Month: September 2020

Summary:

• New York tops 1000 cases for first time since June
• China bars some seafood imports after latest packaging incident
• Russia cases top 7k
• US suffers more than 55k new cases
• Deaths top 900 for fourth straight day

* * *

As Dr. Fauci warns about a “problematic” surge in COVID-19 cases expected in the months ahead, New York reported more than 1,000 new cases of the coronavirus on Saturday, the first time the Empire State has topped 1k new cases since June. Meanwhile, California health officials warned about rising hospitalizations related to the virus.

It comes as more than 55,000 new cases – 55,074, to be exact – were confirmed across the US yesterday, amounting to a rise of 0.8%, higher than the 0.6% 7-day average. It brought America’s total cases to 7,032,595 as of 0630ET on Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins data.

Another 948 people died across the US, marking the 4th straight day with deaths north of 900. Total fatalities have climbed to 203,746.

While New York City struggles with new ‘hotspots’ in Brooklyn and Queens, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary also saw notable increases in COVID-19 cases and/or deaths on Saturday, a sign that Western and Central Europe are tightly in the grip of a second wave. Just yesterday, Madrid officials placed more than 1 million people on lockdown, the harshest measures taken since the first wave of the pandemic in the spring.

Globally, the outbreak has reached 32,476,713 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, while the worldwide death toll hit 987,775. Yesterday, Florida Gov Ron DeSantis moved to lift restrictions on bars and restaurants, even as critics warned the virus was already accelerating at a dangerous pace.

Here’s some more COVID-19-linked news from overnight.

Canada’s two most populous provinces move to clamp down further on social gatherings in a bid to slow a second wave of coronavirus infections that since the start of the pandemic now total more than 150,000 nationwide (Source: Nikkei).

In a speech to the UN General Assembly, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison claime an inquiry into the origin of COVID-19 would help to minimize the threat of another pandemic. Australia’s support of an investigation into the pandemic has further strained the country’s relationship with Beijing (Source: Nikkei).

China will stop accepting import declarations from two Russian vessels for four weeks, after the novel coronavirus was detected on outer packaging and samples of Russian marine products, Reuters reports. The customs office on Saturday said the coronavirus was detected by authorities in the eastern coastal province of Shandong (Source: Nikkei).

Russia reported 7,523 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, with Moscow posting the most new infections since June 8. There were 169 fatalities nationwide, the most since July 29, taking the total to 20,225. New cases in Moscow rose by 1,792, up 15% from the previous day. On Friday, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin asked people over 65 and those with chronic illnesses to stay home from Sept. 28. He also advised companies to switch as many employees as possible back to working from home (Source: Bloomberg).

Germany recorded its highest number of new Covid-19 cases since late April. Still, with 2,366 new infections in one day, the number is well below the additional cases reported by some other European countries. After the start of the new school year in Germany, around 50,000 students are currently in quarantine, Bild-Zeitung reported, citing a survey of local authorities (Source: Bloomberg).

Poland reported 1,584 coronavirus cases on Saturday, the second-highest number after the record of 1,587 on Friday, according to the nation’s health minister. As a result, a total of 85,980 cases were confirmed since the outbreak of the pandemic. Altogether 2,424 deaths were confirmed, including 32 deaths reported on Saturday (Source: Bloomberg).

Hungary reported 12 coronavirus deaths Saturday, continuing the increase in fatalities observed in the past two weeks. There were 950 additional confirmed infections, with 589 people currently being treated in hospitals. Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in a Facebook video that he expects a further increase in cases. The country has enough hospital capacity and has more beds in dedicated epidemiological units in reserve, Orban added (Source: Bloomberg).

Six months after parliament passed the Coronavirus Act 2020, which gives the government powers to impose lockdowns and other restrictive social distancing measures (measures that have been accompanied by stiff fines), thousands of Britons packed London’s Trafalgar Square bearing signs reading “We Do Not Consent” and “Think Before It’s Illegal” during a rally that was billed as a “We Do Not Consent” anti-lockdown demonstration.

The event was organized by a coalition of political groups, and supporters have been galvanized by the talk of another London lockdown by mayor Sadiq Khan, as well as PM Boris Johnson’s assurances that a lockdown would be imposed if the government felt all other measures had failed.

Protests are exempt from the rule of six, a rule that threatens fines for groups of more than six people, which has created much aggravation in the UK. Organizers of the rally had to submit a “risk assessment” and agree to comply with social distancing rules. While police told the press that the organizers had completed these requirements, the metropolitan police promised to crack down on those not wearing masks and violating other rules.

They added that enforcement “remains a last resort but will be undertaken if required.”

Demonstrators waved signs and British flags and cheered as speakers – including several notable “conspiracy theories”, according to the Guardian – addressed the crowd. Crowds chanted “freedom” as people whistled and clapped.

#WeDoNotConsent
The crowds get bigger at every protest.
More people are waking up.
Stand up and fight for your rights.
Trafalgar Square pic.twitter.com/gugLqUfLs6

— Charlotte Gracias (@Charlotte3003G) September 26, 2020

Thousand of people have joined a #NoNewNormal demonstration against #lockdown, mass vaccination and other Covid-19 measures in Trafalgar Square. pic.twitter.com/n30bIoVJVe

— Damien Gayle (@damiengayle) September 26, 2020

“I’ve been shouting that mandatory vaccines are coming, no one believed me. No we can see it’s just around the corner, we’ve never been closer.”

Kerry Dunn, 41, from Bath, whose son, Beau, suffered severe brain damage after he was vaccinated. pic.twitter.com/lhZrLp022E

— Damien Gayle (@damiengayle) September 26, 2020

“What is see is fear and negativity being propagated. In Ayurveda, which is the root of western medicine, we say the thing that weakens the immune system the most is negativity.”

Vinothini Apok, 40, a former doctor from north London. pic.twitter.com/ZvBzzGquDB

— Damien Gayle (@damiengayle) September 26, 2020

At points, police fulfilled their promise to break up crowds. Before they began, the protests received a warning from the Metropolitan Police, which said it would intervene if the protesters don’t abide by social distancing guidelines.

Police have moved in to break up the crowd at the #NoNewNormal demo pic.twitter.com/1gwbo200sB

— Damien Gayle (@damiengayle) September 26, 2020

Toby Young, General Secretary of the Free Speech Union, expressed hope that law enforcement would allow the group to protest “as they did with [Extinction Rebellion] and BLM.”

Thousands have gathered in Trafalgar Square to protest against the lockdown. I hope the police allow them to peacefully protest, as they did the BLM and XR protestors. pic.twitter.com/Ef4H7uoC0x

— Toby Young (@toadmeister) September 26, 2020

Attending the protest, Kerry Dunn, 41, from Bath, claimed her son, Beau, suffered adverse affects after being vaccinated.
“I’ve been shouting that mandatory vaccines are coming, no one believed me,” she said. “Now we can see it’s just around the corner, we’ve never been closer.”

Another event, billed as a “People’s network and family picnic”, is also being organised by the same activists for Sunday in Hyde Park.

In recent weeks, there has been a lot of talk about the role of the world’s central bankers going forward. With that in mind, now seems like a good time to recap the market bailout operations during the past few years… to get some insights into how this all ends (spoiler alert – not well)!

GnSEconomics.com’s Tumoas Maalinen has written a detailed (and ominous) twitter-thread on the ‘stealth socialization’ of the financial markets by the central bankers.

How we got here…

In late November 2008, the U.S. Federal Reserve announced it would start buying the debt of Government Sponsored Enterprises and mortgage-related securities in the secondary market.

In March 2009, the Fed extended the program to include US Treasuries. QE -program was born.

The Fed ran three sequential QE -programs.

The Bank of England started its QE program in March 2009, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) in October 2010, the European Central Bank (ECB) in March 2015 and the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) in July 2015.

In October 2010, the BoJ started to buy Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) linked to the Japanese stock market.

It became customary that the BoJ to start buying whenever the Topix stock market index fell more than a 0.2 percentage points by midday.

In August 2012, the European Central bank enacted the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) program to halt the rise in sovereign yields in the Eurozone (to save it).

In 2015, the Swiss National Bank started to “invest” in foreign assets, including US equities.

2017 set the pre-corona record for central bank stimulus.

During that year, central banks across the globe pushed over $2 trillion worth of artificial central bank liquidity into the global markets mostly through their asset purchase programs.

In December 2018, the People’s Bank of China started to support the domestic banking sector by injecting hundreds of US billions worth of liquidity into the system.

In January 4, 2019, the Fed pivoted from its previous statements of several interest rate rises in 2019 and automated balance sheet run-off. This was to stop the market rout which threatened to topple the US credit markets.

Between January and March 2019, the Federal Reserve made a complete U-turn. In early December 2018, Chairman Powell was still anticipating several interest rate rises for 2019, but by March they had turned to possible cuts and ending the balance sheet normalization program.

In August and September 2019, the market bailout operations continued. Fed cut its interest rates for the second time for the year in August, and the ECB pushed rates further into negative and restarted the QE -program in September.

In September 16, 2019, the repo-markets clogged up and the Fed started its emergency repo-operations for the first time since 2009.

In October 16th, 2019, the Fed started to buy US Treasury bills with the rate of $60 billion per month.

So, without the market bailout operations, the global financial crisis would have probably started no later than January 2019 by the toppling of the US credit markets.

The Fed and central bankers were able to postpone the crisis till mid-September, 2019, when the repo-markets ‘blew up’.

Since then the US financial markets have been in constant resuscitation.

In the spring 2020, things naturally went from desperate to absurd.

On the 16th, 2020, the New York Fed announced that it would add $500 billion in overnight loans to the repo market.

On Tuesday the 17th the Fed announced that it would use $1 trillion to mop-up corporate paper from issuers. 13/

On the 19th, 2020, the Fed announced that it would create a lending facility to unlock frozen money market mutual funds.

The Fed ended-up backstopping U.S. Treasury markets, corporate commercial-paper and municipal bond markets and short-term money-markets.

Thus, by June 2020, the #Fed had effectively became the financial markets of the US.

What many do not seem to get is how dangerous all this central bank meddling in the markets is.

When rates were cut to zero, it invited the use of maximal leverage. When QEs started, they started to push investors to ever-riskier financial market products.

When the central bankers tried to withdraw these perverse supportive means, markets cratered, like we warned in March 2018.

And, when one adds continuous market bailouts, introducing massive moral hazard into the system, we get extremely fragile capital markets in a risk of a catastrophic collapse.

Moreover, when one compares the similarities between the biggest stock market crash in history, many worrying similarities emerge.

Most notably, the 1929 crash occurred, precisely when investors realized that a recession was about to hit.

Central bankers have been playing an extremely dangerous game of “extend and pretend”.

To keep the markets afloat in a darkening economic picture requires ever larger bailouts and, eventually, the full socialization of the financial markets.

The balance sheets of central banks would turn into investment vehicles with no boundaries.

Central bankers would decide which countries, corporations or even households would survive. They would effectively turn into Gosbanks (former CB of the Soviet Union).

This would lead to an utter global economic dystopia.

I’ve visited the Soviet Union as a boy (two times). The horrors of socialization of the financial markets and thus the economy should not be underestimated.

I dearly hope we’ll be spared from that fate.

Coronavirus-sniffing dogs are being used at Helsinki Airport in Finland to detect infected passengers. 

A pilot program with ten coronavirus-sniffing canines began work on Wednesday (Sept. 23) to detect infections using travelers’ sweat. The dogs allow the airport to “speed up the process of identifying those infected with COVID-19,” reported ABC News. 

Helsinki Airport director Ulla Lettijeff said the pilot program is revolutionizing the way the airport detects infections. 

 “As far as we know, no other airport has attempted to use canine scent detection on such a large scale against COVID-19,” Lettijeff said.

Each shift will include four dogs that will sniff out infections. Passengers, who agree to participate in the voluntary program, will be asked by airport authorities to wipe their skin to collect sweat placed in a jar and given to the dogs to sniff out for the virus. At no point will dogs directly interact with travelers. 

“Covid-19 dogs started their work today at the Helsinki Airport at arrival hall 2B. Dogs have been trained to detect the coronavirus from the test wipes given by the test person. Service is voluntary and primarily targeted for passengers arriving from abroad,” Helsinki Aoport’s Twitter account tweeted. 

Covid-19 dogs started their work today at the Helsinki Airport at arrival hall 2B. Dogs have been trained to detect the coronavirus from the test wipes given by the testperson. Service is voluntary and primarily targeted for passengers arriving from abroad. pic.twitter.com/ieMLm0KuZY

— Helsinki Airport (@HelsinkiAirport) September 22, 2020

Susanna Paavilainen, CEO of WiseNose Ry, University of Helsinki’s DogRisk research, said virus-sniffing dogs are mainly for “passengers arriving from outside the country.”

Preliminary tests at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Helsinki concluded the “dogs are able to smell the virus with almost 100% certainty.” 

Several studies have shown dogs can be trained to sniff out coronavirus in sweat, saliva, and urine samples. Finland is the only country globally, testing man’s best friend as the first defense line against the virus. The US, Australia, France, and Germany are also conducting tests. 

The Transportation Security Administration and US Customs and Border Protection told ABC there are now plans to use dogs for coronavirus detection. 

Authored by Alan Dershowitz via The Gatestone Institute,

When Judge Amy Coney Barrett came before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary for her nomination to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Senator Diane Feinstein generated considerable controversy when she said to Barrett:

“The dogma lives loudly in you.”

This was a reference to Barrett’s deep Catholic faith. Under our Constitution, Senator Feinstein’s statement crossed the line. Ours was the first Constitution in history to provide that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

Although Feinstein did not explicitly impose a religious test, she suggested that personal religious views — which she called dogma — might disqualify a nominee from being confirmed.

That would clearly be unconstitutional.

When Justice Louis Brandeis was nominated to the United States Supreme Court in 1916, numerous leaders of the bar and prominent Americans, including the president of Harvard, opposed his nomination, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly, on the ground that he was Jewish. That was wrong then, and it is equally wrong today with regard to a nominee of the Catholic faith.

Indeed, today’s Supreme Court has five justices who are Catholic, two who are Jewish, and one who is Protestant. Religious tests have no place in America. But what does have a place in the confirmation process are questions about whether a nominee will put faith before the Constitution and refuse to apply the Constitution if it conflicts with his or her faith. That issue would be true of any nominee regardless of their faith or faithlessness. President John F. Kennedy assured us that his Catholicism would not determine the nation’s policy. Justice Antonin Scalia said the same about his Catholicism and his jurisprudence.

It is impossible, of course, to psychoanalyze a nominee or justice to determine what role if any their faith may play in their jurisprudence. We are all influenced by our personal views, including but not limited to religious views. When Justice Pierce Butler issued the sole dissent in the notorious case of Buck v. Bell — in which the Supreme Court, led by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, permitted the sterilization of supposed “mental defectives” — many speculated that his dissent, which is now seen by most historians and lawyers as the correct view, may have been motivated consciously or unconsciously by his deep Catholic faith. The Catholic Church was inalterably opposed to sterilization of the mentally disabled, whereas the “progressive view,” centered at Harvard University, strongly favored such “eugenic” procedures to “improve” the “race.” The church was right and Harvard was wrong on this one, and it was a good thing that there was a religious Catholic on the high court to register a dissent to what we have now come to believe was an outrageous violation of human rights.

The role of religion in judicial decision-making is complex, nuanced and sometimes difficult to discuss. There is no sharp line between ideology and jurisprudence, but a line must be drawn nonetheless, especially when questioning a candidate for the Supreme Court.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett is now the leading candidate, followed by Judge Barbara Lagoa, who is also a deeply religious Catholic woman of Cuban American background. So, the issue of religion is likely to come up at any confirmation hearing. It must be handled with delicacy and sensitivity to the Constitution’s prohibition against religious tests, as well as to the respect we must all pay to people of faith.

Several years ago, a United States Senator declared that he would never vote to confirm an atheist to the Supreme Court. Such a position is in direct conflict with the Constitution. But because questions about religion are generally not asked of candidates, it is highly likely that several atheists and agnostics have served on the high court. Oliver Wendell Holmes publicly acknowledged his disbelief in religion and several other justices have privately acknowledged their lack of religious faith. One’s religion is a private matter, but one’s judicial philosophy is highly relevant in the confirmation process.

The confirmation process has become so politicized, so personal, and often so unfair, that it is especially important to draw careful distinctions with regard to religious beliefs and observance. Let us hope the Senate handles this nomination better than they have handled other recent nominations.

Sudan could possibly become the third Arab League member state to normalize ties with Israel, after the UAE and Bahrain inked historic, unprecedented agreements to establish peaceful diplomatic relations and economic cooperation. 

However, there remains a significant hurdle given the Trump administration is reportedly demanding that the deal with Israel be done as a condition for Sudan being officially removed from the US state sponsors of terrorism list. 

Sudan has been on the State Department’s list going all the way back to 1993, amid the lengthy rule of strongman Omar al-Bashir, who was toppled by Sudanese Army coup d’état in 2019.

Three Sudanese government officials have told Reuters that Washington pressures over the Israel issue remains too big a hurdle to overcome, and that Khartoum will resist:

Despite over a year of negotiations, Sudan is facing a fresh obstacle to its removal from a U.S. terrorism list that has hindered its economy: a demand that it normalize relations with Israel, three sources familiar with the matter said.

However, three Sudanese government officials told Reuters on Thursday that Sudan is resisting the linkage of the two issues, which comes as U.S. President Donald Trump has been touting himself as a historic peacemaker on the campaign trail.

Sudan’s position is that it’s fulfilled every prior negotiated obligation to get itself removed from the terrorism list. “Sudan has completed all the necessary conditions,” an unnamed Sudanese said on Thursday. “We expect to be removed from the list soon.”

But the US administration has been in a media blitz touting its Middle East peace-making capabilities. 

As we noted yesterday, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Kraft, said on Wednesday that another Arab country would join the process of normalization with Israel within the next two days.

How US foreign policy now works: Pompeo asked Sudan to recognize Israel & offered to take Sudan off the terror-supporting list if it agreed–shows how fake that list is. Sudan leaders understood that all is transactional and said OK but give us $3 billion. https://t.co/hnT4EOlRD4

— Stephen Kinzer (@stephenkinzer) September 24, 2020

In statements to Al-Arabiya, Kraft said that another Arab nation will conduct a peace deal with Israel and more will quickly follow suit, likely “within the next day or two”.

Sudan as well as Oman have topped the list in terms of speculation. Kraft even mentioned Saudi Arabia has a hopeful, which would indeed be monumental. The Gulf regimes have already been in covert cooperation and intelligence sharing with Israel in past efforts to topple Assad in Syria. The “counter Iran and its allies” initiative have brought the unlikely bedfellows into an unprecedented era of contact. 

Sudan does indeed look to be next, given Israeli media is reporting that  “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sudanese Governing Council Chairman Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan will meet soon and are expected to meet in Uganda, the Israeli website I24NEWS reported, citing sources close to the Sudanese Transitional Council.”

But it’s clearly anything but a done deal given that apart from the thorny Israel issue, Sudan has reportedly demanded last minute $3 billion in US aid as part of the deal.

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Germany’s Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development, Gerd Muller, has warned that lockdown measures throughout the globe will end up killing more people than the Coronavirus itself.

In an interview with German newspaper Handelsblatt, Muller warned that the response to the global pandemic has resulted in “one of the biggest” hunger and poverty crises in history.

Muller warned that further damage will be done if draconian measures continue to be enacted by governments.

“We expect an additional 400,000 deaths from malaria and HIV this year on the African continent alone,” Muller emphasised, adding that “half a million more will die from tuberculosis.”

“The supply of food and medication is no longer guaranteed,” Muller continued, adding “Many of the West’s aid programs are not adequately funded,” also noting that while countries focus on battling the virus at home, it is having a massive toll on countries not equipped to combat it without help.

Muller further warned that “humanitarian catastrophes” are “building up right on our doorstep,” while European governments concentrate on lockdowns and restricting the movement of people.

“Europe has decided to support its own economy with programs worth around two trillion euros. No additional support is planned for Africa. That will catch up with us,” Muller urged.

The Minister admitted that a further wave of mass migration in the future could result from such action.

Muller’s comments come five months after a leaked study from inside the German Ministry of the Interior revealed that the impact of the country’s lockdown could end up killing more people than the coronavirus due to victims of other serious illnesses not receiving treatment.

The findings dovetail with other research that has concluded lockdowns will conservatively “destroy at least seven times more years of human life” than they save.

As we have previously highlighted, in the UK there have already been up to 10,000 excess deaths as a result of seriously ill people avoiding hospitals due to COVID-19 or not having their hospital treatments cancelled.

Professor Richard Sullivan also warned that there will be more excess cancer deaths in the UK than total coronavirus deaths due to people’s access to screenings and treatment being restricted as a result of the lockdown.

His comments were echoed by Peter Nilsson, a Swedish professor of internal medicine and epidemiology at Lund University, who said, “It’s so important to understand that the deaths of COVID-19 will be far less than the deaths caused by societal lockdown when the economy is ruined.”

According to Professor Karol Sikora, an NHS consultant oncologist, there could be 50,000 excess deaths from cancer as a result of routine screenings being suspended during the lockdown in the UK.

In addition, a study published in The Lancet that notes “physical distancing, school closures, trade restrictions, and country lockdowns” are worsening global child malnutrition.

Experts have also warned that there will be 1.4 million deaths globally from untreated TB infections due to the lockdown.

As we further previously highlighted, a data analyst consortium in South Africa found that the economic consequences of the country’s lockdown will lead to 29 times more people dying than the coronavirus itself.

Hundreds of doctors are also on record as opposing lockdown measures, warning that they will cause more death than the coronavirus itself.

Despite citizens across the world being told to observe the lockdown to “save lives,” numerous experts who are now warning that the lockdown could end up costing more lives are being ignored or smeared by the media.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was sworn in on Wednesday during a “secret ceremony” following weeks of protests and unrest over allegations his Aug.9 reelection to a 6th term was “rigged”. He and his supporters have alleged a “color revolution” being ultimately orchestrated with outside support from NATO and the US.

Perhaps not helping matters is that Washington on Wednesday declared that it no longer recognizes Lukashenko as the legitimate president of the country, pulling in essence the same thing it did in Venezuela (where the US still sees Juan Guaido as valid “interim president” though Maduro clearly rules the country).

“The United States cannot consider Aleksandr Lukashenko the legitimately elected leader of Belarus,” the State Department said. “The path forward should be a national dialogue leading to the Belarusian people enjoying their right to choose their leaders in a free and fair election under independent observation.”

The declaration of official non-recognition was made yet without presenting any particular or firm evidence of the alleged election rigging.

The European Union has also followed the US in declaring Lukashenko’s reelection invalid. Here’s the statement as posted to the EU’s European Council website: 

Recalling the Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union of 11 September, the EU once again reiterates that the 9 August Belarus Presidential elections were neither free nor fair. The European Union does not recognise their falsified results. On this basis, the so-called ‘inauguration’ of 23 September 2020 and the new mandate claimed by Aleksandr Lukashenko lack any democratic legitimacy.

This ‘inauguration’ directly contradicts the will of large parts of the Belarusian population, as expressed in numerous, unprecedented and peaceful protests since the elections, and serves to only further deepen the political crisis in Belarus.

The statement also implicitly promoted further mass protest and demonstrations, which have seen up to 100,000 people take the streets of Minsk over the past multiple weekends. Over the past week a police crackdown appears to have been more fierce, however.

Notably hardliner line from top Republicans on Lukashenko—SFRC chair Risch’s call for him to go comes as Pompeo’s State Dept says it “cannot accept” him as “legitimately elected leader” of #Belarus + @HouseForeignGOP @RepMcCaul says today’s inauguration was “illegitimate.” https://t.co/xFMXAGei5k

— Conor Finnegan (@cjf39) September 23, 2020

The Kremlin on Friday blasted the EU and US declarations, saying they “contradicted international law and amounted to indirect meddling in the country.”

“We, of course, do not welcome such decisions, made by a number of European states. We believe that these decisions contradict the international law in general and constitute indirect meddling in internal affairs,” a Kremlin spokesman said.