Philippines provoked China’s water cannoning at Ayungin Shoal

By Daniel Long

President Bongbong Marcos shocked the nation when he put out a tweet (X post) this weekend on the recent water cannoning incidents at Ayungin and Scarborough Shoal. I would like to highlight this part of his statement: “Let me reiterate what is settled and widely recognized: Ayungin Shoal is within our Exclusive Economic Zone, any foreign claim of sovereignty over it is baseless and absolutely contrary to international law…No one but the Philippines has a legitimate right or legal basis to operate anywhere in the West Philippine Sea.”

PH provoked China’s water cannoning at Ayungin Shoal

The Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back: The Best Way to Respond to Saudi Arabia’s Embrace of Putin

The Best Way to Respond to Saudi Arabia’s Embrace of Putin

But this claim is unjustified. OPEC has never cut production in such a record tight market and these production cuts will lead to unsustainably low oil inventories, sending the price of oil skyrocketing out of any “acceptable band.” Furthermore, the G-7 oil price caps plan is not targeted at OPEC; it is strictly limited to Russian oil.

Nor can this Saudi move be justified by the non-existent global recession its leaders cite. Presently markets are very tight, with lush 73 percent profit margins for Saudi Arabia. In other words, there was no immediate need for Saudi Arabia to reduce supply unless they were seeking to harm the U.S. to the benefit of Russia.

Non-existent global recession?!? Low oil inventories?!? Maybe Biden shouldn’t be releasing our oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?! As for never cutting production, before, looks like they have!? 🤷🏼‍♀️

New Fakes about Russia-DPRK Military Cooperation

New Fakes about Russia-DPRK Military Cooperation

The second option is more amusing and, alas, more realistic: the source of the sensational information could be such an anonymous and specific medium as Russian politicized Telegram channels, in which the SMO is constantly discussed. However, Telegram’s anonymity often makes it impossible to identify the channel’s real author. This means that any high-school student with a glib tongue can easily portray himself as an “expert from those very structures” involved in the “secrets of the Kremlin court”, even if the information has no real basis in fact.

To conclude the conversation, it is worth noting how the propaganda image of the DPRK has changed: before the SMO, the Western media presented North Korea as a starving third-world country, but now it is a superpower providing Putin with builders, soldiers and now also ammunition. Therefore, the fake about millions of missiles is clearly not the latest fake about the “Jucheans in the Donbass”.

Humanitarian flights for Ukraine loaded with weapons, protesting airport workers claim

Samizdat | March 15, 2022

One of Italy’s largest trade unions has called for a protest outside the Pisa airport on Saturday, after receiving a tip from some employees that Ukraine relief flights were transporting weapons and ammunition, not food and medicine.

Humanitarian flights for Ukraine loaded with weapons, protesting airport workers claim

Reminds me of this incident.