https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJ32bSCBBL0

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Russia’s current account surplus has increased sharply, propping up the national currency as energy exports recovered despite pressure from Western sanctions, the country’s central bank reported on Tuesday. 

The current account, which measures the difference between money coming into the country through trade, investment and transfers against outflowing funds, amounted to $53.8 billion for the first ten months of the year, the regulator’s data showed.

The October surplus exceeded $11 billion for the second consecutive month after reaching its highest level this year in September. The central bank revised its current account projection for the full year up from $45 billion to $60 billion on the back of soaring oil prices.

Moscow’s proceeds from oil and gas sales surged to their highest level in one-and-a-half years, reaching $17.7 billion last month despite forecasts of a vast deficit.

“Fresh data shows Russia continues to benefit from high commodity export revenue. We expect Russia will post another $20 billion of current account surplus in the remaining two months of 2023, bringing the overall external balance to around $75 billion,” Bloomberg’s Russia economist Alex Isakov predicted.

https://www.rt.com/business/587396-russia-current-account-sruplus-rise/

AND WHILE RUSSIA MAKES REAL MONEY.....

The impending US government shutdown was narrowly averted on Thursday when President Joe Biden signed another stopgap spending bill into law shortly before the funding deadline expired on November 17.

The stopgap spending bill does not include Biden’s funding requests for Ukraine and Israel, which essentially means that these countries won’t be getting more US money anytime soon, according to Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

“There was $1 billion left by, once again, one of those creative accounting systems within the Defense Department. Oh, look, we found another $6 billion. Well, it's now down to this pile that they miraculously discovered, it is down to $1 billion. And it's not going to last,” he told Sputnik, apparently referring to funds the US allocated previously to support Kiev.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231117/ukraine-will-have-to-suck-it-up-after-us-passes-budget-bill-devoid-of-aid-1115028790.html

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The US government is facing increasing challenges to even service the interest on the nation’s ballooning debt, Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska claimed on Friday.  

Having hit another record high in mid-September, US debt stands at over $33 trillion. It spiked by $275 billion in a single day in October. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), US government debt is expected to increase from 123.3% of GDP in 2023 to 137.5% by 2028.

“Some officials in Washington, who apparently worked hard to come up with all sorts of sanctions, are now thinking about the high cost of (servicing) American debt, which is already more than $33 trillion. And they blame this on the not-so-transparent mechanism for placing and trading US bonds,” Deripaska, who has been sanctioned by the US, wrote on his Telegram channel.

The billionaire went on to point out that even if the transparency of the US Treasury market is improved fivefold, it is still unclear how the debt is going to be repaid.

He asked how Washington would pay the interest in two or three years, if it already has to pay off more than a trillion dollars annually. “This is the largest expenditure of the US government budget, which will be executed with a colossal 8% deficit this year and next,” wrote the founder of Rusal, the world’s second-largest aluminum company.

https://www.rt.com/business/587477-us-debt-russian-tycoon-deripaska/

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Brussels might not initiate formal membership talks with Kiev at next month’s summit, as was originally planned, and could reschedule the matter for March 2024 instead, Reuters reported on Friday, citing an unnamed senior EU official.

Hungary could potentially block the consensus required to open talks, but the problem goes beyond Budapest, said the official, identified only as being involved in preparing the December 14-15 summit of the heads of 27 EU member states.

Some EU leaders have proposed to take up the topic at the March summit, after the European Commission has had a chance to assess whether Kiev has met all of the EU conditions.

Hungarian PM Viktor Orban warned earlier this month that Ukraine was “absolutely not ready” for EU membership talks, while Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto called it “absurd” for the bloc to even try evaluating Kiev’s compliance while a war was ongoing.

https://www.rt.com/news/587516-eu-ukraine-funding-talks-delay/

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The price limit imposed by the G7 and EU on Russian seaborne oil sales is being ignored, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing calculations based on budget data from Moscow.

According to the Russian Finance Ministry, gross revenues from the three main tax sources of oil money nearly doubled between April and October, reaching more than $13 billion last month. That figure eclipsed sales for any single month in 2021.

The EU and G7 countries imposed a $60-per-barrel price ceiling on Russian seaborne crude last December. It prohibits Western firms from providing insurance and other services to shipments of Russian crude, unless the cargo is purchased at or below the set price. Similar restrictions were introduced in February for exports of Russian petroleum products. The measures were supposed to substantially reduce Russia’s energy revenues.

Citing a study of trade and shipping data by the KSE Institute, Bloomberg reported earlier this week that over 99% of Russian seaborne oil sold in October had been at $79.40 per barrel, well above the threshold set by the West.   

https://www.rt.com/business/587491-russia-oil-cap-not-working/

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MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

EASY.

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

 MEANWHILE:

Nation committed to sharing gains of development, Xi tells APEC meeting

President Xi Jinping has reaffirmed China's commitment to expediting its efforts to modernize its industrial system, providing better institutional safeguards to enable business entities of all types to share the gains of development, and fostering new drivers of growth.

China will continue to pursue development with its doors open, the president said in a written speech delivered to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco on Thursday.

"We will unswervingly advance high-standard opening-up and further expand market access," he said in the written speech.

The president also pledged to take more "heart-warming" measures, such as improving the policies on the entry and stay of foreign nationals in China and removing choke points they face in financial, medical, e-payment and other services, to make it easier for foreign companies to invest and operate in China.

As for the Chinese economy, Xi said it remains promising and it will remain so in the long run, due to its strong resilience, enormous potential and ample room for maneuver.

"We have the confidence in, and even more capability of, achieving long-term and stable growth, and through our development we will continue to provide the world with new growth momentum and opportunities," he said.

China remains the most powerful engine of global growth, and will generate one-third of global growth this year, he added.

"Just as some leaders of the business community have said, China has become a synonym of the best investment destination, and that the 'next China' is still China," Xi said.

Figures released by China's National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday showed that the nation's economic recovery continued to gather steam in October.

China's retail sales, a gauge of consumption, grew 7.6 percent year-on-year in October, up from the 5.5 percent growth in September. Value-added industrial output also grew at a faster 4.6 percent in October, accelerating from 4.5 percent in September.

Xi said in the written speech to the business leaders that China's resolve to foster a market-oriented, law-based and world-class business environment will not change despite all of the changes in the international landscape.

"Our policy of providing equal and quality services to foreign investors will not change," he said, adding that Beijing will continue to improve the mechanisms for protecting the rights and interests of foreign investors, further shorten the negative list on foreign investment, fully ensure national treatment for foreign investors, and continue to strengthen IPR protection.

"We will strive to tear down the barriers to the flow of innovation factors, deepen reform of the digital economy, and promote free and orderly flow of data in compliance with the law," he said.

The president pointed out that openness and inclusiveness are the defining features of Asia-Pacific cooperation.

"Development in our region has been achieved not through provoking antagonism and confrontation, pursuing a beggar-thy-neighbor policy, or erecting high fences around a small yard, but by staying open and inclusive and drawing on each other's strengths," he said.

Xi stressed that forcing uniformity will not advance cooperation in the region, and seeking common ground while shelving differences is the right way forward.

"We should jointly uphold the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, and follow the right norms for state-to-state relations to maintain Asia-Pacific prosperity and stability through dialogue and partnership rather than confrontation and alliance," he said. "The region cannot and should not be an arena for geopolitical rivalry, still less should it be plunged into a new cold war or camp-based confrontation."

The president also highlighted the need for the Asia-Pacific region to "move along with the trend to promote transition to digital, smart and green development".

"We should jointly improve global governance of science and technology, bolster support for green and digital transition and sustainable development through innovation, and build an open, fair, just and nondiscriminatory environment for the development of science and technology," he said.

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202311/18/WS6557f6baa31090682a5eedd0.html

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BY BIG SERGE

......

.... The Ukrainians attempted a frontal assault on a fixed defense without either the element of surprise or parity in ranged fires. With the Russian defense fully on alert and Ukrainian staging areas and approach lanes subject to intense Russian fires, the AFU dispersed its forces in an effort to reduce losses, and this all but ensured that the Ukrainians would never have the necessary mass to create a breach. Add it all up, and you get the summer of 2023 - a series of frustrating and fruitless attacks on the exact same sector of the defense, slowly frittering away both the year and Ukraine’s best, last hope. 

The failure of Ukraine’s offensive has seismic ramifications for the future conduct of the war. Combat operations always occur in reference to Ukraine’s political objectives, which are - to put it bluntly - ambitious. It’s important to remember that the Kiev regime has maintained from the very beginning that it would not settle for anything less than the 1991 territorial maximum of Ukraine - implying not only the recovery of the territory occupied by Russia after February 2022, but also the subjugation of the separatist polities in Donetsk and Lugansk and the conquest of Russian Crimea. 

Ukraine’s war aims have always been defended as reasonable in the west for reasons related to the supposed legal niceties of war, the western illusion that borders are immutable, and the apparent transcendent divinity of Soviet-era administrative boundaries (which after all were the source of the 1991 borders). Regardless of all these matters, what Ukraine’s war aims implied as a practical matter was that Ukraine needed to capture de-facto prewar Russian territory, including four major cities (Donetsk, Lugansk, Sevastopol, and Simferopol). It meant dislodging the Russian Black Sea Fleet from its port somehow. This was an extraordinarily difficult task - far more complicated and more vast than anyone wanted to admit.

https://bigserge.substack.com/p/russo-ukrainian-war-the-reckoning

READ FROM TOP.

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

EASY.

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....