Lavrov became a Commander of the National Order of Mali, presented to him by the Foreign Minister of Mali.

Immediately after shooting down the Chinese balloon, US Defence Department submitted a request for a call between Austin and Wei Fenghe, but that request was denied by Beijing

It is now becoming obvious that NATO has finally realised that Russia is doing what it said it would do all along and that its interpretation based on how they perceived Russia would prosecute the war was wholly incorrect.

It is irrefutable that China spies on the US and vice-versa, but the idea that China would use a balloon to conspicuously spy on the US is laughable.

Our western govts continue to make policy decisions based on illusionary constructs whilst spectacularly fail to grasp the tangible realities now unfolding, economically, financially, politically and societally.

There was this

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ild-PsPD_Uw

and then this

https://youtu.be/OS4O8rGRLf8

You would have to be in denial to acknowledge what this means.

At least be objective when reading this. It was never a mystery.

How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline

The New York Times called it a “mystery,” but the United States executed a covert sea operation that was kept secret—until now

https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the-nord-stream?r=5mz1&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

There will be two polar perspectives wrt Seymour Hersh's NS article. Those who believe its nonsense and those who believe it to be true.

Question for those believing it to be true is who decided to leak specific operational details behind the sabotage and why now?

It appears US might be, to some extent, finally accepting of the fact that endless sanctions is counterproductive, given the US is not going to seek to impose sanctions on India for buying Russian oil. Of course that might change.

More Russian forces are being mobilised in east

Claims there was meeting between Putin and members of Russia's Security Council in early hours local time

Western claims of mobilisation of many 1000s of tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery systems etc and 100s of fighter jets.

Great energy rotation continues:

Russia and China have rubberstamped an agreement with respect to additional gas supplies via the Russian Far East route.

West still hasn't grasped that in order to survive and then thrive in future, it will have to have a cost matrix in terms of its economic and financial system which makes it competitive wrt Global South.

Never mind their dependency on nations with serious trust issues wrt west

Once West went down path of financialisation of economies, it was inevitable that within a few decades at most it would end up destroying the financial base and by extension the very fabric of our economies.

That culminated in 2008 and they have been in denial ever since.

West is predicated solely on the basis of ludicrous asset bubbles, endless cheap credit and fake economic data. The reality is now unavoidable, all this will have to return to the mean.

Shift in the narrative continues:

Outnumbered and Worn Out, Ukrainians in East Brace for Russian Assault

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/06/world/europe/ukraine-russia-offensive.html/

Credit Suisse has reported its biggest annual loss since the 2008 financial crisis, reporting a SFr1.4bn loss for Q4 and an annual loss to SFr7.3bn. Customers also withdrew SFr111bn from the group in Q4.

The fragility of the dollar complex was highlighted back in 2003 when US invented the WMD story to launch an illegal war in Iraq because Saddam wanted to sell oil in Euros.

Privately the Hersh article wrt NS 1 and 2 has seen the proverbial stick in a hornets nest, amongst western govts.

This is not going away easily. Near media blackout speaks volumes, not least because you would have expected an immediate universal condemnation by MSM.

We are beginning to see the clear fracturing of the US political establishment, given for decades the Republicans and Democrats have been illusionary political entities.