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project to fail two months ago when, as we described in “US Threatens Sanctions For European Firms Participating In Russian Gas Pipeline Project“, the U.S. State Department warned European corporations that they will likely face penalties and sanctions if they participate in the construction of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 on the grounds that “the project undermines energy security in Europe”, when in reality Russia has for decades been a quasi-monopolist on European energy supplies and thus has unprecedented leverage over European politics, at least behind the scenes.

“As many people know, we oppose the Nord Stream 2 project, the US government does,” State Department spokeswoman, Heather Nauert said during a late March press briefing adding that “the Nord Stream 2 project would undermine Europe’s overall energy security and stability. It would provide Russia [with] another tool to pressure European countries, especially countries such as Ukraine.” And speaking of Ukraine, recall that in 2014, shortly after the US State Department facilitated the presidential coup in Ukraine, Joe Biden’s son Hunter joined the board of directors of Burisma, Ukraine’s largest oil and gas company. Surely that was merely a coincidence.

Nauert also said that Washington may introduce punitive measures against participants in the pipeline project – which could be implemented using a provision in the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).

Fast forward to today, when the dreadfully named CAATSA act just made a repeat appearance; around the time Europe made it clear it would openly defy Trump’s Iran sanctions, the WSJ reported that Trump told Merkel that if she wants to avoid a trans-Atlantic trade war, the price would be to pull the break on Nord Stream 2, according to German, U.S. and European sources.

The officials said Mr. Trump told German Chancellor Angela Merkel in April that Germany should drop support for Nord Stream 2, an offshore pipeline that would bring gas directly from Russia via the Baltic Sea. This would be in exchange for the U.S. starting talks with the European Union on a new trade deal.

While it had long been suspected that Trump would push hard to dismantle Nord Stream 2 just so US nat gas exporters could grab a slice of the European market pie, the aggressive push comes as a surprise, and as the WSJ notes, “the White House pressure reflects its hard ball tactics on trade, moves that have contributed to rising tensions between Europe and the U.S. and raised fears in export-dependent Germany of a tit-for-tat on tariffs that could engulf its car industry.”

The Nord Stream II (or NS2) project was started in 2015 is a joint venture between Russia’s Gazprom and European partners, including German Uniper, Austria’s OMV, France’s Engie, Wintershall and the British-Dutch multinational Royal Dutch Shell. The pipeline is set to run from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea – doubling the existing pipeline’s capacity of 55 cubic meters per year, and is therefore critical for Europe’s future energy needs.

NS2 is the second phase of an existing pipeline that already channels smaller amount of gas from Russia to Germany. Construction for the second phase started this week in Germany, after investors committed €5 billion ($5.9 billion) to the venture.

Trump has publicly criticized the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, saying at a meeting with Baltic State leaders at the White House this year that “Germany hooks up a pipeline into Russia, where Germany is going to be paying billions of dollars for energy into Russia…That’s not right.”

“Donald Trump is a deal maker…there is a deal to be made if someone (in Germany) stood up and said ‘Help us protect our auto industry a little bit more, because we’re great at it and we’re going to help you on Nord Stream 2’,” said one U.S. official, who was present at the April meeting between Ms. Merkel and Mr. Trump.

Raising the pressure further, Sandra Oudkirk, a senior U.S. diplomat, told journalists in Berlin on Thursday that as a Russian energy project the pipeline could face U.S. sanctions, putting any company participating in it at risk.

* * *

The Kremlin shot back immediately as spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the U.S. efforts “a crude effort to hinder an international energy project that has an important role in energy security.”

“The Americans are simply trying crudely to promote their own gas producers,” he said.

He is, of course, right, even if the official explanation is that Washington opposes the pipeline because it would make Ukraine—currently the main transit route for Russian gas headed west—and other U.S. allies in the EU more vulnerable to Russian pressure. German officials also say the U.S. is eager to displace Russia as a provider of gas to Europe, hence confirming with the Russian said.

Of course, in the end it’s all a question of leverage, and who has more, and right now Trump believes that by threatening European auto exports hostage, he has all of it.

* * *

Still, that Trump thinks he can interject after three years of trade negotiations with an abrupt demand while providing no alternatives, is rather stunning, but understandable. As Alex Gorka of the Strategic Culture Foundation wrote, on March 15, a bipartisan group of 39 senators led by John Barrasso (R-WY) sent a letter to the Treasury Department.

They oppose NS2 and are calling on the administration to bury it. Why? They don’t want Russia to be in a position to influence Europe, which would be “detrimental,” as they put it.  And, as Gorka wrote, their preferred tool to implement this obstructionist policy is the use of sanctions, precisely what we are seeing currently.

To be sure, 39 out of 100 is a number no president can ignore as powerful pressure emanating from US corporations and lobbies was being applied on the administration. Even before the senators wrote their letter, Kurt Volker, the US envoy to Ukraine, had claimed that NS2 was a purely political, not commercial, project.

As we said in March, “No doubt other steps to ratchet up the pressure on Europe will follow.” Little did we know that less than 2 months later, the US and Europe would be embroiled in a bruising trade war in which the fate of NS2 is suddenly the key variable.

* * *

So will Trump win, and will US LNG replace Russian exports?

While Merkel hasn’t yet dropped her support for the pipeline, she said on Thursday the EU had agreed at a summit Wednesday night to offer the U.S. “closer cooperation” in the field of gas in exchange for a permanent exemption from the steel and aluminum tariffs, suggesting that Nord Stream 2 may soon be a trade war casualty.

Should Europe fold, it should expect a surge in energy inflation: Liquefied gas from the U.S. needs to be shipped over the Atlantic and would be considerably more expensive than Russian gas delivered via pipelines. A senior EU official working on energy regulation said Russian gas would be at least 20% cheaper.

“Trump’s strategy seems to be to force us to buy their more expensive gas, but as long as LNG is not competitive, Europe will not agree to some sort of racket and pay extortionate prices,” an EU official said.

Which, amusingly, is precisely what Trump’s brute trade overture is: an global racket.

Germany’s pipeline plan has long been controversial with Ukraine, as well as several EU countries on the bloc’s eastern edge who fear it gives Russian President Vladimir Putin power over gas deliveries—which Berlin has so far largely ignored.

Trump has been pushing for better access for U.S. companies to an EU market he has criticized as over-protected. Barring an EU offer to address Mr. Trump’s grievances, the U.S. will hit Europe with punitive steel and aluminum tariffs on June 1. The EU has promised retaliatory tariffs.

* * *

So now that the ball is in Merkel’s court, how will she respond?  On Friday, the German chancellor is traveling to Russia on Friday to meet Vladimir Putin in hopes of brokering a compromise that would satisfy the U.S. and her European partners.

She will ask Mr. Putin for a deal that would preserve the lucrative transit trade—Ukraine gets a fee for letting Russian gas through its territory on the way to eastern Europe—even after Nord Stream 2 comes online in 2019, a German official said.

Meanwhile, German government officials say that since all the permits for Nord Stream 2 have been issued, the WSJ notes that there is no legal way to stop the project, which is run by Gazprom , the Russian energy giant, under financing agreements with international companies such as Engie, OMV, Shell, Uniper and Wintershall.

UBC law professor questions Ottawa’s jurisdiction on planned pipeline expansion

Ottawa says it will take financial and legal action to make pipeline happen

 CBC News

Cathy Kearney 

Apr 15, 2018

Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, second from left, says opposition to the Kinder Morgan Pipeline expansion is solid and growing. (CBC)

An environmental expert in B.C. says Ottawa may not have sole jurisdiction to push through approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, despite the prime minister’s vow Sunday that the project will proceed.

Jocelyn Stacey, an environmental law professor at the University of British Columbia, said there are jurisdictional questions when it comes to the environment, and the possible effects an expanded pipeline might bring.

Shared jurisdiction

“The environment is shared jurisdiction between the federal government, the provincial government and local governments,” Stacey said.

Trudeau’s vow came after his meeting Sunday with B.C. Premier John Horgan and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, where the prime minister said his government has the authority to ensure the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion proceeds.

Trudeau said he is taking the financial and legislative action needed to make it happen.

The prime minister announced he has instructed his finance minister to begin talks with Kinder Morgan to “remove the uncertainty” hanging over the project, which would nearly triple the flow of oil from Alberta to the Pacific Coast.

It’s been a week since Kinder Morgan announced it was halting all non-essential spending on the project pending reassurance from Ottawa that it will be able to go forward. 

The company gave the Trudeau government until the end of May to reassure its investors the pipeline would be built, despite mounting opposition.

 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, centre, interupted a foreign trip to meet with Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, left, and B.C. Premier John Horgan in Ottawa on Sunday. (Canadian Press Photos)

Trudeau’s announcement didn’t sit well with the Union of B.C. Chiefs. Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, who opposes the project, and described Trudeau’s move as a “bail out” for Kinder Morgan.

​”Those efforts have been made in the past to simply dismiss and override the concerns of British Columbians, and certainly the concerns of Indigenous peoples,” said Phillip.

“And those stories have always ended badly, and I think the same will apply.”

Phillip praised Premier John Horgan for standing up for British Columbians while trying to protect the environment.

Not everyone had congratulatory words for Horgan. The head of the B.C Business Council says Horgan’s anti-pipeline stance has created “a crisis of confidence,” saying investors are giving up on B.C. and heading to other jurisdictions.

Lawsuits before courts

“He [Horgan] has destabilized the ability in B.C. and in Canada for a small business or a large project to invest with any confidence,” says Greg D’Avignon, the CEO of the B.C Business Council.

Stacey said if the federal government tries to reaffirm its jurisdiction through new legislation, the move may end up being challenged in court, adding that there are still a number of  lawsuits opposing the pipeline expansion already before the courts.

“We are still waiting on judgements from the Federal Court of Appeal and from the B.C. Superior court which could have the effect of quashing or cancelling approvals that have already been granted” she said.

• Analysis

  Trudeau’s pipeline dilemma: lose seats in B.C., or lose a lot more elsewhere

• With Trans Mountain in doubt, pipelines to U.S. looking increasingly likely

With files from the Canadian Press.

About the Author

Cathy Kearney

Cathy Kearney is a digital journalist with CBC News Vancouver. @CBCcathykearney

If Ottawa rams through Trans Mountain, it could set up an Oka-like crisis

Bitumen Sample

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com

Stewart Phillip and Serge Simon

Contributed to The Globe and Mail

April 12, 2018

Stewart Phillip is Grand Chief of Okanagan Nation and president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. Serge ‘Otsi’ Simon is Grand Chief of the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake.

As the federal and Alberta governments continue to pull their hair out over the B.C. government’s stand against Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and tanker project, it’s important to point out, as we’ve been doing for years, that the pipeline company doesn’t have the consent of all First Nations along the route. In fact, many of them are strongly opposed to the project.

Kinder Morgan’s recent announcement that it is stopping all but essential spending proves that its shareholders are starting to understand the degree and depth of the Indigenous-led opposition movement to this pipeline project.

The Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion is made up of 150 Indigenous Nations in Canada and the United States, dozens of which are located along the Kinder Morgan pipeline route, with many of them having launched legal actions against the Kinder Morgan project.

Further, Indigenous Nations are supported by a quickly growing and broad-based network of support from allied Canadians who understand the existential threat that humanity faces from climate change and who are ready to stand up against the injustices still carried out today against Indigenous people. 

More than 20,000 people have signed the Coast Protectors pledge to do whatever it takes to stop the pipeline. Thousands took part in a March 10 solidarity rally at the Kinder Morgan gates on Burnaby mountain.

Justin’s Trudeau government has a decision to make. It can cut its losses and realize it simply made a mistake in approving the project. Or the Trudeau government can double down on its current path. But Canadians should be very clear-eyed about what that represents. It represents more than a failure of climate leadership. It means going back to the Stephen Harper days when Canada’s reputation on the climate file was mud.

Importantly, it also means going back to colonial-era relations with Indigenous people. In fact, if the federal government tries to ram through this pipeline, it could mean going back to one of the darkest times in modern Canadian history: the Oka standoff with the Mohawk Nation.

We just witnessed the ugly and shameful crackdown in the United States on the peaceful anti-pipeline protests at Standing Rock.

We don’t believe that’s the Canada that most Canadians want to live in. It would be a cruel joke indeed if, in this era of “reconciliation,” Canada instead repeats the mistakes of the past.s on the same level as Oka.

Continue:

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Canada: Thousands to protest Trans Mountain pipeline expansion

“The federal government remains steadfast in its support for Trans Mountain.” We don’t really care what the Feds want or don’t want on this. We live here and most of us want to switch our economy from a dinosaur fossil fuel economy to an alternative type of energy. We don’t care what the doofuses in Alberta want. This is not your province. Why don’t you build a pipeline through your territory and into the US? And leave us the hell alone!

We don’t want it, our First Nations people don’t want, and this is our land, not yours Ottawa and Alberta.

Indigenous groups, residents and activists expected to hold mass rally in Burnaby, British Columbia, on Saturday.

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http://www.aljazeera.com

by Jillian Kestler-D’Amours

March 9, 2018

 

The $5bn expansion project aims to get Canadian tar sands oil to new markets in Asia [File: Reuters]

 

Montreal, Canada – Thousands are expected to march through a city in western Canada in what organisers say may be the largest showing of “clear opposition” to a contentious oil pipeline project in recent memory.

Indigenous activists will be marching on Saturday alongside environmental groups, local residents and other supporters in Burnaby, a town in the province of British Columbia (BC), against plans to expand the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Approved by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2016, the expansion would twin the existing Trans Mountain pipeline, operated by Texas-based oil giant Kinder Morgan, which stretches 1,150km from the Alberta tar sands to the coast of BC.

The expansion – which would increase the pipeline’s capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels of oil a day – has faced staunch opposition, especially from indigenous communities.

“There comes a time in your life when you have to stand for something,” said Ta’ah Amy George, a Tsleil Waututh elder and one of the organisers of Saturday’s march, which she said is expected to draw as many as 10,000 people.

The Tseil Wauhtuth (meaning “People of the Inlet”) have lived on lands near the Burrard Inlet in southern BC for tens of thousands of years, George told Al Jazeera.

The federal government remains steadfast in its support for Trans Mountain [File: Reuters]

She said the community fears an oil spill will harm everyone living in the area and the large oil tankers that are expected to come into the inlet to transport oil would destroy local marine life.

“It’s not if there’s a [spill], but when there’s a [spill],” George said.

“Our ancestors protected this inlet and this little piece of land that we got left with. They protected it for us … We’re thinking of our [next] generations: my children and grandchildren and I have great-grandchildren.”

890,000 barrels a day

The $5bn Trans Mountain expansion project aims to get Canadian tar sands oil to new markets in Asia.

Kinder Morgan, the company behind the project, says the pipeline expansion will create short and long-term jobs and increase tax revenues at the provincial, federal and municipal levels.

“We support the right to peacefully and lawfully express opinions and views about our project and we understand that not everyone supports the expansion,” a Trans Mountain spokesperson told Al Jazeera in an email.

“We’re confident we can build and operate this project in a way that respects the values and priorities of Canadians and in respect of the environment.”

Our ancestors protected this inlet and this little piece of land that we got left with. We’re thinking of our [next] generations.

Ta’ah Amy George, a Tsleil Waututh elder and one of the organisers of Saturday’s march

Construction at the Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby began last September, while additional “preparatory work” on the same terminal and the Burnaby Marine terminal – the end point of the pipeline – began earlier this month, the spokesperson said.

“The project will provide the needed transportation capacity for Canada’s resources to access global markets and maximise benefits to all Canadians including local, regional and Aboriginal communities,” the spokesperson added.

But a widespread, indigenous-led movement has mobilised against the project for several years, while environmental groups have also spoken out against the potential ramifications of an oil spill.

“Kinder Morgan wants to bring more than 400 supertankers into the BC harbour every single year,” said Mike Hudema, a climate campaigner with Greenpeace Canada. “If one of those is to have an incident … you’re talking about widespread damage throughout the marine ecosystem,” he told Al Jazeera.

Most of the oil being produced and transported in Canada is called diluted bitumen, which is particularly difficult to clean up because it tends to sink in water, Hudema explained.

He said a spill could “exterminate” the already endangered killer whale population living in the coastal waters and “the damage could be catastrophic and could last for decades, if not longer.”

Most of the oil being produced and transported in Canada is called diluted bitumen [File: Reuters]

Hudema said that over a dozen lawsuits have been filed against the project by First Nations and environmental groups.

“The science is very clear,” he said, “We can’t be building new fossil fuel infrastructure and maintain a climate-safe planet at the same time.”

Provinces divided

While the Trans Mountain pipeline has received the green light from the federal government, it has divided some Canadian provinces.

In late January, the BC government passed new regulations that would make it more difficult to transport oil through the province in an effort “to improve preparedness, response and recovery from potential spills”.

The restrictions would be in place “until the behaviour of spilled bitumen can be better understood and there is certainty regarding the ability to adequately mitigate spills”, the provincial government said in a statement.

The measure was seen as a blow to Trans Mountain and highlighted increasing tensions between BC and Alberta, the province that is home to Canada’s tar sands and supports the project.

The science is very clear. We can’t be building new fossil fuel infrastructure and maintain a climate-safe planet at the same time.

Mike Hudema, a climate campaigner with Greenpeace Canada

Representing the third-largest crude oil reserves in the world, after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, the Canadian tar sands cover over 142,000sq km in northern Alberta.

In 2016, about 2.5 million barrels of crude bitumen were produced daily after an energy-intensive and expensive extraction process, the Alberta Energy Regulator estimated.

While proponents of the Trans Mountain project in Alberta tout its economic impact, the BC government, a coalition between the left-leaning New Democrats and the Green Party, had previously vowed to block its expansion.

Several cities in BC, including Vancouver and Burnaby, have also voiced their opposition to the project.

‘Clear opposition’

Despite the opposition, the federal government has remained steadfast in its support for Trans Mountain.

“Approval of the Trans Mountain Expansion was based on facts, evidence and what was in the national interest,” a spokesperson for Natural Resources Canada, a government ministry, told Al Jazeera.

Ottawa approved the project “subject to 157 legally binding conditions” that “will address potential Indigenous, socio-economic and environmental impacts”, spokesperson Jerri Southcott said in an email.

“Throughout the construction and operation of this project, Indigenous voices will be heard. Their counsel will be sought and their knowledge valued,” Southcott added.

In early February, Prime Minister Trudeau said his government would not be able to meet its commitment to fight climate change or implement a plan to protect oceans from oil spills, without first getting the Trans Mountain project built.

If people think this is something [that] people are going to easily give up on … that’s sadly mistaken. People have drawn a line in the sand and this really is only going to build.

Andrea Harden, energy and climate justice campaigner at The Council of Canadians

“The only way we can get any of those things is if we do all three of those things together,” Trudeau told CBC Radio.

“As I’ve said for a long time, we need to make sure we’re both protecting the environment and growing the economy at the same time.”

Andrea Harden, energy and climate justice campaigner at The Council of Canadians, a progressive non-profit group, accused the Trudeau government of “speaking out of both sides of its mouth”.

On one hand, the prime minister has signed on to the Paris Climate Agreement to combat greenhouse gas emissions, while on the other backing intensive oil and gas projects like the Trans Mountain pipeline, Harden told Al Jazeera.

Science and facts have been ignored “in terms of both this pipeline being out of tune and inconsistent with our [climate] commitments … as well as the very legitimate questions around the safety of shipping diluted bitumen through pipelines”, she said.

She said Saturday’s march is “another manifestation of the clear opposition” to the Trans Mountain pipeline.

“If people think this is something [that] people are going to easily give up on … that’s sadly mistaken,” Harden said. “People have drawn a line in the sand and this really is only going to build.”

SOURCE: Al Jazeera News

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jillian Kestler-D’Amours

How Turkey, Iran, Russia and India are playing the New Silk Roads

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With permission from

http://www.counterpunch.org

by Pepe Escobar

Nov 24, 2017

 

Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hassan Rouhani will hold a summit this Wednesday in Sochi to discuss Syria. Russia, Turkey and Iran are the three power players at the Astana negotiations – where multiple cease-fires, as hard to implement as they are, at least evolve, slowly but surely, towards the ultimate target – a political settlement.

A stable Syria is crucial to all parties involved in Eurasia integration. As Asia Times reported, China has made it clear that a pacified Syria will eventually become a hub of the New Silk Roads, known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – building on the previous business bonanza of legions of small traders commuting between Yiwu and the Levant.

Away from intractable war and peace issues, it’s even more enlightening to observe how Turkey, Iran and Russia are playing their overlapping versions of Eurasia economic integration and/or BRI-related business.

Much has to do with the energy/transportation connectivity between railway networks – and, further on the down the road, high-speed rail – and what I have described, since the early 2000s, as Pipelineistan.

The Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, a deal brokered in person in Baku by the late Dr Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski, was a major energy/geopolitical coup by the Clinton administration, laying out an umbilical steel cord between Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey.

Now comes the Baku-Tblisi-Kars (BTK) railway – inaugurated with great fanfare by Erdogan alongside Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, but also crucially Kazakh Prime Minister Bakhytzhan Sagintayev and Uzbek Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov. After all, this is about the integration of the Caucasus with Central Asia.

Erdogan actually went further: BTK is “an important chain in the New Silk Road, which aims to connect Asia, Africa, and Europe.” The new transportation corridor is configured as an important Eurasian hub linking not only the Caucasus with Central Asia but also, in the Big Picture, the EU with Western China.

BTK is just the beginning, considering the long-term strategy of Chinese-built high-speed rail from Xinjiang across Central Asia all the way to Iran, Turkey, and of course, the dream destination: the EU. Erdogan can clearly see how Turkey is strategically positioned to profit from it.

Of course, BTK is not a panacea. Other connectivity points between Iran and Turkey will spring up, and other key BRI interconnectors will pick up speed in the next few years, such as the Eurasian Land Bridge across the revamped Trans-Siberian and an icy version of the Maritime Silk Road: the Northern Sea Route across the Arctic.

What’s particularly interesting in the BTK case is the Pipelineistan interconnection with the Trans-Anatolian Gas Pipeline (TANAP), bringing natural gas from the massive Azeri gas field Shah Deniz-2 to Turkey and eventually the EU.

Turkish analyst Cemil Ertem stresses, “just like TANAP, the BTK Railway not only connects three countries, but also is one of the main trade and transport routes in Asia and Europe, and particularly Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan ports. It connects Central Asia to Turkey with the Marmaray project in Istanbul and via the Caspian region. Along with the Southern Gas Corridor, which constitutes TANAP’s backbone, it will also connect ports on the South China Sea to Europe via Turkey.”

It’s no wonder BTK has been met with ecstatic reception across Turkey – or, should we say, what used to be known as Asia Minor. It does spell out, graphically, Ankara’s pivoting to the East (as in increasing trade with China) as well as a new step in the extremely complex strategic interdependence between Ankara and Moscow; the Central Asian “stans”, after all, fall into Russia’s historical sphere of influence.

Add to it the (pending) Russian sale of the S-400 missile defense system to Ankara, and the Russian and Chinese interest in having Turkey as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

From IPI to IP and then II

Now compare the BTK coup with one of Pipelineistan’s trademark cliff-hanging soap operas; the IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India), previously dubbed “the peace pipeline”.

IPI originally was supposed to link southeastern Iran with northern India across Balochistan, via the Pakistani port of Gwadar (now a key hub of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, CPEC). The Bush and Obama administrations did everything to prevent IPI from ever being built, betting instead on the rival TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) – which would actually traverse a war zone east of Herat, Afghanistan.

TAPI might eventually be built – even with the Taliban being denied their cut (that was exactly the contention 20 years ago with the first Clinton administration: transit rights). Lately, Russia stepped up its game, with Gazprom seducing India into becoming a partner in TAPI’s construction.

But then came the recent announcement by Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak: Moscow and Tehran will sign a memorandum of understanding to build a 1,200km gas pipeline from Iran to India; call it II. And Gazprom, in parallel, will invest in unexplored Iranian gas fields along the route.

Apart from the fact of a major win for Gazprom – expanding its reach towards South Asia – the clincher is the project won’t be the original IPI (actually IP), where Iran already built the stretch up to the border and offered help for Islamabad to build its own stretch; a move that would be plagued by US sanctions. The Gazprom project will be an underwater pipeline from the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean.

From New Delhi’s point of view, this is the ultimate win-win. TAPI remains a nightmarish proposition, and India needs all the gas it can get, fast. Assuming the new Trump administration “Indo-Pacific” rhetoric holds, New Delhi is confident it won’t be slapped with sanctions because it’s doing business with both Iran and Russia.

And then there was another key development coming out of Putin’s recent visit to Tehran: the idea – straight out of BRI – of building a rail link between St. Petersburg (on the Baltic) and Chabahar port close to the Persian Gulf. Chabahar happens to be the key hub of India’s answer to BRI: a maritime trade link to Afghanistan and Central Asia bypassing Pakistan, and connected to the North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), of which Iran, India and Russia are key members alongside Caucasus and Central Asian nations.

You don’t need a weatherman to see which way the wind blows across Eurasia; integration, all the way.

This piece first appeared at Asia Times.

 

More articles by:Pepe Escobar

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).  His latest book is Empire of Chaos. He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

Canada’s courts should tackle fossil-fuel firms, professor says

“If you’re looking to politicians, there is considerable reason for despair.”

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http://www.timescolonist.com

Louise Dickson / Times Colonist

November 19, 2017

Peter Robinson, left, Judith Sayers, Michael Byers and Sybil Seitzinger taking part in a panel discussion at the Victoria Forum at the Farquhar Auditorium at the University of Victoria on Saturday, Nov. 18, 2017.

Photograph By DARREN STONE, Times Colonist

Canadian courts should pursue fossil-fuel companies for the costs of climate-change damage in the same manner they went after big tobacco companies for health-care costs related to smoking, a University of B.C. international law professor said Saturday.

“This is just like tobacco. So let’s go after them. Let’s seize the day,” Michael Byers said during a session on climate justice at the Victoria Forum.

The forum, staged by the University of Victoria and Global Affairs Canada, is dedicated to fostering diversity and inclusion as Canada marks its 150th anniversary.

“Just to be clear: We are in a crisis,” Byers said. “It is profound. I’m 51 years old and during my lifetime we have increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 50 per cent. We’ve lost 50 per cent of the Arctic sea ice, that giant mirror that used to sit on top of the planet and reflect solar energy back into space.”

He added that solar energy is going into the ocean and affecting weather patterns.

“We’re on the brink of this precipice and the bad news is we’re not seeing the political will to take decisive action,” Byers said.

Continue:

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BREAKING: Keystone Pipeline Shut down After Leaking 210,000 Gallons of Oil

A 2014 coal slurry spill into a river at Patriot Coal, West Virginia. A straw impoundment has been created across the river to try to hold the spillage.

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ANTIMEDIA

Written by Nick Bernabe

November 16, 2017

 

The contentious Keystone Pipeline has been temporarily shut down after a 210,000-gallon oil leak was discovered in South Dakota.

According to local ABC News affiliate KSFY:

“Brian Walsh with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources tells KSFY News they were alerted to the leak at 10:30 a.m. Thursday morning by TransCanada.

“The leak was in the Keystone Pipeline located in an agricultural area in Marshall County. There have been no reports of the oil entering any waterways or water systems at this time.

“Walsh said 5,000 barrels of oil have leaked, and at 42 gallons a barrel, that totals 210,000 gallons of oil.

“The pipeline has been shut off and the leak has been covered. An emergency response plan has been activated to get more staff and contractors to the site for clean up.”

The Keystone Pipeline, which carries crude oil from Canada’s tar sands to American refineries, has been a source of contention for years and was suspended under the Obama administration. One of President Trump’s first acts in office was authorizing the construction of both the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines.

Environmentalists and Native American groups in the U.S. and Canada opposed both projects. The recently completed Dakota Access Pipeline also experienced a leak, albeit a smaller one, earlier this year, joining numerous other pipelines across the country that have had spills in 2017.

Hours After Syria Claims Monumental Victory Against ISIS, Israel Bombs Them

It’ s always about oil, isn’t? This is plain attempted theft, thuggery of the worse kind:

“…the whole Syrian war may once again be a war fought over natural resources. The proposed natural gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey was reportedly rejected by Assad who preferred to support Russia’s financial interests of providing natural gas to Europe, over its own interests in allowing the pipeline to cross its territory.

Israel bombed the Syrian Army — the ones who’ve been defeating ISIS — and killed their soldiers. Whose side are they on?

Source: Hours After Syria Claims Monumental Victory Against ISIS, Israel Bombs Them

thefreethoughtproject.com

By Jack Burns

September 8, 2017 

Israel has officially admitted striking targets inside Syria on Thursday. For the first time since the conflict began, the State of Israel has targeted Syria with air strikes. The attack came just as the Syrian government declared a major victory against ISIS.

Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in a radio interview, reportedly said of the attack, “We will do everything to prevent the existence of a Shiite corridor from Iran to Damascus,” adding [Israel isn’t], “looking for adventures, and we don’t want to be dragged into this fight or another.” Furthermore, Lieberman said, “We are determined to prevent our enemies from harming or even creating the possibility of harming the security of Israeli citizens.”

According to ABC News, “Thursday’s air raid was seen as a message to both Russia and Iran that Israel can strike anywhere in Syria. It was also a rare instance of Israel striking a Syrian government facility rather than an arms shipment and harked back to an Israeli airstrike that destroyed a suspected, partially constructed nuclear reactor in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour exactly 10 years ago.”

While TFTP reported the April gas attack likely never took place or was staged, a fraud perpetrated by insurgents, the Israelis presumably used the UN report as an impetus for attacking the sovereign state of Syria with guided missiles fired from Lebanese airspace. According to ABC News:

The factory was reportedly being used by Hezbollah to create surface to surface missiles, presumably the same type used to reign terror into Israel in 2006. “Yaakov Amidror, Israel’s former national security adviser and a former general, said the strike targeted a weapons development and manufacturing site that was producing arms for Hezbollah,” wrote ABC News adding, “Former Israeli military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin wrote on Twitter that the facility produces precision missiles, chemical weapons and barrel bombs.”

Syria disputes those assertions and called on the United Nations Security Council to condemn Israel’s attack on Syria. They claim it wasn’t Hezbollah who was killed but two of their own soldiers. “At 02:42 a.m. on Thursday September, 7^th, 2017 , the Israeli warplanes targeted one of the Syrian military positions near Misyaf in Hama province with several missiles, killing two army personnel and causing material damage to the site,” according to a letter addressed to the UN Secretary General written by Syria’s Foreign and Expatriates Ministry.

According to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), Israel is supporting the insurgents with both munitions and air support:

The Ministry added that the new Israeli attack aims at raising the morale of its agents represented by the terrorist groups which are carrying out its aggressive agenda

The state-run news agency also claims the air missile attacks were carried out: 

in response to the great achievements made by the Syrian Arab army and its allies in their war against terrorism, the last of which is breaking the 3-year ISIS siege of Deir Ezzor city.

SANA also claims it isn’t the first time Israel has attacked them and blames the UN and Israel’s allies of supporting global terrorism:

The repeated Israeli attacks have become systematic behavior with the aim of protecting Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS terrorists, said the ministry, noting that it is unacceptable that the UNSC has not taken decisive measures to put an end to such flagrant attacks. It concluded that any attack against the Syrian Arab army forms a direct support to terrorism, taking into account that the Syrian Arab army is fighting terrorism on behalf of the entire world. The Ministry called upon the UNSC and countries which have an influence on the Israeli entity to immediately condemn those attacks and halt them in order to defend security and stability and protect the lives of people all around the world.

Ironically, a Geo-political analyst who goes by the name Partisangirl on Twitter, predicted the attack on Syria by Israel one week ago. She tweeted her prediction and a link to her previous assertion Israel would use a false flag event (April gassing in this case) to launch an attack into Syria. 

Hezbollah, one of Israel’s mortal enemies, has been fighting with the Assad regime to drive back the Islamic State and opposition fighters who had taken control of large swaths of the country in its 7-year war with extremists. Those extremists are considered terrorists by Assad and his government, yet counted as freedom fighters by the U.S. government who supports them.

We know the U.S. government supports terrorists because two of the nation’s congressmen attempted to halt the government’s military agenda in Syria by introducing legislation which could have put a stop to funding of financial and material support to extremist groups. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) and Rand Paul (R-KY) both introduced legislation to Congress in March called the “Stop Arming Terrorists Act,” a measure which quickly aroused the suspicions of those who’ve maintained all along the U.S. was fighting a proxy war using terrorists against Assad.

Thursday’s attack on Syria came amid Israel’s largest military drill in twenty years, according to Al Jazeera. The 10-day drill which started earlier in the week is being held along Lebanon’s border, the same area where the 2006 Hezbollah war took place. The attack on Syria and the massive military exercises along Lebanon’s border has led many to question if there will be an all out war between Hezbollah and Israel. Kassem Kassir, a Lebanon-based journalist with close ties to Hezbollah, told Al Jazeera:

Based on the information that we have, I think it is improbable that a war would break out, even though there have been several limited attacks by both parties. However, Israel could surprise us with war in the moment we least expect it.

Putting it all into perspective, Assad is working with the Russians, Iranians, and Hezbollah (Lebanese-based fighters) to secure and restore his once prosperous country to manageable levels of peace, security and stability. They’re all fighting Islamic State, and other U.S. backed opposition groups identified by the United States as “moderate rebels.” The Syrian government appears to now be winning the war and turning the tide against the Islamic State. Just this week, government forces broke through the the 3-year-long siege of Deir Ezzor, a major city in Syria’s Eastern province.

The besieged Brigade 137 airbase was liberated, along with its soldiers, and reunited with fellow comrades who brought 1,000 tons of food, medicine, and educational materials with them for the 70,000 residents who were being held hostage by ISIS. According to the Independent, ISIS is so desperate to replace their human losses they’re calling on women to step up and become front-line fighters.

As TFTP reported, the whole Syrian war may once again be a war fought over natural resources. The proposed natural gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey was reportedly rejected by Assad who prefered to support Russia’s financial interests of providing natural gas to Europe, over its own interests in allowing the pipeline to cross its territory.

The Reason Behind the US Government’s Secret Hatred of Europeans

Source: The Reason Behind the US Government’s Secret Hatred of Europeans

With permission from

http://www.strategic-culture.org

Eric ZUESSE

American writer and investigative historianAug 19, 2017

The Reason Behind the US Government’s Secret Hatred of Europeans

The reason for the US government’s hostility — at least since 4 February 2014 —toward Europeans, has been a mystery, until now.

This hostility wasn’t even publicly recognized at all, until it leaked out, on that date, from a tapped phone-line of arguably the most powerful person at the US State Department, the person whom American President Barack Obama had personally entrusted with running his Administration’s most geostrategically sensitive secret foreign operations (and she did it actually throughout almost the entirety of Obama’s eight years in office, regardless of whom the official US Secretary of State happened to be at the time): Victoria Nuland.

Her official title was «Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs» and she was appointed to that post by the President himself, but nominally she reported to him through the Deputy Secretary of State William Joseph Burns, who reported to the Secretary of State, who, in turn, reported to the President. 

She ran policies specifically on Ukraine (and, more broadly, against Russia). In the famous leaked phone call that she made on 4 February 2014 to the US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, she instructed him to place in charge of Ukraine’s government, once America’s coup in Ukraine would be completed (which then occurred 18 days later and overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, entirely in violation of Ukraine’s own Constitution), «Yats» or Arseniy Yatsenyuk. He did, immediately after the coup was completed, receive this crucial appointment — basically, the power to control all other top appointments in the new Ukrainian government. With this appointment, the coup, which had started by no later than 2011 to be planned inside the US State Department, was effectively completed.

In this phone call, Nuland said «F—k the EU!» and no one, at the time, paid much attention to what this outburst was all about, but only that it sounded shockingly undiplomatic. Finally, however, clear evidence has now emerged, concerning what it was actually about. 

This crucial evidence consists of a refusal (at long last) by both Germany and Austria, to ratchet-up further, as the US regime now demands, economic sanctions against Russia, sanctions that are a key part of America’s plan ultimately to conquer Russia — a plan that’s been carried out consistently by all US federal governments since the moment, on the night of 24 February 1990, when US President George Herbert Walker Bush himself secretly announced it to West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and afterward to other US vassal-heads-of-state — that, though the Soviet Union was already irrevocably in the process of ending the Cold War against the US and its allies, the US and its allies would secretly continue that war, henceforth, against Russia, until Russia itself would be conquered. He was implicitly informing them, there, that the Cold War, on the US side, wasn’t really about ideology (capitalist versus communist), but instead, was actually a long war for conquest, of the entire world (now it would be to strip Russia of its allies, and then to go in for the kill), by the US aristocracy and its vassal aristocracies (whom those European leaders represented).

On 15 June 2017, the Associated Press headlined «Germany, Austria slam US sanctions against Russia», and reported that both of those US vassal-nations, while paying obeisance to the imperial master, were not going to proceed further all the way to destruction of their own major oil and gas companies, in order to please that master:

In a joint statement, Austria’s Chancellor Christian Kern and Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it was important for Europe and the United States to form a united front on the issue of Ukraine, where Russian-based separatists have been fighting government forces since 2014.

«However, we can’t accept the threat of illegal and extraterritorial sanctions against European companies», the two officials said, citing a section of the bill that calls for the United States to continue to oppose the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that would pump Russian gas to Germany beneath the Baltic Sea. Half of the cost of the new pipeline is being paid for by Russian gas giant Gazprom, while the other half is being shouldered by a group including Anglo-Dutch group Royal Dutch Shell, French provider Engie, OMV of Austria and Germany’s Uniper and Wintershall. Some Eastern European countries, including Poland and Ukraine, fear the loss of transit revenue if Russian gas supplies don’t pass through their territory anymore once the new pipeline is built.

Gabriel and Kern accuse the US of trying to help American natural gas suppliers at the expense of their Russian rivals. They said the possibility of fining European companies participating in the Nord Stream 2 project «introduces a completely new, very negative dimension into European-American relations».

Currently, and for a very long time, the leading energy-supplier to the EU has been Russia, in the forms of oil and, especially, natural gas, both of which are transported into the EU via an extensive network of pipelines, most of which travel through Ukraine, which is a major reason why the US rulers wanted to take over Ukraine — in order to stop that, or at least to cause a necessity for Russia to build alternative pipelines (which the US regime would likewise do everything to block from happening) — but now both Germany and Austria are saying no to this US effort. 

The US regime wants fracked US natural gas to fill an increasing portion of Europe’s needs, and for natural gas from US-allied fundamentalist Sunni royal regimes to fill as much of the rest as possible, so as to squeeze-out the existing top supplier, Russia. (Until recently, the plan was for US ally Qatar, owned by the Thani royal family, to become Europe’s main supplier, via pipelines which would traverse through Syria, for which reason Syria needs to be conquered (so that those pipelines through Syria can be built, perhaps even by American firms). However, the Sauds, who usually run US foreign relations — often with assistance from the Israeli regime, which is far more popular in the United States and also in Europe (and thus serves as the Sauds’ agents in the US and Europe) — have now blockaded Qatar because of Qatar’s insufficient compliance with the Sauds’ demand for total international isolation of Iran and of any other nation where Shia are or might become dominant. (For example, the Sauds bomb Yemen to impose fundamentalist Sunni leadership there and kill the Shia population.) And, so, now, after the break between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, even more than before, the main beneficiaries of cutting off Russian gas-supplies to the EU would be US fracking companies.

However, the big European oil and gas corporations would then play a smaller role in the European market, because those firms have mutual commitments with Gazprom and other Russian giants. The only big winners, now, of increased sanctions against Russia, would thus be US firms.

«Europe’s energy supply is a matter for Europe, and not for the United States of America», Kern and Gabriel said.

Europe already has suffered considerable economic harm from complying with the US on taking over Ukraine, and from absorbing millions of destitute and alien refugees from Syria, Libya, and other countries where the US CIA, and other agencies, fomented the «Arab Spring» to unlock, in those countries, the oil and gas pipeline potential, which, if controlled by the US, would go to US oilfield-services firms such as Halliburton, and not to European ones such as Schlumberger. 

Kern and Gabriel — and the local national aristocracies (respectively Austrian, and German) whom they represent — are now speaking publicly about the limits beyond which they will not go in order to obey their US masters.

Consequently, back in February 2014, when the European aristocracies complied with the US aristocracy’s coup in Ukraine even though knowing full well that it was a barbaric and very bloody coup and nothing ‘democratic’ such as the US-manufactured story-line alleged it to have been, those aristocracies accepted the heist because they thought and expected to be cut in on enough of the looting of Ukraine so as to come out ahead on it. But that’s no longer the case. Because of the Sauds’ campaign against the Thanis (the owners of Qatar), the gang are starting to break up. The US gangsters are no longer clearly in control, but are being forced to choose between the Sauds and the Thanis, and have apparently chosen the Sauds. The Sauds financed the 9/11 attacks in the United States, but are the largest foreign purchasers of US-made weapons.

The US aristocracy hate Europeans because the US aristocracy are determined to conquer Russia, and because Europeans aren’t fully cooperating with that overriding US government goal — many EU billionaires want deals with Russia, but America’s billionaires are determined instead to take over Russia, and so the US (and the Sauds) might be losing its traditional support from the EU.

International affairs — US, Russia, Sauds, Thanis, Iran, Germany, UK, etc. — are in unpredictable flux. But Europe seems gradually to be drifting away from the US

And resistant European aristocrats seem to be digging in their heels on this. Here is a translation of a report dated June 17th from the most reliable source of news regarding international relations, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, or «German Economic News»:

Eastern Committee: US sanctions against Russia are a threat to Europe

German Economic News | Released:17.06.17 00:36 Clock

The Eastern Committee of the German economy is indignant at the new US sanctions against Russia.

The German companies have sharply criticized the US sanctions against Russia. «The sanctions plans of the US Senate are deeply alarming and, in principle, a threat to the European and German economy», said Klaus Schäfer, Deputy Chairman of the Eastern Committee of the German Economy, on Friday evening in Berlin. «America first is a new dimension to open up international markets to US providers at the expense of European jobs. Furthermore, we consider an extraterritorial application of economic initiatives generally wrong, «he said. In the Eastern Committee, the German companies active in Eastern Europe are organized. The federal government had also clearly criticized the sanction decision.

«Every further turn at the sanctioning screw increases the danger of new trade wars and the uncertainty of the world economy», warned Schäfer. The solution of the Ukraine conflict is not a step closer. A de-escalation on all sides was necessary. He pointed out that the US-Russia trade represented only one-tenth of the EU-Russia trade. «We pay the price of sanctions to Europeans», he criticized. «Implementation of the planned sanctions would make Europe more difficult to provide with favorable energy and inevitably lead to higher prices».

The most remarkable thing about this intensification of economic aggression by the US aristocracy against some of the European aristocracies, is that instead of the aggression being spearheaded this time by the US President, it’s being spearheaded by an almost unanimous US Senate: 97 out of the 100 US Senators voted for this bill. One cannot, this time around, reasonably blame «Donald Trump» for this ‘nationalism’ — it is instead clearly a Cold War, this time, by the US aristocracy (who are represented by the US government), against some European aristocracies, which are paying insufficient obeisance to the demands by the imperial aristocracy: the US gang.

Whereas, at the time of the US coup in Ukraine, the EU swallowed in silence their shock at how brutal and bloody it had been, and stayed with the Americans because the Americans claimed that the takeover would benefit European aristocracies too (‘expand the EU’), the lie about that is now clear to all (and Ukraine has been too wrecked by America, to be of much use to anyone but the Americans as a staging base for their missiles against Moscow), and therefore «the Western Alliance» might finally be breaking up.

The vassal-governments have put up with a lot from the US aristocracy, such as when German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone was revealed to be tapped by America’s NSA, and the case was quietly dropped because, «Prosecutors say they can find no actionable evidence to support claims German chancellor’s mobile phone was tapped by US National Security Agency» even though everyone knew that the refusal by Germany’s prosecutors was based upon a lie, and that Germany «remains heavily reliant on the US», and that the US government’s knowing everything that German politicians do, provides against those politicians a blackmail-potential against themselves, that cannot be taken lightly. On the other hand, perhaps there now exists a countervailing force that can outweigh even considerations such as that. Maybe Germany’s billionaires have, somehow, finally become able to turn the tide on this.