G-7 to throw out another $200 billion for third world ‘green’ boondoggles

By Monica Showalter

Amid all the partying and gladhanding and making Vladimir Putin a figure of fun, the G-7 summit in Germany managed to avoid the important topics, such as where the hell greenie Germany is going to get energy from, and just what it means when it says it’s going to support Ukraine forever.

Instead, it moved into its comfort zone, which was “infrastructure” and greenie energy for the third world, as if the third world needed more corruption and energy shortages, as greenie Germany is experiencing. Naturally, its idea was to throw money — mostly American money — at the problem. Doddering Joe Biden was all in for this idiocy and has touted this bad idea as some kind of success story.

According to Fox News

The United States is pledging $200 billion to a G7 infrastructure project intended to counter’s China’s multi trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative.

The “Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment” was relaunched by President Biden and other Group of Seven leaders on Sunday at their annual gathering being held this year at Schloss Elmau in Southern Germany.

Altogether the G7 leaders pledged to raise $600 billion in private and public funds over five years to finance needed infrastructure in developing countries.

The U.S.’ $200 billion portion will come from grants, federal funds, and private investment over that time period to support projects are intended to tackle climate change, improve global health, gender equity and digital infrastructure.

Biden went at lengths to insist the money was not “aid or charity.”

“It’s an investment that will deliver returns for everyone,” he said, adding that it will allow countries to “see the concrete benefits of partnering with democracies.”

Ostensibly, it’s to provide an alternative to third world countries which are finding themselves in a pickle for taking China’s money in its Belt and Road Initiative and finding themselves unable to repay China for its infrastructure investments, leaving China free to expropriate critical infrastructure such as ports as the world’s greediest repo man. I wrote about one example of that in 2018 here:

If there was ever an example for nations worldwide of What Not To Do, take a look at what socialist Ecuador has done to itself in dumping the U.S. and turning to align its interests to China. The New York Times has a superb (albeit stomach-churning) report about how Ecuador sold itself out as a vassal of China, getting for itself a junk dam that is already collapsing, and turning over 80% of its oil production to the communist behemoth in order to pay its massive, massive debts from it. That, in exchange for scrapping its military ties to the U.S. and skipping out on its tab with western banks.

.. and several other places in the same predicament here.

There’s no doubt that this is a problem, given that China is using these expropriations to extend its strategic influence, the carrot from hell, to reel in one militarily useful lily pad after another (to mix a lot of metaphors).  But instead of discouraging third world countries to never to allow themselves to get into these situations, and encouraging to reform their crony capitalist systems for authentic economic growth, the G-7 is offering these places that can’t attract investment the normal way a second credit card, hoping that theirs will undercut China’s. 

What they will end up with of course, is these places defaulting to the West instead of China, since there isn’t a lot of capitalism going on with all these infrastructure projects.  

Worse still, a lot of them billed as “infrastructure” aren’t infrastructure projects at all, but greenie boondoggles. Consultant contract bait. Solyndras, with a side of third-world corruption.

You know, like the kind of Full Greenie-ism that Sri Lanka embraced, prompting the entire country to collapse.

More like that, right?

Greenie energy is a farce. It’s not sustainable. Not even an advanced country like Germany can make it work — its insane devotion to greenie-ism prompted it to shut down its very emissions-friendly nuclear power plants in favor of unreliable trash like wind and solar power, pockmarking its landscape with ugly whirring windmills, and worse still, left it dependent on Russia to power its batteries and true energy necessities. Now it’s looking at natural gas shortages and economic ruin as a result, and … all it, and Joe Biden want to do … is export this failed model to the third world, shelling out $200 billion to do it.

Joe Biden’s stupid statement about this not being “charity” is nonsense. If third world countries could make greenie energy work better than fossil fuels, you can bet they would have been investing in it themselves. But they can’t — they can’t any more than Germany can. Biden justified the claim that this cash shellout from the West was an “investment” but that calls to mind that investments can fail — and given that they haven’t been done already by people with real money in the private sector, they probably will, by the guys who rely on the printing press for their big government cash shovelings.

It’s obnoxious stuff given that the G-7 has some serious issues to look at right now — the failed unsustainability of green policies that have left Europe bereft of energy, and the even bigger failure of the shutdowns of authentic fossil fuel industries that have left the big western powers in debt to petrotyrants, including one who is blowing up apartment buildings in a European capital, and did a demonstration for the G-7 over the weekend, with a renewed attack on civilian housing in Kiev.

Neither of those problems are being seriously looked at by the G-7. All they are trying to do is make the third world as failed an areas as the West in its still religiously bizarre greenie obsession. 

What a spectacular load of trouble this is. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson and Justin Trudeau, (neither of whom is a stranger to ridicule), will join Joe Biden in trying to laugh at Vlad Putin. 

Hard reality here: It’s Putin who will have the last laugh.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/06/g7_to_throw_out_another_200_billion_for_third_world_green_boondoggles.html

Bomb alert at jihadist trial in Graz, Austria – The court suspects sympathisers of the jihadist behind the threat

The trial of the Islamic hate preacher Mirsad O. and three followers was supposed to take place today at the Graz Criminal Court. On Monday morning, however, there was a bomb threat. The court suspects sympathisers of the jihadist behind the threat.

There was a bomb threat in the Graz Criminal Court on Monday morning in connection with a jihadist trial. The trial was interrupted, the courtroom was cleared and searched by a special team. The perpetrators could be sympathisers of the accused Islamist preacher, the court suspected. Another threat was reported in St. Pölten, the newspaper “Kleine Zeitung” reported online. According to court spokeswoman Barbara Schwarz, there had been threats throughout Austria, which the Ministry of Justice did not confirm at first when asked by Austrian Press Agency APA.

In addition to the Serbian-born hate preacher Mirsad O., the chairman of the Taqwa mosque in Graz, the treasurer of the Taqwa association and a woman are also accused. The trial is being retried for the third time. The accused are alleged to have recruited several families and organised their journey to the Islamic State in Syria. The charge of “anti-state association” had to be retried after a partial reversal of the verdict in July 2021, and the convictions relating to terrorist association and criminal organisation are final. The sentences were also significantly increased: The preacher now has to serve eight years instead of five, the treasurer of the association seven years, the chairman six years, and the wife of the treasurer was sentenced to six years instead of three.

https://exxpress.at/bombenalarm-bei-jihadisten-prozess-in-graz/

EU accession status for Ukraine – Brussels to tackle the impossible

The decision to grant Ukraine accession status raises numerous questions: Ukraine (and Moldova) were officially granted this status at the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday evening. This decision had been extremely controversial and contested for weeks. But all previous critics – above all Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, the Netherlands and France – have surprisingly caved in and have cleared the way for the two countries to join the EU.

In the case of Ukraine, more than the current war scenario, a number of massive deficits stand in the way of actual accession. Not long ago they were also cited by Brussels as arguments as to why Ukraine could never become a member of the EU any time soon.

Despite years of support from the EU worth billions, it has still not been possible to take effective action against corruption in the country, which is the order of the day there on both a small and large scale. In the latest corruption index by Transparency International, Ukraine ranks 122nd out of 180.

The European Court of Auditors also came to the conclusion in a special report last year that there were only “insufficient results” in the fight against “major corruption” –  implying that the matter was not about small bribes, but corruption as “abuse of power at a high level by which a few persons obtain an advantage at the expense of the general public, thereby causing serious and far-reaching harm to individuals and to society”.

According to the report, there is a network of oligarchs in Ukraine who use their money to exert significant influence over public opinion, the government, the judiciary and the economy. The conclusion of the EU Court of Auditors was damning: “Dozens of billions of euros are lost every year as a result of corruption.”

Surprisingly, Brussels knows this very well: “The EU has long been aware of the connections between oligarchs, high-ranking officials, politicians, the judiciary and state-owned companies.”

“In practice, the elite as well as the population are taught that corruption is only selectively combated at best and that people close to the president are exempt from criminal prosecution,” the German research  foundation Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) also stated in a 2021 report.

There are massive problems regarding the rule of law in Ukraine. According to the European Commission, “stable institutions that guarantee democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities” are one of the basic requirements for EU accession. According to various experts, the country is far from achieving that.

In the Democracy Index 2021 of the magazine The Economist, Ukraine ranks 86th out of 167. Especially when it comes to questions of the functioning of the government and civil rights, the state of the country is appalling. “The promise (…) to ensure the rule of law has (…) remained largely unfulfilled,” the Federal Agency for Civic Education [Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung] concluded in 2020.

Just a few weeks ago, President Zelensky issued a decree that banned activities from all eleven opposition parties, hardly a democratic move.

Above all, however, the way minorities are treated makes a mockery of all EU standards. Years of harassment of the large Russian-speaking population is the main reason for the Russian military intervention in February 2022. Only recently did the Ukrainian parliament ban Russian music in public across the board. The mayor of the Russian-speaking city of Odessa, Gennady Trukhanov, who is said to have close ties to the mafia, recently ordered Russian to be banned as a school subject from August 1 and Russian-language literature to be removed from the city’s libraries.

Not least in the economic area, Ukraine fails to meet all EU standards. These prescribe a “functioning market economy and the ability to withstand competition and market forces in the EU”. But there can be no question of that in Ukraine, which has little to do with the current war.

Although the socialist planned economy was gradually converted into a capitalist private economy from 1991, many of the approximately 15 000 companies run by the state or the municipalities still dominate a number of economic sectors. With more than 350 000 employees, the state railway, which is considered ailing, is the largest employer in the country.

Until the outbreak of war in February 2022, many economic indicators were pointing upwards. Nevertheless, the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in 2021 was only around 4 500 euros and thus still far below the EU taillight Bulgaria (9 850 euros).

“Mismanagement, outdated structures, corruption and years of dependence on Russia have repeatedly slowed down the competitiveness of the Ukrainian economy,” the German public broadcaster ARD Tagesschau summarized the dire situation at the beginning of 2022. Foreign investors assessed the country as being a high risk.

According to the Cologne Institute of the German Economy (IW), significant economic transformations are necessary. From this follows: “In view of the weak economic performance and the corruption problem, the current fulfillment of the EU accession criteria would pose great difficulties for Ukraine (…).”

Restructuring these three areas in such a way that nothing would stand in the way of EU membership would require an immense effort by Ukraine: a radical restructuring of large parts of the state system, the judiciary and the economy. Especially now, with the current hostilities, after around 7,8 billion euros in EU funds have flowed to Kiev over the last eight years alone, remains a mystery that only the Brussels eurocrats are able to explain.

https://freewestmedia.com/2022/06/27/eu-accession-status-for-ukraine-brussels-to-tackle-the-impossible/

EMBARRASSING: Joe Biden Needs to be Coached by German and French Leaders to Turn and Pose for Group Photo at G7 (VIDEO)

Germany: African man causes carnage in refugee shelter

Late on Sunday evening, one person was killed in an attack with a knife in an asylum seeker accommodation in Argenstraße in Kressbronn. At least five others were injured, some seriously.

According to police reports on Monday morning, a 31-year-old resident of the accommodation allegedly knocked on several rooms at around 10 pm and then stabbed those present indiscriminately.

The alleged perpetrator is said to be from Nigeria, the deceased victim was a 38-year-old man from Syria.

After the arrival of several police patrols, the suspect was arrested in front of the building without resistance. In addition to the fire brigade, a large number of emergency medical service personnel were on site to care for the injured and the other residents.

One of the seriously injured was flown to hospital by rescue helicopter after initial emergency medical treatment, the others, some of whose health conditions were also classified as serious during the night, were taken to surrounding hospitals by the rescue service.

https://www.schwaebische.de/landkreis/bodenseekreis/kressbronn_artikel,-ein-toter-und-mehrere-verletzte-nach-messerangriff-in-kressbronn-_arid,11523923.html

Austria: Two Syrians arrested on suspicion of sexual harassment

Socialist Party (SPÖ) press officers are once again hailing the Danube Island Festival in Vienna as a peaceful celebration. But behind the scenes it was obviously fishy. According to the police, two Syrians were arrested for sexual harassment.

The sexual assaults allegedly took place last Saturday. The police followed up on hints from visitors and were finally able to arrest two men, aged 27 and 34, in the act. The two Syrians were “provisionally arrested” on suspicion of sexual harassment, as the Vienna police posted on Twitter. However, as the two men did not confess to the charges, they were released on the order of the Vienna Public Prosecutor’s Office.

https://www.unzensuriert.at/content/150670-zwei-syrer-wegen-des-verdachts-der-sexuellen-belaestigung-festgenommen/

23 migrants dead and 140 officers injured after 2,000 Africans storm Spanish border in Melilla

Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has blamed organized crime gangs for the latest 2,000-strong storming of Melilla, the Spanish enclave situated on the land border with Morocco, which resulted in the deaths of of 23 sub-Saharan migrants on Friday.

Disturbing footage circulated on the internet showing jubilant migrants cheering after they reached the Spanish border town, but according to Spanish media reports, 140 Moroccan officials and border guards were injured in the migrants’ attempt to reach EU territory, including five seriously; one police officer had to be treated in the intensive care unit of a hospital.

Spain’s conservative Vox party outlined how the policies of the left-wing Spanish government led to the situation.

“New massive jump of illegals to the Melilla border. The government should demand at the NATO summit the protection of the Southern Border as requested by Vox,” the Vox party wrote on Twitter. “It is curious that the mafias have respected the electoral period so scrupulously, when there have been almost no arrivals,” it added.

The scenes of chaos underline the difficult security situation in Europe, with migrant men scaling fences and entering Spain despite volleys of tear gas.

Sanchez pointed to “mafia” and human trafficking as the root cause of the problem.

“If anyone is responsible for everything that happened at the border, it is the mafias who traffic in human beings. Therefore, this is an attack on the territorial integrity of our country,” the prime minister said during a press conference.

Moroccan authorities are now reporting that 23 illegal immigrants died since Friday while trying to enter the Spanish enclave bordering Morocco. According to a government source in the province of Nador, the men died after “jostling and falling from the iron fence” separating Spanish and Moroccan territory during “an assault marked by the use of very violent methods on the part of the migrants.”

Given the huge number of immigrants who died trying to cross into Spain, it would mark the deadliest day ever for migrants trying to cross into Melilla.

Already at the beginning of March, thousands of Africans had scaled the high border fence and violently overwhelmed the security forces. At the time, the Spanish authorities spoke of the “most massive attempt at a breakthrough ever.”

Now, this incident is being labeled the biggest breakthrough attempt ever.

The two Spanish enclaves of Melilla and Ceuta are the only areas of the EU that are on the African continent. Migrants continue to attempt to climb over the fortifications in these places, which are protected by cameras and border guards.

https://rmx.news/spain/23-migrants-dead-and-140-officers-injured-after-2000-africans-storm-spanish-border-in-melilla/

Deutsche Bahn sentenced for gender ‘mistake’

In future, Deutsche Bahn (DB) will no longer be allowed to address its customers as “Mr” and “Mrs”, but must henceforth offer a “gender-neutral” address when booking tickets on the internet. The Frankfurt Higher Regional Court has ordered the railway to do so. The complaint was filed by a person who does not classify himself as either female or male.

The court ruled that the railway company had to refrain from “discriminating against the plaintiff of non-binary gender affiliation [sic] by compelling him or her to address the company as Mr or Ms when using its services” from 1 January 2023.

Since the online booking system is not only aimed at the plaintiff, the railway must now change it, as a spokeswoman for the Higher Regional Court (OLG) announced. The railway was given until the end of the year to do so. In contrast, the ruling must be implemented immediately with regard to the issuing of tickets at the counter, letters from the customer service, advertising and stored data. Moreover, the ruling cannot be appealed.

According to the ruling, Deutsche Bahn must also immediately change its individual communication with the plaintiff “person”. Compensation of 1000 euros was demanded because the person had suffered damage as a result of the violation of the prohibition of discrimination.

The court reasoned he had experienced “the attribution of masculinity” as an attack on his own person, which led to significant psychological stress.

The case in dispute concerned the booking of a ticket from Berlin to Braunschweig via the internet. Both during registration and purchase, there was only the choice of “Mr” or “Ms”. Without this assignment, it was not possible to buy a ticket. The person addressed as “Mr” had then filed a complaint for discrimination.

https://freewestmedia.com/2022/06/27/deutsche-bahn-sentenced-for-gender-mistake/