Free Republic

Issue: July 13, 2022 https://reclaimthenet.org/wef-restricting-certain-actors-defi WEF pushes for restricting “certain types of actors and transactions” from using decentralized finance Kicking people out of the financial system. Like the response to trucker protests in Canada demonstrated earlier in the year, a centralized and tightly controlled financial system makes it very easy to punish those participating. On a much bigger scale, the same is true of entire countries – if they are dependent solely on centralized international systems, they can be cut off at any point, and those in control of the systems can use them as very effective weapons. But the...

Russia cut its gas supply to top Dutch trader GasTerra on Tuesday, escalating the economic battle between Moscow and Brussels and pushing up European gas prices. The move comes a day after Denmark flagged a potential end to its Russian gas supply and the European Union's toughest measure yet against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, an agreement to halt sea-borne imports of its oil. GasTerra, which buys and trades gas on behalf of the Dutch government, said it had contracted elsewhere for the 2 billion cubic metres of gas it had expected to receive from Gazprom through October. "This...

Removing Russian banks from SWIFT but leaving the energy intact so Europe has power, was so brilliant they obviously never played chess. Putin just put Biden’s king in check by ordering Europe to pay for gas now in Rubles. That will provide support for the Ruble, and undermine Europe and its Euro as well as the dollar in the long run.

Together with Slovenia and the Czech Republic, Poland has prepared a list of actions the EU must enforce if it really wants to end the war. 1) Cut off all Russian banks from the SWIFT international payment system. 2) Put in place a common asylum policy for Russian soldiers who refuse to serve the criminal regime in Moscow. 3) Completely stop Russian propaganda in Europe. Freedom of speech does not mean the right to lie. 4) Block Russian ships from our ports. 5) The same blockade must be put in place for road transport in and out of Russia. 6)...

With Russia now officially cut off from both the USDollar and the euro, Russia's VTB Bank is seeing a surge in Chinese Yuan deposits, attracted by the bank offering significantly higher interest rates as Putin shifts focus to 'friendly' nations.The state-owned bank is offering a Chinese yuan savings account with a maximum interest rate of 8%, hailing the currency as "one of the most affordable and promising options for investing funds" after the country was hit by Western sanctions.Putting that in context, the three-month deposit rate is 8% in dollars and 7% in euros, while the six-month rate for ruble...

The overuse of financial sanctions risks much of the world losing confidence in the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.America cutting off Russia’s central bank from its U.S. dollar reserves could carry huge consequences that the D.C. establishment hasn’t considered.Here’s how the Wall Street Journal’s Jon Sindreu framed what happened: “After Moscow attacked Ukraine last week, the U.S. and its allies shut off the Russian central bank’s access to most of its $630 billion of foreign reserves. Weaponizing the monetary system against a Group-of-20 country will have lasting repercussions.”Reserves are globally accepted foreign currency that a foreign central bank holds...

The government of the United States has intervened militarily in other countries for decades, against the council of founders like George Washington who advised America should “observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all.”But the U.S. doesn’t only project power across the globe through its massive military. It also weaponizes the U.S. dollar, using its economic dominance and its privilege as the issuer of the reserve currency as a carrot-stick tool of foreign policy. The U.S. government showers billions of dollars in foreign aid to “friends.” On the other hand, “enemies” can find themselves...

Thirty years ago in Moscow the Soviet Union crumbled and everyone watched on CNN. Pause Current Time 1:47 / Duration 3:25 Loaded: 99.97% Captions Fullscreen Unmute 0 White House issues executive order on cryptocurrency One question was still undecided. This was what would happen to the “Near Abroad” — Russians who were now separated from Russia in independent republics. President Boris Yeltsin promised that they would have the Russian republic or Federation to look after their interests, language and culture. Capital One Shopping - Coupons & Savings Ad Ad capitaloneshopping.com Capital One Shopping - Coupons & Savings President Vladimir Putin...

Germany has emerged as the main barrier to tougher sanctions against Russia, threatening to spark a rift in western efforts to punish the Kremlin.Europe’s largest economy is the main power resisting attempts to add Sberbank to a list of Russian financial institutions cut off from the Swift payments system, Bloomberg reports.Sberbank, which is Russia’s largest lender, was left off the initial list as part of a decision to protect energy-related transactions, but calls are now mounting for the EU to tighten its sanctions.It’s not Germany’s only area of resistance, either. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has publicly opposed sanctions targeting Russia’s...

The Russia-Ukraine war is changing the very foundations of the global order. As the debris settle, we will see a more militarised Europe & a more multipolar world with repercussions for India's interests as well, writes Dr. Swasti Rao Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine is likely to be a hinge point in contemporary history. It has shown that brute power politics and the threat of war can very well be unleashed in the most developed, democratic and industrialised parts of the world. The concomitant background of the rather overdone ‘conflicting sphere of influence’ debate does not explain the unfolding ground situation....

On Tuesday, CEO of JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon warned the world that cutting Russia out of the SWIFT system would yield “unintended consequences.”That’s a monumental understatement.In short, SWIFT is a system banks use to securely and quickly communicate transfer instructions across international borders. Cutting off an entire nation and its people from this system will have steep consequences across the globe.We could be looking at the potential demise of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency, another likely Lehman moment, and the acceleration of China’s progress from third-world nation to global power.Here’s how the US’s influence on this apolitical...

...many did not think the EU would play the SWIFT card on Russia. It turns out they were correct...SWIFT is the international payment system. Cutting off a top country from SWIFT access is a very big deal.When the US and EU trotted out the SWIFT sanction card, I thought I got that one wrong. Closer inspection by Eurointelligence and others shows it's Not So Swift After All.FAZ informs us that the Swift sanctions are essentially dead in the water. Only seven banks, representing a quarter of the Russian banking sector, are subject to the sanctions. What happened is that once...

The green nutters in this country, like basically all Democrats are obviously on the side of Russia. While they prevent oil drilling and fracking on US lands, and Biden kills the Keystone XL pipeline, this country continues to import nearly 600,000 barrels of Russian oil per day. You have to ask yourself, why the hell are we still important Russian oil with the “threat of war” with the Ukraine, if Putin is such a baddie? The answer is simple. As is the case with communist China, communist Democrats love Russia and envy Putin. They would never cut off his oil...

As the United States and its allies have decided to cut Russia's private banks off the SWIFT payment network, the International domain for global financial transactions, China on Monday refused to do the same, citing it has 'no basis in the international law' and reiterated that Russia should resolve the tensions with Ukraine through dialogue and negotiation.

The Russian rouble plunged nearly 20% to a new record low versus the dollar on Monday and the euro sank more than 1% after Western nations announced a harsh set of sanctions to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, including blocking some banks from the SWIFT international payments system. read more The risk-sensitive Australian and New Zealand dollars also tumbled, while the safe-haven yen rallied as Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military command to put nuclear-armed forces on high alert on Sunday, the fourth day of the biggest assault on a European state since World War Two. The...

As we reported earlier, the EU had come around to the idea of cutting Russia from the SWIFT system in a limited way as long as it was directed to Russia.Now, the European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States have issued a formal joint statement officially saying they are committed to cutting select Russian banks off from the SWIFT system.BREAKING: US And EU agree to remove select Russian banks from SWIFT, impose restrictions on Russian Central Bank, and more: pic.twitter.com/PnLFgXcYET— Jacqui Heinrich (@JacquiHeinrich) February 26, 2022As Russian forces unleash their assault on Kyiv and...

The circumstances of the death of the Deputy General Director of the Unified Settlement Center of Gazprom for Corporate Security, whose body was found in the prestigious village of Leninskoye in the Vyborg District of the Leningrad Region, are being established. A note was found nearby, law enforcement officials told 47news. A month earlier, in the same village, the body of a top manager of another division from Gazprom's orbit was found. Both of the now deceased previously worked at Gazprom Transgaz. As it became known to 47news, in the early morning of February 25, the police received a message...

NOTE: See video embedded in article. As Western allies levy increasingly harsher economic sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, the latest target involves Russia's access to SWIFT. An acronym for Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, SWIFT is a messaging system founded in 1973 that allows large financial institutions to send money to each other. The Belgian-based cooperative is used by more than 11,000 banks and financial institutions in more than 200 countries and territories, including Russia. It handles 42 million messages a day, facilitating trillions of dollars worth of transactions. Russia accounted for 1.5% of SWIFT transactions...

Removing access to the financial messaging service would be the most severe penalty but could have unwanted consequences, including compromising energy exports to Europe. President Biden said on Thursday that the United States and Europe were united in their efforts to confront Russian aggression toward Ukraine with aggressive sanctions. However, there was one area where he suggested disagreement: SWIFT.

World leaders have decided to cut off Russian financial institutions from using the SWIFT money transfer system as part of ongoing sanctions against Russian aggression in Ukraine. The decision comes after a sweeping list of other sanctions against Russia, including the freezing of assets and the closure of airspace to Russian flights. It was delayed due to some world leaders considering the step to be too drastic at the time. US President Joe Biden has stated that the sanctions imposed on Russia are among "the most severe in history." The Russian stock market and currency have taken severe losses since...