Several French cities have begun handing out food vouchers to the population to compensate for increasing prices, the TV channel France 2 reported on Monday.

According to the report, citizens are being given coupons for €5, €20 and €30. To date, city administrations have reportedly spent about €37 million (around $40 million) on the issuance of coupons and certificates, as well as other measures to support the population.

A document outlining the subsidies has not yet been adopted. However, the mayor offices of some French cities have decided to introduce food coupons on their own, without waiting for an official government decision.

The idea of giving out food vouchers to middle- and low-income households had been proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron and was discussed long before the presidential election. Approximately 8 million citizens will benefit from the initiative.

Inflation has been on the rise in France, driven by rising costs of food and energy. Experts have warned that surging prices and weak economic growth could lead to stagflation in the country.

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https://www.rt.com/business/556086-france-handing-out-food-stamps/

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Moscow has blockaded ships from southern Ukraine that would normally export Ukrainian grain and sunflower oil through the Black Sea, pushing up prices globally.

The African Union urged the two countries on Wednesday to unblock exports of grains and fertiliser to avoid widespread famine.

Russia has blamed Western sanctions for the food crisis.

It said on Wednesday it was ready to provide a humanitarian corridor for vessels carrying food to leave Ukraine but wanted sanctions to be lifted in return.

Western nations have imposed severe sanctions on Russia.

The United States pushed Russia closer to the brink of a historic debt default on Wednesday by not extending its licence to pay bondholders.

That waiver has allowed Moscow to keep up government debt payments till now.

The European Commission proposed on Wednesday to make breaking EU sanctions against Russia a crime.

The EU also said it hoped to agree sanctions on Russian oil before the next meeting of EU leaders.

But Russia, for now at least, is not short of money. Oil and gas revenues stood at $28 billion in April alone thanks to high energy prices.

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https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-26/russian-forces-shell-40-towns-in-ukraine-donbas/101101888

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GusNote: The Kiev government has also mined the waters around its harbours, making "navigation unsafe".....

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Despite sounding the alarm about rising global food prices, the US has no intention of lifting restrictions on Russian trade, US State Department spokesman Ned Price told journalists during a daily briefing on Wednesday.

Moscow says they affect its ability to export food and fertilizer, but that is a “lie,” he said

“We certainly won’t lift our sanctions in response to empty promises, and we’ve heard empty promises before from the Russian Federation,” Price said when asked if Washington would waiver the restrictions as Moscow suggested.

The US accused Russia of causing a surge in food prices by continuing its military action in Ukraine. Western nations called on Russia to facilitate the export of grain from Ukraine, but Moscow said the situation was complex and not as one-sided as Western nations claim it to be.

One of the latest comments on the issue came from Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko on Wednesday. He said alleviating the food crisis would require “lifting sanctions imposed on Russian exports and financial transactions” as well as “removing sea mines from all Ukrainian ports”.

Price dismissed this statement and others made by Russian officials as a series of “lies” and “disinformation”.

“US sanctions are not causing disruptions to Russia’s agricultural exports. The fact is that US sanctions were specifically designed to allow for the export of agricultural commodities and fertilizer from Russia,” he said.

Washington reportedly did consider at one point imposing sanctions against Russian food and fertilizer, even as buyers of Russian products like Brazil strongly objected. US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said that “maybe sacrifices are necessary to address the unjustified war that Russia has chosen to start,” during a UN meeting on food security in March. Ultimately Washington decided against such a move and added food products and fertilizer to a list of exemptions.

The state department spokesman implied that Russian officials, including Rudenko, falsely claim otherwise. Meanwhile Moscow says that its food and fertilizer exports are hurt indirectly by the restrictions on financial transactions, insurance of vessels, use of Western port facilities by Russian ships and similar factors.

Likewise, it was Ukraine’s decision to deploy mines along its coast to prevent possible Russian amphibious attacks and to ban foreign ships from leaving its ports, Moscow stated. It said its military won’t stop civilian traffic to Ukrainian ports, provided the ships go along Russia-designated and controlled routes. But Russia alone cannot ensure their safety, it said. Western officials accuse Moscow of maintaining a full naval blockade of Ukraine.

Price and other Western officials, like British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, interpreted Rudenko’s remarks as an offer of free passage to ships carrying Ukrainian grain in exchange for sanctions relief.

Russia launched an offensive against Ukraine in late February, following Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, first signed in 2014, and Moscow’s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered protocols were designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.

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https://www.rt.com/news/556113-russia-sanctions-grain-ukraine/

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According to the news agency, 20 million tonnes of grain are expected to be released into global markets after a centre for cooperation between Moscow and Kiev is established in Istanbul.

Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, and the United Nations plan to hold a meeting in Istanbul in the coming days to discuss the details of a roadmap to unblock vessels loaded with grain, the Anadolu news agency said.

Earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that the UN had suggested creating a contact group that would comprise Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and the UN to discuss ways to release vessels loaded with grain stuck at Ukrainian ports.

"Since the beginning of hostilities on the territory of Ukraine, Turkey has been making multilateral efforts to resolve the conflict through diplomacy, while taking an active position in eliminating the global food shortage. According to information received from diplomatic sources, Turkey has been conducting diplomatic contacts for some time in order to form a mechanism to ensure the safe delivery of grain from Ukraine to world markets. Following the negotiations of the Turkish side with representatives from the Russian Federation, Ukraine and the UN, a roadmap has been prepared that will ensure the functionality of the ‘grain corridor’ under the auspices of the world organisation", the agency said.

According to Anadolu, 20 million tonnes of grain are expected to be released into international markets once a centre for cooperation between Russia and Ukraine is set up in Istanbul with Turkish mediation.

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https://sputniknews.com/20220602/anadolu-turkey-russia-ukraine-and-the-un-working-on-roadmap-to-open-corridor-for-grain-shipments-1095948648.html

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In an email, a State Department spokesman declined to comment on the cable’s contents, but pointed to the Ukrainian reports of wholesale grain theft, as well as “numerous testimonies from Ukrainian farmers and documentary evidence showing Russia’s theft of Ukrainian grain.”

“The United States is working with other countries to prevent the sale of grain that has likely been stolen from Ukraine,” the spokesman said.

Several foreign officials said the United States had asked them to ensure their country did not buy stolen Ukrainian grain, with the request made in a spirit of cooperation, not coercion. In Pakistan, which is considering buying two million tons of wheat from Russia, a senior foreign office official said the Americans stressed Pakistan’s sovereignty when they asked for help.

Turkey is a focus of the efforts to track stolen Ukrainian grain because Russian vessels leaving Crimea usually pass through Turkish waters. On Friday, Ukraine’s ambassador to Turkey called on the authorities to investigate the source of Russian-transported grain.

Read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/05/world/africa/ukraine-grain-russia-sales.html

YEAH! The West would prefer Africa to be starving than to be fed with "stolen"(?) grain from the Donbass region — offered at a discounted price by Russia, whose cargo ships are at risk of being bombed for breaking a US unilateral embargo with punitive sanctions... Obviously these ships are risking being impounded while doing return on empty after having unloaded the wheat which for all intent and disinformation could have come from generous Russian farmers. IF THIS IS A STOPGAP solution to the problem of world hunger, so be it.... Oh. And stealing farm equipment? The Donbass region is populated by Russians WHO ARE BEING LIBERATED FROM THE UKRAINIAN NAZIS by Russia. A new administrative system has been put in place for the locals who according to some reports could not be happier as life returns to better than normal.... 

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BY MICHAEL HUDSON

Is the proxy war in Ukraine turning out to be only a lead-up to something larger, involving world famine and a foreign-exchange crisis for food- and oil-deficit countries?

Many more people are likely to die of famine and economic disruption than on the Ukrainian battlefield. It thus is appropriate to ask whether what appeared to be the Ukraine proxy war is part of a larger strategy to lock in U.S. control over international trade and payments. We are seeing a financially weaponized power grab by the U.S. Dollar Area over the Global South as well as over Western Europe. Without dollar credit from the United States and its IMF subsidiary, how can countries stay afloat? How hard will the U.S. act to block them from de-dollarizing, opting out of the U.S. economic orbit?

U.S. Cold War strategy is not alone in thinking how to benefit from provoking a famine, oil and balance-of-payments crisis. Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum worries that the world is overpopulated – at least with the “wrong kind” of people. As Microsoft philanthropist (the customary euphemism for rentier monopolist) Bill Gates has explained: “Population growth in Africa is a challenge.” His lobbying foundation’s 2018 “Goalkeepers” report warned: “According to U.N. data, Africa is expected to account for more than half of the world’s population growth between 2015 and 2050. Its population is projected to double by 2050,” with “more than 40 percent of world’s extremely poor people … in just two countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria.”

Gates advocates cutting this projected population increase by 30 percent by improving access to birth control and expanding education to “enable more girls and women to stay in school longer, have children later.” But how can that be afforded with this summer’s looming food and oil squeeze on government budgets?

South Americans and some Asian countries are subject to the same jump in import prices resulting from NATO’s demands to isolate Russia. JPMorgan Chase head Jamie Dimon recently warned attendees at a Wall Street investor conference that the sanctions will cause a global “economic hurricane.” He echoed the warning by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva in April that, “To put it simply: we are facing a crisis on top of a crisis.” Pointing out that the Covid pandemic has been capped by inflation as the war in Ukraine has made matters “much worse, and threatens to further increase inequality” she concluded that: “The economic consequences from the war spread fast and far, to neighbors and beyond, hitting hardest the world’s most vulnerable people. Hundreds of millions of families were already struggling with lower incomes and higher energy and food prices.”

The Biden administration blames Russia for “unprovoked aggression.” But it is his administration’s pressure on NATO and other Dollar Area satellites that has blocked Russian exports of grain, oil and gas. But many oil- and food-deficit countries see themselves as the primary victims of “collateral damage” caused by US/NATO pressure.

Is world famine and balance-of-payments crisis a deliberate US/NATO policy?

On June 3, African Union Chairperson Macky Sall, President of Senegal, went to Moscow to plan how to avoid a disruption in Africa’s food and oil trade by refusing to become pawns in the US/NATO sanctions. So far in 2022, President Putin noted: “Our trade is growing. In the first months of this year it grew by 34 percent.” But Senegal’s President Sall worried that: “Anti-Russia sanctions have made this situation worse and now we do not have access to grain from Russia, primarily to wheat. And, most importantly, we do not have access to fertilizer.”

U.S. diplomats are forcing countries to choose whether, in George W. Bush’s words, “you are either for us or against us.” The litmus test is whether they are willing to force their populations to starve and shut down their economies for lack of food and oil by stopping trade with the world’s Eurasian core of China, Russia, India, Iran and their neighbors.

Mainstream Western media describe the logic behind these sanctions as promoting a regime change in Russia. The hope was that blocking it from selling its oil and gas, food or other exports would drive down the ruble’s exchange rate and “make Russia scream” (as the U.S. tried to do to Allende’s Chile to set the stage for its backing of the Pinochet military coup). Exclusion from the SWIFT bank-clearing system was supposed to disrupt Russia’s payment system and sales, while seizing Russia’s $300 billion of foreign-currency reserves held in the West was expected to collapse the ruble, preventing Russian consumers from buying the Western goods to which they had become accustomed. The idea (and it seems so silly in retrospect) was that Russia’s population would rise in rebellion to protest against how much more Western luxury imports cost. But the ruble soared rather than sunk, and Russia quickly replaced SWIFT with its own system linked to that of China. And Russia’s population began to turn away from the West’s aggressive enmity.

Evidently some major dimensions are missing from the U.S. national-security think-tank models. But when it comes to global famine, was a more covert and even larger strategy at work? It is now looking like the major aim of the U.S. war in Ukraine all along was merely to serve as a catalyst, an excuse to impose sanctions that would disrupt the world’s food and energy trade. Additionally to manage this crisis in a way that would afford U.S. diplomats an opportunity to confront Global South countries with the choice “Your loyalty and neoliberal dependency or your life?” In the process, this would “thin out” the world’s non-white populations that so worried Mr. Dimon and the WEF.

There must have been the following calculation: Russia accounts for 40% of the world’s grain trade and 25 percent of the world fertilizer market (45 percent if Belarus is included). Any scenario would have included a calculation that if so large a volume of grain and fertilizer was withdrawn from the market, prices would soar, just as they have done for oil and gas.

Adding to the disruption in the balance-of-payments of countries having to import these commodities, the price is rising for buying dollars to pay their foreign bondholders and banks for debts falling due. The Federal Reserve’s tightening of interest rates has caused a rising premium for U.S. dollars over euros, sterling and Global South currencies.

It is inconceivable that the consequences of this on countries outside of Europe and the United States were not taken into account, because the global economy is an interconnected system. Most disruptions are in the 2 to 5 percent range, but today’s US/NATO sanctions are so far off the historical track that price increases will soar substantially above the historic range. Nothing like this has happened in recent times.

This suggests that what appeared in February to be a war between Ukrainians and Russia is really a trigger intended to restructure the world economy – and to do so in a way to lock U.S. control over the Global South. Geopolitically, the proxy war in Ukraine has been a handy excuse for America’s to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The choice confronting Global South countries: to starve by paying their foreign bondholders and bankers, or to announce, as a basic principle of international law: “As sovereign countries, we put our survival above the aim of enriching foreign creditors who have made loans that have gone bad as a result of their choice to wage a new Cold War. As for the destructive neoliberal advice that the IMF and World Bank have given us, their austerity plans were destructive instead of helpful. Therefore, their loans have gone bad. As such, they have become odious.”

NATO policy has given Global South countries no choice but to reject its attempt to establish a U.S. food stranglehold on the Global South by blocking any competition from Russia, thereby monopolizing the world’s grain and energy trade. The major grain exporter was the heavily subsidized U.S. farm sector, followed by Europe’s highly subsidized Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). These were the main grain exporters before Russia entered the picture. The US/NATO demand is to roll back the clock to restore dependency on the Dollar Area and its eurozone satellites.

The implicit Russian and Chinese counterplan

What is needed for the world’s non-US/NATO population to survive is a new world trade and financial system. The alternative is world famine for much of the world. More people will die of the sanctions than have died on the Ukrainian battlefield. Financial and trade sanctions are as destructive as military attack. So the Global South is morally justified in putting its sovereign interests above those of the wielders of international financial and trade weaponry.

First, reject the sanctions and reorient trade to Russia, China, India, Iran and their fellow members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The problem is how to pay for imports from these countries, especially if U.S. diplomats extend sanctions against such commerce.

There is no way that Global South countries can pay for oil, fertilizer and food from these countries and also pay the dollar debts that are the legacy of U.S.-sponsored neoliberal trade policy subject to U.S. and eurozone protectionism.

Therefore, the second need is to declare a debt moratorium – in effect, a repudiation – of the debts that represent loans gone bad. This act would be analogous to the 1931 suspension of German reparations and Inter-Ally debts owed to the United States. Quite simply, today’s Global South debts cannot be paid without subjecting debtor countries to famine and austerity.

A third corollary that follows from these economic imperatives is to replace the World Bank and its pro-U.S. policies of trade dependency and underdevelopment with a genuine Bank for Economic Acceleration. Along with this institution is a fourth corollary in the form of the new bank’s sibling: a replacement for the IMF free of austerity junk economics and subsidy of America’s client oligarchies coupled with currency raids on countries resisting U.S. privatization and financialization takeovers.

The fifth requirement is for countries to protect themselves by joining a military alliance as an alternative to NATO, to avoid being turned into another Afghanistan, another Libya, another Iraq or Syria or Ukraine.

The main deterrent to this strategy is not U.S. power, for it has shown itself to be a paper tiger. The problem is one of economic consciousness and will.

READ MORE:

https://www.unz.com/mhudson/is-us-nato-with-wef-help-pushing-for-a-global-south-famine/

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Russia's special operation in Ukraine may cause a two-year global food crisis even if the standoff ends tomorrow, The Telegraph claims, citing Western officials. They insist that exporting grain "trapped" in Ukraine is the remedy, while remaining mute about West's sanctions paralyzing larger food exports from Russia to third-world countries.

"We are very clear that this grain crisis is urgent, that it needs to be solved within the next month otherwise we could see devastating consequences," UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told the press on June 23.

The ongoing conflict has disrupted production, "causing global food prices to soar to record levels," claims The Telegraph. In particular, wheat prices increased to an average of 56.2% in May, 2022 above their value last year, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

The newspaper's source says that the British officials see current efforts to move Ukrainian grain over land and road as "far below" what is needed. They insist that the commodity needs to be exported by sea, accusing Russia of blocking Ukraine's food supplies from leaving Ukraine's Black Sea ports. According to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Moscow was trying to hold the world "ransom."

The newspaper also cites "newly declassified US intelligence" claiming that the Russian navy "has been given orders to lay mines" in Odessa and Ochakov and "mined" the Dnieper River "as part of its blockade of Ukrainian grain exports." According to BoJo, the UK is helping Ukraine "at a technical level to help demine Odessa."

Western Press Remain Mute About Russia's Black Sea Corridors

Russia denounced the US and the UK claims, stressing that the Ukrainian military mined their own ports during the retreat. Furthermore, Ukraine continues to stampede Russo-Turkish efforts to demine the area and ensure the safe passage of ships from the country's territorial waters.

On June 2, Russia's Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya made it clear that Russia is ready to provide safe corridors for Ukrainian ships carrying 20 million tons of grain if Kiev demines the water area surrounding its ports.

In late May, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that the Russian Navy had created safe zones in the Black and Azov Seas for ships leaving Ukraine along humanitarian corridors. The corridors with a length of 139 miles and 3 miles wide are operating daily from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm (GMT+3) in the Black Sea for vessels stationed in the ports of Kherson, Nikolaev, Chernomorsk, Ochakov, Odessa and Yuzhny.

Nevertheless, the Kiev authorities "continue to do everything possible to evade interaction with representatives of foreign states and ship-owning companies in resolving the issue of ensuring the safe exit of blocked ships," according to the MoD.

Turkey, which has worked with Russia in demining the Black Sea and providing safe passage to vessels, echoes Moscow's concerns. Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu told Anadolu Agency last month that the two major obstacles hindering grain exports are mines placed by the Ukrainian military in the Odessa water area as well as Western sanctions slapped on Russian ships in terms of insurance and the provision of services at international ports.

READ MORE:

https://sputniknews.com/20220624/how-the-uk-is-doing-its-best-to-stir-a-food-crisis-while-pinning-the-blame-on-russia-1096628806.html

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MAY BE THE RUSSIANS SHOULD EXPORT THEIR GRAINS UNDER THE FLAG OF RURITANIA.....

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A brutal invasion in Eastern Europe, a chemical industry facing an unprecedented crisis and climate change threatening to slash crop yields across the globe.

There’s a perfect storm that’s threatening food supplies to millions of people with a whole continent facing widespread hunger.

It didn’t start when the cold war winds returned to Europe, but Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has made it a whole lot worse.

AND SO TELLS US political correspondent Brett Worthington OF THE ABC (AUSTRALIA).

THIS IS BULLSHIT. WHAT HAS THREATENED THE WORLD FOOD SUPPLIES ARE THE US SANCTIONS. WHAT HAS THREATENED THE WFS IS THE WAY KIEV (POROSHENKO AND ZELENSKY ALIKE) WAS BEHAVING TOWARDS THE MINSK AGREEMENTS AND KILLING PEOPLE IN THE DONBASS. 

WE ON THIS SITE HAVE FROM THE BEGINNING INVITED THE LITTLE SHIT ZELENSKYYY-YYY TO SIGN A DEAL BEFORE RUSSIA TAKES THE WHOLE OF UKRAINE OVER  — WHICH RUSSIA DOES NOT WANT TO DO... WHY? RUSSIA DOES NOT WANT TO HAVE TO "CONTROL" THE GALICIANS OF UKRAINE. THESE GUYS ARE BANDERITES/NAZIS. IN THE SAME BREATH, ZELENSKYYY-YY/KIEV CANNOT CONTROL THE RUSSIANS OF THE DONBASS. CAPICE? BUT THE SMELL OF US CACA IS TOO CLOSE FOR ANYTHING PROPER TO HAPPEN. THE US EMPIRE HATES PEACE..... ESPECIALLY WHEN IT DOES NOT CONTROL THE BELLIGERENTS....

Though it is a difficult process....

THE ONLY SOLUTION TO THE UKRAINE PROBLEM IS TO DIVIDE IT IN TWO COUNTRIES — AS IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE FIRST PLACE: THE GALICIANS IN THE WEST, THE RUSSIANS IN THE EAST. END OF STORY.

See Ireland and England. See Serbia and Croatia.... et cetera......

THIS WOULD BE THE END RESULTS OF THE NECESSARY NEGOTIATIONS. WHY NOT GO THERE DIRECTLY AND DESIGN AGREEABLE BORDERS.

PEACE SHOULD NOT BE IN THE HANDS OF POLITICIANS/MILITARISTS BUT IN THE KNOWHOW OF ENGINEERS. SEE ABOVE.

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