Latest news from the tense situation between Russia and the US:

Are almost 100 million dead from the wars of the 20th century not enough?

The highly anticipated phone call between US President Biden and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin was unfortunately not crowned successfully. In a statement, the White House released an extract of the phone call.

"President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today with President Vladimir Putin of Russia about Russia’s escalating military buildup on the borders of Ukraine. President Biden was clear that, if Russia undertakes a further invasion of Ukraine, the United States together with our Allies and partners will respond decisively and impose swift and severe costs on Russia. President Biden reiterated that a further Russian invasion of Ukraine would produce widespread human suffering and diminish Russia’s standing. President Biden was clear with President Putin that while the United States remains prepared to engage in diplomacy, in full coordination with our Allies and partners, we are equally prepared for other scenarios."

Both sides expressed their views with their usual candour and later decreed transparency. Biden stressed that Russia would pay a heavy price for invading Ukraine.

Russia's reputation would be diminished by an invasion, and Putin would bring untold suffering to the world. The phone call is said to have lasted more than an hour. At the very least, Putin wanted to reflect on Biden's proposals, according to the presidential spokesman.

Putin complained that the world was not putting enough pressure on Ukraine to meet Russia's demands.

For example, Putin believes that with his occupation of Crimea, the issue of the Donbas region should also be "settled". He understands this to mean the slice-by-slice occupation of the whole of Ukraine.

Actually, this is already an admission that there is at least something to the rumour that Vladimir Putin is planning an invasion of Ukraine and also wants to implement it.

Earlier, French President Macron had also failed in a phone call to Putin.

Scorched earth

Meanwhile, the Western world is preparing for the possibility of a 3rd world war. Papers are being burned at the US embassy in Kiev, as they were in Saigon. Hardware is being rendered useless. One wonders how it could have come to this?

War serves man's basest instincts

Is it war for the ego of some, or is it a form of reality that no one wants to grasp because war is so absurd?

Each side is instrumentalizing currently - on the one hand, Putin is dragging Belarus into it, and on the other, the Western states that constitute the rest of the alliance. Ukraine, which is sitting in front of Russia like a mouse in front of a cat, is trying certainly to drag Germany into a possible conflict. Officials of Ukraine never tire of criticizing Germany, behaving around weapons and protection. Among them are the boxing icon Klitschko and Ukraine's ambassador in Berlin.

Johannesburg 8.02 p.m. (GMT+2)

A Russian warship has driven away a US submarine close to the Kuril Islands in the Pacific, as indicated by news data from Moscow.

The destroyer "Marshal Shaposhnikov" found a US submarine in Russian waters close to the Kuril Islands, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said on Saturday (12/02/2022). After the submarine overlooked solicitations to turn to the side, the Russian destroyer "made a suitable move", it said without explaining. The US submarine then, at that point, left Russian waters "at maximum velocity". The name of the US submarine was not revealed.

What’s going on with the farmers?

There will be another rally today. The tractors are rolling. So does that one of Susanne Strätker again, whom we have accompanied in the numerous episodes about the farmers’ displeasure since the beginning.

For months now, there have been repeated tractor demonstrations in which they make known their justified concerns. The situation is already alarming. The domestic dying out of farms will continue, although the farmers, too, for their part, stand up for the climate goals. The insanity of these days, made from the green table in ministries, is the Mercosur agreement.

Nobody seems to have thought the chain through. However, goals are set for domestic agriculture that no one can meet. The farmers are literally crushed by the flood of regulations.
Not only that with the EU-Latin America agreement, e.g. the neo-fascist Jair Bolsonaro and his corrupt environment from the EU can also achieve trade surpluses – no- but the domestic farm dying also becomes a compulsory programme.

While in Latin America other political foundations certainly not EU climate targets apply, in the future farmers will have to compete against the enemy in Brussels.

The Mercosur Agreement is an intolerable situation anyway, which, on the surface, initially offers more freedom in trade. Only on closer inspection are the consequences for consumers and farmers frightening. For in addition to the difference between laws in Latin America and Europe, there is the fact that no species-appropriate animal husbandry, senseless deforestation and slash-and-burn clearing of the rainforests to achieve higher profits, hormone-treated animals to make them grow faster, chlorine-treated chickens to keep them germ-free, etc., will be the order of the day.
How this is to be in line with the countless regulations on climate target policy is not understood by anyone involved in agriculture.

But Brussels and Berlin once put a trade agreement in place. Politicians cannot explain the treaties, nobody wants to talk about mediation any more. An entire professional group is being made the scapegoat for wrong policies.

The farmers have a direct concern: agricultural goods should be bought in the region so that they serve the climate goals and not distort competition and thus serve the regional farm dying alone.