The Ukraine War In Light Of The U.N. Charter

counterpunch |   In his book The Great Delusion[5], Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago elucidated principles of international order and the necessity to respect agreements (pacta sunt servanda), including oral agreements.  In his article in the Economist on 19 March 2022[6], Mearsheimer explains why the West bears responsibility for the Ukrainian crisis.  Already in 2015 Mearsheimer had signalled the importance of keeping oral agreements, as those given by the United States to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989-91, to the effect that NATO would not expand eastward[7].  In subsequent lectures Mearsheimer has explained that, whether of not the West considers NATO’s expansion a provocation, what is crucial is how NATO expansion is perceived by those who feel threatened by it.  In this context we must remember that article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits not only the use of force but also the threat of the use of force.  Promising to expand NATO to the very borders of Russia and the massive weaponization of Ukraine certainly constitute such a threat, especially bearing in mind the aggressive campaigns by NATO members in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Lybia.

For decades Russian Presidents Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev have been warning the West – notably at the 2007 Munich Security Conference[8] — that NATO eastward expansion constitutes an existential menace to Russia.  Both Presidents advocate a European security architecture that will take into account the national security concerns of all countries, including Russia. Whether Russian fears are objectively justified or not (I think they are) is not the pertinent question, since their apprehension is a factum.  What is crucial is the obligation of all UN member states to settle their differences by peaceful means, i.e. to negotiate in good faith.  That is precisely what the Minsk agreements were all about.  Yet, Ukraine violated the Minsk agreements systematically.  Russia did make a credible effort to negotiate since 2014 in the context of the OSCE and the Normandy Format.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel[9] and French President François Hollande[10] recently confirmed that the Minsk agreements were intended to give Ukraine time to prepare for war.  Thus, essentially, the West entered the agreements in bad faith by deliberately deceiving the Donbas Russians.  In a very real sense, Putin was taken for a ride at Minsk and during the eight years of Normandy Format discussions.  Such behavior reflects a “culture of cheating”[11] and violates well-established principles of international relations amounting to perfidy, in contravention of the UN Charter and general principles of law.  Notwithstanding, In December 2021 the Russians put forward two peaceful proposals in the hope of averting military confrontation.  Although the treaty proposals were moderate and pragmatic, the US and NATO refused to negotiate pursuant to article 2(3) of the Charter and arrogantly rejected them.  If this was not a provocation in contravention of article 2(4) of the UN Charter, I do not know what is.

Professor Wittner is right in reminding us of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 and the 1997 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership, but these instruments have to be placed in legal and historical context, in particular in the context of Western pronouncements since 2008 to bring Ukraine into NATO, an issue that in no way was foreseen in the two instruments above.

Wittner is wrong in his evaluation of the Crimean issue.  I was the UN representative for the elections in Ukraine in March and June 1994 and criss-crossed the country, including Crimea. Without a doubt, the vast majority of the population there and in the Donbass are Russian and feel Russian.  This brings up the issue of the jus cogens right of self-determination of peoples, anchored in articles 1 and 55 of the UN Charter (and in Chapters XI and XII of the Charter) and in Art. 1 common to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.  Wittner seems to forget that the US and EU supported the illegal coup d’état[12] against the democratically elected President of Ukraine, Victor Yanukovich, and immediately started working together with the Putsch-regime in Kiev, instead of insisting in re-establishing law and order as provided for in the Agreement of 20 February 2014[13].  As Professor Stephen Cohen wrote in 2018, Maidan was a “seminal event”[14].

Without the Maidan Putsch and the anti-Russian measures immediately taken by the Putsch-regime, the Crimean and Donbass peoples would not have felt menaced and would not have insisted on their right of self-determination.  Wittner errs when he uses the term “annexation” to refer to the reincorporation of Crimea into Russia.  “Annexation” in international law presupposes an invasion, military occupation contrary to the will of the people.  That is not what happened in Crimea in March 2014.  First there was a referendum to which the UN and OSCE were invited – and never came. Then there was an unilateral declaration of independence by the legitimate Crimean Parliamen, only then was there an official request to be re-incorporated into Russia, a request that went through the due process mill, being first approved by the Duma, then by the Constitutional Court of Russia, and only then signed by Putin.  Had a referendum been held in 1994, when I was in Crimea, the results would surely have been similar.  A referendum today would confirm the will of the Crimeans to be part of Russia, not Ukraine, to which they had been artificially attached by decision of Nikita Khruschev, a Ukrainian himself.  There are no historical or ethnic reasons justifying Crimea’s attachment to the Ukraine. Many international lawyers agree that Crimea exercised its right of self-determination and was not “annexed” by Russia[15].

Max Boot Wants To Reinstate The Draft So Soldier Citizens Can Reform America

WaPo  |  Fifty years ago, in early 1973, with U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War coming to a close, the Nixon administration announced the end of draft call-ups. The armed forces, which had been dependent on conscripts since 1940, had to become an all-volunteer force (AVF) overnight.

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America gained — and lost — a great deal in that wrenching transition: We gained a more effective military but opened up a new divide between service personnel and civilians.

Admittedly, it was hard to predict either consequence when the draft ended. By 1973, conscription had caused enormous discontent in U.S. society because so many of the well-off had been able to escape the Vietnam War with occupational or student deferments or bogus medical excuses.

Military leaders feared that few high-quality recruits would join voluntarily — and initially they were right. As recounted by James Kitfield in his book “Prodigal Soldiers: How the Generation of Officers Born of Vietnam Revolutionized the American Style of War,” “On standard military aptitude tests between 1977 and 1980, close to half of all the Army’s male recruits scored in the lowest mental category the service allowed. Thirty-eight percent were high school dropouts.” Drug abuse and racial tensions were rife. The all-volunteer force, combined with defense budget cuts, was producing a “hollow Army,” the Army chief of staff warned in 1980.

That changed in the 1980s when patriotism surged and popular culture began to depict the military in a more positive light — we went from “The Deer Hunter” (1978) to “Top Gun” (1986). Congress raised pay and benefits, and the services figured out how to attract recruits with slogans such as “Be All You Can Be.” By 1990, 97 percent of Army recruits were high school graduates and, thanks to mandatory drug testing, the number using illicit drugs plummeted.

The AVF went on to win the 1991 Gulf War and perform capably in a long series of conflicts that followed. The United States often did not achieve its political objectives (as in Afghanistan), but it wasn’t the fault of those doing the fighting. They turned the military into the most admired institution in U.S. society.

Now, however, one retired general told me, “The AVF is facing its most serious crisis since Nixon created it.” All of the services are struggling with recruiting. The crisis has been especially acute in the Army. Last year, it missed its recruiting goals by 15,000 soldiers — an entire division’s worth. That is a particularly ominous development given the growing threats from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Military analysts point to numerous factors to account for the recruiting shortfall, the biggest being that the unemployment rate is at its lowest level since 1969. There is also widespread obesity and drug use among young people. Only 23 percent of Americans are eligible to serve, and even fewer are interested in serving. More than two decades after Sept. 11, 2001, and nearly two years after the U.S. defeat in Afghanistan, war weariness has set in.

Perceived politicization is another issue: While many right-wingers view the armed forces as too “woke,” many progressive Gen Zers view them as too conservative. The Ronald Reagan Institute found that the number of people expressing a great deal of trust and confidence in the military declined from 70 percent in 2017 to 48 percent in 2022.

Those poll numbers reflect a concern among many in the military that the AVF has created a dangerous chasm between the few who serve and the vast majority who don’t. The number of veterans in the population declined from 18 percent in 1980 to about 7 percent in 2018 — and it keeps falling, as the older generation of draftees dies off.

“The AVF has led us to become the best trained, equipped and organized fighting force in global history,” retired Adm. James Stavridis, a former NATO commander, told me. “But we have drifted away from the citizen-soldier model that was such a part of our nation’s history. The AVF has helped to create an essentially professional cadre of warriors. We need to work to ensure that our military remains fully connected to the civilian world, and to educate civilians about the military.”

The easiest way to bridge the civil-military divide would be to reinstate the draft, but there is no support for such a radical step in either the military or the country at large. David S.C. Chu, a former undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, points out that relying on draftees “creates morale and discipline problems” and is “increasingly inconsistent with a highly technological approach to warfare.” In most countries, conscripts serve only a year or two at most — barely long enough to master complex weapons systems. That’s why most nations, including Russia and China, have been relying more on professional soldiers like the United States does.

Yet, while we gained a more capable military with the advent of the AVF, we have to recognize that we also lost something important when the draft ended. Mass mobilization during World War II broke down religious, regional and ethnic barriers and paved the way for postwar progress on civil rights and an expansion of the federal government to address problems such as poverty. In the post-draft era, America has become increasingly polarized between “red” and “blue” communities.

That has led to renewed interest in expanding national service programs such as AmeriCorps; President Biden, for example, recently proposed creating a new Civilian Climate Corps. Congress should support such initiatives, but we shouldn’t have extravagant expectations for what they can accomplish. The young people who sign up for voluntary service are so civic-minded already that they are the ones in least need of what these programs teach.

To make a real difference, national service would have to be obligatory. Retired Gen. Charles C. Krulak, a former Marine commandant, told me he favors requiring every high school graduate to put in two years of community service out of state while living on current or former military bases.

He is undoubtedly right that such a program would produce young adults “better prepared to become useful citizens.” But there is no national emergency that would justify such a mobilization and no agreement on how we could usefully employ 12 million people (the number of Americans aged 18 to 20). Public employee unions would be sure to object, the cost would be prohibitive, and many would try to evade the service requirement. Obligatory national service is no more likely, in today’s climate, than a renewal of military conscription.

The likelihood is that the AVF can overcome its current problems with some tweaks such as a new Army program for pre-basic training to condition out-of-shape recruits. Presumably, once the unemployment rate rises, the military’s recruitment woes will ease. Bridging the fissures that divide our society will be much harder to achieve. I wish a national-service mandate were practical and possible, but it’s not. We will have to look elsewhere — for example, to expanded civics education — for solutions.

Biden Has Enemies

Nobody’s blackmailing Biden to escalate in Ukraine. Ukraine has been his project going back to 2008 (and his time on the Senate Intelligence Committee likely pushes it further back). Ukraine is his personal project. His favorites from the Clinton State Department that assisted him back then all got nice promotions in his administration. The whole reason he ran in 2020 was to execute the Ukraine plan because Trump had messed it up and nobody in the field was going to be reliable enough to really run with it. Old Cornpop's a violent and angry man. He wanted more war in Yugoslavia, he was all in on Afghanistan and Iraq, and in the Spring he was publicly talking about bringing down Putin as well as informing enlisted soldiers in Poland that they’d be in Ukraine soon. If anything, people are holding Joe back. Consider the documents could be used to get Joe out of the way because Ukraine can’t be wound down as long as he’s POTUS. Per his autobiography, as a freshman senator in the mid 70s, he was introduced to the opportunities of southeast Europe by his mentor, Averell Harriman.

amgreatness  |  Biden and his allies have continued their vendetta against Trump, exposing his tax returns and raiding his home for possessing documents he supposedly owed the National Archives. This did not go over as well as Attorney General (and all-around hack) Merrick Garland anticipated, and it seems Garland and the January 6 Committee have each decided to scale back their demands. 

This is why the recent exposure of top secret documents in Biden’s old office, his garage, and a mysterious third location suggests something is afoot. We went from a Monday disclosure to a special counsel being appointed on Thursday. Nothing like this happens this quickly unless it is by design. 

There are, of course, ways to deal with this situation that do not involve public exposure. Couldn’t Biden or his staff order some FBI agents or White House people to pick them up and take them to wherever they’re supposed to be stored? 

It’s in the news because somehow his lawyers found the documents and reported them before the story could go through White House channels. And, lawyers being lawyers, they followed the street-lawyer rule that if someone has to go to jail, make sure it’s your client and not you. Concerned about individual culpability for obstruction or mishandling documents, they made this hot potato someone else’s problem as fast as possible. 

Someone is responsible for the way this information came out, and that someone is an enemy of Biden. There are plenty of possibilities: some secret Republicans at the Justice Department, Kamala Harris and her people, a committee of Democratic Party insiders concerned about Dementia Joe being president for another four years. The whole thing has a whiff of a conspiracy, and, like the various allegations and pretexts employed to investigate Trump, it may very well originate in the intelligence community. 

As Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) once said, “You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.” In this instance, the hypothesis is not completely satisfying. Biden has not really taken on the intelligence community, so far as I can tell, unless they’re still smarting about how he ended the Afghanistan boondoggle.

McCarthy Shreds Lying Turdburglers Swalwell And Schiff

CNN cuts away from Speaker McCarthy's press conference when he starts hammering Rep. Swalwell for being allegedly compromised, and Rep. Schiff for repeatedly lying about having evidence of collusion. pic.twitter.com/fL5xcblNI1

— Bill D'Agostino (@Banned_Bill) January 12, 2023

trendingpolitics  |  On Thursday while speaking with reporters, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy left reporters speechless after he defended his decision to keep California Democrats Eric Swalwell and Adam Schiff off of the House Intelligence Committee.

“If you got the briefing I got from the FBI, you wouldn’t have Swalwell on any committee,” McCarthy said, leaving reporters silent.

This suggests damning bombshell information about Swalwell’s handlings that we will hopefully learn in the coming weeks.

“And you’re going to tell me other Democrats couldn’t fill that slot? He cannot get a security clearance in the private sector,” McCarthy said. “So would you like to give him a government clearance?”

McCarthy went on to explain that the last Congress lead by Nancy Pelosi kept Swalwell on the committee even though they were aware of the massive red flag from the FBI.

“You’re going to tell me there are 200 other Democrats that couldn’t fill that slot, but they kept him on it? The only way that they even knew it came forward is when they put to nominate him to the Intel committee. And then the FBI came and told the leadership that he’s got a problem, and they kept him on. That jeopardized all of us,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy also name dropped Schiff.

“Adam Schiff openly lied to the American public. He told you he had proof. He told you he didn’t know the whistle blower,” McCarthy said while referring to false claims made by the California Democrat against former President Donald Trump.

“He put America for four years through an impeachment that he knew was a lie.” At the same time, we had Ukraine, the same time we had Afghanistan collapse. Was that the role of the Intel committee? No,” McCarthy said.

“So what I am doing with the Intel committee, bringing it back to the jurisdiction is supposed to do forward looking to keep this country safe, keep the politics out of it,” he continued.

 

 

World War III Is A Conflict Of Anthropological Values

twitter |  Emmanuel Todd, one of the greatest French intellectuals today, claims that the "Third World War has started."

Small 🧵 translating the most important points in this fascinating interview.

Emmanuel Todd: «La Troisième Guerre mondiale a commencé» GRAND ENTRETIEN - Au-delà de l’affrontement militaire entre la Russie et l’Ukraine, l’anthropologue insiste sur la dimension idéologique et culturelle de cette guerre et sur l’opposition entre l’Occid… https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/emmanuel-todd-la-troisieme-guerre-mondiale-a-commence-20230112#Echobox=1673601494-1

 

He says "it's obvious that the conflict, started as a limited territorial war and escalating to a global economic confrontation, between the whole of the West on the one hand and Russia and China on the other hand, has become a world war." 

 

He believes that "Putin made a big mistake early on, which is [that] on the eve of the war [everyone saw Ukraine] not as a fledgling democracy, but as a society in decay and a “failed state” in the making. [...] I think the Kremlin's calculation was that this decaying society... 

 

... would crumble at the first shock. But what we have discovered, on the contrary, is that a society in decomposition, if it is fed by external financial and military resources, can find in war a new type of balance, and even a horizon, a hope." 

 

He says he agrees with Mearsheimer's analysis of the conflict: "Mearsheimer tells us that Ukraine, whose army had been overtaken by NATO soldiers (American, British and Polish) since at least 2014, was therefore a de facto member of the NATO, and that the Russians had... 

 

... announced that they would never tolerate Ukraine in NATO. From their point of view, the Russians are therefore in a war that is defensive and preventive. Mearsheimer added that we would have no reason to rejoice in the eventual difficulties of the Russians because... 

 

...since this is an existential question for them, the harder it would be, the harder they would strike. The analysis seems to hold true." 

 

He however has some criticism for Mearsheimer:

"Mearsheimer, like a good American, overestimates his country. He considers that, if for the Russians the war in Ukraine is existential, for the Americans it is basically only one 'game' of power among others. After Vietnam... 

 

...Iraq and Afghanistan, what's one more debacle? The basic axiom of American geopolitics is: 'We can do whatever we want because we are sheltered, far away, between two oceans, nothing will ever happen to us'. Nothing would be existential for America. 

 

Insufficient analysis which today leads Biden to proceed mindlessly. America is fragile. The resistance of the Russian economy is pushing the American imperial system towards the precipice. No one had expected that the Russian economy would hold up against the 'economic power'...

...of NATO. I believe that the Russians themselves did not anticipate it.

If the Russian economy resisted the sanctions indefinitely and managed to exhaust the European economy, while it itself remained, backed by China, American monetary and financial controls of the world......would collapse, and with them the possibility for United States to fund their huge trade deficit for nothing. This war has therefore become existential for the United States. No more than Russia, they cannot withdraw from the conflict, they cannot let go. 

 

This is why we...... are now in an endless war, in a confrontation whose outcome must be the collapse of one or the other." 

 

He firmly believes the US is in decline but sees it as bad news for the autonomy of vassal states:

"I have just read a book by S. Jaishankar, Indian Minister of Foreign Affairs (The India Way), published just before the war, who sees American weakness, who knows that the......confrontation between China and the US will have no winner but will give space to a country like India, and to many others. I add: but not to Europeans. Everywhere we see the weakening of the US, but not in Europe and Japan because one of the effects of the retraction of......the imperial system is that the United States strengthens its hold on its initial protectorates. As the American system shrinks, it weighs ever more heavily on the local elites of the protectorates (and I include all of Europe here). 

 

The first to lose all national autonomy...... will be (or already are) the English and the Australians. The Internet has produced human interaction with the US in the Anglosphere of such intensity that its academic, media and artistic elites are, so to speak, annexed. On the European continent we are somewhat...... protected by our national languages, but the fall in our autonomy is considerable, and rapid. Let's remember the Iraq war, when Chirac, Schröder and Putin held joint anti-war press conferences." 

 

He underlines the importance of skills and education: "The US is now twice as populated as Russia (2.2 times in student age groups). But in the US only 7% are studying engineering, while in Russia it is 25%. Which means that with 2.2 times fewer people studying, Russia trains......30% more engineers. The US fills the gap with foreign students, but they're mainly Indians and even more Chinese. This is not safe and is already decreasing. It is a dilemma of the American economy: it can only face competition from China by importing skilled Chinese labor." 

 

On the ideological and cultural aspects of the war: "When we see the Russian Duma pass even more repressive legislation on 'LGBT propaganda', we feel superior. I can feel that as an ordinary Westerner. But from a geopolitical point of view, if we think in terms of...... soft power, it is a mistake. On 75% of the planet, the kinship organization was patrilineal and one can sense a strong understanding of Russian attitudes. For the collective non-West, Russia affirms a reassuring moral conservatism." 

 

He continues: "The USSR had a certain form of soft power [but] communism basically horrified the whole Muslim world by its atheism and inspired nothing particular in India, outside of West Bengal and Kerala. However, today, Russia which repositioned itself as the archetype......of the great power, not only anti-colonialist, but also patrilineal and conservative of traditional mores, can seduce much further. [For instance] it's obvious that Putin's Russia, having become morally conservative, has become sympathetic to the Saudis who I'm sure have a......bit of a hard time with American debates over access for transgender women in the ladies' room.

Western media are tragically funny, they keep saying, 'Russia is isolated, Russia is isolated'. But when we look at the votes at the UN, we see that 75% of the world does not......follow the West, which then seems very small.

With an anthropologist reading of this [divide between the West and the rest] we find that countries in the West often have a nuclear family structure with bilateral kinship systems, that is to say where male and female kinship......are equivalent in the definition of the social status of the child. [Within the rest], with the bulk of the Afro-Euro-Asian mass, we find community and patrilineal family organizations. We then see that this conflict, described by our media as a conflict of political......values, is at a deeper level a conflict of anthropological values. It is this unconscious aspect of the divide and this depth that make the confrontation dangerous."

To Be Smart, Charismatic, And Effective Makes You An Automatic Enemy Of The Empire

presstv  |  Gen. Soleimani did see the Big Picture all across West Asia, from Cairo to Tehran and from the Bosphorus to the Bab-al-Mandeb. He certainly foresaw the inevitable “normalization” of Syria in the Arab world – and even with Turkey, now a work in progress.

He arguably had imprinted in his brain the possible timeline followed by the Empire of Chaos to completely ditch Afghanistan – though certainly not the extent of the humiliating retreat – and how that would reconfigure all bets from West Asia to Central Asia.

What he certainly didn’t know was that the Empire left Afghanistan to concentrate all its Divide and Rule/strategy of chaos bets on Ukraine, in a lethal proxy war against Russia.

It’s easy to see Gen.Soleimani foreseeing Abu Dhabi’s Mohammad bin Zayed (MbZ), MbS’s mentor, placing his bets simultaneously on an Israel-Emirates free trade deal and a détente with Iran.

He could have been part of the diplomatic team when MbZ’ssecurity advisor Sheikh Tahnoonmet with President Raisi in Tehran over a year ago, even discussing the war in Yemen.

He could also have foreseen what took place this past weekend in Brasilia, on the sidelines of the dramatic return of Lula to the Brazilian presidency: Saudi and Iranian officials, in neutral territory, discussing their possible détente.

As the whole chessboard across West Asia is being reconfigured at breakneck speed, perhaps the only developmentGen.Soleimani would not have foreseen is the petro-yuan displacing the petrodollar “in the space of three to five years”, as suggested by Chinese President Xi Jinping in his recent landmark summit with the GCC.

I have a dream

The profound reverence towards Gen. Soleimani expressed by every layer of Iranian society – from the grassroots to the leadership – has certainly translated into honoring his life’s work by finding Iran’s deserved place in multipolarity.

Iran is now solidified as one of the key nodes of the New Silk Roads in Southwest Asia. The Iran-China strategic partnership, boosted by Tehran’s accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)in 2002, is as strong geoeconomically and geopolitically as the interlocking partnerships with two other BRICS members, Russia and India. In 2023, Iran is set to become a member of BRICS+.

In parallel, the Iran/Russia/China triad will be deeply involved in the reconstruction of Syria – complete with BRI projects ranging from the Iran-Iraq-Syria-Eastern Mediterranean railway to, in the near future, the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline, arguably the key factor that provoked the American proxy war against Damascus.

Soleimaniis today revered at the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, at the al-Aqsa mosque in Palestine, at the dazzling late baroque Duomo in Ragusa in southeast Sicily, at a stupa high in the Himalayas, or a mural in a street in Caracas.

All across the Global South, there’s a feeling in the air: the new world being born – hopefully, more equal and fair - was somehow dreamed of by the victim of the murder that unleashed the Raging Twenties.

Marco Antonio Ortega Siu: Former Mexican Naval Admiral And Drug Cartel Nemesis

WaPo  |  Organized-crime groups were carrying out acts of spectacular violence and growing savagery, ambushing military and police convoys on rural highways and filling mass graves with travelers hauled off buses. U.S. officials grew alarmed as violence exploded in Monterrey and other northern Mexico cities where Fortune 500 companies had invested heavily in plants and factories after passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

With the threat to the stability of the Mexican government worsening, both countries were hungry for a crime fighter who could stand up to the cartels.

Using informants, wiretaps and surveillance, U.S. agents tracked drug bosses and relayed their locations to Águila’s commandos for the kind of “high-value target” operations the Americans used successfully in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Águila’s forces didn’t hold back. Mexican commandos in helicopters took out Gulf cartel boss Antonio Cárdenas Guillén, a.k.a. “Tony Tormenta,” in a wild urban gun battle in 2010 that left bodies scattered in the border city of Matamoros. Two years later, special forces killed the leader of the Zetas, Heriberto “The Executioner” Lazcano, after a firefight against cartel gunmen wielding a grenade launcher.

“Tactically, they were just awesome,” Evans said. But the special forces were trained to kill, not to make arrests and gather evidence for criminal prosecution. Their targets were extremely dangerous, but Evans would offer a “friendly reminder” that from time to time “it might be good to bring the guy back alive.”

In his response to The Post, Águila wrote that drug bosses were killed because they resisted arrest. “We never planned an operation to eliminate anyone,” he wrote.

To the Americans, the navy commandos seemed to be the rare entity capable of quickly launching complex, dangerous operations. Águila was indefatigable, working 16-hour days. He didn’t drink or smoke. And when U.S. agents shared sensitive information, Águila and his commandos acted fast — unlike the army. “There was never a leak,” Evans said.

One DEA agent recalled following Águila, then in his 50s, as he bounded off a helicopter during a hunt for a drug kingpin in northern Mexico. “I’m trying to catch up to him,” recalled the agent, who was not authorized to comment on the record. “I was embarrassed. Here I am, this younger buck, fumbling with my stuff.”

Even more startling: The Mexican officer wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest. He rarely did; it was too bulky. “He had no fear,” the American agent said.

The DEA agents knew little about Águila’s personal life or why he didn’t seem tainted by some of the worst aspects of Mexican officialdom — the corruption, the timidity, the wariness of foreigners. Maybe, they figured, he was a kindred spirit.

“He’s blue-collar,” said Donahue, the former Mexico DEA chief. “Just like us.”

Indeed, the admiral was the son of a small-town salesman in Mexico’s southern Veracruz state, and the grandson of Chinese immigrants. “My family fought to get ahead every day,” Águila said in his written responses.

He entered the Heroic Naval Military School in 1975, a shy, diminutive 15-year-old in a world of “juniors” — sons of high-ranking officers. The academy was so rigorous that half his class of 150 dropped out before graduation, recalled a former classmate, retired Rear Adm. Jesús Canchola Camarena. Águila joined the marines, like other young men “drawn to adventure,” Canchola recalled. But what stood out was the young cadet’s leadership; he often served as coach in the students’ informal wrestling matches. He eventually became a decorated helicopter pilot.

Later, under Calderón, when the navy sought senior officers to build a top-flight special forces corps, many were reluctant, recalled another of Águila’s former classmates.

“It was very, very risky,” he recalled, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be frank. “The navy had to protect itself from everyone” — both drug traffickers and their allies in government.

Águila was undaunted.

“He felt that if they called on him, and he had the ability, he should do it,” the friend said.

 

Your Betters Consider Your “Cognitive infrastructure” Part Of Their Remit

theintercept  | Under President Joe Biden, the shifting focus on disinformation has continued. In January 2021, CISA replaced the Countering Foreign Influence Task force with the “Misinformation, Disinformation and Malinformation” team, which was created “to promote more flexibility to focus on general MDM.” By now, the scope of the effort had expanded beyond disinformation produced by foreign governments to include domestic versions. The MDM team, according to one CISA official quoted in the IG report, “counters all types of disinformation, to be responsive to current events.”

Jen Easterly, Biden’s appointed director of CISA, swiftly made it clear that she would continue to shift resources in the agency to combat the spread of dangerous forms of information on social media. “One could argue we’re in the business of critical infrastructure, and the most critical infrastructure is our cognitive infrastructure, so building that resilience to misinformation and disinformation, I think, is incredibly important,” said Easterly, speaking at a conference in November 2021.

Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse. According to meeting minutes and other records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is also running for Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information.

“Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t. It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain,” Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in February.

In a March meeting, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned that the threat of subversive information on social media could undermine support for the U.S. government. Dehmlow, according to notes of the discussion attended by senior executives from Twitter and JPMorgan Chase, stressed that “we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.”

“We do not coordinate with other entities when making content moderation decisions, and we independently evaluate content in line with the Twitter Rules,” a spokesperson for Twitter wrote in a statement to The Intercept.

There is also a formalized process for government officials to directly flag content on Facebook or Instagram and request that it be throttled or suppressed through a special Facebook portal that requires a government or law enforcement email to use. At the time of writing, the “content request system” at facebook.com/xtakedowns/login is still live. DHS and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, did not respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment.

DHS’s mission to fight disinformation, stemming from concerns around Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election, began taking shape during the 2020 election and over efforts to shape discussions around vaccine policy during the coronavirus pandemic. Documents collected by The Intercept from a variety of sources, including current officials and publicly available reports, reveal the evolution of more active measures by DHS.

According to a draft copy of DHS’s Quadrennial Homeland Security Review, DHS’s capstone report outlining the department’s strategy and priorities in the coming years, the department plans to target “inaccurate information” on a wide range of topics, including “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.”

“The challenge is particularly acute in marginalized communities,” the report states, “which are often the targets of false or misleading information, such as false information on voting procedures targeting people of color.”

The inclusion of the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is particularly noteworthy, given that House Republicans, should they take the majority in the midterms, have vowed to investigate. “This makes Benghazi look like a much smaller issue,” said Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., a member of the Armed Services Committee, adding that finding answers “will be a top priority.”

How disinformation is defined by the government has not been clearly articulated, and the inherently subjective nature of what constitutes disinformation provides a broad opening for DHS officials to make politically motivated determinations about what constitutes dangerous speech.

 

19th Valdai: Subtitles, Transcripts, Machinic Translations Will Become Available

valdaiclub |  On October 24-27, 2022, the 19th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, titled “A Post-Hegemonic World: Justice and Security for Everyone”, opens in Moscow. The annual Valdai Club Report “A World Without Superpowers” will be presented at the conference. This year’s report is based on the Valdai Club’s hypothesis about the inevitable oblivion of the “superpower” concept. The opening of the meeting and the presentation of the new Valdai Report can be viewed here.

Live broadcast on the site begins October 24, 2022 at 9:30 a.m. Moscow Time (GMT+3)

The meeting will be attended by 111 experts, politicians, diplomats and economists from 41 countries, including Afghanistan, Brazil, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, the United States, Uzbekistan, and others. Traditionally, more than half of the participants in the Valdai Club meeting are representatives of foreign countries, and this year is no exception.

Read the programme for details.

Kerch Bridge Was Blown Up By Her Majesty's Secret Service Saboteurs

svpressa.ru  |  It is extremely important, of course, to understand what happened on the Crimean Bridge and how it happened. To stop this from happening in the future. But it is equally important to determine who did it.

Pay attention to how cleanly everything was done. The truck, loaded to the brim with explosives, did not just drive unhindered onto the bridge. Its appearance there was precisely synchronized with the movement of a huge freight train loaded with fuel across the bridge. And the explosion itself, it seems, happened exactly at the moment when the train and the truck, going in parallel directions and at the same speeds, caught up. In those moments, the distance between them became simply negligible for such a powerful charge that was set in motion.

And one more, in my opinion, important detail. If the destruction of part of the Crimean Bridge began with the explosion of a truck loaded with explosives, then definitely not an ordinary truck was involved there. But one that was equipped in a special way. Because among our opponents there are definitely neither martyrs nor Captains Gastello [reference to Soviet pilot Nikolay Gastello — S]. At least, nothing like this has been observed on the Russian–Ukrainian front before.

So the driver of the truck definitely had to get out of the cab in time to survive. Jumping, for example, from the roadway into the waters of the Kerch Strait. Where he may have already been expected by those who really needed it [the sabotage — S].

But in this case, to complete the operation, the truck itself had to be equipped in such a way that at the final stage of sabotage it could be controlled remotely. Suppose, from a foreign vessel passing in visual range from the bridge. Or from a foreign reconnaissance aircraft, the likes of which have been stalking that area for a long time.

So far, of course, this is just speculation. But if it is confirmed in the main, there will be a hell of lot of questions for the organizers of the protection and defense of the Crimean Bridge from the Rosgvardiya and the FSB. With the appropriate organizational consequences for those officials who for years have been bravely telling us that even a mosquito would not fly over the strategic object they were guarding without a permission from Moscow.

We will certainly be assured that this simply spectacularly organized and impeccably carried out sabotage at one of the most carefully guarded facilities in Russia is the work of exclusively Ukrainian saboteurs. Most likely, subordinate to the Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) of the Ukraine. But is it?

Because if such skilled people really work in the GUR, what prevented them from putting the Crimean Bridge out of action even earlier? For example, at the height of the holiday season on the peninsula. Then the size of the disaster would look even more impressive. At least in public space.

Therefore, most likely, someone much more experienced and qualified in sabotage work has almost definitely joined the efforts of the GUR in this direction in recent weeks and months. It seems that we have the right to assume who exactly that was.

In order to come to the, most likely, correct conclusions, we will try to analyze several facts.

As early as April 23, 2022, that is, exactly two months after the start of the Russian special operation, the RIA Novosti news agency, citing sources in the Armed Forces of the Ukraine, has reported that at least two groups of specialists in sabotage and guerrilla war from the British Special Air Service (SAS) had arrived to that country from the city of Hereford. The headcount of the first one was at least 8–10 people. How many in the second one was not known then.

At that time one could only guess about the tasks of the British saboteurs. But it has long been known that people who serve in the SAS are considered to be among the most highly qualified in the world in organizing coups d’etat, mass protest rallies, contract killings of political figures, recruiting agents, including those in the highest echelons of power, preparing terrorist attacks.

“These are not ordinary special forces, these are intellectuals, each group always has an ideologue, one might say a professor, and the rest are specialists in their fields… With a high degree of probability, these specialists have arrived in order to improve the skills and efficiency of the Ukrainian special services in coordinating the activities of sabotage groups in the territories of the Ukraine controlled by the Russian troops,” an employee of a Russian law enforcement agency has added during a conversation with a RIA Novosti correspondent.

It is also known that the SAS special forces previously participated quite effectively in the Korean War, in the conflict in Northern Ireland, in the war between Great Britain and Argentina over the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands, in the events in the Persian Gulf and in NATO’s Afghanistan campaign. And in all those cases their main tasks were destruction of enemy headquarters, command posts, railway junctions, ammunition and weapons depots, and so on.

Most often, their own combat aircraft were guided onto those objects. However, when faced with opposition from a powerful air defense system (and the presence of such near Russia’s Crimean Bridge is no secret) or when the chosen target was small, special forces of that special service entered into action.

In June of this year, the presence of British saboteurs in the Ukraine was confirmed in the West. American investigative journalist Seth Harp published his correspondence with a mercenary from the U.S. who said that special forces soldiers of the British Special Air Service (SAS) were fighting in the Ukraine. And even, he said, were suffering losses from “friendly fire” of inexperienced soldiers from the Ukraine. “We have lost a British SAS sniper. The fighter advanced to the position, but the Ukrainian APC turned him into dust, since no one warned its crew,” the mercenary told investigator Harp.

In June, the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of the Ukraine reported that for some reason it managed to obtain detailed technical documentation on the Crimean Bridge. Logically, this was necessary in order to calculate in advance the most vulnerable points of Russia’s main bridge from the point of view of saboteurs.

Finally, on August 15, Ukrainian MP Aleksey Goncharenko [Ukrainian spelling: Oleksiy Honcharenko — S] boasted that Kiev had held talks with British defense minister Ben Wallace at the NATO summit in June about a plan to destroy the Crimean Bridge. And he confirmed that with photographs taken at the negotiating table. Those indicated that the then–Prime Minister Boris Johnson was also sitting at the table that day. That is, that happened at the top-most level.

Meanwhile, the very fact of such negotiations in London could indicate only one thing: Britain, together with the Ukrainians, was preparing to participate in the destruction of the Crimean Bridge in the most direct way. Otherwise, what else was there to be discussed in its capital?

And what means for such a sabotage could the British possess in the Ukraine? The specialists from SAS. No one else to carry out such a delicate matter.

On August 17, it was suggested both in Russia and in the West that the SAS was involved in the events in our Kursk Oblast—a “warm up” before the Crimean Bridge operation. On that day, power transmission towers located near the villages of Pryamitsyno and Lyubitskoye, 44 kilometers from each other, and leading to the Kursk nuclear power plant were blown up. That threatened great technological troubles at the nuclear power plant. But Russian personnel managed to prevent the worst. Yet those who did it could not be detained. Which proved once again: people with the highest sabotage and reconnaissance skills were working against us.

It was only now, apparently, that it was Crimean Bridge’s turn for the close tandem of the SAS and the GUR.

At Current Burn Rates The U.S. Guesstimates It Has Between A 10-14 Year Total Supply

 

wikipedia |  Proven oil reserves are those quantities of petroleum which, by analysis of geological and engineering data, can be estimated, with a high degree of confidence, to be commercially recoverable from a given date forward from known reservoirs and under current economic conditions.

Some statistics on this page are disputed and controversial. Different sources (OPEC, CIA World Factbook, oil companies) give different figures. Some of the differences reflect different types of oil included. Different estimates may or may not include oil shale, mined oil sands or natural gas liquids.

Because proven reserves include oil recoverable under current economic conditions, nations may see large increases in proven reserves when known, but previously uneconomic deposits become economic to develop. In this way, Canada's proven reserves increased suddenly in 2003 when the oil sands of Alberta were seen to be economically viable. Similarly, Venezuela's proven reserves jumped in the late 2000s when the heavy oil of the Orinoco Belt was judged economic. 

Reserves amounts are listed in millions of barrels. The column "Years of production in reserve" uses the daily production figures as of 2016^[5] (multiplied by 365).

* indicates "Oil reserves in COUNTRY or TERRITORY" or "Energy in COUNTRY or TERRITORY" links.

Proven reserves (millions of barrels)

Country	US EIA [6]	OPEC [7]	BP [8]	Others	Oil production 2020 (bbl/day)[9]	Years of production in reserve
Venezuela *(OPEC)	303,806	302,809	300,900		527,063	1,578
Saudi Arabia *(OPEC)	258,600	266,260	266,000		9,264,921	76
Iran *(OPEC)	208,600	[10] 208,600	155,600		2,665,809	214
Canada *	170,300	4,421	172,200	[11] 171,000	4,201,101	111
Iraq *(OPEC)	145,019	147,223	143,100		4,102,311	97
Kuwait *(OPEC)	101,500	104,000	104,000		2,625,145	106
United Arab Emirates *(OPEC)	97,800	98,630	98,630		3,138,249	85
Russia *	80,000	80,000	102,400		9,865,495	22
Libya *(OPEC)	48,363	74,363	78,400		408,074	324
United States *	47,107	32,773	55,000	[12] 43,629	11,307,560	11
Nigeria *(OPEC)	36,890	37,453	37,100		1,775,940	57
Kazakhstan *	30,000	30,000	30,000		1,756,705	47
China *	26,022	25,627	18,500		3,888,989	18
Qatar *	25,244	25,244	25,244		1,530,000	45
Brazil *	12,714	12,634	13,000	[12] 16,848	2,939,950	12
Algeria *(OPEC)	12,200	12,200	12,200		1,122,432	30
Guyana *				10,000[13]	83,174	329
Ecuador	8,273	8,273	8,000		479,371	47
Norway *	8,122	6,376	8,000		1,712,937	13
Angola *(OPEC)	7,783	8,384	12,700		1,249,678	17
Azerbaijan *	7,000	7,000	7,000		693,880	28
Mexico *	5,786	6,537	10,800	[14] 9.700	1,710,303	9
Oman *	5,373	5,373	5,300		948,967	16
Sudan *	5,000	5,000	1,500		64,740	211
India *	4,604	4,495	5,680	[12] 4,409	627,415	20
Vietnam *	4,400	4,400	4,000		193,264	62
Malaysia *	3,600	3,600	3,600	[12] 5,542	541,017	18
Egypt *	3,300	4,400	3,500		586,735	15
Yemen *	3,000		3,000		66,000	124
Congo(OPEC)	2,882		1,600		282,541	28
United Kingdom *	2,500	2,069	2,800	2,618	947,208	7
Syria *	2,500	2,500	2,500		35,000	196
Uganda *	2,500
Argentina *	2,482	2,162	2,400	2,330	440,335	15
Indonesia *	2,480	3,310	3,600	[12] 3,497	712,112	10
Australia *	2,446	3,985	4,000	4,002	351,180	19
Colombia *	2,036	1,665	2,300		791,844	7
Gabon *(OPEC)	2,000	2,000	2,000		173,634	56
Chad *	1,500		1,500		115,817	35
Brunei *	1,100	1,100	1,100		98,642	31
Equatorial Guinea *(OPEC)	1,100		1,100		147,563	20
Peru *	858		1,400	[12] 1,489	40,386	58
Ghana *	660				199,478	9
Romania *	600		600		67,574	24
Turkmenistan *	600	600	600		184,579	9
Uzbekistan *	594	594	600		37,997	43
Pakistan *	540			[12] 236	79,112	19
Italy *	497		600	[12] 595	100,514	14
Denmark *	441	439	600	[12] 550	71,339	17
Tunisia *	425		400		30,738	38
Ukraine *	395	395			33,577	32
Turkey *	366			[12] 284	61,757	16
Thailand *	252		400		202,117	3
Trinidad and Tobago *	242		700	[12] 830	56,556	12
Bolivia *	240			[12] 210	60,161	11
Cameroon *	200				66,749	8
Belarus *	198	198			34,249	16
Bahrain *	186				43,000	12
DR Congo	180				23,000	21
Papua New Guinea *	159			[12] 158	40,249	11
Albania *	150				14,331	29
Chile *	150				1,582	260
Niger *	150				9,497	43
Spain *	150				628	654
Myanmar *	139				8,833	43
Philippines	138				12,249	31
Netherlands	137			[12] 141	14,579	26
Cuba *	124			[12] 124	41,079	8
Germany *	115			[12] 229	37,508	8
Poland *	113			[12] 151	18,765	16
Ivory Coast *	100				36,746	7
Suriname	89				14,915	16
Guatemala	86				7,749	30
Serbia *	77				15,249	14
Croatia *	71				11,749	17
France *	61				12,910	13
Japan *	44				4,333	28
New Zealand *	40				18,579	6
Kyrgyzstan *	40				1,000	110
Austria *	35				10,822	9
Georgia *	35				400	240
Bangladesh *	28				3,000	26
Mauritania *	20
Bulgaria *	15				1,000	41
Czech Republic *	15	15.0			2,000	21
South Africa *	15	15			1,000	41
Israel *	12			[12] 12	300	110
Hungary *	12			[12] 35	16,418	2
Lithuania *	12				2,000	16
Tajikistan *	12				180	183
Greece *	10				1,831	15
Slovakia *	9				200	123
Benin *	8
Belize *	6				1,700	10
Taiwan *	2				196	28
Barbados	1				1,000	3
Jordan *	1			[12] 1
Morocco *	0.6				160	10
Ethiopia *	0.4
Kenya *	0		750
South Sudan					162,475
Mongolia *					17,582
East Timor *					14,000
Portugal *					12,932
World	1,661,905	1,535,773	1,750,600		76,137,732	60

 wikipedia |  This list is based on CIA The World Factbook (when no citation is given).^[1] or other authoritative third-party sources (as cited). Based on data from EIA, at the start of 2021, proved gas reserves were dominated by three countries: Iran, Russia, and Qatar.

There is some disagreement on which country has the largest proven gas reserves. Sources that consider that Russia has by far the largest proven reserves include the US CIA (47600 cubic kilometers),^[2] the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) (49000 km³),^[3] and OPEC (48810 km³).^[4] However, BP credits Russia with only 32900 km³,^[5] which would place it in second place, slightly behind Iran (33100 to 33800 km³, depending on the source).

Due to constant announcements of shale gas recoverable reserves, as well as drilling in Central Asia, South America and Africa, deepwater drilling, estimates are undergoing frequent updates, mostly increasing. Since 2000, some countries, notably the US and Canada, have seen large increases in proved gas reserves due to development of shale gas, but shale gas deposits in most countries are yet to be added to reserve calculations. 

Proven Reserves (km³)

Country	U.S. EIA (start of 2021)[6]	OPEC (start of 2018)[7]	BP (start of 2018)[8]	Other	Production km³/year (in 2020)[9]	Years of production in reserve[10]
Russia *	47,798	50,617	35,000		624	77
Iran *	33,980	33,810	33,200		238 (2019)	143
Qatar *	23,871	23,861	24,900		167 (2019)	143
Saudi Arabia	15,910 (2022)	8,715	8,000		114	140
United States *	13,167 (2020)	9,067	8,700		947	14
Turkmenistan *	11,326	9,838	19,500		84 (2019)	135
China *	6,654	2,934	5,500		179 (2019)	37
United Arab Emirates *	6,088	6,091	5,900		63	97
Nigeria *	5,748	5,627	5,200	5,932[11]	46 (2019)	125
Venezuela *	5,663	5,707	6,400		23 (2019)	246
Algeria *	4,502	4,504	4,300		88 (2019)	51
Iraq *	3,738	3,744	3,500		11 (2019)	340
Australia *	3,228	3,173	3,600		146 (2019)	22
Mozambique *	2,832				5 (2019)	566
Canada *	2,067	2,059	1,900		179 (2019)	12
Uzbekistan *	1,841	1,564	1,200		47 (2019)	39
Kazakhstan *	1,840	1,898	1,100		26 (2019)	71
Egypt *	1,784	2,221	1,800		77 (2019)	23
Kuwait *	1,784	1,784	1,700		20 (2019)	89
Azerbaijan *	1,699	1,227	2,800		23 (2019)	74
Norway *	1,557	2,314	1,700		112	14
Libya	1,501	1,505	1,400		11(2019)	136
Indonesia *	1,415	2,866	2,900		63	22
India *	1,388	1,289	1,200		28	50
Malaysia *	1,189	2,909	2,700		75 (2019)	16
Ukraine *	1,104	304	1,100		20 (2019)	55
Vietnam *	708	203	600		8 (2019)	88
Oman *	651	884	700		37 (2019)	18
Myanmar *	651	273	1,200		18 (2019)	36
Pakistan *	595	757	400		38 (2019)	16
Yemen *	481		300		0.09 (2019)	5,344
Argentina *	396	381	300		41	10
Brazil *	368	325	400		25 (2019)	15
Angola *	339	422			7 (2019)	48
Peru *	311	513	400		12	26
Trinidad and Tobago *	311	433	300		31	10
Bolivia *	311	310	300		15 (2019)	21
Congo *	283	111			1.4 (2019)	202
Brunei *	261	252			12	22
Syria	241	300	300		4 (2019)	60
Papua New Guinea	184		200		12	15
Mexico	181	146	200		27 (2019)	7
United Kingdom *	181	269	200		40 (2019)	5
Israel *	176		500		10 (2019)	18
Thailand *	139	180	200		38 (2019)	4
Equatorial Guinea *	139	145			5 (2019)	28
Cameroon *	135	152			3 (2019)	45
Netherlands *	133	804	700		33 (2019)	4
Bangladesh *	127	346	200	[12] 385	29 (2019)	4
Romania *	105	105	100		10 (2019)	10
Philippines	99				4 (2019)	25
Chile *	99	5.30			1	99
Poland *	90	56.3	100		5.66	16
Colombia *	88	104	100		11	8
Sudan *	85				0	-
Bahrain *	82		200		18 (2019)	5
Cuba *	71				1 (2019)	71
Tunisia *	65				1 (2019)	65
Namibia	62				0	-
Rwanda *	57				0	-
Afghanistan *	51				0.08	638
Serbia *	48				0.45 (2019)	107
Italy *	45	27.1	100		4	11
New Zealand *	31				5	6
Ivory Coast *	28				2.44	11
Mauritania *	28				0	-
Denmark *	28	73.9	100		1.3	22
Gabon *	26	25.5			0.31 (2019)	84
Croatia	25				0.85	29
Ethiopia *	25				0	-
Georgia	8.5+16 [13]	8.5			0.02 (2019)	1,225
Germany	23	39.6	100		5 (2019)	5
Ghana	23				1.56 (2019)	15
Japan *	20				1.93	10
Moldova	-			[14] 20	0.006 (2019)	3,333
Slovakia	14				0.06	233
Uganda	14				0	-
Ecuador	11	5.4			0.34 (2019)	32
Ireland *	11				2.66 (2019)	4
South Korea *	8.5				0.24 (2019)	35
Austria	5.66				0.93 (2019)	6
Tanzania *	5.66				1.39 (2019)	4
Taiwan *	5.66				0.15 (2019)	38
Jordan *	5.66				0.12 (2019)	47
Bulgaria	5.66				0.06	94
Somalia *	5.66				0	-
Tajikistan	5.66				0.02 (2019)	283
Kyrgyzstan	5.66				0.03 (2019)	189
Albania	5.66				0.04 (2019)	142
South Africa *	-			[15] 3	1.22 (2019)	2
Turkey *	2.83			300TPAO estimate	0.48 (2019)	6
Czech Republic	2.83				0.19	15
Belarus *	2.83				2.4 (2019)	1.2
Hungary *	2.8				1.7	1.6
Spain	2.55				0.06	42
Morocco *	1.44	474			0.1 (2019)	14
Benin	1.13				0	-
DR Congo	0.99				0	-
Greece	0.99				0.01	99
Barbados	0.11				0.02 (2019)	6
Armenia *	0	18.0			0	-