Sep 10

Today’s News 10th September 2021

  • German Finance Ministry Raided Over Failing To Report & Investigate Money Laundering
    German Finance Ministry Raided Over Failing To Report & Investigate Money Laundering

    On Thursday German prosecutors raided the finance and justice ministries over accusations that the government’s anti-money laundering agency, the Finance Intelligence Unit (FIU), failed to probe many instances of banks laundering money.

    The allegations center on the FIU failing to pass on the reports to the police and the judiciary, however, it is “still unclear if the FIU failed to pass on the reports of fraud of its own accord, or was directed to do so by someone at one or both of the ministries.”

    The German Federal Ministry of Finance building in Berlin, via Shutterstock

    It’s believed the FIU (which is part of the Finance Ministry) looked the other way while cash “in the millions” was laundered, mainly from Africa. 

    It’s not the first time that the financial crimes oversight agency has come under scrutiny in recent months: “The organization has also been suspected of covering up fraud committed by the German fintech company Wirecard, which collapsed last year in spectacular fashion,” DW writes.

    “This is a security risk for Germany,” one lawmaker, Fabio De Masi said, in the wake of the raid. “We need a financial police with criminal expertise. Germany is a paradise for criminals.”

    Prosecutors have said they don’t currently suspect any particular employee of criminal wrongdoing, but a key question that remains over whether the FIU was ordered to ignore warnings from banks over suspect transactions, or whether it was incompetence and lack of resources, despite it recently increasing its staff from 165 to over 460, along with receiving more technical resources.

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    According to Reuters, “The FIU has long struggled to keep up with the tens of thousands of warnings it receives about suspect money transfers, according to people familiar with its work.” And further, “It only stopped using fax machines to receive such reports from banks in the past few years, one German official has told Reuters.”

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/10/2021 – 02:45

  • Iran's Nuclear Weapons Weeks Away?
    Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Weeks Away?

    Authored by Majid Rafizadeh via The Gatestone Institute,

    Since the Biden administration assumed office, the nuclear talks with Iran have gone nowhere. Six rounds of negotiations have been concluded with no results. In contrast, two other issues have gone too far: the Biden administration’s appeasement policies towards the Iranian regime, and the advancement of the mullahs’ nuclear program.

    When the Biden administration took office, it announced that it would curb Iran’s nuclear program by returning to the 2015 nuclear deal — known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which by the way Iran never signed — and by subsequently lifting sanctions against the Iranian government.

    Apparently desperate to revive the nuclear pact, the Biden administration at once began appeasing the ruling clerics of Iran. The first concession was delivered when the administration changed the previous administration’s policy of maximum pressure toward Iran’s proxy militia group, the Houthis. Even as the evidence — including a report by the United Nations — showed that the Iranian regime was delivering sophisticated weapons to the Houthis in Yemen, the Biden administration suspended some of the sanctions against terrorism that the previous administration had imposed on the Houthis.

    Soon after, the Biden administration revoked the designation of Yemen’s Houthis as a terrorist group. In addition, in June 2021, the Biden administration lifted sanctions on three former Iranian officials and several energy companies. Then, in a blow to the Iranian people and advocates of democracy and human rights — a few days after the Iranian regime handpicked a mass murderer to be its next president — the Biden administration announced that it was also considering lifting sanctions against Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

    From the perspective of Iran’s mullahs, Biden’s desperate efforts to resurrect the nuclear deal manifested his weak leadership and therefore a delectable opportunity for Tehran to buy time, get more concessions, advance its nuclear program and become a nuclear state.

    Notwithstanding all these policies of incentives and appeasements, Iran’s mullahs continued to make excuses seemingly to drag out the nuclear talks. One of the latest overtures was that the world powers ought to wait until Iran’s newly elected president, Ebrahim Raisi, took office before resuming the nuclear talks.

    By now, Raisi has been president of Iran for more than a month but there has not been the slightest effort by the Islamic Republic to restart any talks; in fact, all the while, the regime appears to have accelerated its enrichment of uranium to weapons-grade. This escalation has even caused concerns among some European leaders and has, surprisingly, led the EU to pressure Tehran immediately to return to the negotiating table. “We vehemently ask Iran to return to the negotiating table constructively and as soon as possible. We are ready to do so, but the time window won’t be open indefinitely” a ministry spokesperson from Germany warned.

    After stating that they would resume talks when Raisi assumed office, Iran’s leaders are now saying that they are not likely to restart the nuclear negotiations for another 2-3 months.

    “the… government considers a real negotiation is a negotiation that produces palpable results allowing the rights of the Iranian nation to be guaranteed,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said during an interview broadcast by Iran’s state television.

    He added that the nuclear talks are “one of the questions on the foreign policy and government agenda… the other party knows full well that a process of two to three months is required for the new government to establish itself and to start taking decisions.”

    As Iran’s nuclear policy, however, is not set by the president or its foreign minister, this declaration sounded like just another excuse by the regime to buy time and advance enrichment. It is, of course, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who enjoys the final say in Iran’s nuclear and foreign policy issues.

    At the moment, the Iranian regime is reportedly 8-10 weeks away from obtaining the weapons-grade materials necessary for a nuclear weapon.

    “Iran has violated all of the guidelines set in the JCPOA and is only around 10 weeks away from acquiring weapons-grade materials necessary for a nuclear weapon,” Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz told ambassadors from countries on the United Nations Security Council during a briefing at the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem on August 4, 2021.

    “Now is the time for deeds – words are not enough. It is time for diplomatic, economic and even military deeds, otherwise the attacks will continue.”

    Once again it seems that the mullahs of Iran are masterfully playing the Biden administration and the EU by stalling the nuclear talks, buying time to get more concessions, and accelerating their enrichment of uranium and nuclear program to reach a weapons-grade nuclear breakout.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/10/2021 – 02:00

  • 20 Years Of Government-Sponsored Tyranny: The Rise Of The Security-Industrial Complex From 9/11 To COVID-19
    20 Years Of Government-Sponsored Tyranny: The Rise Of The Security-Industrial Complex From 9/11 To COVID-19

    Authored by John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in – and the West in general – into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”

    – Osama bin Laden (October 2001), as reported by CNN

    What a strange and harrowing road we’ve walked since September 11, 2001, littered with the debris of our once-vaunted liberties.

    We have gone from a nation that took great pride in being a model of a representative democracy to being a model of how to persuade a freedom-loving people to march in lockstep with a police state.

    Our losses are mounting with every passing day.

    What began with the post-9/11 passage of the USA Patriot Act  has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.

    The citizenry’s unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security has resulted in a society where the nation has been locked down into a militarized, mechanized, hypersensitive, legalistic, self-righteous, goose-stepping antithesis of every principle upon which this nation was founded.

    Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, police violence and the like—all of which have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—our constitutional freedoms have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded.

    The rights embodied in the Constitution, if not already eviscerated, are on life support.

    Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government’s war on the American people, a war that has grown more pronounced since 9/11.

    Indeed, since the towers fell on 9/11, the U.S. government has posed a greater threat to our freedoms than any terrorist, extremist or foreign entity ever could.

    While nearly 3,000 people died in the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government and its agents have easily killed at least ten times that number of civilians in the U.S. and abroad since 9/11 through its police shootings, SWAT team raids, drone strikes and profit-driven efforts to police the globe, sell weapons to foreign nations (which too often fall into the hands of terrorists), and foment civil unrest in order to keep the security industrial complex gainfully employed.

    The American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, denied due process, and killed.

    In allowing ourselves to be distracted by terror drills, foreign wars, color-coded warnings, pandemic lockdowns and other carefully constructed exercises in propaganda, sleight of hand, and obfuscation, we failed to recognize that the U.S. government—the government that was supposed to be a “government of the people, by the people, for the people”—has become the enemy of the people.

    Consider that the government’s answer to every problem has been more government—at taxpayer expense—and less individual liberty.

    Every crisis—manufactured or otherwise—since the nation’s early beginnings has become a make-work opportunity for the government to expand its reach and its power at taxpayer expense while limiting our freedoms at every turn: The Great Depression. The World Wars. The 9/11 terror attacks. The COVID-19 pandemic.

    Viewed in this light, the history of the United States is a testament to the old adage that liberty decreases as government (and government bureaucracy) grows. Or, to put it another way, as government expands, liberty contracts.

    This is how the emergency state operates, after all, and we should know: after all, we have spent the past 20 years in a state of emergency.

    From 9/11 to COVID-19, “we the people” have acted the part of the helpless, gullible victims desperately in need of the government to save us from whatever danger threatens. In turn, the government has been all too accommodating and eager while also expanding its power and authority in the so-called name of national security.

    This is a government that has grown so corrupt, greedy, power-hungry and tyrannical over the course of the past 240-plus years that our constitutional republic has since given way to idiocracy, and representative government has given way to a kleptocracy (a government ruled by thieves) and a kakistocracy (a government run by unprincipled career politicians, corporations and thieves that panders to the worst vices in our nature and has little regard for the rights of American citizens).

    What this really amounts to is a war on the American people, fought on American soil, funded with taxpayer dollars, and waged with a single-minded determination to use national crises, manufactured or otherwise, in order to transform the American homeland into a battlefield.

    Indeed, the government’s (mis)management of various states of emergency in the past 20 years has spawned a massive security-industrial complex the likes of which have never been seen before. According to the National Priorities Project at the progressive Institute for Policy Studies, since 9/11, the United States has spent $21 trillion on “militarization, surveillance, and repression.”

    Clearly, this is not a government that is a friend to freedom.

    • Rather, this is a government that, in conjunction with its corporate partners, views the citizenry as consumers and bits of data to be bought, sold and traded.

    • This is a government that spies on and treats its people as if they have no right to privacy, especially in their own homes while the freedom to be human is being erased.

    • This is a government that is laying the groundwork to weaponize the public’s biomedical data as a convenient means by which to penalize certain “unacceptable” social behaviors. Incredibly, a new government agency HARPA (a healthcare counterpart to the Pentagon’s research and development arm DARPA) will take the lead in identifying and targeting “signs” of mental illness or violent inclinations among the populace by using artificial intelligence to collect data from Apple Watches, Fitbits, Amazon Echo and Google Home.

    • This is a government that routinely engages in taxation without representation, whose elected officials lobby for our votes only to ignore us once elected.

    • This is a government comprised of petty bureaucrats, vigilantes masquerading as cops, and faceless technicians.

    • This is a government that railroads taxpayers into financing government programs whose only purpose is to increase the power and wealth of the corporate elite.

    • This is a government—a warring empire—that forces its taxpayers to pay for wars abroad that serve no other purpose except to expand the reach of the military industrial complex.

    • This is a government that subjects its people to scans, searches, pat downs and other indignities by the TSA and VIPR raids on so-called “soft” targets like shopping malls and bus depots by black-clad, Darth Vader look-alikes.

    • This is a government that uses fusion centers, which represent the combined surveillance efforts of federal, state and local law enforcement, to track the citizenry’s movements, record their conversations, and catalogue their transactions.

    • This is a government whose wall-to-wall surveillance has given rise to a suspect society in which the burden of proof has been reversed such that Americans are now assumed guilty until or unless they can prove their innocence.

    • This is a government that treats its people like second-class citizens who have no rights, and is working overtime to stigmatize and dehumanize any and all who do not fit with the government’s plans for this country.

    • This is a government that uses free speech zones, roving bubble zones and trespass laws to silence, censor and marginalize Americans and restrict their First Amendment right to speak truth to power.

    • This is a government that persists in renewing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which allows the president and the military to arrest and detain American citizens indefinitely based on the say-so of the government.

    • This is a government that saddled us with the Patriot Act, which opened the door to all manner of government abuses and intrusions on our privacy.

    • This is a government that, in direct opposition to the dire warnings of those who founded our country, has allowed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to establish a standing army by way of programs that transfer surplus military hardware to local and state police.

    • This is a government that has militarized American’s domestic police, equipping them with military weapons such as “tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; a million hollow-point bullets; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft,” in addition to armored vehicles, sound cannons and the like.

    • This is a government that has provided cover to police when they shoot and kill unarmed individuals just for standing a certain way, or moving a certain way, or holding something—anything—that police could misinterpret to be a gun, or igniting some trigger-centric fear in a police officer’s mind that has nothing to do with an actual threat to their safety.

    • This is a government that has created a Constitution-free zone within 100 miles inland of the border around the United States, paving the way for Border Patrol agents to search people’s homes, intimately probe their bodies, and rifle through their belongings, all without a warrant. Nearly 66% of Americans (2/3 of the U.S. population, 197.4 million people) now live within that 100-mile-deep, Constitution-free zone.

    • This is a government that treats public school students as if they were prison inmates, enforcing zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior, and indoctrinating them with teaching that emphasizes rote memorization and test-taking over learning, synthesizing and critical thinking.

    • This is a government that is operating in the negative on every front: it’s spending far more than what it makes (and takes from the American taxpayers) and it is borrowing heavily (from foreign governments and Social Security) to keep the government operating and keep funding its endless wars abroad. Meanwhile, the nation’s sorely neglected infrastructure—railroads, water pipelines, ports, dams, bridges, airports and roads—is rapidly deteriorating.

    • This is a government that has empowered police departments to make a profit at the expense of those they have sworn to protect through the use of asset forfeiture laws, speed traps, and red light cameras.

    • This is a government whose gun violence—inflicted on unarmed individuals by battlefield-trained SWAT teams, militarized police, and bureaucratic government agents trained to shoot first and ask questions later—poses a greater threat to the safety and security of the nation than any mass shooter. There are now reportedly more bureaucratic (non-military) government agents armed with high-tech, deadly weapons than U.S. Marines.

    • This is a government that has allowed the presidency to become a dictatorship operating above and beyond the law, regardless of which party is in power.

    • This is a government that treats dissidents, whistleblowers and freedom fighters as enemies of the state.

    • This is a government that has in recent decades unleashed untold horrors upon the world—including its own citizenry—in the name of global conquest, the acquisition of greater wealth, scientific experimentation, and technological advances, all packaged in the guise of the greater good.

    • This is a government that allows its agents to break laws with immunity while average Americans get the book thrown at them.

    • This is a government that speaks in a language of force. What is this language of force? Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bullets. Water cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. Crowd control tactics. Intimidation tactics. Brutality. Contempt of cop charges.

    • This is a government that justifies all manner of government tyranny and power grabs in the so-called name of national security, national crises and national emergencies.

    • This is a government that exports violence worldwide, with one of this country’s most profitable exports being weapons. Indeed, the United States, the world’s largest exporter of arms, has been selling violence to the world in order to prop up the military industrial complex and maintain its endless wars abroad.

    • This is a government that is consumed with squeezing every last penny out of the population and seemingly unconcerned if essential freedoms are trampled in the process.

    • This is a government that routinely undermines the Constitution and rides roughshod over the rights of the citizenry, eviscerating individual freedoms so that its own powers can be expanded.

    • This is a government that believes it has the authority to search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation, the Constitution be damned.

    In other words, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this is not a government that believes in, let alone upholds, freedom.

    Tyler Durden
    Fri, 09/10/2021 – 00:00

  • Biden Unveils Most Severe COVID Actions Yet: Mandates Vax For All Federal Workers, Contractors, & Large Private Companies
    Biden Unveils Most Severe COVID Actions Yet: Mandates Vax For All Federal Workers, Contractors, & Large Private Companies

    Watch Live:

    *BIDEN SAYS NEARLY 80M AMERICANS ARE STILL NOT VACCINATED

    *BIDEN SAYS WE ARE IN A TOUGH STRETCH, COULD LAST FOR A WHILE

    *BIDEN: TSA TO DOUBLE FINES ON TRAVELERS WHO REFUSE TO MASK

    Highlights and reactions:

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    Summary:

    • Biden to require ‘vast majority’ of federal workers and contractors to get vaccinated or test weekly
    • Biden expected to ask Labor Department for for rule on mandatory vaccinations
    • ‘Some’ exemptions for disability, religion
    • Psaki refuses to answer ‘my body, my choice’ question over vaccinations

    Update (1452ET): President Biden will speak at 5pm ET, where he is expected to announce what’s already been leaked – that most federal workers and contractors will be required to get vaccinated after a 75-day ‘ramp-up’ period. If workers decline to receive shots in that time frame, they will be subject to termination.

    “We would like to be a model for what we think other business and organizations should do around the country,” said White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

    Further, Biden is expected to announce that the Department of Labor will compel employers with over 100 workers to mandate vaccines, or weekly testing.

    Employers who don’t abide by the new policy will face “substantial fines up to nearly $14,000 per violation,” according to a senior Biden official (via PBS). What’s more, Biden will require health care workers at hospitals which take Medicare and Medicaid to be vaccinated – impacting over 17 million workers.

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    More:

    The Labor Department in the coming weeks plans to issue an emergency temporary standard implementing the new requirement, which will cover 80 million private-sector workers, officials said. Businesses that don’t comply can face fines of up to $14,000 per violation, they said.

    The employers will also have to give workers paid time off to get vaccinated or to recover from any side effects of getting vaccinated. –WSJ

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    And of course, when a reporter asks what about ‘my body, my choice’ in regards to vaccination, Psaki makes a beeline for the door.

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    And as we asked earlier, what will the unions do?

    They have already pushed back (here, here, and here) against various mandates (and Dem leadership need all the support they can get as Biden’s approval plummets).

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    *  *  *

    Update (1345ET): Now that the executive order has been confirmed, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki tells the public there will be limited exemptions for health and religious reasons.

    For everybody else, refusing to take the vaccine could lead to termination.

    * * *

    As resistance to President Biden’s booster-shot push grows, it appears the administration is – just as we expected – upping the pressure on federal workers who haven’t yet been vaccinated – while asking private businesses to do the same. According to CNN, the Biden Admin will no longer allow workers to get tested weekly instead of taking the vaccine. Instead, he’s signing an executive order Thursday requiring all workers to get the vaccine or face indefinite suspension.

    What’s more, Biden’s order will extend to employees of government contractors. Per CNN, the same standard will be extended to employees of contractors who do business with the federal government. The Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Indian Health Service and National Institute of Health will also complete their previously announced vaccination requirements, which the White House believes has covered 2.5MM people.

    This marks a significant escalation since earlier in the summer, when Biden unveiled a requirement that federal workers be vaccinated, but allowed for those who opted out to be subject to stringent mitigation measures like weekly tests.

    But mostly the White House is relying on private industry to impose and enforce its vaccine requirements. But Biden also believes the White House has a responsibility to set an example.

    We have one quick question though… What will the unions do?

    They have already pushed back (here, here, and here) against various mandates (and Dem leadership need all the support they can get as Biden’s approval plummets).

    And then there is Portland, whose city officials are preparing to exempt the police force from the “now legally dubious” vaccine mandates.

    The president also plans to announce a major expansion to free testing, a step public health officials have said would be critical to containing the virus, particularly as children return to school and more workers return to the office. Plus, it would, in theory, combat claims that the administration didn’t make the vaccine “accessible” enough.

    Thursday will impose more stringent vaccine rules on federal workers, and take steps to encourage private businesses to do the same, during a major speech meant to lay out a new approach to combating the coronavirus.

    Biden will talk about all this and more tonight, when he unveils his plans to stop the delta variant.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 23:52

  • Tik Tok Recommends Sex, Drug And Alcohol-Themed Content To Minors Aged 13 To 15, WSJ Investigation Reveals
    Tik Tok Recommends Sex, Drug And Alcohol-Themed Content To Minors Aged 13 To 15, WSJ Investigation Reveals

    Tik Tok’s algorithms are routinely serving up sexual content and content containing drugs and alcohol to children as young as 13, a new investigation from the Wall Street Journal revealed this week.

    Using the app under the guise of being a 13 year old user who searched for the term “onlyfan”, Tik Tok even presented the user of two instances of selling pornography. 

    Sexually oriented videos were also included in Tik Tok’s “For You” page, the investigation revealed. Content on this page, which is similar to Twitter’s timeline, is based off of prior searches and content that a user has spent the most time searching for, The Daily Mail added.

    As the “13 year old” user browsed more sexual content, more was recommended to them, despite the user’s age clearly being marked as 13 in their profile.

    Tik Tok has responded by saying they are “working on a new filter tool for younger accounts,” the Daily Mail wrote.

    The investigation took place using 31 bot accounts who were set between the ages of 13 and 15 in order to try and determine what type of content younger Tik Tok users were being shown. It revealed that feeds would eventually wind up becoming more focused on increasingly inappropriate content. 

    The Journal wrote:

    Even when the Journal’s accounts were programmed to express interest in multiple topics, TikTok sometimes zeroed in on single topics and served them hundreds of videos about one in close succession.

    TikTok served one account, which had been programmed with a variety of interests, hundreds of Japanese film and television cartoons. In one streak of 150 videos, all but four featured Japanese animation—many with sexual themes.

    One account that was set up to appear as though it was being used by a 13 year old, was shown 569 videos about drug user, including cocaine and meth addiction. It was also shown promotional videos for the online sale of drug products. 

    Other videos featured alcohol and eating disorders.

    Reporters from the WSJ sent Tik Tok more than 1,000 videos showing the inappropriate content that was shown to the teenage accounts. 255 videos were removed from the platform, including several videos about adults entering relationships with other adults who were pretending to be children. 

    Tik Tok responded: “Protecting minors is vitally important, and TikTok has taken industry-first steps to promote a safe and age-appropriate experience for teens.”

    A company spokesperson told The Mail: “While the activity and resulting experience of these bots in no way represents the behaviour and viewing experience of a real person, we continually work to improve our systems and we’re reviewing how to help prevent even highly unusual viewing habits from creating negative cycles, particularly for our younger users.”

    The company continued: “We care deeply about the safety of minors, which is why we build youth well-being into our policies, limit features by age, empower parents with tools and resources, and continue to invest in new ways to enjoy content based on age-appropriateness or family comfort.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 23:40

  • Escobar: What To Expect From Taliban 2.0
    Escobar: What To Expect From Taliban 2.0

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

    The announcement by Taliban spokesman Zahibullah Mujahid in Kabul of the acting cabinet ministers in the new caretaker government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan already produced a big bang: it managed to enrage both woke NATOstan and the US Deep State.

    This is an all-male, overwhelmingly Pashtun (there’s one Uzbek and one Tajik) cabinet essentially rewarding the Taliban old guard. All 33 appointees are Taliban members.

    Mohammad Hasan Akhund – the head of the Taliban Rehbari Shura, or leadership council, for 20 years – will be the Acting Prime Minister. For all practical purposes, Akhund is branded a terrorist by the UN and the EU, and under sanctions by the UN Security Council. It’s no secret Washington brands some Taliban factions as Foreign Terrorist Organizations, and sanctions the whole of the Taliban as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” organization.

    It’s crucial to stress Himatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban Supreme Leader since 2016, is Amir al-Momineen (“Commander of the Faithful”). He can’t be a Prime Minister; his role is that of a supreme spiritual leader, setting the guidelines for the Islamic Emirate and mediating disputes – politics included.

    Akhunzada has released a statement, noting that the new government “will work hard towards upholding Islamic rules and sharia law in the country” and will ensure “lasting peace, prosperity and development”. He added, “people should not try to leave the country”.

    Spokesman Mujahid took pains to stress this new cabinet is just an “acting” government. This implies one of the next big steps will be to set up a new constitution. The Taliban will “try to take people from other parts of the country” – implying positions for women and Shi’ites may still be open, but not at top level.

    Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar, who so far had been very busy diplomatically as the head of the political office in Doha, will be deputy Prime Minister. He was a Taliban co-founder in 1994 and close friend of Mullah Omar, who called him “Baradar” (“brother”) in the first place.

    A predictable torrent of hysteria greeted the appointment of Sirajuddin Haqqani as Acting Minister of Interior. After all the son of Haqqani founder Jalaluddin, one of three deputy emirs and the Taliban military commander, with a fierce reputation, has a $5 million FBI bounty on his head. His FBI “wanted” page is not exactly a prodigy of intel: they don’t know when he was born, and where, and that he speaks Pashto and Arabic.

    This may be the new government’s top challenge: to prevent Sirajuddin and his wild boys from acting medieval in non-Pashtun areas of Afghanistan, and most of all to make sure the Haqqanis cut off any connections with jihadi outfits. That’s a sine qua non condition established by the China-Russia strategic partnership for political, diplomatic and economic development support.

    Foreign policy will be much more accommodating. Amir Khan Muttaqi, also a member of the political office in Doha, will be the Acting Foreign Minister, and his deputy will be Abas Stanikzai, who’s in favor of cordial relations with Washington and the rights of Afghan religious minorities.

    Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, the son of Mullah Omar, will be the Acting Defense Minister.

    So far, the only non-Pashtuns are Abdul Salam Hanafi, an Uzbek, appointed as second deputy to the Prime Minister, and Qari Muhammad Hanif, a Tajik, the acting Minister of Economic Affairs, a very important post.

    The Tao of staying patient

    The Taliban Revolution has already hit the Walls of Kabul – who are fast being painted white with Kufic letter inscriptions. One of these reads, “For an Islamic system and independence, you have to go through tests and stay patient.”

    That’s quite a Taoist statement: striving for balance towards a real “Islamic system”. It offers a crucial glimpse of what the Taliban leadership may be after: as Islamic theory allows for evolution, the new Afghanistan system will be necessarily unique, quite different from Qatar’s or Iran’s, for instance.

    In the Islamic legal tradition, followed directly or indirectly by rulers of Turko-Persian states for centuries, to rebel against a Muslim ruler is illegitimate because it creates fitna (sedition, conflict). That was already the rationale behind the crushing of the fake “resistance” in the Panjshir – led by former Vice-President and CIA asset Amrullah Saleh. The Taliban even tried serious negotiations, sending a delegation of 40 Islamic scholars to the Panjshir.

    But then Taliban intel established that Ahmad Masoud – son of the legendary Lion of the Panjshir, assassinated two days before 9/11 – was operating under orders of French and Israeli intel. And that sealed his fate: not only he was creating fitna, he was a foreign agent. His partner Saleh, the “resistance” de facto leader, fled by helicopter to Tajikistan.

    It’s fascinating to note a parallel between Islamic legal tradition and Hobbes’s Leviathan, which justifies absolute rulers. The Hobbesian Taliban: here’s a hefty research topic for US Think Tankland.

    The Taliban also follow the rule that a war victory – and nothing more spectacular than defeating combined NATO power – allows for undisputed political power, although that does not discard strategic alliances. We’ve already seen it in terms of how the moderate, Doha-based political Taliban are accommodating the Haqqanis – an extremely sensitive business.

    Abdul Haqqani will be the Acting Minister for Higher Education; Najibullah Haqqani will be Minister of Communications; and Khalil Haqqani, so far ultra-active as interim head of security in Kabul, will be Minister for Refugees.

    The next step will be much harder: to convince the urban, educated populations in the big cities – Kabul, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif – not only of their legitimacy, acquired in the frontlines, but that they will crush the corrupt urban elite that plundered the nation for the past 20 years. All that while engaging in a credible, national interest process of improving the lives of average Afghans under a new Islamic system. It will be crucial to watch what kind of practical and financial help the emir of Qatar will offer.

    The new cabinet has elements of a Pashtun jirga (tribal assembly). I’ve been to a few, and it’s fascinating to see how it works. Everyone sits on a circle to avoid a hierarchy – even if symbolic. Everyone is entitled to express their opinion. This leads to alliances necessarily being forged.

    The negotiations to form a government were being conducted in Kabul by former President Hamid Karzai – crucially, a Pashtun from a minor Durrani clan, the Popalzai – and Abdullah Abdullah, a Tajik, and former head of the Council for National Reconciliation. The Taliban did listen to them, but in the end they de facto chose what their own jirga had decided.

    Pashtuns are extremely fierce when it comes to defending their Islamic credentials. They believe their legendary founding ancestor, Qais Abdul Rasheed, converted to Islam in the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad, and then Pashtuns became the strongest defender of the faith anywhere.

    Yet that’s not exactly how it played out in history. From the 7th century onwards, Islam was predominant only from Herat in the west to legendary Balkh in the north all the way to Central Asia, and south between Sistan and Kandahar. The mountains of the Hindu Kush and the corridor from Kabul to Peshawar resisted Islam for centuries. Kabul in fact was a Hindu kingdom as late as the 11th century. It took as many as five centuries for the core Pashtun lands to convert to Islam.

    Islam with Afghan characteristics

    To cut an immensely complex story short, the Taliban was born in 1994 across the – artificial – border of Afghanistan and Pakistani Balochistan as a movement by Pashtuns who studied in Deobandi madrassas in Pakistan.

    All the Afghan Taliban leaders had very close connections with Pakistani religious parties. During the 1980s anti-USSR jihad, many of these Taliban (“students”) in several madrassas worked side by side with the mujahideen to defend Islam in Afghanistan against the infidel. The whole process was channeled through the Peshawar political establishment: -overseen by the Pakistani ISI, with enormous CIA input, and a tsunami of cash and would-be jihadis flowing from Saudi Arabia and the wider Arab world.

    When they finally seized power in 1994 in Kandahar and 1996 in Kabul, the Taliban emerged as a motley crew of minor clerics and refugees invested in a sort of wacky Afghan reformation – religious and cultural – as they set up what they saw as a pure Salafist Islamic Emirate.

    I saw how it worked on the spot, and as demented as it was, it amounted to a new political force in Afghanistan. The Taliban were very popular in the south because they promised security after the bloody 1992-1995 civil war. The totally radical Islamist ideology came later – with disastrous results, especially in the big cities. But not in the subsistence agriculture countryside, because the Taliban social outlook merely reflected rural Afghan practice.

    The Taliban installed a 7th century-style Salafi Islam crisscrossed with the Pashtunwali code. A huge mistake was their aversion to Sufism and the veneration of shrines – something extremely popular in Islamic Afghanistan for centuries.

    It’s too early to tell how Taliban 2.0 will play out in the dizzyingly complex, emerging Eurasian integration chessboard. But internally, a wiser, more traveled, social media-savvy Taliban seem aware they cannot allow themselves to repeat the dire 1996-2001 mistakes.

    Deng Xiaoping set the framework for socialism with Chinese characteristics .

    One of the greatest geopolitical challenges ahead will be whether Taliban 2.0 are able to shape a sustainable development Islam with Afghan characteristics.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 23:20

  • Biden Exempts Over 600,000 USPS Workers From Federal Mandatory Vaccination Order
    Biden Exempts Over 600,000 USPS Workers From Federal Mandatory Vaccination Order

    All people are equal before “the scienceTM“, but some unions are more equal.

    We previously noted that in an unspoken footnote to Biden’s bombastic “no jab, no job” speech, various labor unions had quietly (and not so quietly) voiced their displeasure to the now official mandatory vaccinations including NYC teachers, California’s largest public sector union and of course, the US Postal Service. And now we know that while Biden was eager to frame his new vaxx policy as all inclusive and with no exception, that was not really true.

    According to the Washington Post citing a “White House official speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss not-yet-public portions of the president’s plan”, U.S. Postal Service workers were not included in Biden’s executive order requiring all federal employees to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

    While Biden framed his mandate as one covering all federal workers and all companies with more than 100 staff, he forgot to mention that any labor union that is instrumental in keeping the Democrats in power would be granted a very “unscientific” exemption. The loophole in question, according to the report, according to the White House source, is that the “USPS has a separate statutory scheme and is traditionally independent of federal personnel actions like this” even though postal workers would be strongly encouraged to comply with the mandate. Paradoxically, the WaPo also notes that this “explainer” is in conflict with reality: after all, the Postal Service is an independent agency of the executive branch, and it is required to be specifically included in executive orders that apply to working conditions for federal employees.

    In any case, we doubt “strong encouragement” will be sufficient to get most postal workers jabbed since the reason they refuse to get vaccinated in the first place is lack of trust in the government, the same reason tens of millions of Americans also refuse to get jabbed. But since they don’t represent one of the most politically powerful unions in the US, they don’t get to be “strongly encouraged” and instead are told what to do.

    What is even more bizarre is that according to the WaPo, the 644,000 strong USPS workfore, which represents a massive chunk of the federal workforce, interacts daily with an equally large swath of the public. As such if Biden was really worried about super spreaders, he would vaccinate postal workers first. The fact that he won’t suggests that other things are at play here besides “the scienceTM“

    So how did over 600,000 Federal workers get a carveout? Simple: unions > science.

    One of the Postal Service’s powerful unions, the American Postal Workers Union, in July criticized the administration’s efforts to require federal workers to be vaccinated and demanded that postal leadership collectively bargain on the issue.

    “While the APWU leadership continues to encourage postal workers to voluntarily get vaccinated, it is not the role of the federal government to mandate vaccinations for the employees we represent,” the union said in a statement.

    As for why the increasingly unpopular – in the words of the NYT – Biden will go to such great lengths to discredit his own stated intent and further dilute people’s faith in the executive branch, the answer is simple: we are just over a year away from the next mail in elections and the Democrats can not take any chances.

    Curiously, shortly after the WaPo original reported about the USPS exemption, someone woke up Joe from his nap or got in touch with whoever really runs the country, and advised them that the natives may get restless at this glorious hypocrisy, and so a “senior Biden admin” told Yahoo that “U.S. Postal Service workers are subject to a rule to be developed by the Labor Department mandating coronavirus vaccinations for workers and weekly testing for non-vaccinated employees at companies with over 100 workers, a senior Biden administration official told CNN and the Washington Post.”

    In other words, for the purposes of keeping the labor union happy, USPS workers – which comprise the largest group of Federal employees – will be treated as, get this, private sector employees for legal purposes. This means they will be covered under the OSHA vaccine/testing mandate – and thus not face the “no jab, no job” dilemma – rather than the federal employee mandatory vaccination order.

    Finally, just in case WaPo’s Jacob Bogage gets a tap on the shoulder and is told to quietly delete what will spark even more confusion and chaos in the administration, here is a snapshot of their original report.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 23:00

  • DHS's Shift To Domestic Terrorism Is "Chasing The Shiny Object", Says Ex-DHS Head At 9/11 Anniversary Event
    DHS’s Shift To Domestic Terrorism Is “Chasing The Shiny Object”, Says Ex-DHS Head At 9/11 Anniversary Event

    Authored by Terri Wu via The Epoch Times,

    With its recent focus on domestic terrorism, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is veering off its core competency by “chasing the shiny object,” according to former Acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf.

    He said that DHS should focus on international terrorism, especially given the security risks incurred by the withdrawal of American forces in Afghanistan. The talk of establishing a new statute on domestic terrorism seems like “weaponizing the criminal justice system,” added Chris Swecker, former FBI assistant director.

    At a 9/11 anniversary event hosted by the Heritage Foundation on Tuesday, Wolf said that DHS’s first-ever comprehensive threat assessment (pdf) published in October 2020 highlighted threats from China and Russia. However, domestic terrorism was a small piece in the overall picture, according to Wolf, adding that some people have “blown that [domestic terrorism] out of proportion.”

    Given that Afghanistan has become a safe haven for terrorists and that America has withdrawn its diplomatic presence, the area will be a “black hole” for the U.S. homeland security, according to Wolf.

    Wolf said that the normal vetting process for Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans is 18 to 24 months. Now Afghans are being paroled in and vetted in a matter of days. It would take only one or two bad actors to harm the security of the American homeland, added Wolf.

    Swecker highlighted that international terrorist groups could pressure family members in Afghanistan to extort people in the United States to do their bidding, similar to how the Chinese Communist Party operates. This could bring additional domestic security risks, said Swecker.

    Both expressed worries about a potential new statute on domestic terrorism. They said that existing laws cover prosecution of domestic terrorism acts. However, the proposed new rule seems to point to naming domestic terrorist groups or people, which could be dangerous in terms of harming people’s freedom of speech.

    Furthermore, Swecker pointed out that recent DHS bulletins on domestic terrorism did not mention Antifa or Black Lives Matter riots in 2020. The DHS threat assessment report documented these events: “DHS law enforcement officers suffered over 300 separate injuries and were assaulted with sledgehammers, commercial grade fireworks, rocks, metal pipes, improvised explosive devices, and more.”

    Wolf defined domestic terrorism as “committing crimes that are intended to force your ideology on a population on a government.” He said he worried that the domestic terrorism issue would become political:

    “Violence is violence, whether it’s coming from the right or the left. You have to condemn it equally. Otherwise, it becomes a political issue.”

    Calling the 9/11 terrorist attack “one of the most significant events of the last 100 years,” Swecker said, “It was an attack on our government and our people. And it was highly successful by a determined, well-funded, well-trained terrorist organization that hasn’t gone away.”

    Wolf added that it might be hard for some Americans to fathom that there were individuals and organizations “whose sole mission is to harm America.” He said China and Russia were examples of that. “I don’t think that can be overstated enough,” said Wolf.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 22:41

  • International Space Station Alarms Triggered After "Burning Plastic Smell"
    International Space Station Alarms Triggered After “Burning Plastic Smell”

    Less than one week after Russian cosmonauts discovered small cracks on the aging International Space Station (ISS), smoke alarms were triggered on the station in the early hours of Thursday, according to AP. Crew members reported dark smoke and the smell of burnt plastic coming from the Russian segment of the space station. 

    Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, said the incident unfolded at 0155 ET in the Russian-built Zvezda module during an overnight recharge of the station’s batteries. 

    French astronaut Thomas Pesquet said, “the smell of burning plastic or electronic equipment” made its way through the station into the US segment, RIA Novosti reported, citing a NASA broadcast.

    Pesquet and other crew members turned on air filters to scrub the station’s air of smoke/smell. There was no word on how much smoke was emitted, but reports indicate astronauts went back to sleep after air quality levels returned to normal. 

    It appears that whatever was burning didn’t affect operations on the station. Hours later, a planned spacewalk was conducted by cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy who fished an “ethernet” data cord around the outside of the multipurpose laboratory module of the space station. 

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    The aging space station has suffered numerous failures, including air leaks, cracks, and misfiring engines. Russia said in April that it would leave the station in 2025, citing structural fatigue that could suggest it may not be capable of operating beyond 2030. 

    Meanwhile, the Chinese have launched a new space station that is expected to outlast the ISS. 

    The smoke incident comes a week after “superficial fissures have been found in some places on the Zarya module,” according to Vladimir Solovyov, the chief engineer of Moscow-based company Energia, the top contractor for Russia’s spaceflight program.  

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 22:20

  • Parent In China Sells Newborn Baby In Black Market, Child-Trafficking Organization Exposed
    Parent In China Sells Newborn Baby In Black Market, Child-Trafficking Organization Exposed

    By Shawn Li of the Epoch Times,

    A civilian exposed China’s black market involving the trafficking and selling of newborn babies under the guise of adoption after a year-long voluntary undercover investigation.

    A baby sits in a basket on his way home after shopping for spring festival couplets in Chengdu of Sichuan Province, China, on Jan. 16, 2009

    According to The Paper, a Chinese state-owned digital newspaper, a civilian played a critical role in the anti-trafficking effort. The civilian, Zhengyi Shangguan, joined a baby trafficking WeChat group disguised as a barren woman who desired a daughter. After prolonged undercover work, Shangguan gradually gained the trust of the middleman and was later considered to be a suitable buyer.

    There were about 100 members in the WeChat group, consisting of people from various cities and provinces in China. Due to WeChat’s sensitive vocabulary recognition, the group often disbands and reassembles itself. New members must clearly state their needs or be removed from the chat group.

    Shangguan was able to identify the encrypted terms used by the group to avoid vocabulary detection. For example, the slang “bao” represents “baby.” The English letter “S” represents “sending for adoption,” and “L” represents “acceptance of adoption.” The two English letters corresponded to selling and buying.

    On June 11, Shangguan received an encrypted message on WeChat suggesting that a baby girl would be available, followed by a phone conversation. The party that reached out to Shangguan was Ms. Zhu, one of the alleged orchestrators.

    Zhu said the baby girl was expected to be delivered around July 20 at a hospital, and the price would be $17,000. She then guaranteed the baby’s health with a clean genetic history and offered to be there for the entire delivery process. To further dispel buyer worries, Zhu also suggested that payment could be made on the delivery day, but only cash would be accepted.

    In addition, Zhu repeatedly stated that a birth certificate was not recommended because it could easily be obtained afterward. However, if requested, the birth certificate would be an additional $6,000. She explained that getting a birth certificate at the time of delivery would require the birth mother to use the buyer’s identity to register the baby, which is not ideal because if the birth mother knows who the buyer is, she may decide to look for her child in the future. According to Zhu, it would be worrisome to know the birth mother could find her child one day.

    After thorough communications, Shangguan learned the entire delivery process and transaction details: A pregnant woman is usually admitted to the hospital’s delivery room in the morning. For the next three days, the newborn will be looked after by the nurses and screened for diseases and defects. After the examinations are completed, the baby is ready to be discharged. Upon discharge, the nurses will hand the baby directly to Zhu. After collecting payment, Zhu then passes the baby to the buyer along with a “consent to adoption letter” signed by the birth mother—then the transaction is complete.

    Zhu appeared to be detail-oriented in her operations and even provided the buyer tips in advance. She suggested that it’s best to pretend to be pregnant months before the transaction occurs. Otherwise, friends and neighbors might question when a child suddenly appears. “It may cast a shadow in the child’s future if not done properly,” Zhu said, according to CCP-backed media Sina.

    To ensure smooth operations, Zhu claimed that she had connections in the local hospitals and that doctors and nurses generally turned a blind eye. “You have to spend what you have to spend to make things work,” Zhu added, and suggested that there are even other staff that are part of the operation.

    Zhu claimed to have graduated with a master’s degree and was formally a teacher. After remarrying, she was unable to conceive and started her 10-year-journey to have a child and accidentally entered the business of trafficking. The middleman in the WeChat group once helped her get a surrogate, and the two became partners.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 22:00

  • LAPD Orders Cops To Collect Social Media Data On Every Single Person They Stop
    LAPD Orders Cops To Collect Social Media Data On Every Single Person They Stop

    Los Angeles police officers have been directed to collect social media information on every civilian they interview, including people who haven’t been arrested or accused of a crime, according to the Guardian, citing leaked records.

    According to the report, “field interview cards” used by LAPD officers contain instructions to record a civilian’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and any other social media accounts – along with basic biographical information. Chief Michael Moore has reportedly told cops to collect the data for use in “investigations, arrests, and prosecutions,” and has warned officers that the cards will be audited by supervisors to ensure they’re filled out completely.

    “There are real dangers about police having all of this social media identifying information at their fingertips,” said Rachel Levinson-Waldman, a deputy director at the Brennan Center for Justice, which obtained the documents.

    The Brennan Center conducted a review of 40 other police agencies in the US and was unable to find another department that required social media collection on interview cards (though many have not publicly disclosed copies of the cards). The organization also obtained records about the LAPD’s social media surveillance technologies, which have raised questions about the monitoring of activist groups including Black Lives Matter. -Guardian

    Monitoring of social media accounts began in 2015, when the LAPD’s interview cards contained a line for “social media accounts.”

    “Similar to a nickname or an alias, a person’s online persona or identity used for social media … can be highly beneficial to investigations,” wrote former LAPD Chief, Charlie Beck.

    According to the LA Times, over half of civilians stopped by LAPD and had their personal details taken were not arrested or cited. Last October, criminal charges were filed against three officers in the LAPD’s metro division for using cards to falsely label civilians as gang members once they were stopped.

    Police keep a watchful eye on a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest outside Los Angeles’ city hall on 2 June 2020. Photograph: David Buchan/Rex/Shutterstock

    Known associates

    As the Guardian points out, when police obtain social media information from people, it invites the possibility that they’ll monitor people’s “friends” and other online connections, which creates additional privacy concerns.

    “It allows for a huge expansion of network surveillance,” said Levinson-Waldman, who noted that the authorities have historically used Facebook photos and “likes” to falsely accuse people of criminal gang activity.

    Hamid Khan of the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition noted that the LAPD also shares data with federal law enforcement agencies through “fusion centers”, and has previously used “predictive policing” technologies that rely on data collected by officers in the field and which can criminalize communities of color.

    “This is like stop and frisk,” he said, of the use of field interview cards. “And this is happening with the clear goal of surveillance.” The LAPD, he noted, has allowed officers to pose undercover to investigate groups, meaning officers can create fake social media accounts to infiltrate groups.

    Dr Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter LA, said she had long suspected the LAPD conducted “targeted tracking” of specific groups or individual accounts, but was surprised to learn of the default collection of this information in everyday encounters. She fears this could be part of “a massive surveillance operation”. -Guardian

    Minority Report

    According to the Brennan Center, the LAPD is now looking to technology from Media Sonar, a social media tracking company that provides services to police departments. In the LAPD’s 2021 budget, $73,000 was allocated to purchase Media Sonar software to help “address a potential threat or incident before its occurrence.“

    According to one message between Media Sonar and the LAPD, the software can be used to “stay on-top of drug/gang/weapon slang keywords and hashtags,” and that it offers “pre-built keyword groups” to “help jumpstart implementation” of threats and help “cast a wide net.”

    In short, talk to the cops at your own risk.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 21:40

  • Taliban Declare Ban On Slogans, Protests That Don’t Have Their Approval
    Taliban Declare Ban On Slogans, Protests That Don’t Have Their Approval

    Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

    The Taliban on Sept. 8 announced a ban on all slogans, demonstrations, and protests that do not have their official approval in yet another signal that the Islamist group is taking a hardline and repressive approach to government.

    Taliban soldiers are seen in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Sept. 7, 2021. (Wali Sabawoon/AP Photo)

    A decree was issued on Wednesday by the head of the Taliban’s new interior ministry, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is a member of the Haqqani network that has long been designated as a terrorist organization by the Department of State. The department also has a $10 million bounty on Haqqani’s head, while the U.N. has Haqqani on a sanctions list.

    Haqqani’s decree said that protesters without the Taliban’s permission to stage demonstrations in a stated location and time will face “severe legal consequences.”

    Approval must also be given for any slogans that might be used during the protest.

    The decree also accused Afghans protesting in Kabul and other provinces in recent days for “disrupting security, harassing people, and disrupting normal life,” telling citizens that “no one should protest and cause concern to the citizens” without permission from the Ministry of Justice.

    It claimed, “The Islamic Emirate addresses the legitimate demands and rights of all citizens and must be given time to take the necessary steps to address other issues once security is restored.”

    The announcement comes amid multiple protests in the country between Taliban fighters and demonstrators—including one protest led by local women in Kabul.

    On Tuesday, the terrorist group was seen firing shots into the air in an effort to disperse a large protest being held outside the Pakistan embassy in Kabul, while several reporters were arrested as they attempted to document the demonstration, according to reports.

    Thousands of Afghan men and women took to the streets to protest against the Taliban and what they characterized as Pakistani intelligence’s interference in the affairs of the Middle Eastern nation and for allegedly being the guiding hand behind the Taliban’s return to power.

    Demonstrators allege Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) supported the Taliban’s latest offensive that routed resistance fighters in the Panjshir Valley north of Kabul—the last area where anti-Taliban resistance fighters have held out against the terrorist group. Islamabad denies this.

    Some of the protestors carried signs reading “ISI stay away.” Others shouted slogans such as “Azadi [freedom or liberty]” and “Death to Pakistan.”

    On Tuesday, the Taliban announced its new government for Afghanistan, challenging claims to rightful government by former Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who says he is the “legitimate caretaker president” according to the country’s constitution adopted in 2004. The Taliban’s cabinet notably does not include any women or non-Taliban figures, despite the militant group vowing to form an “inclusive government” as part of the Doha agreement.

    The group named Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund as the country’s interim prime minister and co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar as second in command, while Mullah Yaqoob, will be the defence minister.

    The international community has expressed concern over the lack of diversity within the Taliban’s so-called government, with the United States previously stating that it would not recognize a Taliban-led government if it wasn’t inclusive.

    “We note the announced list of names consists exclusively of individuals who are members of the Taliban or their close associates and no women. We also are concerned by the affiliations and track records of some of the individuals,” a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said in a statement following Tuesday’s announcement.

    Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s deputy leader and negotiator, and other delegation members attend the Afghan peace conference in Moscow, Russia on March 18, 2021. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool via Reuters)

    “We understand that the Taliban has presented this as a caretaker cabinet. However, we will judge the Taliban by its actions, not words.”

    The UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson also echoed U.S. concerns over the Taliban’s proposed government and the distinct lack of diversity.

    “We would want to see, in any situation, a diverse group in leadership which seeks to address the pledges that the Taliban themselves have set out, and that’s not what we have seen,” a spokesman for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said. “We will continue to judge the Taliban on their actions.”

    European Union spokesperson Peter Stano said the new government “does not look like the inclusive and representative formation in terms of the rich ethnic and religious diversity of Afghanistan we hoped to see and that the Taliban were promising over the past weeks,” in a statement to media outlets.

    Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the exclusion of groups outside the Taliban, coupled with the violence perpetrated by Taliban terrorists against protesters and journalists in Kabul “are not signals that give cause for optimism.”

    “It must be clear to the Taliban that international isolation is not in its interests, and especially not in those of Afghanistan’s people,” Maas added.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 21:20

  • California's Top Grid Operator Asks Feds To Burn More Fossil Fuels To Avert Blackouts
    California’s Top Grid Operator Asks Feds To Burn More Fossil Fuels To Avert Blackouts

    California’s power grid transition to renewable energy sources appears to be backfiring. The push into clean energy is not producing enough power to meet demand during hot summer days, and it’s becoming harder for the Golden State to avoid rolling blackouts.

    A stunning new revelation in the state’s top grid operator, California Independent System Operator, filing to US Department of Energy (DoE), titled “Request for Emergency Order Pursuant to Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act,” requested the federal government to declare an “electric reliability emergency” so it can use more fossil fuel power generation to prevent blackouts. 

    “An emergency order will allow the CAISO to dispatch additional generation that may be necessary for the CAISO to meet demand in the face of extremely challenging conditions including extreme heat waves, multiple fires, high winds, and various grid issues,” the filing read.

    CAISO wants the DoE to suspend air-pollution rules so it can use natural gas turbines as “back-up power generation and freeing up additional energy capacity to help alleviate electric demand on the electricity grid.” 

    The request was filed on Tuesday ahead of CAISO’s statewide flex alert that urges customers to “conserve electricity” in the evening due to hot weather. The grid operator warned, “energy supply is tight at the moment.” 

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    The state is struggling to balance its clean energy push, and the request to the DoE is a sore eye for environmentalists who’ve been on a crusade to ban fossil fuel generation from the grid. It’s also negative news for President Biden’s infrastructure spending that aims of “achieving 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035.” 

    If the widespread blackouts that shocked Texas earlier this year due to a cold snap that froze wind power generation sources was a lesson for the future of green power grids – then maybe America is not ready for Biden’s 2035 decarbonization target. 

    … and why isn’t climate alarmist Greta Thunberg bashing California on Twitter for wanting to burn more fossil fuels? 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 21:00

  • Intelligence Community Assessment On COVID-19 Origins Ignores Readily Available Information
    Intelligence Community Assessment On COVID-19 Origins Ignores Readily Available Information

    Authored by Jeff Carlson and Hans Mahncke via The Epoch Times,

    In May 2021, President Joe Biden gave the intelligence community 90 days to write a report on the origins of COVID-19. The declassified version of that assessment has now been released.

    The report is only 493 words long and curiously ignores readily available information, instead choosing to focus on and reinforce questions that are, for the most part, unknowable.

    Specifically, the Intelligence Community (IC) claimed that in order to reach a conclusive assessment, it required “clinical samples or a complete understanding of epidemiological data from the earliest cases.”

    This China-reliant approach aligns with a recent response from Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). When he finally conceded in June of this year that the virus might have originated in a Wuhan lab, Fauci also said that clinical samples of the earliest cases were needed.

    At the same time, while the IC claims that China’s cooperation is needed to determine the origins of COVID-19, it acknowledges that China has refused to cooperate with any true investigation.

    Fauci and the IC both understand that if there was information helpful to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), that information would have been released immediately.

    The report, unsigned but issued under a Director of National Intelligence letterhead, appears to be structured in a manner designed to avoid upsetting China. More importantly, the report effectively protects China, repeatedly giving weight to the lack of foreknowledge of the outbreak on the part of China officials. The report ignores that if the pandemic resulted from a lab accident, no official would have had foreknowledge.

    The IC also appears to conflate cause and effect by claiming that China’s failure to cooperate with an investigation is motivated by “frustration” that the international community is “using the issue to exert political pressure on China.”

    Notably, the IC has shown a marked lack of interest in the copious amount of data that is already available and does not require CCP assistance.

    Perhaps the most obvious fact pointing at a lab leak is simply that Wuhan is at least 1,000 miles from natural bat habitats—a point not even mentioned in the IC’s report. 

    Additionally, Wuhan was the only location in China where bat virus experiments were taking place. In fact, Wuhan had at least three labs conducting such work—the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the Wuhan CDC Lab, and the Wuhan University Center for Animal Experiment. 

    The director of the WIV, Shi Zhengli, herself admitted that she never expected this kind of virus to emerge in Wuhan. When viruses emerged naturally in the past, they emerged in Southern China.

    Also ignored by the IC Report was the type of research being conducted at WIV since at least 2007, which has been well documented. Research papers provide direct evidence of increasingly sophisticated gain-of-function experiments—a process whereby viruses are deliberately made more virulent in order to predict emerging diseases—being carried out by the WIV lab in the years leading up the pandemic, including a number of experiments specifically designed to make coronaviruses more transmissible to humans.

    Some of these gain-of-function experiments were also detailed in a Nov. 9, 2015, article in the journal Nature about experiments that were being conducted at the Wuhan lab using “chimeric viruses” in mice.

    Notably, In 2014, Fauci’s NIAID awarded a $3.7 million grant to the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance, headed by Peter Daszak. According to Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), some of the grant funds “went to Wuhan” as part of “a subcontract from EcoHealth.” In August 2020, after President Donald Trump canceled the first grant, Fauci awarded Daszak’s EcoHealth a new grant of $7.5 million. 

    Only one section of the report refers to animal handling and sampling by the WIV. This section is in reference to one intelligence agency that concluded that it was moderately confident that the virus may have leaked from a Wuhan lab. Notably, all other agencies leaned toward natural origins for the virus’s outbreak. 

    The report ignores that live bats were kept at the WIV, apparently the only location in Wuhan where bats could actually be found. The report also fails to note that thousands of bat samples were brought from Southern China to Wuhan by lab scientists.

    The huge depository of bat samples in Wuhan was confirmed by Daszak in July 2020, when he discussed the early discovery of a close genetic match to COVID-19, noting that “It was just one of the 16,000 bats we sampled. It was a faecal sample, we put it in a tube, put it in liquid nitrogen, took it back to the lab. We sequenced a short fragment.”

    Daszak, the person through whom Fauci was providing funding for the WIV, denied that live bats were kept at the Wuhan lab, claiming that that was not the way science worked. Daszak later deleted his tweet denial without explanation. Pictures from inside the WIV Lab have since emerged, confirming that live bats were indeed held by laboratory staff.

    The report also fails to address the fact that the director of the WIV, Shi Zhengli, tried to cover up the fact that she had maintained possession of the closest known relative to COVID-19 for more than seven years. Shi suddenly renamed the virus in early 2020 at the onset of the pandemic, thereby obscuring that her lab had held a closely related virus.

    Shi also obfuscated the virus’s origin. The location where Shi originally found the COVID-like virus was later discovered to be the Mojiang Mine where three miners had died with COVID-like symptoms in 2012. Shi would later admit that the Mojiang Mine was indeed the source of her virus.

    Shi’s research on bat coronaviruses had previously drawn the attention of diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in China. In 2018, after visiting the WIV, they sent a number of cables to the State Department warning of the inadequate safety conditions at the lab. 

    Fauci’s own official representative in China, Chen Ping, had herself sent multiple messages to Fauci’s office—all of which should have raised red flags. Chen noted that research papers detailing gain-of-function experiments at the WIV were being published as NIH-funded work.

    Her inquiries with Fauci’s office appear to have gone unanswered. Chen also complained that she was being denied access to the WIV. When, after two years, Chen was finally allowed to visit the facility, she was forbidden from taking any pictures inside the lab.

    Since the start of the pandemic, unearthed video footage taken by Chinese TV crews inside the lab has been used to pinpoint a number of biosafety lapses, as well as the fact that the lab was keeping live bats.

    In 2015, an article in Nature specifically warned about the pandemic potential from the WIV experiments. Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist and biodefense expert at Rutgers University, presciently stated, “The only impact of this work is the creation, in a lab, of a new, non-natural risk.”

    There is no mention of any of these pre-pandemic warnings in the IC’s report. Nor is there any mention of the warnings from the French government, which had initially helped with the construction of the WIV’s BSL-4 (biosafety level 4) lab as part of a joint venture with the Chinese regime.

    However, the French government later refused to certify the WIV’s lab based on bioweapon concerns from military officials. France also denied China access to safety equipment and viruses over similar concerns that these could be used for bioweapons research.

    Additionally, in 2009, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was warned in a diplomatic cable of the construction of the WIV BSL-4 lab and the potential for biological weapons proliferation.

    The IC report also failed to note that both the WIV and the Wuhan CDC were conducting bat coronavirus experiments in BSL-2 labs, a low biosafety environment that falls below the accepted threshold of safety for coronavirus research levels. A minimum of BSL-3 is required for working with coronaviruses, including isolation, culture, and amplification.

    When Shi Zhengli finally admitted to conducting coronavirus experiments at BSL-2, a prominent natural origins supporter, Ian Lipkin, changed his view on the pandemic’s origin. Lipkin now thinks the virus did come out of a Wuhan lab, saying that “It shouldn’t have happened. People should not be looking at bat viruses in BSL-2 labs. My view has changed.”

    A more recent development also ignored in the IC’s report is that the World Health Organization’s (WHO) lead origins investigator, Peter Ben Embarek, has now claimed in a Danish documentary that a lab leak is likely and “may well have been started by an employee at one of the city’s laboratories.”

    Embarek, who headed the WHO’s team that visited Wuhan in February of this year, had earlier claimed that a lab leak was extremely unlikely. But he now admits that that claim was the result of pressure from the Chinese regime. Embarek told the Danish documentary team that after two days of negotiations, a deal was struck between the Embarek’s team and their Chinese counterparts. 

    Under the deal struck with the CCP, Embarek would be allowed to mention the lab leak theory—but only on condition that it was determined to be “extremely unlikely” and that there would be no further studies into the issue.

    The IC report also fails to address a Feb. 1, 2020, teleconference that was hastily organized by Fauci and Dr. Jeremy Farrar, director of the British Wellcome Trust. The teleconference took place after the previous night’s public reporting of a potential connection between COVID-19 and the WIV.

    Fauci and Farrar were concerned about previous U.S. involvement with the lab, and that they had knowledge of public statements made by the Wuhan lab’s director about U.S. funding being used for controversial gain-of-function research conducted there.

    Following the teleconference, public discussion of the source possibly being a lab leak was actively suppressed by social media platforms, health officials, and the WHO.

    Teleconference participants were also instrumental in publishing two influential articles that were used extensively by media organizations to push the natural origins theory. Simultaneously, alternative theories—including that of a possible lab leak—were widely discredited as conspiracy theories.

    Another related area of focus that the IC report failed to address was funding of the WIV from domestic sources in the U.S. government and how those funds were being utilized. The funding agencies, including Fauci’s NIAID and NIH, have responsive records and documentation in their possession, as does Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance, through whom funding of the WIV was arranged.

    Indeed, EcoHealth documents recently released under the Freedom of Information Act have confirmed that Fauci’s NIAID funded gain-of-function experiments—including the construction of novel chimeric SARS-related coronaviruses at the WIV. Those engineered viruses were tested on humanized mice showing that the viruses could infect humans and were more pathogenic than the original virus.

    Publishers such as Springer-Nature and Lancet, both of whom aggressively advanced the natural origins narrative, have archives of early drafts, data, and review reports of the many papers submitted by WIV staff. The Wellcome Trust, with whose help Fauci orchestrated his secret teleconference, has records pertaining to both its role in the teleconference as well as in funding the WIV.

    The lab that trained WIV staff, the Galveston National Laboratory in Texas, has detailed information both on the training and the staff. The government of France has records on the construction of the lab and on the disputes that ultimately led France to withdraw from the WIV. The EU also funded the WIV and has pertinent records. 

    There are also whistleblowers from Western countries. While it is not realistic to gain direct access to Chinese whistleblowers such as Xiao Botao, a scientist from Wuhan, who was the first to publicly blame a lab leak for the pandemic on Feb. 6, 2020, there are many others—including some scientists who may have been initially misled by their peers.

    Andrew Huff used to work as associate vice president at Daszak’s EcoHealth. He has since posted a number of statements on LinkedIn blaming a lab leak for the pandemic and also blaming international scientists for collaborating in the lab leak cover-up.

    In response to the claim that the virus’s origin could not be determined, Huff stated that “you can read the peer reviewed studies, patent filings, grant applications, and Fauci emails, and it is very clear what Fauci’s role was.”

    There are also a number of scientists involved in initial efforts to push the natural origins theory who have since had a change of heart. Stanley Perlman now says that the lab leak theory is “back on the table.” And signatory Charles Calisher claims that it was “over the top” to call the lab leak a conspiracy theory.

    Another signatory, Peter Palese, is now demanding a proper investigation. Most notably, University of Chicago professor Bernard Roizman has stated that the virus originated from the lab due to “sloppiness,“ claiming that Wuhan lab personnel “can’t admit they did something so stupid.”

    The intelligence community’s report has stated that “China’s cooperation most likely would be needed to reach a conclusive assessment of the origins of COVID-19.”

    But there is a wealth of information in the public realm that is readily available and does not require the vast resources of our nation’s intelligence communities or the CCP’s cooperation.

    If the IC’s intention was to provide the public with an answer to the origin of the virus, that answer could easily be found.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 20:40

  • Amazon Plans To Sell New TV Line, A Move To Dominate Market For In-Home Entertainment
    Amazon Plans To Sell New TV Line, A Move To Dominate Market For In-Home Entertainment

    Amazon, over the years, has harvested data from its users and third-party vendors to determine what new products to private label. A new report from Bloomberg indicates the e-commerce giant is set to introduce a new line of televisions on Thursday. 

    According to the report, Amazon Fire TV will offer two lines of televisions, the first called “Omni,” priced around $409.99, and the second called “4-Series,” which will start at $369.99. 

    The TVs range from 43 inches to 75 inches and will go on sale in October. The move is to compete against Roku and Google to dominate the market for in-home entertainment, which has tremendously grown since the beginning of COVID. 

    Amazon is already the largest player in the connected-TV industry, with more than 100 million Fire Sticks devices sold. The company wants to private label televisions to gain market share, not just from Roku and Google, but also control a slice of the television market.

    The question many have is how well will customers be receptive towards an Amazon TV. A little more than half a decade ago, the e-commerce giant tried to take on Apple and Google with its first-ever smartphone, which ended up as a colossal disappointment. 

    Amazon’s price points for Fire TV need to be ultra-competitive towards rivals. Now, with Affirm, a buy now, pay later payment provider, customers might be able to afford these televisions. 

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 20:20

  • US Airstrikes Have Killed Up To 48,000 Civilians Since 9/11
    US Airstrikes Have Killed Up To 48,000 Civilians Since 9/11

    Authored by Kenny Stancil via CommonDreams.org,

    Airstrikes conducted by the United States have killed between 22,000 and 48,000 civilians since September 11, 2001, according to a report published Monday by Airwars, a military watchdog that monitors and seeks to reduce civilian harm in violent conflict zones.

    The new analysis, released ahead of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the retaliatory launch of the so-called “War on Terror,” came just days after a U.S. drone strike killed at least 10 members of a single family in Kabul amid the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

    US airstrikes near Kobani, Syria. via Reuters

    Most media accounts point out that more than 7,000 U.S. service members have died in post-9/11 wars, but only some go on to state the massive civilian death toll, and “almost exclusively in generalities,” researchers lamented.

    While Brown University’s Costs of War project estimates that over 387,000 civilians have been killed as a result of the War on Terror, Airwars sought to answer a specific question: How many civilians have likely been killed by U.S. airstrikes in the last 20 years?

    The answer, Airwars found, is least 22,679, and potentially as many 48,308 civilians.

    Acknowledging the imprecision of their estimate, the group noted that “the gap between these two figures reflects the many unknowns when it comes to civilian harm in war.”

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    “Belligerents rarely track the effects of their own actions—and even then do so poorly,” researchers wrote. “It is left to local communities, civil society, and international agencies to count the costs.”

    The Pentagon has declared a minimum of 91,340 airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen—seven countries the U.S. military invaded or assaulted with bombs or drones—in the past 20 years. Notable peaks occurred during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and between 2015 and 2017, the height of the military offensive against ISIS in Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

    Given the dubious nature of data supplied by the U.S. military—which notoriously undercounts civilian fatalities—Airwars “gathered together every reliable assessment of direct civilian harm caused by U.S. actions” to construct a dataset that includes information from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Iraq Body Count, The Nation, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, and their own previous studies.

    “Wherever possible we sought to measure civilian harm just from U.S. airstrikes but in some cases, such as the first years of the Iraq invasion, it was impossible to disaggregate airstrikes from artillery fire and other heavy munitions, which were therefore included,” researchers noted. “Likewise in some U.S.-led coalitions it was impossible to determine whether each individual strike was American, though U.S. airpower has dominated all such campaigns.”

    Based on its comprehensive review of credible sources, Airwars identified 2003 as the deadliest year of the War on Terror, “when a minimum of 5,529 civilians were reported to have been killed by U.S. actions.”

    “The next deadliest year was 2017, when at least 4,931 civilians were likely killed, the vast majority in alleged coalition bombing of Iraq and Syria,” researchers wrote. “However, if we include maximum estimates of civilian harm then 2017 was in fact the worst year for civilian casualties, with up to 19,623 killed.”

    According to Airwars, 97% of reported civilian deaths during the War on Terror took place in three countries—Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria.

    Joe Dyke, senior investigator at Airwars, told Middle East Eye that “for much of the last 20 years people living in Washington or New York could have been forgiven for forgetting their country was at war.”

    “Whether a drone strike in a Yemeni village or a military base in rural Afghanistan, it often felt far removed—almost another world—but that isn’t how it felt for those millions of people living in those conflicts,” Dyke added.

    Meanwhile, in an email responding to Airwars’ request for official military estimates of civilian causualties in post-9/11 U.S. wars, the Pentagon said that “the information you request is not immediately on hand in our office as it spans between multiple operations/campaigns within a span of between 18 and 20 years.”

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 20:00

  • Beijing Blinks: Will Allow Evergrande To Renegotiate Debt Terms
    Beijing Blinks: Will Allow Evergrande To Renegotiate Debt Terms

    Maybe it was the 3rd consecutive day in a row that Evergrande bonds were halted after furious selling amid growing concerns of imminent default…

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    … or maybe one of those pro-China US billionaires – such as Larry Fink and Ray Dalio – who are now engaged in discrediting George Soros for speaking out against the one true Chairman, and who still remember what happened the weekend after Lehman collapsed made a phone call to Beijing and urged them to reconsider, but whatever the reason, on Thursday China blinked and according to Bloomberg, regulators in Beijing signed off on a China Evergrande’s proposal to renegotiate payment deadlines with banks and other creditors, paving the way for a temporary reprieve as the cash-strapped developer struggles to come to grips with more than $300 billion of liabilities.

    The news comes one day after REDD reported late Wednesday that Evergrande plans to suspend interest payments on loans from two banks due Sept. 21, adding that the developer asked one lender to wait for details on a proposed extension plan, suggesting the developer did that already knowing the government would back it.  Not that it will do much good of course, as Evergrande has been unable to liquidate even its prize asset – its HQ – at cost, but at least it has bought itself some time.

    In any case, while Evergrande bonds were crashing in the past weeks, China’s Financial Stability and Development Committee, the nation’s top financial regulator, had already given its blessing to Evergrande’s plan last month after the property giant missed interest and principal payments on some loans, a Bloomberg source said.

    Having gotten the government’s blessing, Evergrande has already contacted some banks and trusts to request deadline extensions, according to Bloomberg although it was unclear how many of those discussions – if any – have led to agreements and whether the company intends to delay payments to bondholders. As a reminder, all it takes for one creditor to balk at nonpayment for a technical event of default to have taken place.

    Perhaps just as important, we learn that Evergrande’s last minute reprieve comes as the company’s main banks had discussed setting up a creditor committee as recently as last week – something that happens only when the debtor is bankrupt – but then lenders and regulators decided to give Evergrande more time to solve its liquidity crisis before taking more drastic measures. Like forcing the company into involuntary bankruptcy perhaps.

    As Bloomberg notes, and as has become all too clear judging by the non-stop coverage of this company on this website, Evergrande’s intricate web of obligations to banks, shadow banks, bondholders, suppliers and homeowners has become one of the biggest sources of financial risk in the world’s second-largest economy. While China’s government has publicly urged the company to solve its debt problems, officials have yet to state explicitly whether they would allow a major debt restructuring or bankruptcy. Speculation over Evergrande’s fate has fueled outsized swings in its shares and bonds, with the latter rising from record lows on Thursday.

    Even with the bounce, bond investors are pricing in a virtually certain likelihood of default. Even after Thursday’s rally, Evergrande dollar notes due next year are trading at just 27 cents on the dollar.

    Still, some lenders – usually those who are state-backed and thus have no balance sheet concerns – have indicated a willingness to be flexible on payment deadlines. Bloomberg reported last month that China Minsheng Banking, China Zheshang Bank Co. and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co. had agreed to give Evergrande extensions on some project loans. Citic Trust, one of the developer’s biggest non-bank lenders, has given preliminary approval to a three-month extension on loans that were due in August, a Bloomberg source said.

    But while Evergrande’s fate is all but sealed, the big fear is one of contagion, and whether the company’s troubles infect the broader credit market. While junk bonds trading in China have seen their yields explode to levels last seen during the depths of the March 2020 covid shutdown due to growing Evergrande concerns…

    … a default will certainly push them even higher as holder of Chinese junk debt puke; as such the degree of contagion depends on the company’s ability to buy time with banks as a messy default on loans could stoke fears of widespread contagion, something Xi Jinping’s government has been keen to avoid even as it tightens financing restrictions on overstretched developers and discourages government bailouts.

    So for now, Beijing blinked but it remains unclear if it will do so again when not just interest but maturities come due. And there is a lot of maturities, starting with some $7.4 billion next year and only rising from there. Indeed, the company’s borrowings totaled 716 billion yuan ($111 billion) at the end of December, with nearly half due in less than a year.

    It owes about 830 billion yuan in trade and other payables to suppliers, and has received down payments on yet-to-be-completed properties from more than 1.5 million homebuyers.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 19:40

  • US Sails Warship Near Chinese-Claimed Reef, Testing New Maritime Law
    US Sails Warship Near Chinese-Claimed Reef, Testing New Maritime Law

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    The US sailed a warship near a Chinese-claimed reef in the disputed South China Sea on Wednesday, the first such maneuver since China enacted a new law requiring foreign vessels to report themselves when entering Beijing’s claimed territorial waters.

    As expected, the US ignored the new law, and the maneuver drew a sharp rebuke from Beijing. “The actions of the US side seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, which is further solid evidence of its aggressive navigation hegemony and militarization of the South China Sea,” said Col. Tian Junli, a spokesman for China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Tian added that the US is the “biggest destroyer” of peace and stability in the region.

    USS Benfold, via US Navy 7th Fleet

    The US Navy’s Seventh Fleet said the guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold passed within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef, a feature of the Spratly Islands that is controlled by China and also claimed by the Philippines and Vietnam. After China’s rebuke, the Seventh Fleet updated its statement, calling the Chinese statement “false.”

    “The PLA’s statement is the latest in a long string of PRC actions to misrepresent lawful US maritime operations and assert its excessive and illegitimate maritime claims at the expense of its Southeast Asian neighbors in the South China Sea,” the Seventh Fleet said.

    Since the Obama administration, the US has inserted itself into the maritime dispute between China and its Southeast Asian neighbors. In 2015, the US started sending warships near Chinese-claimed islands on a regular basis, what the Pentagon calls Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs).

    FONOPs to challenge China increased during the Trump administration. In 2020, the US conducted nine FONOPs in the South China Sea, a record high. Wednesday’s maneuver marks the fifth FONOP in the South China Sea this year.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 19:20

  • Owner Of The Country's Most Expensive Mega-Mansion Has Defaulted On $165 Million In Debt
    Owner Of The Country’s Most Expensive Mega-Mansion Has Defaulted On $165 Million In Debt

    The owner of the country’s most expensive house, dubbed “The One”, has defaulted on $165 million in debt. 

    The megamansion, once expected to sell for $500 million in Los Angeles, was placed into receivership by the Los Angeles County Superior Court and will be re-listed for sale at a lower price. 

    The property’s creator, Nile Niami, once called the property his “life mission”. 

    The house suffered from “repeated delays, funding problems and changing strategies,” according to CNBC.

    Recall, we noted the property faced default back in March of this year when we reported Niami was delinquent on a $82.5 million construction loan from Hankey Capital for the 100,000-square-foot mega-mansion in Bel-Air. In the last three years, the property’s debt has surged to as high as $110 million, we noted. 

    Niami has had bad luck over the last year and a half. He sold an LA mansion called “Opus” that was once listed for $100 million for a 50% haircut during the pandemic.

    According to a document obtained by The Times earlier this year, Hankey, the lender, who is was aware of market conditions, wanted their money back and slapped Niami with a default notice. The developer had just 90 days from that notice to repay the loan or restructure the agreement in some way so that Hankey doesn’t force the sale of the home.

    That obviously didn’t happen. Hankey said at the time:

    “We felt the owner of ‘The One’ was distracted from the job at hand, which is to bring the biggest and best house in the United States to market for sale,” said Don Hankey, chairman of Hankey Investment Co.

    “We hope our actions will kick off the official listing.”

    Niami began constructing the 100,000-square-foot mega-mansion in 2013 as part of a speculative bet on the LA mansion market. But over the years, economic conditions have morphed from party to pandemic. Bets on housing in metro areas have gone sour in the recent year as people exit cities for rural communities. 

    “Default notices are nothing new for Niami,” said The Times back in March. In 2020 alone, the developer received a default notice for $10 million on a property on 369 Londonderry Place in the Hollywood Hills, and one for a debt of $23.4 million on a mansion at 10701 Bellagio Road. 

    Last summer, he posted a video on his Instagram account saying The One was a couple of months away from completion. 

    “Seven years ago, I had an idea to create the biggest, most expensive house in the urban world: The One Bel-Air. And I did it.”

    You sure did, Nile.

    Tyler Durden
    Thu, 09/09/2021 – 19:00

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