The Daily Chronicles are snippets of the most important news across the world for this and each day as it rolls in – as such, this thread is non-structured with the latest news on top. The rough theme: Picking up the pieces and counting the costs – changing paradigms worldwide is not for wimps!

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April 19

Oh boy!  The cry in our house is: “I have to find Lavrov.  He is traveling way tooooo fast.”

He is still in Venezuela and the other delegations are meeting him there. https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bolivian-FM-Mayta-Meets-Sergei-Lavrov-in-Venezuela-20230419-0012.html

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April 19

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu:

There is no such thing as EU, do not think about it. There is America. Europe is a mule in America’s convoy. There’s nothing special about it. Europe cannot make a rational judgment on its own behalf. America is losing its reputation. The whole world hates America. Europe is America’s pawn in Africa. All African States hate the States that exploit them, including France. Dear friends, I want to tell you that the game has changed. Turkiye’s biggest task is to achieve its full independence. Turkiye is solving this problem together with Tayyip Erdogan.

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April 19

Take a good look at this photo. The Ambassadors to Russia from the US, the UK, and Canada are all women, in more or less the same age group, with more or less the same experience level.  What they did, was to call a press conference and read a combined statement on the Moscow court sentencing of a Russian-British dual-national, Kara-Murza, to 25 years in prison. The three ambassadors condemned the court’s decision following the verdict and called for his “immediate release.”   This dual national opposition activist, Vladimir Kara-Murza, was found guilty of treason and slandering the Russian military.

Now the three ladies (Macbeth immediately comes to mind – Thrice the brinded cat hath mew’d), have something else in common.  One by one they were called to the Russian Foreign Ministry and told to stop interfering in Russia’s affairs, otherwise they may pack their bags and go home.

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April 19

Two notes on North Korea (DPRK).  Despite sanctions, they are testing their missiles, some of which are said to be ICBMs.  There also is this underwater drone vehicle that could carry nuclear warheads and can hover for days in a spot in the ocean, waiting for prey.   They are now preparing to launch their own military satellite.  Not bad for a country under extreme sanctions (but they do have help).

In the meantime and with that as a backdrop, South Korea stated that they will (are considering? lots of mealy-mouthed talk here) supply weapons to Ukraine.

Medvedev had something to say about that and this is what he had to say:

There are new ones willing to help our enemies. South Korean President Yun Sok-yeol said that, in principle, this state is ready to supply weapons to the Kyiv regime.  Moreover, until recently, the South Koreans ardently assured that the possibility of supplying lethal weapons to Kyiv was completely ruled out.

I wonder what the inhabitants of this country will say when they see the latest designs.
Russian weapons from their closest neighbors – our partners from the DPRK?

What is called
Quid pro quo…

What a warning and a threat!.  This holds then for China as well, again with the backdrop of the Russia/China high level defense ministry talks.  Did Medvedev just out a few of the secrets of those talks?

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April 19

The video of the Lavrov Caracas talks is badly translated and choppy and just not good.  Venezuela wants the MIR card, but we will wait for the transcript.  Mr.Lavrov is moving at a crazy pace.  He is now in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines talking to the Prime Minister, Ralph Everard Gonsalves.

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April 18

Foreign Ministers Sergey Lavrov and Yván Gil commenced talks in Caracas

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April 18

HUGE!  China proposes Israel-Palestine Peace Talks

– The key to resolving the conflict is to resume peace talks and “implement the two-state solution”, Chinese Foreign Min Qin Gang told his 🇮🇱 & 🇵🇸 counterparts Eli Cohen and Riyad Al-Maliki respectively in separate phone calls. (Xinhua)

– The calls come amid Beijing’s efforts to position itself as a regional mediator after facilitating restoration of ties between 🇸🇦 & 🇮🇷 Iran last month.

Perhaps the incessant peace talks between the US and Israel and others like we saw with the Abrahms Accords and years and years of so-called summits highly propagandized and designed to keep the status quo will be over.

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April 18

The word used by the Russian Ambassador to the US irt insane US statements, is FRENZIED.  It is a good word.

In the Middle East and West Asia, everyone is talking to everyone.  Kindly for today follow Vanessa Beely that has the last few moves on her telegram channel around here: https://t.me/VanessaBeeley/14140  

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April 18

Wagner’s response to a question about their troops in Sudan.

From Prigozhin:

We publish a request from the editors of Jeune Afrique magazine and the answer:
Hello,
I’m Mathieu Olivier, journalist for Jeune Afrique magazine. I am currently dealing with the situation in Sudan, where hostilities have resumed in recent days. I would like to ask Mr. Prigozhin a few questions about the participation of Wagner fighters in Sudan. Thank you in advance for any answers he can give.
The Wagner Group has a base, offices and fighters in Khartoum who are close to those of Mohamed Hamdan Dogolo, the country’s vice president. However, he is currently involved in the struggle to seize power in Khartoum. Does the Wagner group support him?
What instructions are given to the Wagner fighters in Sudan? Do you think they should remain neutral in the current conflict or will they support Mohamed Hamdan Dogolo?
Thank you in advance for the answers that Mr. Prigogine can give.

Reply by Evgeny Prigozhin:

“I can tell you with absolute certainty, absolutely exactly, and you can enter my words into any protocols, in any of the highest instances. To date, not a single fighter of PMC Wagner, I emphasize not a single one, is in Sudan. And it’s been that way for over two years. For two years, not a single Wagner PMC fighter has been present in Sudan. And today there is none. I think that’s the main thing you need to know.”

And it is good to know this!

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April 18

President Putin’s visits to the front line may herald a big move of some kind.  There is the possibility.

https://www.rt.com/russia/574911-putin-visits-command-posts-frontline/ 

http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2023/04/meanwhile-putin.html

Slavyangrad summarized Peskov’s briefing today:  https://t.me/Slavyangrad/42397

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April 18

The Russia/China’s military high level meetings continue.  The military-to-military memorandum of military participating according to what has been agreed to by Putin and Xi Jinping during their visit, has been signed.

From China’s Li Shangfu’s presser (with subtitles).  There is an interesting bolded comment that will make the Western powers a little more insane.  Wait for the incoherent screams that China should not provide Russia with weapons.   The Western commentariat cannot think too well, and somehow we do not see that equally, Russia could provide China with weapons.  Both stances will be met by shrugs from both China and Russia.

The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and China will promote military and military-technical cooperation, as well as military trade between each other.

This was stated at a meeting with Shoigu by the head of the Ministry of Defense of the People’s Republic of China Li Shangfu.

He noted that all these relations between the two countries will be brought to a new level.

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April 17

It is the fashion, the name of the game, the trend of the future.  That is peace.  This in from Telesur describes who is who in the Sudanese Zoo and Iraq of all countries are offering to mediate.  Strangely, they are well-placed to do this.    Iraq Ready to Help Hold Dialogue Between Sudanese Parties

The story in short, in pictures:

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April 17

While FM Lavrov is visiting Brazil, Southcom Commander Laura Richardson thought she would get a warm welcome in Argentina.   The gossip sphere says she had a red hot meeting with her counterpart and she could not move forward and was told that they will buy Chinese and Russian as much as they want and they will not supply weapons to Ukraine.  Besides all the myriad of problems in Argentina, they keep to the pledge of the last CELAC to be a Zone of Peace.  (And they hope the new financial system will come to their rescue and help with the massive biggest in the world IMF loans – economically it does not look good for them!)

Protests were held in Argentina 🇦🇷 against neoliberal IMF policies and in rejection of the visit of SOUTHCOM Commander, Laura Richardson. pic.twitter.com/6Ln2ZAgrfM

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) April 17, 2023

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April 17th

Those ‘game-changer’ Leopard tanks.  The first one has been taken down by … Ukraine.

Translation; The prize for the first destroyed “Leopard” flies to Ukraine!

Ukrainians so zealously studied at
2A4 “Leopard”, that during the descent the tank dug in, rested the gun barrel on the ground, and the tower was simply torn off the shoulder strap.

Minus one “Leopard”.

And this was after it ran into another tank.

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April 17

🔴 #LIVE: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey #Lavrov and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil Mauro Vieira hold joint news conference following talks in Brasília 🇷🇺🇧🇷 https://t.co/QiXtPWLlsp

— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) April 17, 2023

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April 17

I’ll be quiet today and writing.  The penny has dropped in the US that the dollar is being replaced by other currencies.  The hurt is epic!

Careful with the news from western sources!.  It is puffed up by repetition.  Germany says something, then someone else repeats it, then someone else again repeats it, so it looks substantial.  It is not .. the management by meme stay the same.

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April 17

So the Russian State Duma invited (that is a good word) the US Ambassador Lynn Tracy to explain to the Duma the activities of US Bio-Labs in Ukraine.

The US Embassy in Moscow rejected this invitation to US Ambassador Lynn Tracy

According to the embassy, the United States “fully complies with its obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention and does not develop or possess such weapons”, and Washington has already “fully debunked” the allegations against it.

How long do you think before that Ambassador is ‘invited’ to pack up her kitbag and leave?

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April 17

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April 17

This is the day that Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov arrives in the Latin Americas – April 17 to 21.

On April 17-21, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will travel (https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1863720/) to a number of Latin American countries, including Brazil, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba.

The Foreign Minister will have a busy programme, including meetings with the leadership of these countries and talks with their Foreign Ministers.

Sergey Lavrov is flying to the region with a specific agenda aimed at strengthening mutually beneficial cooperation of our countries in politics, trade, economy, education, humanitarian sphere, culture and other fields. The talks will focus on strengthening international legal foundations of the modern world, with the UN Charter as its supporting structure.

🤝 For us, Latin America is a friendly region, one of the centres of a multipolar world with which Russia intends to maintain a dynamic dialogue and develop constructive cooperation free from outside interference.

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April 16

This is where the defense agreements greenlighted between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, start getting implemented.

Chinese State Councilor and Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu starts his four-day visit to Russia on Sunday.  Mentioned before, but well worth another mention as hopefully, we will see the implementation if we watch the low-key announcements:  https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202304/1289213.shtml

Update:  On this very important Christian day for the Russian Orthodox Church, Mr Putin met with Li Sangfu.  This is from Slavyangrad (Anya)

Russian President Vladimir Putin met Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu in Moscow on Sunday and hailed military cooperation between the two nations, which have declared a “no limits” partnership.

Military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing is one of the most important areas that strengthen the strategic relationship between the two countries — Putin

Putin, at a meeting with the head of the Chinese Defense Ministry, assessed the level of Russia-China military cooperation and wished the minister good luck during his visit to Russia. – Kremlin

According to the Kremlin, Li Shanfu will have a four-day program in Moscow, during which he will meet and talk with his Russian counterparts.

“We also work actively on the military side, regularly exchanging useful information for us, cooperating in military-technical cooperation, holding joint exercises, and in different theaters,” the Russian president said.

Li Shanfu thanked Putin for finding an opportunity to meet with him on a day off, especially on such an important holiday. He said it was his first visit after his election as Minister of Defense in March of this year.

According to Li Shanfu, he deliberately chose Russia for his visit in order to emphasize the special relations between Moscow and Beijing. The meeting between the Russian president and the Chinese defense minister was also attended by the head of the Russian Defense Ministry, Sergei Shoigu.

Russian-Chinese relations are superior to Cold War military-political alliances, based on the principles of non-alignment and non-confrontation with third parties — Li Shanfu

In a meeting with Putin, the Chinese defense minister stressed that relations between Russia and China are very stable, and that under the leadership of the Russian President and Xi Jinping, the states are developing cooperation in practical areas.

“We understand the responsibility that lies with our powers.” especially considering that the biggest changes in a hundred years are now taking place. We are standing shoulder to shoulder and working to improve the well-being of our people. Considering that economic recovery has been very slow, “The world is very turbulent, and peace is very much in demand,” stressed Li Shanfu.

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April 16

Is this not a superb example of a declining empire?  Blinken visited Vietnam.  Pre-visit the Vietnamese authorities stated that he could come, but it will not change whatever they do.  So, to cement this message, they did not have a US flag.  The amazing result here is that people are wishing Vietnam well and applauding their gross diplomatic snub!  In the Western part of the world we are post-diplomacy!

Blinken visited Vietnam 🇻🇳, but apparently too suddenly, Vietnam did not come in a hurry to prepare the American flag. Kudos to Vietnam 👍 pic.twitter.com/zleme088j1

— Reincarnation (@3otQPxw5mek1lha) April 15, 2023

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April 16

Sudan

A blast from the past.  General Wesley Clark, ex-Supreme Allied Commander Europe, talks about the U.S. foreign policy. According to his interview from 2007, the U.S. was planning to destroy 7 countries in 5 years – Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somali, Sudan, and Iran.

Egypt and South Sudan offered to mediate to end the battle between sides in Sudan (https://t.me/RT_India_official/16261) (Al Arabiya)

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April 15

Here’s a quick report on President Lula’s historic meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping for @telesurenglish . It’s been an interesting two days. pic.twitter.com/aq26CxtQsZ

— BrianMier (@BrianMteleSUR) April 15, 2023

Underneath all the good news, I would imagine that Lula now has some security pieces to pick up. He would probably need to create even more ironclad security for himself. Perhaps he should sleep in a different bed every night.

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April 15

I mentioned a while ago that I think China is of the opinion that its media is now mature enough to take a swing at the Mighty Western Wurlitzer. One of the agreements with Brazil is to share media. Once it is in Brazil, it will grow up from there into the rest of LAC.

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April 15

The pieces to be picked up are non-trivial. Brazil and China need to implement all of the agreements reached as well as function in a new economic model. This is easier said than done.

The most important from last week, is the Brazilian/China agreement to trade in local currencies, and the infrastructure is already working as the first trades have been done.

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April 15

Then, Mr Lavrov’s intended visit to Latin American countries have an objective, to trade in local currencies. Can you imagine the outright fear and confusion and incompetent rage in the circles where the Dollar King resides?

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April 15

The structure of the new financial system is still in pieces. We all need a better definition. It is fine to use the Chinese Yuan as a temporary determination of exchange rate currency. It is fine to have currency swaps for this moment and the accounting is easy. But it is not yet a full and complete and functioning new financial system.

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April 15

An interesting development (again out of China) is the debt restructuring of Sri Lanka. China is holding to a principle of fair burden sharing, but this is bigger. A quote from yesterday’s Chinese Foreign ministry briefing:

“Reuters: The Chinese side yesterday told a G20 meeting of central bank chiefs and finance ministers that China will work with all parties to implement the common framework of debt disposal. Does that mean China will drop its demand that multilateral lenders share in debt restructuring losses and will offer refinancing assurances to states currently trying to use the common framework to access new IMF loans?

Wang Wenbin: Properly addressing the debt issue matters to global economic recovery and financial stability. China attaches high importance to the sovereign debt issue of developing countries. Our position is consistent. We always believe that to effectively resolve the debt issue, the key lies in joint participation of multilateral, bilateral and commercial creditors in debt treatment under the principles of joint actions and fair burden-sharing. According to my knowledge, China put forward a three-point proposal at the Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable (GSDR) recently. First, multilateral creditors need to come up with solutions on their participation in debt treatment as soon as possible; second, the IMF needs to take actions in information-sharing on debt sustainability assessments as soon as possible; third, parties concerned need to agree on the specific ways for creditors to participate on comparable terms as soon as possible. We hope parties concerned will take credible steps to implement the G20 Common Framework and seek an effective, systemic and comprehensive solution to the debt issue.

I am happy to see that debt is becoming a front-end issue of the new financial system. The issue here is who is going to take the haircut, and China is not volunteering.

Wang Wenbin:  I would like to reiterate that China calls on commercial and multilateral creditors to jointly participate in Sri Lanka’s debt restructuring under the principle of fair burden-sharing. We have been in close communication with Sri Lanka and supported Chinese financial institutions in actively discussing debt treatment arrangements with Sri Lanka.

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April 15

A sad result from last week is that I think we’ve lost South Africa and the hegemon has it at this time. You will not see that easily in the statements of Foreign Minister Pandor, but by searching the media (and asking some people) there is a deep misunderstanding and mistrust still in any new paradigm, including BRICS+. Below is a noticeable article from what is considered fairly reasonable independent media. We will see what happens to the BRICS meeting in late August, but with this in the background, I cannot imagine that Mr.Putin’s security detail and security management will fly him to South Africa. The comments in this article spell out that he is not welcome there. The sad dichotomy here is the very bad governance by the ANC since the mid-1990s and hence, the friendship with Russia is subsumed underneath the hatred of the ANC. It is all considered one thing.

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-04-08-dangerous-liaisons-sas-russian-roulette-jeopardises-trade-agreements-with-us-and-other-western-nations/

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April 15

Last for today. We’ve known this, but all, literally all Western media is now suspect.

The one piece of news that I appreciated is that Pompeo withdrew from the race for Presidency. The whole rest of the world signed in relief.

Reliable?  Has anyone ever mentioned OPCW to this man?  Who believe that Syria was killing hundreds of thousands of children with gas bombs?   Western media and Western commentators and Western presidential candidates are not reliable. How many Russian soldiers does he say he killed?

Trump says Syria used chemical weapons, and brags that he bombed Syria over it.

Countless media outlets and pundits who brand themselves as anti-Trump never question this allegation, or even outright endorse it, all while ignoring the OPCW leaks that undermine it. pic.twitter.com/1OyOZApPvK

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) April 15, 2023