Published on: 07/10/2022 – 13:06 Changed on: 07/10/2022 – 19:05

As Russia thinly threatens to use its nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine, US President Joe Biden said on Thursday October 6 that he was “not kidding” and reminded that the world has “not been with the… possibility of an apocalypse” is Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis”.

Vladimir Putin is not joking, Joe Biden said when he spoke of “possible use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons” because his army was “very underperforming”. And the American President to “conjure up a risk of using nuclear weapons for the first time since the Cuban missile crisis if things continue as they currently lend”.

In allusion to this 1962 crisis and the risk involved, the US President used the term “nuclear apocalypse” (“Nuclear Armageddon”).

A few hours later, the White House spokeswoman stepped aside: “We have no reason to adjust our own strategic nuclear position, nor do we have any indication that Russia is preparing for the imminent use of nuclear weapons. When asked if this more alarmist tone was related to new information from the United States, the spokeswoman replied, “No,” during a brief question-and-answer session aboard the plane that was taking Joe Biden on a trip to northwest Washington. .

“What is the exit door for Putin”

The New York Times points out that for sixty years, American presidents have seldom discussed the possible use of nuclear weapons, and in such a dark tone. Joe Biden did it at a fundraiser for Democratic Senate candidates. At this type of event, the Associated Press news agency points out, the head of state tends to be less guarded and more direct.

His security adviser had already stressed at the end of September that any use of nuclear weapons would have catastrophic consequences for Russia. “We’re trying to understand what the exit door is for Putin,” the US President said on Thursday. “How can he get out of there, position himself in such a way that he doesn’t lose face or a significant part of his power in Russia? »

► Also read: Ukraine: the undertones of Russia’s nuclear threat

The proposal of a dynamic cap could be a right solution for the different needs of the market, said the EU’s Economy Commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni, in a speech on Radio Anch’io on Radio1. A general gas price cap could have contraindications, Gentiloni added, specifying that the attitude towards Russia cannot be the same as towards Norway or Algeria and for this reason a dynamic price cap can meet this need. Gentiloni believes positions among EU member states are converging and hopes the Commission can come up with a proposal ahead of the EU leaders’ summit scheduled for October 20-21.

So is the dynamic gas price cap

The proposal, put forward by Italy, Poland, Greece and Belgium, initially envisages a scenario where there is no shortage of supplies and there is an exchange of gas supply and demand, explains Ansa, who read the non-paper. In this regard, it is proposed to create a dynamic corridor, where it is possible to set a central value for this corridor and update it regularly, taking into account external benchmarks (e.g. crude oil prices) and taking into account fluctuations (e.g. from 5%) around the mean within the corridor. Basically, it is about providing a minimum and a maximum price in order to reduce costs without jeopardizing the supply. The maximum limit can be placed on a reference hub (e.g. Ttf) or on several hubs (Peg, Psv, Zee to avoid arbitrage) or better on all transactions (both on-exchange and OTC). ), explains the document. The problem is convincing Germany that it has so far rejected the idea of ​​the roof.

The roof on the gas used for electricity

The European Commission, on the other hand, has proposed setting a price cap only for the gas used to generate electricity, with a view to reforming the electricity market. Hypothesis that Italy, Poland, Greece and Belgium do not like, which the document underlines how a limited cap on gas used for electricity ignores 2/3 of the gas market and acts as a disincentive to lower prices as importers be compensated for whatever price you pay. This solution, the four countries warn, could create external liability without a clear limit because, for example, the import price can continue to rise and more resources are needed to maintain the cap. The fear that the weight of this intervention will become unsustainable for national budgets.

The hypothesis to replace the ttf

Among the topics discussed is the hypothesis to replace the Ttf in Amsterdam with an alternative index that better reflects the European energy reality. The TTF has worked in the past, but it’s time to have a more truthful European index. There is no justification for the 8-10x increase in the price of gasoline, we pay so much for it because someone is afraid that it will be missing in the future. Everything is evolving, even the market, the rules must be changed, said the Minister of Ecological Transition, Roberto Cingolani, in recent days. For obvious reasons, this prospect does not sit well with the Netherlands.

Negotiations with allied suppliers and joint purchases

Rather than a general cap as suggested by Italy, Brussels prefers to focus on negotiations with suppliers deemed reliable, such as the United States and Norway (which has become the first methane supplier in the European Union, ed.) Imported to bring down gas prices, both methane and LNG. On Thursday October 6, the European Commission announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Norway to commit to jointly developing tools to stabilize energy markets and limit the effects of market manipulation and price volatility. in order to significantly reduce excessively high prices in the short and long term. The question of mandatory joint purchases via the European energy platform is also on the table of the heads of state and government of the EU. We must work together to tackle the energy crisis. We can also do it in no particular order, but we would lose European unity, Prime Minister Mario Draghi warned. A message that seems to be aimed primarily at Berlin, which has decided to go it alone with the $200 billion super plan for the time being and continues to reject the price cap hypothesis. There is also the possibility of strengthening RePowerEu with new funds, which could require the creation of a new common instrument. An unwelcome scenario for the so-called frugal, Holland at the top, but also for Germany, which rejected Commissioners Breton and Gentiloni’s proposal to resort to a new shared debt to deal with the energy crisis along the lines of what was done during the crisis became the pandemic with Sure.

The Corriere della Sera, the website and the newsletters will not bear the signatures of your newspaper’s journalists today, as yesterday, to underline the poor state of union relations with the company, which is suspending negotiations on various issues affecting them has future of the editorial office.

Organization of American States (OAS) secretary-general, Uruguayan Luis Almagro, is under investigation by the agency after he was denounced for having a romantic relationship with an OAS official, Mexican Marián Vidaurri, the Associated Press Agency (PA) reported. .

The hemispheric organization has been analyzing – since July at the latest – whether the former Uruguayan foreign minister has violated the institution’s code of ethics, which states that “employees and other service providers should not allow any intimate relationship with another employee or service provider with the performance of their duties or disadvantaged.” others in the workplace.

According to the AP, the investigation is labeled “Alleged Misconduct by a Senior OAS Official” and began after the body received an anonymous complaint about the relationship, which was public anyway and had been addressed by both the Secretary General of the OAS and his Partner in the book Luis Almagro does not ask forgiveness, published in November 2020 by journalists Gonzalo Ferreira and Martín Natalevich.

Some officials assured AP that there were times when those involved created uneasiness in the workplace: Two workers were seen kissing at a 2019 OAS general assembly in Medellín, while another saw them holding hands at a 2020 meeting.

Vidaurri also recognized the relationship in the book published in 2020. “It was and is a connection in all dimensions. Very deep and very intense,” he said of his connection with Almagro.

The woman even revealed to the Uruguayan some jokes she used to make: “I always tell him: ‘I’m smarter because it took me no more than thirty-eight years to know you, it took you about fifty years'” .

Almagro admitted in the book that Vidaurri was part of his small advisory board, and the Mexican revealed that she worked directly for him after a trip to Philadelphia.

“It was on a Friday and on Monday he called me into his office and said: ‘Come work with me,'” says the Mexican political scientist.

Previously she worked at the Secretariat for the Strengthening of Democracy (SFD) as Head of the Department of Political Analysis and Prospects.

“The female sex had a very important force. A very important driving force,” Almagro admitted in the biography of Ferreira and Natalevich.

And he continues: “There is something that Juan Ramón Carrasco said. They asked him when he would have played better. And he answered: When he had a new girlfriend,” he says, laughing. “Somehow I felt identified with Juan Ramón Carrasco”.

Almagro says of falling in love on many occasions that sometimes it’s “impossible” not to be: “I left pieces of leather on the fence. I left pieces of meat on the fence. I would have liked to have had something sturdier.” in the beginning and having all these much quieter personal variables. I think it would have been better in many ways. Maybe not. I don’t know,” he said in Luis Almagro doesn’t apologize.

The OAS probe comes weeks after the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) removed its President Mauricio Claver-Carone from office when he still had a three-year term in office after it was found he had violated an ethics rule about the institution by maintaining a close relationship with its chief of staff.

From your website articles

Related articles on the Internet

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on EU states for more weapons and ammunition to fight Russian invaders. Air defense systems are particularly important to prevent attacks on energy infrastructure, Zelenskyy said today in a video-streamed speech at the informal EU summit in Prague. The text was published by his office on the Internet.

“We need enough air defense systems to prevent Russia from leaving people without heat and electricity in winter,” Zelenskyy said. The President justified his request with the attacks on the “Nord Stream 1” and “2” pipelines in the Baltic Sea, which caused several leaks in the pipelines.

Selenskyi again called for the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Ukrainian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. “We are all on the brink of nuclear catastrophe due to the capture of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant by Russian troops,” he said. In addition, the president pushed for quick reconstruction assistance. He expects a “substantial discussion” of this at a reconstruction conference planned for Oct. 25 in Berlin.

Vladimir Putin turned 70 this Friday (7) with a gift from the Norwegian Nobel Committee. By anointing antiKremlin regime forces with the prestigious Peace Prize laureate, organizers have symbolically sealed the Russian president as a pet outcast of the West.

Putin doesn’t care, on the contrary: it’s great for his rhetoric of walling Russia in a hostile world that he sees the West hailing antigovernment activists. Of course in a context in which he equates his regime with the nation.

In the infamous speech last Friday (30th) ordering the annexation of four territories in Ukraine that he does not fully control, the President delivered his entire litany of criticism of a group of countries he calls the United States subservient to states in Europe that ultimately aim to thwart Russian freedom and bury their historical legacy.

The problem for Putin is that his rhetoric is echoing through the increasingly fragile walls of an elite increasingly opposed to the course of the Ukraine war. Less for breaking the Budapest Memorandum, in which Moscow recognized, among other things, the exSoviet borders of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan in 1994.

But there are public signs of dissatisfaction with the war and Russia’s international isolation. It’s good to be clear: the calls are for a more violent war rather than immediate peace. The political lane seems pretty narrow for Putin, who has always ruled through division and Darwinian struggle between elite factions.

In that sense, the awards given by Putin’s rivals to those unhappy with the jailing of their yachts and foreign accounts only confirm that their world will never go back to February 23, the eve of the invasion. For the hard line, it’s confirmation that it’s time to double down.

Also significant for the award is the selection of activists from the triad of countries of origin of the former Kievan Rus’, keepers of the common linguistic, religious and historical heritage. The Minsk dictatorship has evolved from a malleable ally of Putin to his vassal, and Ukraine is under aggression. In both cases, the central motivation is geopolitical, to regain strategic depth between the world’s largest country and Europe.

In particular, the election of Memorial, a human rights NGO founded in the closing years of the communist empire and dissolved by the courts last year. The historical role of his performance, from supporting imprisoned dissidents to defending gay rights in Chechnya, is enormous.

It is the second shot at Putin in two years after the 2021 award of journalist Dmitri Muratov, who saw his newspaper Novaia Gazeta become a digital refugee banned from operating on Russian soil.

After all, the Nobel Peace Prize demonstrated a cunning that is not known in other editions, for example when Barack Obama was honored in his first year in office he would not have deserved the prize even after eight years in the White House.

The committee escaped the trap of rewarding Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the controversial Ukrainian president who became a hero in the West for his tenacious, USarmed resistance to the Russian invasion. If he were the laureate, the leader’s years of corruption and authoritarian practices would be washed away.

Zelensky marked his tenure up to the war with vacillating politics, persecution of the opposition, and introduction of the Ukrainian language among the Russianspeaking population. Of course, he didn’t commit the genocide that Putin accused him of, but he wasn’t exactly welcome in the east and south of the country.

The Ukrainian leader is viewed with suspicion even in the West because, according to available reports, he is not trusted, does not share his military decisions with those who support them in practice and acts impulsively. But that is what we have today, and his bravery in resistance is enough to justify the moral position of Washington and its allies.

Also, the contradiction would be to make a man in arms a Nobel Peace Prize winner who the day before asked NATO (Western military alliance) to attack Russia before Putin uses a nuclear warhead against the Ukrainians and ignores World War III. that such an act would bring about what President Joe Biden called “Armageddon” that same day.

It makes more sense to reward an NGO dedicated to investigating war crimes attributed to the Russians, as well as a more unpredictable figure like Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski, imprisoned by the dictatorship of Aleksandr Lukachenko.