Nov 05

Today’s News 5th November 2018

  • Russian Bomber Makes Provocative Flyover Of U.S. Command Ship During NATO War Games

    Russia is flexing its muscle or is at least engaged in some serious trolling just as Trident Juncture 18 is underway in Norway — NATO’s largest drills in decades with some 50,000 troops, 10,000 combat vehicles, 65 ships, and 250 aircraft.

    On Friday a Russian Tupolev Tu-142 bomber unexpectedly flew close to the USS Mount Whitney at the very moment Marines on board were gathered for a group photo during the NATO military games. 

    Russian media confirmed the incident, describing the U.S. Sixth fleet’s flagship (the command and control ship for the fleet) as being “blindsided” while the military and aircraft analysis site The Aviationist described the provocative flyover as “more or less overhead”.

    A Russian TU-142 flies by the USS Mount Whitney during the NATO-led Trident Juncture drills. Image source: AFP

    According an account of the incident reported by The Aviationist:

    Sailors aboard the Blue Ridge-class command ship of the U.S. Navy USS Mount Whitney had gathered for a group photo on deck, when a Tupolev TU-142, RF-34063 / 56 RED based on AFP photographs, flying in international airspace, soared more or less overhead, on Nov. 2, 2018.

    The large long-range bomber appeared during the moments a formal group picture was being staged aboard the USS Whitney, Military.com confirmed. 

    The stunt comes after in previous weeks Moscow made clear its displeasure over what are by far NATO’s largest military exercises since the end of the Cold War, saying that the two-week long games would not go unanswered. 

    Photo taken of the November 2nd flyover, via AFP

    According to Military.com the Russians were sending a clear message: 

    The Tupolev’s passage appeared to be part of Russia’s response. But Colonel Garth Manger, a British Royal Marine in charge of operational duties on board the U.S. Navy warship, took it in his stride. “They’re watching us and we’re watching them.”

    Russia’s Defense Ministry (MoD), for its part, confirmed that two TU-142 bombers were flying over neutral waters in the area of the Norwegian Sea during the time the flyover occurred. The MoD said that aircraft spent 12 hours in the air before returning to a base in the Russian northern-central Vologda Region.

    The MoD statement said: “All flights of the naval aircraft of the Russian Navy are carried out in strict accordance with the international rules for the use of airspace without violating the borders of other countries.”

    Meanwhile the Russian MoD also announced on Saturday that the heavy nuclear missile cruiser “Peter the Great” of Russia’s Northern Fleet entered the Barents Sea on Saturday to “perform combat training missions,” according to a press release. 

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    The ship’s crew will conduct a series of exercises on anti-submarine and air defense and perform combat training exercises with the use of tactical weapons, the MoD statement said further.

    With NATO’s Trident Juncture set to go until Nov. 7, it will be interesting to see if Russian aircraft or vessels conduct another close passage near NATO assets operating in the Scandinavian and Arctic regions. 

  • "Stay In That Good Fight" Retired Green Beret Urges Americans To Stand Up To The Globalists

    Authored by Jeremiah Johnson (nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces) via SHTFplan.com,

    The actions that are taken are a three-pronged attack in order to foster in global governance, and they are as such:

    1. Create ubiquitous electronic surveillance with unlimited police power

    2. Throw the entire earth into an economic tailspin

    3. Destroy all nationalism, national borders, and create chaos among all nations prior to an “incendiary event” or series of actions that leads to a world war.

    The world war is the most important part of it all, in the eyes of the globalists. The Great Depression culminated in a world war, and periods of economic upheaval are always followed by wars. The war is most needed by the globalists because they need to rid the world of about 7 billion people. This is why such experimentation as you see progresses: infecting vectors such as mosquitoes with viruses that are almost immune to antibiotics, the unearthing of ancient viruses in the permafrost and frozen areas of the Arctic, and the insect-sized drones and smaller nanobots touted to bring a cure but in reality capable of delivering disease.

    You are seeing the destruction of the nationalism that exists in Europe: globalists such as Merkel are destroying their own countries from within by introducing hostile and ethnically (as well as religiously) diverse elements. The countries are submitting to the “World Court” based in The Hague: a court that (similar to the U.S. Supreme Court) is using its powers to circumvent the nations…the laws of the French, the Italians, the British, the Germans…all of Europe…and inculcate doctrines both globalist and Malthusian in nature.

    The oligarchs of all of these nations will have a “seat at the table” to carve up what remains of the earth after they finish with a war that decimates the population, leaves a compliant few remaining who are dependent upon the oligarch-politicos’ whims for life itself, and places the wealth, power, and resources in their hands.

    Sound as if it’s science fiction? It is not. You want some evidence of this, look no further than China: the testing ground for the electronic surveillance state that will soon be pervasive all over the globe. In an article from 10/26/18, by France24 entitled Armed drones, iris scanners: China’s high-tech security gadgets, an exhibition in Beijing exposed these measures and more. Facial recognition to the maximum was demonstrated on the conference attendees. Smart sunglasses that sound an alarm when an enemy of the state is spotted. Iris recognition scanners, and drones that are able to respond with guns.

    “Smart” homes…with every imaginable device from refrigerators to smart locks…all interacting with one another…. and of course, with Chinese “law enforcement,” the State Security agencies.

    China is the “testing” ground, and their “methods” are being incorporated in the U.S.

    On 10/26/18, Papers, Please! reported something huge; an article entitled TSA Confirms Biometrics, Facial Recognition To Be Condition For All Air Travelers.

    I wrote a piece recently a few weeks ago in which the TSA complained about the delays and inabilities to take biometric information because of the “pesky airlines” and their schedules for passengers, and I wrote that soon the biometrics will be ubiquitous and unavoidable.

    Here it is, in our faces.

    Soon will come the issuance of internal passports. As it stands, if you want to fly from New York to Los Angeles, biometric ID will be mandatory. Or just short commuter flights, say from Miami to D.C.

    The internal passports are coming.

    It won’t be enough to tell where you’re going. Why are you going there? For what, and by whose authority? If you think travel papers are not coming along, think again. Yes, we’re behind what the President is doing about the approaching caravan of illegals and criminals.

    Just remember: every fence that keeps something out can also keep something in.

    The invasion of the United States from a physical perspective would be very difficult. Yes, behind every blade of grass a rifle, we know. The main thing they wish is to take most of it intact because of the resources. The population is a “nominal” consideration, as long as they can preserve about a half million to a million to serve as laborers and perhaps a breeding stock/organ donors. Sound bleak? It should…it is meant to serve as a warning. They want it all in one lightning-fast action, and the best way…the easiest is to start a war…one that takes the United States out in one fell swoop.

    All of us have watched and seen our country descend into a moral morass from which only the citizens at grass roots level, following faith in one another…being decent to one another…and holding on to faith in God can extricate us, along with the desire to survive…and survive “smart,” to make it through what is coming. It can only be prepared for incrementally and in areas of the country that most think it worthless or impossible to live in. So many have challenged writers to “propose a plan,” and what they mean is “resistance” or “open revolt.” It would be laughably stupid if not for the fact that many ask for a proposition in writing for a definitive reason, and a definitive strategy:

    They want it in writing because they are shills for the government, and want a writer to place such a thing in writing…fomenting dissent…justification to take the writer (and possibly the blog) down…while they continue in their “writing position” in the comments sections.

    Every word here is recorded by XKeyscore…mine and yours… and stored in the NSA database in Utah, under a file for “dissenters,” “agitators,” and every other descriptive label that can be thought of for those who champion critical thought and independent thinking. Every conservative-minded journalist or writer who dares to espouse these views and theories is being recorded and kept under some kind of watch. You can be certain of it. Many are either shutting down or “knuckling under” and complying.

    The globalists are getting what they wish: consolidating the resources while they “tank” the fiat economies and currencies of the nations. They are destroying cultures who just a mere two centuries ago would have armed their entire male populaces with swords and sent invaders either packing or in pieces.

    They are destroying cultures by making them question themselves! The greatest tactic imaginable!

    I submit this last for your perusal. Do you know who you are? The question is not just as simple as it seems. Let’s delve deeply. Do you really know who you are, where your family originates? Your heritage, and its strengths and weaknesses? Is that heritage yours, along with your heritage as an American citizen? It is not important that I, or others should know of these strengths…not at this moment in time. The world war is yet to come. As Shakespeare said, “To thine own self be true.” This is important for you…to know it and hold fast to it. We are in the decline of the American nation-now-empire.

    When the dust settles, you’ll know who will run with the ball even with three blockers against them and will manage to slip the tackles or forearm shiver them in the face, outside of the ref’s eye, to run that ball in. The Marquis of Queensbury is dead, and those rules will go out the window. When the dust settles, those who had the foresight and acted on it will be the ones who will be given a gift: a chance to participate in what is to come. Stay in that good fight, and fight it to win…each day.

  • UK To Introduce U.N. Resolution To End Yemen War; Pompeo Says Iran Responsible For Famine

    At the end of the same week that the Trump administration announced a 30-day deadline to reach a ceasefire in Yemen, it was revealed the United Kingdom is planning to introduce a United Nations Security Council resolution that seeks to end of the war. 

    According to a Friday ABC News report, citing diplomatic sources, the British could introduce the resolution as early as this coming week. ABC reports that “one source said it would call for a humanitarian ceasefire and the safe passage of food and other aid, for support for the cratering Yemeni economy, and on both sides to fully engage with the U.N. Special Envoy for Yemen Martin Griffiths.”

    Last week’s ceasefire proposal by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been widely seen as the result of heightened media pressure and international outrage over the October 2nd killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi likely upon the direct orders of Saudi crown prince MbS. 

    But from the start it appeared a feeble attempt on the part of the U.S. to claim it’s “on the side of peace” at a time that the U.N. has dubbed the situation in Yemen the world’s “worst humanitarian crisis” — and at a time that Saudi war crimes in Yemen are increasingly being spotlighted. 

    However the fact remains that the Pentagon is an integral part of military operations in Yemen, and a number of analysts have pointed out that the White House could end the war with one phone call to Riyadh. 

    But it doesn’t appear likely given the U.S. is simultaneously waging a regional proxy war against pro-Iran and Shia forces, which includes severe sanctions against Iran itself set to snap back on Monday. Significantly, Mike Pompeo told Fox News Sunday:

    “The Iranians are responsible for the starvation’ of Yemeni civilians.”

    Washington has long accused Iran of giving direct support to Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who overran the capital of Sana’a in 2015, precipitating the widespread Saudi-UAE-US bombing campaign that will soon reach four years in running, and which has resulted in tens of thousands of Yemeni casualties. 

    Pompeo also addressed the new round of November 5th Iran sanctions: 

    “I’ve been at this a long time. No one’s going to argue that Secretary Pompeo isn’t tough on Iran, and no one’s going to argue that President Trump isn’t doing the same,” Pompeo said on Fox News Sunday.

    He also accused Iran of being the “world’s largest state sponsor of terror” and repeated recent headlines that Iranian intelligence carried out an assassination campaign across Europe.

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    Concerning Yemen, should the UK introduce a security council resolution which aims to end the war and create lasting conditions for peace, it will be interesting to see if it actually has any teeth, or if it’s simply a repeat of a prior April 2015 resolution that demands “all parties in the embattled country, in particular the Houthis, immediately and unconditionally end violence.”

    Should a new resolution simply double down on this language of identifying Houthis as the aggressors, without calling out Saudi war crimes and its scorched earth bombing campaign, it most certainly going to fail. For now it appears that Washington is seeking to broaden the regional proxy war targeting Iran and pro-Tehran forces — even while claiming to desire peace and a lasting resolution in places like Yemen. 

    And with Pompeo now placing the blame on Iran for the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, we are only likely to get more of the same stalling while civilians continue to die in the thousands each month. After all, over the past few days the Saudi response to the ceasefire proposed by Pompeo and Mattis has been to actually ramp up airstrikes across Sana’a governate. 

  • Pepe Escobar: Under The Pakistani Volcano

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

    While Khan plays on a complex geopolitical chessboard, Chinese aid could be a financial lifeline as Islamabad faces off against deadly religious extremism…

    It has been a breathless week, huddled in the shadow of the simmering, bubbling, politico-religious volcano that is Imran Khan’s Pakistan.

    And this week’s multi-faceted developments may just signal seismic shifts in Pakistan’s internal and external relations for the foreseeable future.

    Before  moving on to bloodier matters, let’s start with the “Mr. Khan Goes to China” episode – essential for reviewing all aspects of what is enthusiastically described by both sides as the “all-weather strategic cooperative partnership”.

    Xi’s financial lifeline for Khan?

    Prime Minister Khan, leading a fresh government elected in July and facing a range colossal challenges, set the tone from the start. He did not mince words.

    “Countries go in cycles, they have their high points, they have their low points,” he said.

    “Unfortunately, our country is going through a low point at the moment with two very big deficits, a fiscal deficit and a current account deficit. And so we, as I’ve said, have come to learn.”

    Arguably few teachers beat Chinese President Xi Jinping, praised by Khan as a role model.

    “China’s phenomenal achievements are worth emulating,” Khan said.

    “No other country has tackled poverty and corruption the way China has tackled it.”

    The lynchpin of the strategic partnership is inevitably the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the flagship project of the New Silk Road, or Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI). Before his stint as guest of honor of the First China International Import Expo in Shanghai, Khan met a crucial player in Beijing for CPEC financing: Jin Liquan, president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

    Right from the start, Pakistan’s new Planning Minister Makhdoom Bukhtiar was confident that Islamabad would not need to reschedule around $2.7 billion in Chinese loans due for repayment in 2018. Instead, what’s in the cards is an improved economic package centered on taking CPEC to the next level.

    A financially stable Pakistan is absolutely crucial for the success of BRI. A Pakistani audit of projects approved by the previous Nawaz Sharif administration called for streamlining CPEC, not curtailing it. Now, Team Khan does not subscribe to the notion of CPEC as a debt trap.

    With Saudi Arabia and China stepping in with cash, Islamabad may avoid becoming further indebted to the IMF and its trademark “strategic adjustments”– widely dreaded across the Global South for producing a toxic mix of austerity and inflation.

    Pakistan juggles China, Iran, Saudi, Turkey

    Pakistan is all about its prime geopolitical location, the crossroads of South Asia, Central Asia and West Asia.

    For Beijing, Pakistan as a key BRI node mirrors its new role as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). As Khan has clearly identified, this interconnection can only turbo-charge Pakistan’s geo-economic position – under the institutional framework of SCO. The Xi-Khan partnership may actually center around an economic win-win for Pakistan and the SCO.

    Of course, myriad challenges lie ahead.

    Take for instance Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Lu Kang having to clarify that “all the cooperation between China and Pakistan has nothing to do with territorial disputes.”

    Kang was referring to the hoopla surrounding the fact that a Pakistani company launched a bus service from Lahore to Kashgar via Islamabad; essentially the northern CPEC route via the Karakoram Highway, which skirts Kashmir. China does not want any interference whatsoever in the ultra-volatile Kashmir dossier.

    Saudi Arabia is also making some not-too-subtle moves. Islamabad’s official position is that Riyadh’s recent financial offer came with no strings attached. That’s unlikely to be the case; Saudi traditionally casts a long shadow over all matters Pakistani. “No strings” means Islamabad should keep closer to Riyadh, not Tehran.

    The House of Saud – paralyzed by the fallout of the bloody Istanbul fiasco – will go no-holds-barred to prevent Islamabad from getting closer to Tehran. (Or Ankara, for that matter). A possibly emergent, long-term, game-changing Turkey-Iran-Pakistan alliance was the talk of the town – at least during the first part of this week of weeks.

    That brings us to the crucial visitor Khan received in Islamabad before his trip to China: Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Last month, 14 Iranian border guards were kidnapped by the Pakistan-based Jaish al-Adl Salafi-jihadi fanatics. Pakistan security forces have been helpless so far.

    Khan and Zarif talked about that – but also talked about Khan’s offer to mediate between Iran and Saudi Arabia in trying to find a solution for the tragedy in Yemen. The fact is, a Tehran-Islamabad rapprochement is already a work in progress.

    That is the sophisticated geo-political game Khan must play. Meanwhile at home, he has to get down and dirty as he gets to grips with violent domestic religious turmoil.

    ‘Go legal – or else…’

    I’ve been in Islamabad since Monday – right on the lip of the volcano, and enjoying the privilege of being part of one of the most extraordinary geopolitical conferences in recent times, something that in the current polarizing dynamic could only happen in Asia, not the West. But that’s another story.

    While I was parsing elaborate analyses of this geopolitical chessboard, reality intervened.

    Or – perhaps – it was a graphic intimation that Pakistan may just be changing for the better.

    Street blockades paralyzed key nodes of the nation because Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman laborer, in jail for nine years, was finally acquitted by the Supreme Court of spurious charges of blasphemy. There are less than 4 million Christians in Pakistan out of a total population of 197 million.

    I was with a small group on the motorway to Peshawar, prior to taking a detour to Taxila – Alexander-the-Great land, where I planned further research on ancient Silk Roads – when suddenly we were halted.

    A mullah was blaring his hate through a loudspeaker. A couple of his minions blocked all circulation.

    Why the police would not dislodge this small group is the matter of all matters in Khan’s arguably new Pakistan. The highway standoff embodies the high-stakes grapple underway between the state and religion.

    Back in Islamabad, as he led me around the campus of the National Defense University, Timoor Shah, a bright young man at the Center for Policy Studies, gave me a crash course on the nuances.

    What a global audience should understand is this.

    On one side stand the state, the military and the judiciary. (Accusations continue to be hurled that Khan was privileged in the July elections by the military – the top institution in Pakistan – and an activist judiciary.)

    On the other side, stand fringe religious nuts and an opportunistic, discredited opposition.

    The Tehreek-e-Labbaik (TLP), a minor extremist political party whose only platform is to punish blasphemy, has issued death threats against the three Supreme Court judges. Pakistan could do worse than import a strangle/bone-saw/dissolve-in-acid Saudi execution squad to deal with such groups.

    It’s instructive to consider what the director general of the PR arm of the powerful intelligence service, ISI, Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor had to say: This is a legal matter and the Pakistan Army should not be dragged into it. Ghafoor also stressed,

    “We are close to winning the war against terrorism and our attention should not be diverted.”

    Ghafoor told politico-religious parties protesting against the Supreme Court judgment – quite a few of which were firmly on the lunatic fringe – to go legal or else. Amid this, TLP chief Khadim Hussain Rizvi swears that that the Army has threatened to “destroy” his party.

    The military sent a delegation, including ISI officials, to talk to the religious protesters. Ghafoor was careful to stress that the ISI is an intelligence department that reports to the prime minister.

    In the end, the government caved in. Despite knowing that Aasia Bibi faces fundamentalist wrath and her only path to safety would be a one-way ticket out, they agreed to put her on something called the “Exit Control List.” Even that did not prevent TLP fanatics from threatening “a war if they sent Aasia Bibi out of the country.”

    ‘Taliban Godfather’ killed

    As if all this were not toxic enough, on Friday evening Maulana Samiul Haq – the fabled “Godfather of the Taliban” – was stabbed to death in his house in Rawalpindi, Islamabad’s twin city.

    Haq led the sprawling Darul Uloom Haqqania, a madrassa, or religious school, in Akhora Khattak, near Peshawar, founded in 1988. The madrassa graduated none other than Mullah Omar, as well as other Taliban notables.

    Haq embodies a torrent of turbulence in modern Pakistani history – including his stints as senator during the  Zia ul Haq and Nawaz Sharif administrations. He also tabled a notorious Sharia bill during Sharif’s last term.

    But for me, the story was personal. In a tortuous way, Samiul Haq saved my life – courtesy of a letter of introduction he had signed after I visited his madrassa to follow a Talibanesque indoctrination in progress.

    When, along with my photographer Jason Florio, we were arrested by the Taliban at a military base in Ghazni in the summer of 2000, we were only released from waiting six months to be tried as “spies” because of Samiul Haq’s letter.

    This obviously pales when compared to the high-profile, principled move by the Pakistani Supreme Court to save Aasia Bibi from a death sentence.

    But it could be the first salvo in a Khan-era Pakistani war against religious fundamentalism.

  • DOJ Investigates 'Mystery' Goldman Executive Involved In $4.5 Billion 1MDB Fraud

    Last week, the DOJ filed the first round of criminal charges related to the massive international fraud that was the 1MDB scandal. US prosecutors allege that more than $4.5 billion was embezzled from the sovereign wealth fund, which was set up by the government of disgraced former Prime Minister Najib Razak, eventually leading the ransacked government fund to a default on nearly $2 billion of local currency bonds, briefly denting the value of the Malaysian ringgit. Holders of those bonds are still working on a restructuring deal with the fund. Meanwhile, former Goldman Sachs Southeast Asia Chief Tim Leissner has pleaded guilty to fraud charges and is expected to cooperate with authorities against other more-senior officials at the bank. One of his fellow bankers, Roger Ng, was arrested by Malaysian police and is expected to be extradited to the US.

    There’s little doubt that the scandal, which Goldman has, in typical Goldman fashion, tried to pin on a “few rogue employees,” will lead to massive fines and possibly other penalties. The bank admitted as much in a regulatory filing on Friday, even suggesting that “other sanctions” – code for a guilty plea for the bank or even more severe penalties levied by the Treasury – could be forthcoming, per Reuters.

    Leissner has already admitted that he accepted more than $200 million in stolen funds in an illegal kickback tied to the deal, as well as bribery charges related to his pursuit of the 1MDB deals. And as more details trickle out, the blithe disregard for US securities laws – and even the bank’s own compliance department – attributed to Leissner and his team is looking even more galling.

    Leissner

    Tim Leissner

    All of this is happening at a terrible time for Goldman. It recently underwent a leadership transition, with longtime former CEO Lloyd Blankfein handing the reins to John Solomon, who is best known for moonlighting as an EDM DJ. Blankfein’s former second-in-command, Gary Cohn, left the bank nearly two years ago to join the Trump Administration. And as the breadth of the scandal – and the likelihood that the bank’s most senior employees may have looked the other way (though, to be sure, Blankfein has repeatedly denied having any knowledge of Goldman’s role) – becomes increasingly apparent, the timing of Blankfein’s exit is looking more and more suspect.

    Public perception polling shows that Goldman has never quite managed to shake the “Vampire Squid” moniker that it earned during the financial crisis, according to Bloomberg.

    Goldman

    In a story published Sunday, Bloomberg released the most detailed account yet about the lengths that Leissner went to circumvent Goldman’s compliance department in order to close on three successive bond issues underwritten by Goldman. The issues, totaling $6 billion, netted $600 million in fees for Goldman. To ensure that the deal would close, Leissner concealed the involvement of Jho Low, a Malaysian financier who was among the individuals charged by the DOJ on Thursday. In an effort to leverage Low’s connections to Razak, Leissner tried to set Low up with an account at Goldman’s vaunted private wealth division, but was again rebuffed by compliance officers in Switzerland and Singapore. Eventually, Goldman compliance teams from Europe to Africa, as well as the bank’s global intelligence group, issued warnings about Low and cautioned that the bank should avoid taking him on as a client.

    But that didn’t stop Leissner from inviting Low to a 2013 meeting at New York City’s Time Warner Center, a meeting that also included Razak and an unidentified “senior Goldman official” – ignoring the bank’s warnings about Low. Back in 2009, Leissner had leveraged his connections with Low to arrange his first meeting with Razak, a meeting that eventually helped him close on the 1MDB bond deal. At the time, Goldman and other US banks were digging out of the hole created by the financial crisis, and were desperate for business. 

    Leissner tried everything to try and polish Low’s reputation by finding a company for 1MDB to buy. Leissner also tried to convince Goldman to hire Razak’s children for coveted Goldman internships in direct violation of a US law prohibiting banks from hiring relatives of senior foreign officials (JPM paid out a nine-figure penalty for violating this law back in 2016 during the so-called “princelings” scandal, where the bank hired the children of Chinese Communist Party officials).

    The type of plea agreement signed by Leissner, known as a “criminal information” suggests that he will likely cooperate with authorities.

    Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, who are running the probe, likely have a broader view. Leissner’s admission of bribery and laundering conspiracy came in a document called a criminal information, which often suggests a cooperation deal with authorities. If that’s the case, Leissner could be a crucial guide for global investigations into how a majority of the $6.5 billion raised by Goldman Sachs, ostensibly to promote development in Malaysia, was allegedly diverted in one of the largest plunderings of public funds in history.

    And Goldman, which has said that it believed the money raised in the 1MDB bond offerings would be spent on development projects, last week put its former co-head of investment banking, Andrea Vella, on leave.

    The latest documents may mean Goldman Sachs’s reckoning over the 1MDB affair is far from over. On Thursday, the bank placed Andrea Vella, its former co-head of investment banking, on leave. Court documents unsealed earlier in the day said an unidentified Goldman official in Asia conspired with Leissner, Low and another then-Goldman banker, Roger Ng, and had knowledge that bribes were being paid. Prosecutors’ description of the official lines up with that of Vella, who couldn’t be reached for comment.

    But it’s very possible that Vella might not be the final link in the chain. The sheer magnitude and complexity of the 1MDB fraud is staggering.While the Wall Street Journal helped break the story, perhaps the most detailed description of how the money was raised and diverted was published earlier this year by MalaysiaKini. In a multi-part story, its reporters explain how the money was fanned out across multiple shell companies and investments in other wealth funds. Ultimately, $700 million is believed to have been diverted into a personal slush fund accessible to Razak. The money trail illustrated in the charts below was gleaned from a DOJ lawsuit, as the DOJ has seized and sought to seize many of the assets that purchased by Low and others with money siphoned off the fund, including yachts, luxury homes and even box-office profits from the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

    One

    Malaysia

    Three

    Four

    To be sure, Goldman isn’t the only bank to be tainted by 1MDB. Already, Singaporean authorities have frozen bank accounts, and shut down a tiny bank called Falcon Bank that helped shelter some of the money. They also arrested and charged the Swiss chief executive of Falcon, while fining Credit Suisse and UBS, among others.

    But in the US, at least, the focus lies squarely on Goldman. Expect more news, and possibly more indictments, to follow in the coming days and weeks.

  • Army Major Exposes The US Military's Empire Of Secrecy

    Authored by Army Major Danny Sjruden via TruthDig.com,

    “Democracy dies in darkness.” That’s an old saying that The Washington Post recycled as its motto at the dawn of the Trump era.

    Truth is, the journalists at the Post don’t know the half of it; nor do they bother to report on the genuine secrecy and increasing lack of transparency in the Department of Defense. Nothing against the Post – neither do any of the other mainstream media outlets.

    But it’s true: Right under most Americans’ noses, the military has become more opaque over the last several years. Now, few outlets cover foreign policy with any particular gusto – after all, there’s so much to say about Stormy Daniels or the Brett Kavanaugh drama. But this trend should concern all citizens.

    Thing is, what the U.S. military is up to on any given day is done in your name. If civilians are killed, locals alienated or civil liberties restricted, then the global populace, including concerned U.S. citizens, aren’t going to fix blame solely on the armed forces … they’re going to blame you! If for no other reason than this, citizens of an – ostensible – democracy ought to be paying attention. The military is a fierce, potentially brutal instrument, and anyone who cares about liberty ought to watch it closely.

    Only that’s getting harder and harder to do in today’s political climate. On one issue after another the U.S. military has recently intensified its secrecy, has classified previously open information and has suppressed any remaining sense of transparency. Don’t just take my word for it: This week a relatively mainstream congressional Democrat, Adam Smith – a ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee—wrote at length on this very topic.

    Make no mistake, these trends are long-standing and gradual. So, what follows is not some vacuous liberal attack on President Trump, who remains, for legal purposes, and so long as I remain in uniform, my commander in chief. Still, the time is long past when someone needs to scream from the proverbial mountaintop about America’s expanding empire of secrecy.

    Though there are plenty of examples to review, there’s something else to keep in mind: The military isn’t some monolithic monster. It’s far more discreet than that, and so are these trends, so watch closely. Evidence abounds.

    Soon after the inauguration, the military—which had long recognized and planned for the existential threat of climate change—received guidance to all but purge the term from its reports. It was to be replaced with more nebulous (and inaccurate) phrases, such as “extreme weather.”

    Then there’s the minor matter of the war in Afghanistan and its progress—after, you know, 17-plus years. One of the key benchmarks or metrics for progress has been the success or failure of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). Well, for years the DOD released annual casualty figures for the ANSF, and the trends were alarming. Afghan Security Force casualties are frankly unsustainable—the Taliban are killing more than the government can recruit. The death rates are staggering, numbering 5,500 fatalities in 2015, 6,700 in 2016, and an estimate of “about 10,000” in 2017. The reason we’re not sure about the exact count last year is because that data—admittedly at the request of the Afghan government—has been newly classified. This seems absurd. How can the legislature or the public determine the viability or prognosis of America’s longest war without such key statistics? The short answer is, it can’t. And so, the war drags on. …

    What’s more, the military’s historically uneasy relationship with the press has also further chilled. As Rep. Smith reported, and complained about, the DOD had issued edicts to curtail or discourage officers from providing candid assessments on readiness challenges, the control of nuclear weapons and other key appraisals. Only after a prolonged public outcry were these once-common press interactions partially reinstated. Nevertheless, this all points to an alarming trend of apparent furtiveness.

    There are other examples to add into the disturbing mix.

    The Navy has stopped publicly posting accident reports. Also, at a time of exploding, record defense budgets, once routine public reports on the cost, schedule and performance of expensive weapons systems have, since 2017, been labeled as “For Official Use Only”—which keeps the data from the public through an ever-expanding regime of “over-classification.” Without such public releases, the populace and their elected representatives cannot effectively scrutinize what President (and five-star General) Eisenhower aptly labeled the “dangerous” military-industrial complex. Is that the point? Let’s hope not.

    Then there is the internal censorship within the military’s computer networks. Recently, credible, left-leaning websites such as Tom Dispatch and The Intercept have reportedly been blocked on many government computers. The reason provided in the firewall warning message is the existence of “hate and racism” on the two sites. Now, many readers, and even more American citizens, may not like the content of these publications—which is fine—but anyone who has even briefly read anything on these sites can vouch for one salient truth: There is absolutely nothing hateful or racist at Tom Dispatch or The Intercept. These publications are professionally edited and reviewed, and, indeed, are unique in that they focus on long-form analytical essays.

    It appears that the only crime of these sites is that they are, indeed, left-leaning. Need proof? Well, guess which genuinely racist, conspiracy-theory-peddling websites are not blocked? You guessed it: Breitbart and InfoWars. Heck, even Facebook and Twitter have taken steps to ban Alex Jones’ InfoWars from their social media sites. So, there’s only one major conclusion to draw: Genuinely shocking and offensive right-leaning publications are just fine; meanwhile, even credible, respected left-leaning sites are apparently a threat. This sort of rank partisanship is disturbing from a purportedly apolitical organization like the DOD.

    Now, there are no doubt times when tactical necessity requires secrecy in military operations. I’ve lived at the sharp end of that spear, and do not discount its occasional inexorability. That said, much of the move away from transparency has little to do with combat, so to speak, and more to do with politics. We, the citizenry, trust our military with immense responsibility, but as a supposed democracy, that same military ought to be accountable to Congress and to the public. These days, that seems ever more like a distant fantasy.

    This all matters. America has a choice. It can be an empire—or it can be a genuine republic. It may not be both.

  • Nassim Taleb Explains How The Global Economy Is More Fragile Today Than In 2007

    In what was incredibly appropriate timing given the ‘shocktober’ market blowup, Bloomberg News invited “Black Swan” author Nassim Taleb to its set on Halloween for a discussion about the increasingly fragile market ecosystem in which we all reside, and the mounting risks that, Taleb believes, could soon ignite another financial crisis that will be even more severe than what we saw in 2008.

    Taleb, dressed up as “black swan man”, wasted little time in explaining how the global economy is becoming increasingly vulnerable to a global debt crisis, how the global quantitative easing did nothing to fix the underlying problem of too much debt – instead it exacerbated it – and how the inevitable reckoning might play out in markets once the long-dreaded “inflection point” finally arrives.

    Taleb

    Taleb began the interview by describing how the global aggregate debt burden has only climbed since the crisis. And while this debt is no longer dangerously concentrated in a single sector, like, say, the housing market, it doesn’t change the fact that the overall credit risk in the system has been amplified. And while central banks have for years managed to impose metastability in global markets, as they transition from a period of low interest rates back to “neutral”, the destructive forces that they long suppressed will surge back to the surface.

    Just like he did in the run-up to the 2008 crash, Taleb isn’t trying to forecast the next crash; he’s only trying to explain how the global economy has become “more fragile today” than it was in 2007.

    “You put novocaine on cancer, and what happens? The patient is going to look better, he’s going to feel better, but at some point, you pay a higher price.”

    And while this debt is distributed in different ways, “you don’t get a free lunch.” In other words, just because governments and corporate balance sheets have done most of the accumulating, doesn’t mean that this debt is ‘risk-free’.

    “Governments, they think they can borrow for free. But they have had to borrow a lot. We have had to borrow more than $1 trillion dollars…and we’re paying some $300 billion in interest.

    This has left the US and the rest of the world on the cusp of a dangerous downward spiral.

    “You can enter a spiral. In my mind, it’s when governments have to borrow more and more to pay interest – like a Madoff scheme.”

    And once that spiral begins, it’s incredibly difficult to arrest the progression.

    “The minute you enter that phase, there’s nothing healthy about it from an economic standpoint.”

    Take the US federal government for example. Not only has it accumulated another $10 trillion in debt since the crisis, but it also has “hidden liabilities” on its balance sheet that Taleb believes should be factored in to this total. Social security is one hidden liability. Student debt, which the government will almost certainly need to backstop, is another.

    “But we’ve accumulated an additional $10 trillion in debt since the crisis. Plus we have hidden liabilities that should count as debt – like social security, you have hidden liabilities when you have to bail out firms, you have hidden liabilities from student debt…you have a lot of things, if you’ve committed to some expenditures, on top of debt you have hidden liabilities that should act like debt.”

    And while in the past, debt crises have been confined to emerging-market economies like Argentina, today, major developed economies like Italy are already seeing signs of strain as their populist government is hoping to expand the country’s budget deficit, adding to what is already the third-largest debt-to-GDP burden in the developed world.

    “Years ago we had a debt crisis…in 82′ it started in Latin American countries…today it’s hitting the core, it’s no longer the periphery…look at countries like Italy…but it’s getting closer to us.”

    In the past, the go-to fix for overwhelming debt has been inflation. But the problem with inflation – as the US experienced in the 1970s, is that, once it gets going, it can be almost impossible to control.

    “In the past, the normal solution is inflation…but the minute you start to create inflation it’s an animal, you can’t control it…like we learned in the 1970s…price stability will not be there and traditionally it hasn’t been controllable.”

    It wouldn’t take much to trigger a debt crisis in the US. If the Chinese and other ‘regular customers’ of Treasury debt were to step away from the market, who would take their place?

    “The Chinese and the overproducing states were regular customers…maybe they’re not going to be there.”

    Circling back to central banks and their strategy for averting an all-out financial collapse, Taleb pointed out that QE’s biggest accomplishment was the transfer of credit risk from individuals to the state. And with interest rates now beginning to rise, somebody is going to need to pay the price for all of this leverage.

    “In 2008, we transferred debt from individuals to the states…now ten years later, we’re starting to raise rates. We have to raise rates. It’s unhealthy to keep rates at zero. So someone is going to have to pay the price.

    Though debt isn’t as concentrated as it once was, the first signs of stress, according to Taleb, are already beginning to surface in real-estate, where stress that has already appeared in the high end of the market will likely spread (a trend that we have anticipated again and again and again).

    “The first shoe to drop will be probably real estate. The higher end real estate has already gone down world wide, people have noticed but they’re not talking about it…it will be the higher end real estate first then the rest of the real estate market. One thing that quantitative easing did was increase inequality.”

    After real estate “the next shoe to drop” will be the stock market…”though what we’re seeing today is nothing,” Taleb said. Equities cannot maintain their high valuations when interest rates are rising.

    “No…what we’re seeing today is nothing…but you cannot maintain high valuations in the stock market with higher interest rates.”

    “With higher interest rates we’re going to see some volatility.”

    While the risks are arrayed against the average investor, there is one “miracle scenario” that could save the US economy from an extremely painful bout of deleveraging. And that would be a combination of torrid real growth with low price instability – essentially a turbocharging of the “goldlilocks” economic conditions that enabled the ever-higher highs during 2017 and 2018.

    “What we need, the thing that would save us, miraculously, is real growth without debt…real growth maybe miraculously will take us out…or maybe some type of inflation that maybe wouldn’t cause so much price instability…but we’ve never seen that. Unless we have these two, we’re doomed.”

    While anybody who has expressed concerns about the blowout in the US budget deficit under Trump should find Taleb’s arguments compelling, a quick glance at the S&P 500’s annualized returns over the past decade might be enough to quash these doubts. After all, why should investors listen to the doomsayers when so many crisis-era superstars, who built their reputations on the rightward bets they made during the runup to the crash, have not only failed to match their returns from 2007 and 2008, but have seen their winnings dissipate entirely in the years since?

    Because, as has been demonstrated by at least one fund, the above assumption isn’t entirely accurate. Mark Spitznagel, CIO at Universa Investments, which counts Taleb as an advisor, revealed back in September that funds betting on the “end of the world” can, in fact, produce alpha and tack on a few points to a fund’s CAGR even during bull markets if the balance of allocations, and the hedging strategies employed, are calibrated in just the right way.

    Universa

    As he revealed in a letter to investors obtained by the WSJ back in September, Spitznagel has managed to outperform the S&P 500 by keeping the bulk of his money invested in a passive benchmark-tracker, while using a tiny sliver of his portfolio (just 3.3%) to buy up out-of-the-money put options when they’re looking cheap. This has allowed Spitznagel to book staggering profits during a handful of blowups (like the August 2015 ETF flash crash, where this strategy returned 20% in a single day).

    Watch the full interview below:

  • China Stocks, Yuan Tumble As PMI Plunges To 28-Month Lows

    Despite additional easing and a 403.5 billion yuan 1-year maturity MLF operation, yuan is tumbling along with China (and Hong Kong stocks) following an ugly Caixin Composite PMI print (the weakest since June 2016).

    New orders tumbled to 50.3, the weakest since Feb 2016…

    The CSI 300 Consumer Staples Index is the worst performer among 10 industry groups on the broad market with a 2.7% loss.

    As Bloomberg’s Kwoungwha Kim notes, it is quite a bad day for consumer stocks to underperform. But they are down as October’s Caixin PMI tumbled. To keep the economy growing, China needs to nurture its consumer market and that requires more imports!

    Offshore yuan is extending Friday’s losses from the exuberant Trump trade headline squeeze…

    China stocks are giving back Friday’s bounce…

    And Hang Seng is plunging…

    The PBOC skipped open market operations once again but conducted 403.5b yuan of MLF operations (matching the total maturity of MLF at CNY403.5 billion).

    President Xi just started speaking and took multiple jabs at President Trump:

    Xi reiterated support for multilateral trade, globalization, and some stock standard language on China’s role preserving the global trading order.

    Xi says globalization is an irreversible “historic trend”, and every nation should make their effort in it.

    “The will of history will keep rolling forward no matter what.” [ZH: Like a tank in Tiananmen Square?]

    “Openness has become a trademark of China.” [ZH: apart from the internet, and trade,…]

    “China’s door will never be closed, it will only open still wider.” [ZH: except to Winnie the Pooh]

    “It is our sincere commitment to open the Chinese market.” [ZH: if you give us all your IP first]

    It does feel like his opening remarks are less of an olive branch to the US trade hawks and more of an admonishment of their outlook. Of course, China critics would counter that Xi has said all of this before.

    Finally – as PMI plummets, Xi confirms the delusion: “We can take an absolutely positive view on China economy”.

     

  • With New U.S. Anti-Iran Policy In Iraq And Syria, The Fig Leaf Of Fighting ISIS Falls

    Authored by Elijah Magnier, Middle East based chief international war correspondent for Al Rai Media

    During the International Institute for Strategic Studies 14th dialogue in the Bahraini Capital Manama, Brett McGurk, the US envoy for the global coalition to defeat the Islamic State group (ISIS), took leave of his designated function by expressing unusual solicitude for Syria when he said it is “necessary for the Iran-Backed militias to leave Syria to ensure a stable and independent country”. The US presidential special envoy also said he is looking forward to promoting “mutual US-Iraq interests and for the Iraqis to strengthen their own interests and sovereignty”.

    McGurk, who was directly involved in the formation of the Iraqi leadership (Speaker, President and Prime Minister) in the last few months, didn’t manage to return his favorite candidate Haidar Abadi to power and failed to prevent Faleh al-Fayyad from coming to power. According to private sources in Baghdad, al-Fayyad will be nominated as Interior Minister, a position that requires coordination with US forces in Iraq. McGurk clashed with Fayyad on several occasions when he unsuccessfully sought to limit the activity of Iran and Hezbollah in supporting the formation of the new Iraqi leadership in Baghdad.

    The US is mustering all its diplomacy against Iran in preparation for unilateral implementation of full sanctions against the Islamic Republic, expected on the fourth of November. This is why McGurk is attacking Iran in Syria and Iraq. 

    ISIS posting in front of US-made vehicles captured from the Kurds in Baghuz and Sousah. via jihadi social media

    Nevertheless, the new Iraqi government is reversing Abadi’s concession to the US: the new prime minister Adel Abdel Mahdi has ordered Hashd al-Shaabi (The Popular Mobilization Forces, PMF) to deploy its forces along the Syrian-Iraqi borders. Abadi kept the PMF away from borders where the US forces are deployed and where they occupy part of Syrian territory and the al-Tanf crossing between the Levant and Mesopotamia.

    Washington wrongly believes its forces can limit the influence and movement of the Iranian and allied forces in Syria by keeping the Marines in the country. Iranian influence is well established in Syria today, following its unlimited support to the government of Damascus. Even in Iraq, the US presence failed to limit Iran’s leverage on the new government.

    US concern is indeed justified: Washington and its allies have lost and failed to “change the regime” in Damascus despite seven long years of war. The Americans used all possible tools and pressure to no avail. US leadership used the “chemical attacks” excuse to bomb the Syrian army without creating any change on the ground. It has used also the card of the Syrian refugees, trying to block their voluntary return. It failed to keep the Jordanian-Syrian crossing at Naseeb closed to prevent Syria from recovering part of its economy. It is also keeping al-Tanf under occupation to stop the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars into the pockets of Damascus from the considerable trade between Iraq and Syria.

    The US establishment did not hesitate to support al-Qaeda in Idlib indirectly – after its direct military and training support to al-Qaeda throughout the years of war – by launching a serious warning to Assad in case of any attack against rural Idlib and Latakia where jihadists are based, and Turkey has failed to dislodge them. Moreover, Washington is using the Kurds of al-Hasaka province as human shields to protect the US forces occupying the province. And last but not least, the US is using the UN to try and alter the Syrian constitution, a move only the Syrian parliament can do.

    US Presidential special envoy for Iraq and Syria Brett McGurk, via Ahval

    All the above didn’t stop McGurk from calling for the withdrawal of Iranian-backed forces “to ensure a stable and independent Syria”. The US envoy forgot that the US forces were never invited to Syria and are considered an occupation force. Moreover, it is Damascus who asked for Iran’s support against the jihadists when the US and its allies (Saudi Arabia and Turkey) allowed a free passage to these hoping to create a fail state. Therefore, it is not up to Washington – nor to Moscow, as Russian officials have reiterated – to seek the withdrawal of any non-Syrian forces from the Levant.

    During the seven years of war, the US never ever aimed for the stability of Syria nor did it work in harmony with the “interests of the people”. Νo Syrian institution gave the right and freedom to the US to speak on its behalf. US forces are blocking al-Tanf crossing in order to impoverish the Syrian population. The US has protected ISIS in the north-east enclave without destroying the jihadists. Not only that, ISIS attacked, imprisoned and killed dozens of the Kurds acting as US proxies in north-east Syria who allowed ISIS to move in and occupy areas around Hajin. When units of the Syria army looking to combat ISIS moved hundreds of meters east of the Euphrates into an ISIS-controlled area a few months ago, the US destroyed them, thereby supporting ISIS’s ongoing presence in the region.

    The US establishment is in denial. It has not come to terms with its defeat in Iraq and Syria. Today, it is moving unilaterally against Iran to implement further sanctions that can certainly harm the Iranian economy. Nevertheless, the Americans will not be able to uproot the Iranian ideology that has taken root in Iraq and Syria precisely because of the failed US foreign policy and regime change strategy that was meant to protect its hegemony and dominance in the Middle East.

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