The Daily Chronicles are snippets of the most important news across the world for this and each day as it rolls in – as such, this thread is non-structured with the latest news on top. The rough theme for this Daily Chronicles:  Empire Strikes Back.

Tuesday, March 14

Please can this be maintained and carried through?  It is of course the first real outcome from the Iran/Saudi Arabia/China brokered alliance.

Source: https://t.co/gFNlcxz3yP

— Iran Observer (@Iranobserver01) March 13, 2023

Tuesday, March 14

Shoigu:  Sergei Shoigu met with the management of the Tactical Missiles Corporation . He gave the instructions to double the production volume of high-precision weapons.  https://t.me/mod_russia_en/6460

Tuesday, March 14

Global Times comments on Aukus and submarines for Australia.  https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202303/1287211.shtml

Tuesday, March 14

Cuba began to accept Russian Mir cards: at one of the ATMs in Havana, a RIA Novosti correspondent was able to withdraw 5,000 Cuban pesos from his ruble account using the Mir card

Tuesday, March 14

A senior diplomat has said that Russia has released its communications with Denmark, Sweden, and Germany regarding the Nord Stream sabotage to members of the UN Security Council.  “Those documents allow our colleagues at the UN to confirm that the claims by these nations that they were informing us about their investigations are not true,” Dmitry Polyansky, the deputy head of the Russian mission to the UN, explained on Tuesday.

He announced Russia’s intention to share the messages with the Security Council last week as Moscow pushes for an impartial UN-backed investigation into the incident.

CGTN interview with Seymour Hersh.

Monday, March 13

◾️ The goals set by Russia in Ukraine can now (at this time) be achieved only by military means;

◾️ On Monday, Putin will hold a working meeting with Kadyrov to discuss, among other things, SMO issues;

◾️ Peskov has nothing to say yet about a possible visit of Xi Jinping to Moscow, the Kremlin will inform about it in a timely manner;

◾️ The Kremlin will announce when there is an understanding on Assad’s visit to Russia;

◾️ Peskov did not rule out that Putin would go to the G20 summit in India, but no decision has yet been made;

◾️ Peskov called the idea of renaming the Russian Federation into Muscovy an absurd curiosity, “Russia will remain Russia”;

◾️ So far, there are no prerequisites for the transition of the situation around Ukraine to a peaceful course;

◾️ The Kremlin is concerned about the deteriorating situation around the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and considers such an attitude towards church representatives unacceptable.

Monday, March 13

The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation stated that they will make additional funding available to ensure all Silicon Valley Bank deposits, both insured and uninsured will be paid in full.

SVB UK subsidiary has been sold to HSBC with depositors being fully protected.  HSBC itself was bailed out biggly, in 2008.   This is a political rescue because if one looks at who had balances in SVB, the story becomes clear.

What can we say?  Here we go round the bailout bush, print some money, kick the can, here we go round the bailout bush, early in the morning.

In December 2022, SVB was losing customers due to its exposure to risky loans and investments. It had lent billions of dollars to unprofitable or fraudulent companies and invested heavily in speculative assets such as cryptocurrencies (the bad kind), SPACs, NFTs, and meme stocks.  This bank, who tried to make memes pay and put a lot of money into the non-viable businesses, crashed.  Now the meme makers will not suffer financially for their cockamamie business ideas and all is supposedly well.  Believe me, this is good for real cryptocurrencies because it shakes out the junk but in this case, the junk will not be shaken out.  Yikes.

Nevertheless, we will see a large number of related organizations, banks and institutions tumble – systemic risk.  How big will she blow?

My first love decent crypto is up over 7% with trading volume over the past 24 hours up over 100% as stupid speculators run to reality and solidity.   It is a day to take a little profit because it would be insane not to.  A quote from Pepe’s S. Tzu: …. the promise and the reason for bitcoin’s initial success was that bitcoin was an attempt to create “external” money (using Mr. Zoltan’s excellent terminology) that was not a liability of a Central Bank. … It sounds trivial today, but the idea that a modern monetary unit can exist without backing of any centralized authority, effectively becoming “external” money in digital form, was revolutionary in 2008.

It is still revolutionary today. (Prove me wrong lol)

Sunday, March 12

The US has absolute no interest stopping the war in Ukraine:

Senator Graham:
“I like the path we’re on,with U.S. weapons and money, Ukraine will fight Russia to the last person”

pic.twitter.com/bcTL70l1ok

— Richard (@ricwe123) March 12, 2023

Sunday, March 12

I’ve posted speeches from this sweet-talking gentle-voiced rabid imperialist before.  I’ve mentioned the US ‘charm offensive’ before.  She is a live demonstration of that.  She is active in US Southern Command and considers ‘our shared neighborhood’ meaning the total central and south Americas. She thinks she can make friends again but actually she is just jonesing for the lithium, but wrapping it up in a supposed “threat to our homeland and our mutual interests”.

General Richardson US Southern Command -Comando Sur pic.twitter.com/6AKJQdrVoc

— Ares, Information Service (@Aresinfoservice) March 11, 2023

On my agenda next, is an update on Latin America and the Caribbean. We have to tear this US influence out. Nicaragua did that by sending a plane-load of coup plotters back to the US and closing every US-related influence-peddling organization, including the OAS (Organization of American States) and about 200 nonprofits and NGOs.  Of course, the punishing will be incoming.  Bear in mind Mr. Lavrov’s words – The US says now to even their allies that they can avoid punishment by following the US diktat.

A little more, demonstrating clearly the lust for lithium:

The U.S. wants a monopoly on extraction from the Lithium Triangle. @Southcom‘s Laura Richardson testified this week before the House Armed Services Committee. pic.twitter.com/KcG2ENjgMU

— Kawsachun News (@KawsachunNews) March 9, 2023

Sunday, March 12

General Li Shangfu is appointed as China’s new Defense Minister. The interesting part here is that he has been on the US sanctions list since 2018, for military cooperation with Russia.  Seems Beijing is not too concerned about the sanctions regime.

Sunday, March 12

Israel strikes Syria again.

There are also now daily shootings in various areas and 1 to 7 Palestinians are shot dead per day.

Syria state media has reported multiple Israeli rocket strikes in Hama province and the coastal area around Tartous which injured three military personnel. The strikes follow Israel’s attack on Aleppo airport on Tuesday (https://t.me/RT_India_official/13775)- apparently targeting Iranian arms shipments.

Earlier three Palestinians were killed allegedly attacking an Israeli security post in the West Bank.

Sunday, March 12

Lula has invited Brazil’s congressional leaders Rodrigo Pacheco & Arthur Lira to China with him to meet with Xi Jinping. They will spend 4 days in China this month, 4X more days than Lula spent in the US. Smart move: last year Brazil did 4X more trade w/ China than the U.S.

And then in April, Lavrov will be visiting Brazil.