- Rome Needs "A Little Bit More Time" To Reduce Italy's Debt, Conte Tells Brussels
Rome Needs “A Little Bit More Time” To Reduce Italy’s Debt, Conte Tells Brussels
In his first comments to Brussels since being sworn in to his second act as prime minister, Italy’s Giuseppe Conte, who is now leading a coalition of the Democratic Party and the anti-establishment Five-Star Movement, told the incoming president of the European Commission that Italy would need “a little bit of time” to cut its debt.
According to the FT, Conte told Urusla von der Leyen, the incoming head of the commission, that Italy wouldn’t “risk financial stability” – i.e., risk triggering another bond-market-rattling showdown with Brussels by insisting on blowing out its federal budget deficit – but that the country would need to make investments that set it back on the path toward economic growth.
“We must make investments that allow us to direct growth towards greater employment, and we want to make a transparent pact with the EU on what is our programme,” Mr Conte said. “Our objective is the reduction of debt,” he said. “We are not saying that we do not want our accounts in order, but we want to do it through a reasonable growth and productive investments.”
There’s a chance that Brussels might prove more receptive this time around (last year, the showdown between the anti-establishment coalition and Brussels reignited speculation about the possibility that Italy might leave the euro). Brussels eventually caved and allowed Italy to pursue a number close to its original request of around 2% of GDP. Though it was later revealed that the country’s estimates were way off, and that its budget deficit would like be much larger than anticipated.
Conte and outgoing European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker
For one, the new coalition has already been rattled by internal conflict that has prompted some analysts to speculate about a possible election later this year.
But Conte’s relationships with several key figures in Brussels should help negotiations go more smoothly.
Expectations that public spending negotiations between Rome and Brussels will be smoother this autumn – when the Italian budget for next year is drawn up – were boosted by the appointment of Roberto Gualtieri, a veteran member of the European Parliament, as Italy’s new economy minister. Another Italian, Paolo Gentiloni, a former prime minister and foreign minister, was this week nominated as Brussels’ new European Commissioner for the economy by Ms von der Leyen.
Last year, Italy’s ruling coalition was threatened with sanctions by the commission. But with Germany reportedly considering a “shadow budget” – fiscal stimulus that many analysts believe would help right-size the European economy, it’s likely that the Commission won’t risk doing anything that could further destabilize the bloc’s third-largest economy.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/12/2019 – 02:45 - Demythologizing The Roots Of The New Cold War
Demythologizing The Roots Of The New Cold War
Authored by Ted Snider via AntiWar.com,
When Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev received his peace prize in 1990, the Nobel Prize committee declared that “the two mighty power blocs, have managed to abandon their life-threatening confrontation” and confidently expressed that “It is our hope that we are now celebrating the end of the Cold War.” Recently, U.N. General Secretary António Guterres funereally closed the celebrations with the realization that “The Cold War is back.”
In a very short span of history, the window that had finally opened for Russia and the United States to build a new international system in which they work cooperatively to address areas of common interest had slammed back closed. How was that historic opportunity wasted? Why was the road from the Nobel committee’s hope to the UN’s eulogy such a short one?
The doctrinal narrative that is told in the U.S. is the narrative of a very short road whose every turn was signposted by Russian lies, betrayal, deception and aggression. The American telling of history is a tale in which every blow to the new peace was a Russian blow. The fact checked version offers a demythologized history that is unrecognizably different. The demythologized version is also a history of lies, betrayal, deception and aggression, but the liar, the aggressor, is not primarily Russia, but America. It is the history of a promise so historically broken that it laid the foundation of a new cold war.
But it was not the first promise the United States broke: it was not even the first promise they broke in the new cold war.
The Hot War
Most histories of the cold war begin at the dawn of the post World War II period. But the history of U.S-U.S.S.R. animosity starts long before that: it starts as soon as possible, and it was hot long before it turned cold.
The label “Red Scare” first appeared, not in the 1940s or 50s, but in 1919. Though it is a chapter seldom included in the history of American-Russian relations, America actively and aggressively intervened in the Russian civil war in an attempt to push the Communists back down. The United States cooperated with anti-Bolshevik forces: by mid 1918, President Woodrow Wilson had sent 13,000 American troops to Soviet soil. They would remain there for two years, killing and injuring thousands. Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev would later remind America of “the time you sent your troops to quell the revolution.” Churchill would record for history the admission that the West “shot Soviet Russians on sight,” that they were “invaders on Russian soil,” that “[t]hey armed the enemies of the Soviet government,” that “[t]hey blockaded its ports, and sunk its battleships. They earnestly desired and schemed for its downfall.”
When the cause was lost, and the Bolsheviks secured power, most western countries refused to recognize the communist government. However, realism prevailed, and within a few short years, by the mid 1920s, most countries had recognized the communist government and restored diplomatic relations. All but the US It was not until several years later that Franklin D. Roosevelt finally recognized the Soviet government in 1933.
The Cold War
It would be a very short time before the diplomatic relations that followed the hot war would be followed by a cold war. It might even be possible to pin the beginning of the cold war down to a specific date. On April 22 and 23, President Truman told Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov to “Carry out his agreement” and establish a new, free, independent government in Poland as promised at Yalta. Molotov was stunned. He was stunned because it was not he that was breaking the agreement because that was not what Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin had agreed to at Yalta. The final wording of the Yalta agreement never mentioned replacing Soviet control of Poland.
The agreement that Roosevelt revealed to congress and shared with the world – the one that still dominates the textbook accounts and the media stories – is not the one he secretly shook on with Stalin. Roosevelt lied to congress and the American people. Then he lied to Stalin.
In exchange for Soviet support for the creation of the United Nations, Roosevelt secretly agreed to Soviet predominance in Poland and Eastern Europe. The cold war story that the Soviet Union marched into Eastern Europe and stole it for itself is a lie: Roosevelt handed it to them.
So did Churchill. If Roosevelt’s motivation was getting the UN, Churchill’s was getting Greece. Fearing that the Soviet Union would invade India and the oil fields of Iran, Churchill saw Greece as the geographical roadblock and determined to hold on to it at all cost. The cost, it turned out, was Romania. Churchill would give Stalin Romania to protect his borders; Stalin would give Churchill Greece to protect his empire’s borders. The deal was sealed on October 9, 1944.
Churchill says that in their secret meeting, he asked Stalin, “how would it do for you to have ninety percent predominance in Romania, for us to have ninety percent predominance in Greece? . . .” He then went on to offer a fifty-fifty power split in in Yugoslavia and Hungary and to offer the Soviets seventy-five percent control of Bulgaria. The exact conversation may never have happened, according to the political record, but Churchill’s account captures the spirit and certainly captures the secret agreement.
Contrary to the official narrative, Stalin never betrayed the west and stole Eastern Europe: Poland, Romania and the rest were given to him in secret. Then Roosevelt lied to congress and to the world.
That American lie raised the curtain on the cold war.
The New Cold War
Like the Cold War, the new cold war was triggered by an American lie. It was a lie so duplicitous, so all encompassing, that it would lead many Russians to see the agreement that ended the cold war as a devastating and humiliating deception that was really intended to clear the way for the US to surround and finally defeat the Soviet Union. It was a lie that tilled the soil for all future “Russian aggression.”
At the close of the cold war, at a meeting held on February 9, 1990, George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of State, James Baker, promised Gorbachev that if NATO got Germany and Russia pulled its troops out of East Germany, NATO would not expand east of Germany and engulf the former Soviet states. Gorbachev records in his memoirs that he agreed to Baker’s terms “with the guarantee that NATO jurisdiction or troops would not extend east of the current line.” In Super-power Illusions, Jack F. Matlock Jr., who was the American ambassador to Russia at the time and was present at the meeting, confirms Gorbachev’s account, saying that it “coincides with my notes of the conversation except that mine indicate that Baker added “not one inch.” Matlock adds that Gorbachev was assured that NATO would not move into Eastern Europe as the Warsaw Pact moved out, that “the understanding at Malta [was] that the United States would not ‘take advantage’ of a Soviet military withdrawal from Eastern Europe.” At the February 9 meeting, Baker assured Gorbachev that “neither the President or I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place.”
But the promise was not made just once, and it was not made just by the United States. The promise was made on two consecutive days: first by the Americans and then by West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. According to West German foreign ministry documents, on February 10, 1990, the day after James Baker’s promise, West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher told his Soviet counterpart Eduard Shevardnadze “‘For us . . . one thing is certain: NATO will not expand to the east.’ And because the conversation revolved mainly around East Germany, Genscher added explicitly: ‘As far as the non-expansion of NATO is concerned, this also applies in general.’”
A few days earlier, on January 31, 1990, Genscher had said in a major speech that there would not be “an expansion of NATO territory to the east, in other words, closer to the borders of the Soviet Union.”
Gorbachev says the promise was made not to expand NATO “as much as a thumb’s width further to the east.” Putin also says mourns the broken promise, asking at a conference in Munich in February 2007, “What happened to the assurances our Western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them.”
Putin went on to remind his audience of the assurances by pointing out that the existence of the NATO promise is not just the perception of him and Gorbachev. It was also the view of the NATO General Secretary at the time: “But I will allow myself to remind this audience what was said. I would like to quote the speech of NATO General Secretary Mr. [Manfred] Woerner in Brussels on 17 May 1990. He said at the time that: ‘The fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.’ Where are those guarantees?”
Recent scholarship supports the Russian version of the story. Russian expert and Professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent, Richard Sakwa says that “[r]ecent studies demonstrate that the commitment not to enlarge NATO covered the whole former Soviet bloc and not just East Germany.” And Stephen Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Politics at Princeton University and of Russian Studies and History at New York University, adds that the National Security Archive has now published the actual documents detailing what Gorbachev was promised. Published on December 12, 2017, the documents finally, and authoritatively, reveal that “The truth, and the promises broken, are much more expansive than previously known: all of the Western powers involved – the US, the UK, France, Germany itself – made the same promise to Gorbachev on multiple occasions and in various emphatic ways.”
That key promise made to Gorbachev was shattered, first by President Clinton and then subsequently supported by every American President: NATO engulfed Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in 1999; Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia in 2004, Albania and Croatia in 2009 and, most recently, Montenegro.
It was this shattered promise, this primal betrayal, this NATO expansion to Russia’s borders that created the conditions and causes of future conflicts and aggressions. When, in 2008, NATO promised Georgia and Ukraine eventual membership, Russia saw the threat of NATO encroaching right to its borders. It is in Georgia and Ukraine that Russia felt it had to draw the line with NATO encroachment into its core sphere of influence. Sakwa says that the war in Georgia was “the first war to stop NATO enlargement; Ukraine was the second.” What are often cited as acts of Russian aggression that helped maintain the new cold war are properly understood as acts of Russian defense against US aggression that made a lie out of the promise that ended the Cold War.
When Clinton decided to break Bush’s promise and betray Russia, George Kennen, father of the containment policy, warned that NATO expansion would be “the most fateful error of American foreign policy in the entire post-cold-war era.” “Such a decision,” he prophesied, “may be expected to . . . restore the atmosphere of the cold war in East-West relations . . ..”
The broken promise restored the cold war. Though it is the most significant root of the new cold war, it was not the first. There was a prior broken promise, and this time the man who betrayed Russia was President H.W. Bush.
The end of the Cold War resulted from negotiations and not from any sort of military victory. Stephen Cohen says that “Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush negotiated with the last Soviet Russian leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, what they said was the end of the Cold War on the shared, expressed premise that it was ending ‘with no losers, only winners.’”
The end of the Cold War and the end of the Soviet Union occurred so closely chronologically that it permitted the American mythologizers to conflate them in the public imagination and create the doctrinal history in which the US defeat of the Soviet Union ended the cold war. But the US did not defeat the Soviet Union. Gorbachev brought about what Sakwa calls a “self-willed disintegration of the Soviet bloc.” The Soviet Union came to an end, not by external force or pressure, but out of Gorbachev’s recognition of the Soviet Union’s own self interest. Matlock flatly states that “pressure from governments outside the Soviet Union, whether from America or Europe or anywhere else, had nothing to do with [the Soviet collapse].” “Cohen demythologizes the history by reinstating the chronological order: Gorbachev negotiated the end of the cold war “well before the disintegration of the Soviet Union.” The Cold War officially ended well before the end of the Soviet Union with Gorbachev’s December 7, 1988 address to the UN
Matlock says that “Gorbachev is right when he says that we all won the Cold War.” He says that President Reagan would write in his notes, “Let there be no talk of winners and losers.” When Gorbachev compelled the countries of the Warsaw Pact to adopt reforms like his perestroika in the Soviet Union and warmed them that the Soviet army would no longer be there to keep their communist regimes in power, Matlock points out in Superpower Illusions that “Bush assured Gorbachev that the United States would not claim victory if the Eastern Europeans were allowed to replace the Communist regimes that had been imposed on them.” Both the reality and the promise were that there was no winner of the Cold War: it was a negotiated peace that was in the interest of both countries.
When in 1992, during his losing re-election campaign, President Bush arrogantly boasted that “We won the Cold War!” he broke his own promise to Gorbachev and helped plant the roots of the new cold war. “In psychological and political terms,” Matlock says, “President Bush planted a landmine under the future U.S.-Russian relationship” when he broke his promise and made that claim.
Bush’s broken promise had two significant effects. Psychologically, it created the appearance in the Russian psyche that Gorbachev had been tricked by America: it eroded trust in America and in the new peace. Politically, it created in the American psyche the false idea that Russia was a defeated country whose sphere of interest did not need to be considered. Both these perceptions contributed to the new cold war.
Not only was the broken promise of NATO expansion not the first broken American promise, it was also not the last. In 1997, when President Clinton made the decision to expand NATO much more than an inch to the east, he at least signed the Russia-NATO Founding Act, which explicitly promised that as NATO expanded east, there would be no “permanent stationing of substantial combat forces.” This obliterated American promise planted the third root of the new cold war.
Since that third promise, NATO has, in the words of Stephen Cohen, built up its “permanent land, sea and air power near Russian territory, along with missile-defense installations.” US and NATO weapons and troops have butted right up against Russia’s borders, while anti-missile installations have surrounded it, leading to the feeling of betrayal in Russia and the fear of aggression. Among the earliest moves of the Trump administration were the moving of NATO troops into Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria and nearby Norway.
Mikhail Gorbachev, who offered the West Russia and cooperation in place of the Soviet Union and Cold War, was rewarded with lies, broken promises and betrayal. That was the sowing of the first seeds of the new cold war. The second planting happened during the Yeltsin years that followed. During this stage, the Russian people were betrayed because their hopes for democracy and for an economic system compatible with the West were both destroyed by American intervention.
The goal, Matlock too gently explains, “had to be a shift of the bulk of the economy to private ownership.” What transpired was what Naomi Klein called in The Shock Doctrine “one of the greatest crimes committed against a democracy in modern history.” The States allowed no gradual transition. Matlock says the “Western experts advised a clean break with the past and a transition to private ownership without delay.” But there was no legitimate private capital coming out of the communist system, so there was no private money with which to privatize. So, there was only one place for the money to come. As Matlock explains, the urgent transition allowed “privileged insiders[to] join the criminals who had been running a black market [and to] steal what they could, as fast as they could.” The sudden, uncompromising transition imposed on Russia by the United States enabled, according to Cohen, “a small group of Kremlin-connected oligarchs to plunder Russia’s richest assets and abet the plunging of some two-thirds of its people into poverty and misery.”
The rape of Russia was funded, overseen and ordered by the United States and handed over by President George H.W. Bush to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Much of their advice, Matlock says generously, “was not only useless, but sometimes actually damaging.”
Sometimes damaging? In the first year, millions lost their entire life savings. Subsidy cuts meant that many Russians didn’t get paid at all. Klein says that by 1992, Russians were consuming 40% less than they were the year before, and one third of them had suddenly sunk below the poverty line. The economic policies wrestled onto Russia by the US and the transition experts and international development experts it funded and sent over led to, what Cohen calls, “the near ruination of Russia.” Russia’s reward for ending the Cold War and joining the Western economic community was, in Cohen’s words, “the worst economic depression in peacetime, the disintegration of the highly professionalized Soviet middle class, mass poverty, plunging life expectancy [for men, it had fallen below sixty], the fostering of an oligarchic financial elite, the plundering of Russia’s wealth, and more.” By the time Putin came to power in 2000, Cohen says, “some 75% of Russians were living in poverty.” 75%! Millions and millions of Russian lives were destroyed by the American welcoming of Russia into the global economic community.
But before Putin came to power, there was more Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin was a necessity for Clinton and the United States because Yeltsin was the pliable puppet who would continue to enforce the cruel economic transition. But to continue the interference in, and betrayal of, the Russian people economically, it would now be necessary to interfere in and betray the Russian democracy.
In late 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin won a year of special powers from the Russian Parliament: for one year, he was to be, in effect, the dictator of Russia to facilitate the midwifery of the birth of a democratic Russia. In March of 1992, under pressure from the, by now, impoverished, devastated and discontented population, parliament repealed the dictatorial powers it had granted him. Yeltsin responded by declaring a state of emergency, re-bestowing upon himself the repealed dictatorial powers. Russia’s Constitutional Court ruled that Yeltsin was acting outside the constitution. But the US sided – against the Russian people and against the Russian Constitutional Court – with Yeltsin.
Intoxicated with American support, Yeltsin dissolved the parliament that had rescinded his powers and abolished the constitution of which he was in violation. In a 636-2 vote, the Russian parliament impeached Yeltsin. But, President Clinton again sided with Yeltsin against the Russian people and the Russian law, backed him and gave him $2.5 billion in aid. Clinton was blocking the Russian people’s choice of leaders.
Yeltsin took the money and sent police officers and elite paratroopers to surround the parliament building. Clinton “praised the Russian President has (sic) having done ‘quite well’ in managing the standoff with the Russian Parliament,” as The New York Times reported at the time. Clinton added that he thought “the United States and the free world ought to hang in there” with their support of Yeltsin against his people, their constitution and their courts, and judged Yeltsin to be “on the right side of history.”
On the right side of history and armed with machine guns and tanks, in October 1993, Yeltsin’s troops opened fire on the crowd of protesters, killing about 100 people before setting the Russian parliament building on fire. By the time the day was over, Yeltsin’s troops had killed approximately 500 people and wounded nearly 1,000. Still, Clinton stood with Yeltsin. He provided ludicrous cover for Yeltsin’s massacre, claiming that “I don’t see that he had any choice…. If such a thing happened in the United States, you would have expected me to take tough action against it.” Clinton’s Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, said that the US supported Yeltsin’s suspension of parliament in these “extraordinary times.”
In 1996, elections were looming, and America’s hegemonic dreams still needed Yeltsin in power. But it wasn’t going to happen without help. Yeltsin’s popularity was nonexistent, and his approval rating was at about 6%. According to Cohen, Clinton’s interference in Russian politics, his “crusade” to “reform Russia,” had by now become official policy. And so, America boldly interfered directly in Russian elections. Three American political consultants, receiving “direct assistance from Bill Clinton’s White House,” secretly ran Yeltsin’s reelection campaign. As Time magazine broke the story, “For four months, a group of American political consultants clandestinely participated in guiding Yeltsin’s campaign.”
“Funded by the US government,” Cohen reports, Americans “gave money to favored Russian politicians, instructed ministers, drafted legislation and presidential decrees, underwrote textbooks, and served at Yeltsin’s reelection headquarters in 1996.”
More incriminating still is that Richard Dresner, one of the three American consultants, maintained a direct line to Clinton’s Chief Strategist, Dick Morris. According to reporting by Sean Guillory, in his book, Behind the Oval Office, Morris says that, with Clinton’s approval, he received weekly briefings from Dresner that he would give to Clinton. Based on those briefings, Clinton would then provide recommendations to Dresner through Morris.
Then ambassador to Russia, Thomas Pickering, even pressured an opposing candidate to drop out of the election to improve Yeltsin’s odds of winning.
The US not only helped run Yeltsin’s campaign, they helped pay for it. The US backed a $10.2 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan for Russia, the second-biggest loan the IMF had ever given. The New York Times reported that the loan was “expected to be helpful to President Boris N. Yeltsin in the presidential election in June.” The Times explained that the loan was “a vote of confidence” for Yeltsin who “has been lagging well behind … in opinion polls” and added that the US Treasury Secretary “welcomed the fund’s decision.”
Yeltsin won the election by 13%, and Time magazine’s cover declared: “Yanks to the rescue: The secret story of how American advisers helped Yeltsin win”. Cohen reports that the US ambassador to Russia boasted that “without our leadership … we would see a considerably different Russia today.” That’s a confession of election interference.
Asserting its right as the unipolar victor of a Cold War it never won, betraying the central promise of the negotiated end of the cold war by engulfing Russia’s neighbors, arming those nations against its written and signed word and stealing all Russian hope in capitalism and democracy by kidnapping and torturing Russian capitalism and democracy, the roots of the new cold war were not planted by Russian lies and aggression, as the doctrinal Western version teaches, but by the American lies and aggression that the fact checked, demythologized version of history reveals.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/12/2019 – 02:00 - Chinese Combat Drones Are Invading Europe To Protect Belt and Road
Chinese Combat Drones Are Invading Europe To Protect Belt and Road
Serbian Armed Forces have reportedly bought Chinese-built armed drones, could receive the drones in the coming months, Stars and Stripes reported Tuesday, citing local media reports and officials.
Serbia is expected to take delivery of nine Chengdu Pterodactyl-1 drones from now until February 2020. Media reports in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, said follow up orders in 2020 could exceed 15 more.
Stars and Stripes said the sale “marks Beijing’s most significant foray into a continent where armed forces have traditionally relied on US and European weapon-makers.”
Earlier this year, Serbian President Aleksander Vucic signed several agreements with Beijing to expand the Belt and Road in the country.
Under the agreement, China is expected to construct new power plants, lay transmission cables, and fiber optics, build new railways, and ports in the country.
So it becomes increasingly clear why China is beefing up the Serbian military: They want to protect critical assets of the Belt and Road in the country or at least use the drones as deterrence against American/NATO forces.
“This (sale) will greatly strengthen the Serbian military, which will gain capabilities it has not had in the past,” Serbian Defense Minister Aleksander Vulin said in an interview with state media Tuesday.
Belgrade military analyst Miroslav Lazanski said in a TV interview that “the Chinese have very good pilot-less aircraft, probably second only to the United States,” adding that “they obviously copied some American systems (but) Chinese drones are very effective and very cheap.”
Lazanski also said the cost of the drones was an important consideration for Serbia, adding that Chinese drones are cheaper than US’ and offer “top” performance.
The Chengdu Pterodactyl-1 has very similar characteristics to the US’ General Atomics MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper drones. These drones have been sold to Asian, African, and Middle Eastern countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, and Egypt.
In an earlier report, we noted how Chinese armed drones are ending up in countries where the US has placed weapons embargos on. This has created a deadly network of Chinese drones above Middle East battlefields.
And a Chinese military strategist said drone technology in China is comparable to the US but lacks global market share.
“The Chinese product now doesn’t lack technology, it only lacks market share,” said Song Zhongping, a Chinese military strategist and former lecturer at the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force University of Engineering. “And the United States restricting its arms exports is precisely what gives China a great opportunity.”
By exporting drones across the world, and with the latest report now into Europe, the Chinese are rapidly shrinking America’s military-industrial complex’s international drone market share. This will not sit well with US defense firms who will continue to tell the Trump administration to pressure China so that their market share doesn’t continue to erode away.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/12/2019 – 01:00 - More Americans Questioning Official 9/11 Story As New Evidence Contradicts Official Narrative
More Americans Questioning Official 9/11 Story As New Evidence Contradicts Official Narrative
Authored by Whitney Webb via MintPressNews.com,
Today the event that defined the United States’ foreign policy in the 21st century, and heralded the destruction of whole countries, turns 18. The events of September 11, 2001 remains etched into the memories of Americans and many others, as a collective tragedy that brought Americans together and brought as well a general resolve among them that those responsible be brought to justice.
While the events of that day did unite Americans in these ways for a time, the different trajectories of the official relative to the independent investigations into the September 11 attacks have often led to division in the years since 2001, with vicious attacks or outright dismissal being levied against the latter.
Yet, with 18 years having come and gone — and with the tireless efforts from victims’ families, first responders, scientists and engineers — the tide appears to be turning, as new evidence continues to emerge and calls for new investigations are made. However, American corporate media has remained largely silent, preferring to ignore new developments that could derail the “official story” of one of the most iconic and devastating attacks to ever occur on American soil.
For instance, in late July, commissioners for a New York-area Fire Department, which responded to the attacks and lost one of their own that day, called for a new investigation into the events of September 11. On July 24, the board of commissioners for the Franklin Square and Munson Fire District, which serves a population of around 30,000 near Queens, voted unanimously in their call for a new investigation into the attacks.
While the call for a new investigation from a NY Fire Department involved in the rescue effort would normally seem newsworthy to the media outlets who often rally Americans to “never forget,” the commissioners’ call for a new investigation was met with total silence from the mainstream media. The likely reason for the dearth of coverage on an otherwise newsworthy vote was likely due to the fact that the resolution that called for the new investigation contained the following clause:
Whereas, the overwhelming evidence presented in said petition demonstrates beyond any doubt that pre-planted explosives and/or incendiaries — not just airplanes and the ensuing fires — caused the destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings, killing the vast majority of the victims who perished that day;”
In the post-9/11 world, those who have made such claims, no matter how well-grounded their claims may be, have often been derided and attacked as “conspiracy theorists” for questioning the official claims that the three World Trade Center buildings that collapsed on September 11 did so for any reason other than being struck by planes and from the resulting fires. Yet, it is much more difficult to launch these same attacks against members of a fire department that lost a fireman on September 11 and many of whose members were involved with the rescue efforts of that day, some of whom still suffer from chronic illnesses as a result.
Rescue workers climb on piles of rubble at the World Trade Center in New York, Sept. 13, 2001. Beth A. Keiser | AP
Another likely reason that the media monolithically avoided coverage of the vote was out of concern that it would lead more fire departments to pass similar resolutions, which would make it more difficult for such news to avoid gaining national coverage. Yet, Commissioner Christopher Gioia, who drafted and introduced the resolution, told those present at the meeting’s conclusion that getting all of the New York fire districts onboard was their plan anyway.
“We’re a tight-knit community and we never forget our fallen brothers and sisters. You better believe that when the entire fire service of New York State is on board, we will be an unstoppable force,” Gioia said. “We were the first fire district to pass this resolution. We won’t be the last,” he added.
While questioning the official conclusions of the first federal investigation into 9/11 has been treated as taboo in the American media landscape for years, it is worth noting that even those who led the commission have said that the investigation was “set up to fail” from the start and that they were repeatedly misled and lied to by federal officials in relation to the events of that day.
For instance, the chair and vice-chair of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, wrote in their book Without Precedent that not only was the commission starved of funds and its powers of investigation oddly limited, but that they were obstructed and outright lied to by top Pentagon officials and officials with the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA). They and other commissioners have outright said that the “official” report on the attacks is incomplete, flawed and unable to answer key questions about the terror attacks.
Despite the failure of American corporate media to report these facts, local legislative bodies in New York, beginning with the fire districts that lost loved ones and friends that day, are leading the way in the search for real answers that even those that wrote the “official story” say were deliberately kept from them.
Persuasive scientific evidence continues to roll in
Not long after the Franklin Square and Munson Fire District called for a new 9/11 investigation, a groundbreaking university study added even more weight to the commissioners’ call for a new look at the evidence regarding the collapse of three buildings at the World Trade Center complex. While most Americans know full well that the twin towers collapsed on September 11, fewer are aware that a third building — World Trade Center Building 7 — also collapsed. That collapse occurred seven hours after the twin towers came down, even though WTC 7, or “Building 7,” was never struck by a plane.
It was not until nearly two months after its collapse that reports revealed that the CIA had a “secret office” in WTC 7 and that, after the building’s destruction, “a special CIA team scoured the rubble in search of secret documents and intelligence reports stored in the station, either on paper or in computers.” WTC 7 also housed offices for the Department of Defense, the Secret Service, the New York Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management and the bank Salomon Brothers.
Though the official story regarding the collapse of WTC 7 cites “uncontrolled building fires” as leading to the building’s destruction, a majority of Americans who have seen the footage of the 47-story tower come down from four different angles overwhelmingly reject the official story, based on a new poll conducted by YouGov on behalf of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth and released on Monday.
Source | Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth
That poll found that 52 percent of those who saw the footage were either sure or suspected that the building’s fall was due to explosives and was a controlled demolition, with 27 percent saying they didn’t know what to make of the footage. Only 21 percent of those polled agreed with the official story that the building collapsed due to fires alone. Prior to seeing the footage, 36 percent of respondents said that they were unaware that a third building collapsed on September 11 and more than 67 percent were unable to name the building that had collapsed.
Ted Walter, Director of Strategy and Development for Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, told MintPress that the lack of awareness about WTC 7 among the general public “goes to show that the mainstream media has completely failed to inform the American people about even the most basic facts related to 9/11. On any other day in history, if a 47-story skyscraper fell into its footprint due to ‘office fires,’ everyone in the country would have heard about it.”
The fact that the media chose not to cover this, Walter asserted, shows that “the mainstream media and the political establishment live in an alternative universe and the rest of the American public is living in a different universe and responding to what they see in front of them,” as reflected by the results of the recent YouGov poll.
Another significant finding of the YouGov poll was that 48 percent of respondents supported, while only 15 percent opposed, a new investigation into the events of September 11. This shows that not only was the Franklin Square Fire District’s recent call for a new investigation in line with American public opinion, but that viewing the footage of WTC 7’s collapse raises more questions than answers for many Americans, questions that were not adequately addressed by the official investigation of the 9/11 Commission.
The Americans who felt that the video footage of WTC 7’s collapse did not fit with the official narrative and appeared to show a controlled demolition now have more scientific evidence to fall back on after the release of a new university study found that the building came down not due to fire but from “the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building.” The extensive four-year study was conducted by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alaska and used complex computer models to determine if the building really was the first steel-framed high-rise ever to have collapsed solely due to office fires.
The study, currently available as a draft, concluded that “uncontrolled building fires” did not lead the building to fall into its footprint — tumbling more than 100 feet at the rate of gravity free-fall for 2.5 seconds of its seven-second collapse — as has officially been claimed. Instead, the study — authored by Dr. J. Leroy Hulsey, Dr. Feng Xiao and Dr. Zhili Quan — found that “fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11, contrary to the conclusions of NIST [National Institute of Standards and Technology] and private engineering firms that studied the collapse,” while also concluding “that the collapse of WTC 7 was a global [i.e., comprehensive] failure involving the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building.”
This “near-simultaneous failure of every column” in WTC 7 strongly suggests that explosives were involved in its collapse, which is further supported by the statements made by Barry Jennings, the then-Deputy Director of Emergency Services Department for the New York City Housing Authority. Jennings told a reporter the day of the attack that he and Michael Hess, then-Corporation Counsel for New York City, had heard and seen explosions in WTC 7 several hours prior to its collapse and later repeated those claims to filmmaker Dylan Avery. The first responders who helped rescue Jennings and Hess also claimed to have heard explosions in WTC 7. Jennings died in 2008, two days prior the release of the official NIST report blaming WTC 7’s collapse on fires. To date, no official cause of death for Jennings has been given.
Still “crazy” after all these years?
Eighteen years after the September 11 attacks, questioning the official government narrative of the events of those days still remains taboo for many, as merely asking questions or calling for a new investigation into one of the most important events in recent American history frequently results in derision and dismissal.
Yet, this 9/11 anniversary — with a new study demolishing the official narrative on WTC 7, with a new poll showing that more than half of Americans doubt the government narrative on WTC 7, and with firefighters who responded to 9/11 calling for a new investigation — is it still “crazy” to be skeptical of the official story?
Firefighters hose down the smoldering remains of 7 World Trade Center Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2001, in New York. Ryan Remiorz | AP
Even in years past, when asking difficult questions about September 11 was even more “off limits,” it was often first responders, survivors and victims’ families who had asked the most questions about what had really transpired that day and who have led the search for truth for nearly two decades — not wild-eyed “conspiracy theorists,” as many have claimed.
The only reason it remains taboo to ask questions about the official narrative, whose own authors admit that it is both flawed and incomplete, is that the dominant forces in the American media and the U.S. government have successfully convinced many Americans that doing so is not only dangerous but irrational and un-American.
However, as evidence continues to mount that the official narrative itself is the irrational narrative, it becomes ever more clear that the reason for this media campaign is to prevent legitimate questions about that day from receiving the scrutiny they deserve, even smearing victims’ families and ailing first responders to do so. For too long, “Never Forget” has been nearly synonymous with “Never Question.”
Yet, failing to ask those questions — even when more Americans than ever now favor a new investigation and discount the official explanation for WTC 7’s collapse — is the ultimate injustice, not only to those who died in New York City on September 11, but those who have been killed in their names in the years that have followed.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/12/2019 – 00:05 - Huge Blow To US Farmers: China Heads To Argentina For Soy Meal In Landmark Deal
Huge Blow To US Farmers: China Heads To Argentina For Soy Meal In Landmark Deal
News for US farmers gets worse by the week. From collapsing farm incomes to plunging crop exports to China, the trade war has likely ushered in the next farm crisis, set to explode across the Central and Midwest US next year.
A new report from Reuters outlines how China has ditched US farmers for Argentina. An agreement between both countries is expected to be signed on Wednesday in Buenos Aires, describes how Argentina, the world’s biggest exporter of the animal feed, will allow China to import soy meal for the first time.
Last month Chinese officials examined several Argentine soy meal companies ahead of the signing ceremony on Wednesday.
Argentina’s Agriculture Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that after two decades of discussions, the Asian giant will begin imports of soy meal in the near term.
The deciding factor for the landmark deal was the US-China trade war, which strengthened Argentina’s hand after China halted all US agriculture product imports this summer, prompting China to source more agriculture products from South America.
“This is a historic agreement,” Gustavo Idigoras, president of Argentina’s CIARA-CEC chamber of grains exporting companies told Reuters, though he added the deal still required a two-step process of plant authorizations and then registrations that could take several more months.
Idigoras said, “shipments aren’t expected to start immediately,” but could start in the near term. China still has some bureaucratic bottlenecks before cargoes can set sail, he added.
In a separate report last month, China is preparing a bid that would allow it to dredge Argentina’s Parana River, the country’s only river that acts as a waterway for bulk vessels that transport soybean and corn from the Pampas farm belt to the South Atlantic.
An increased waterway would allow China to create a grain superhighway in Argentina that would effectively be able to replace US farmers.
Argentina, already the top exporter of processed soy, is expected to export 26 million tons of soy meal this year worldwide, and 8.5 million tons of raw beans.
“It is excellent and timely news. Argentina needs to add more value to its exports to China and the world,” said Luis Zubizarreta, president of Argentina’s ACSOJA soy industry organization that represents farmers.
Allowing China to buy from Argentine farmers would tremendously boost exports next year. China has come at the right time, considering profit margins have been falling, and idle capacity has increased to more than 50%.
China has been busy in South America. They’ve been building massive infrastructure projects across Argentina, from hydroelectric plants to railways.
Business-friendly President Mauricio Macri has said the new partnership with China would boost the country’s agricultural sector and create enormous opportunities for farmers.
While boom times are here for Argentine farmers, a bust cycle is imminent for US farmers who are on the brink of collapse after being shut out of China thanks to President Trump’s trade policies.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/11/2019 – 23:45 - Afghanistan Is Both Stalemate And Quagmire
Afghanistan Is Both Stalemate And Quagmire
Authored by Danny Sjursen via AntiWar.com,
When they saw Afghanistan, all they could think of was Iraq. Indeed, most military thinkers are perennially driven by the tunnel-vision of personal experience; rarely a good thing. Indeed, the generals and colonels managing the foolish, politically driven 2009-12 Obama “surge” into Afghanistan – what he’d absurdly labeled the “good war” – had few fresh ideas. Convinced, and feeling vindicated, by the myth that Baby Bush’s 2007-09 Iraq surge had “worked,” most commanders knew just what to do and sought to replicate these tactics in the utterly dissimilar war in Afghanistan. That meant the temporary infusion of some 30,000 extra troops, walling off warring neighborhoods, and plopping small American units among the populace.
Some of us, mostly captains who’d cut our teeth in the worst days of the Iraq maelstrom, were skeptical from the start. I, for one, had long sensed that the “gains” of that surge were highly temporary, that the U.S. military had simply bought the fleeting loyalty of Sunni insurgents, and that the whole point of the surge – to allow a political settlement between warring sects and ethnicities – had never occurred. The later rise of ISIS, breakdown of centralized governance, and rout of the U.S.-trained Iraqi Army in 2013-14 would prove my point. But that was in the future. From my viewpoint, the legacy of surge 1.0 had really only been another 1,000 or so American troop deaths – including three of my own men – and who knows how many Iraqi casualties.
Then again, no one cared what one lowly, if dreamy yet cynical, officer thought anyway. I was a tool, a pawn, a middle-managing “company man” expected to carry out surge 2.0 with discipline and enthusiasm. And so I tried. My team of cavalry scouts raised a dubiously loyal local militia, partnered with the often drug-addicted, criminal Afghan Army and police, and parsed out my squads to live within the local villages semi-permanently. That’s when things got weird.
Impressed by the minor, momentary drop in violence – such deceptive stats were a way of life in the US Army – these early measures had allegedly produced, both my squadron commander, and his boss, the brigade commander, suddenly took interest in my troop. Now they wanted to expand on what we were doing and toss in their own misguided two cents. What was needed, my colonel informed me, was to wall off the nearest contested village – Charcusa – with tall concrete “T-walls.” That way, so his twisted logic went, the Taliban couldn’t get in. See, for him, a complex war was that simple. In an oddly prescient foreshadowing of his future commander-in-chief, Donald Trump’s, border tactics, my squadron commander never saw a problem a section of wall couldn’t solve.
Now, once again, it was my turn to attempt to pour a dose of reason all over his best laid plans. This rarely ended well. Thus, I explained that surrounding the small agricultural village with concrete barriers would separate farmers from their fields, and thus their livelihood. Besides, even if we created a few guarded exits to the fields, the T-walls would seal off the many canals the villagers used for drinking and irrigation, essentially drying out the whole joint. Oh, and the Taliban could climb, I reminded him. The Taliban were probably already in the village, related to the villagers, and didn’t wear uniforms or big Ts on their foreheads. The aesthetic nightmare of walling off a village would alienate the people and cause psychologically deep reactions of insecurity combined with resentment of us Americans. I tried, well, every single argument I could muster.
Mister “lower-caters-to-higher” was far from pleased. See, the real brainchild of the Charcusa concrete bonanza was actually the brigade commander, and my lowly unit certainly couldn’t defy his wishes. Heck, my squadron commander’s own evaluation and career progression might be on the line. Weighed against that, what did tactical commonsense or the livelihood of meaningless Afghans matter? The brigade commander had himself been a battalion commander in Western Baghdad during surge 1.0, where he and others, gleefully walled off the area neighborhoods and divided conflicting Muslim sects. It “worked” in urban Baghdad, so why not rural, no electrical grid, religiously homogenous, Southern Afghanistan? There it was again: a colonel who saw an Afghan problem and reflexively sought to apply an uncreative Iraqi solution.
Well, after weeks of wrangling, and certainly another blight on my leadership reputation with the squadron commander, my irrigation ditch argument won out with the more practical elements on the brigade staff…sort of. There’d be no concrete barriers, the commander reluctantly conceded, but we just had to “throw a bone” to the brigade commander’s Baghdad-based vision. The solution: I was ordered to surround the village after all, only with thousands of strands of menacing, ugly, triple strand concertina (barbed) wire. I wasn’t going to stop this one, and hardly bothered.
For days on end my weary troopers turned the village of Charcusa into what discomfiting resembled a concentration camp. Not that it worked, or mattered. The results produced amounted to little more than the few hundred cuts on my soldiers’ hands. Within a couple years my unit was gone, and so were our successors. Today, most of Kandahar is again contested by the Taliban, the rusting barbed wire naught but a monument to American obtusity. Still, it pleased both of my bosses, one off which told me I’d done a “great” job with the concertina wire mission, a macabre gold star of sorts for my own impending evaluation.
So today, on that wars rolls in an ongoing combination of stalemate and quagmire. Just this week, another American soldier was killed by a suicide car bomb. His death, ultimately, changes nothing as the Afghan War now has a preposterous inertia all its own. As for my colonel, he got the next promotion and his own brigade. His boss, the king of concrete himself, well he’s a rising star and a prominent general officer today. Now that President Trump has foolishly called off seemingly promising peace talks with the Taliban, maybe my old brigade commander will lead the next phase of an Afghan War with no end in sight. If he does, expect more of the same. He’ll have his troops and their Afghan mentees needlessly walling off more tiny villages in no time…
* * *
Series note: It has taken me years to tell these stories. The emotional and moral wounds of the Afghan War have just felt too recent, too raw. After all, I could hardly write a thing down about my Iraq War experience for nearly ten years, when, by accident, I churned out a book on the subject. Now, as the American war in Afghanistan – hopefully – winds to something approaching a close, it’s finally time to impart some tales of the madness. In this new, recurring, semi-regular series, the reader won’t find many worn out sagas of heroism, brotherhood, and love of country. Not that this author doesn’t have such stories, of course. But one can find those sorts of tales in countless books and numerous trite, platitudinal Hollywood yarns.
With that in mind, I propose to tell a number of very different sorts of stories – profiles, so to speak, in absurdity. That’s what war is, at root, an exercise in absurdity, and America’s hopeless post-9/11 wars are stranger than most. My own 18-year long quest to find some meaning in all the combat, to protect my troops from danger, push back against the madness, and dissent from within the army proved Kafkaesque in the extreme. Consider what follows just a survey of that hopeless journey…
* * *
Danny Sjursen is a retired US Army officer and regular contributor to Antiwar.com. His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Truthdig, Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/11/2019 – 23:25 - Boom Times Are Here: Hemp Farming Quadruples This Year!
Boom Times Are Here: Hemp Farming Quadruples This Year!
A new report from Vote Hemp, a top hemp advocacy group, indicates the amount of licensed acreage of hemp farming across the US has more than quadrupled this year.
The report, 2019 US Hemp License Report, says the number of acres of hemp licensed across 34 states totaled 511,442 in 2019, a 455% jump YoY. State licenses to produce hemp were issued to 16,877 farmers and researchers, a 476% YoY jump.
“We are seeing hemp cultivation dramatically expand in the US in 2019, with over quadruple the number of acres licensed in hemp compared to last year and the addition of 13 more states with hemp programs,” said Eric Steenstra, President of Vote Hemp. “Now that we have lifted federal prohibition on hemp farming, it’s time build the infrastructure and expand hemp cultivation and the market for hemp products across the country so that all can reap the benefits of this versatile and sustainable crop.”
Vote Hemp notes that not all of the 511,442 acres will yield hemp this year. It estimates only 230,000 acres of hemp will be planted. Of that, only 50% will be harvested due to crop failure.
Thirteen new states this year have allowed farmers to cultivate hemp following its removal from the federal Controlled Substances Act via the 2018 Farm Bill. However, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire and South Dakota were the only states that continued the ban.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is expected to release new hemp legalization that will allow for the mass production of hemp in the 2020 growing season.
USDA officials said last week that hemp farmers would be eligible for federal crop insurance.
The Federal Credit Union Administration has recently said credit unions in rural America are now allowed to provide services for hemp producers.
The Environmental Protection Agency also announced that it’s currently reviewing and will be regulating what pesticides can be used on the crops.
The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing how hemp-derived CBD could be used in food products or nutritional supplements.
With a record-setting amount of new hemp acreage coming online, spot hemp prices have been stagnating this year.
In red, Hemp Benchmark shows the states where growing hemp is commercially legal.
Hemp Benchmark breaks down the number of licenses and acreage grown in each state.
So if any readers are soybean and corn farmers devastated by President Trump’s trade war, now could be the time to overhaul operations and switch fields over to hemp – this could boost farm income as Americans are now stuffing their faces with CBD products.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/11/2019 – 23:05 - Gun Sales Surge After Democrats Demand Buybacks & Confiscation
Gun Sales Surge After Democrats Demand Buybacks & Confiscation
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
August gun sales were up 15% thanks to Democrats’ totalitarian demands for mandatory buybacks. Those who bought guns were Americans seeking self-protection and with deep concerns that President Donald Trump is on board with gun control.
According to the Washington Examiner, the overall number of background checks recorded in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System surged 15.5%. Those numbers were courtesy of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF). That figure includes background checks done for security, concealed carry permits, and gun sales and was the highest August number ever recorded.
Adjusted for sales, the NSSF industry group said that August FBI background checks for sales surged 15.2% over August 2018. The adjusted August number was second only to August 2016 during the heated presidential election. It’s become evident that gun control authoritarians are the best gun salespeople on the planet.
Trump’s rhetoric on guns and his apparent desire to curb the gun rights of innocent people is likely also playing a role in the increase in gun sales. The new surge came in the wake of heightened pressure for gun control, sales bans on “military-style rifles,” limits on ammo, and a slew of democrats saying they will take guns at the end of a gun, but force.
Justin Anderson, the marketing director for Hyatt Guns in Charlotte, North Carolina, one of the nation’s largest sellers, said fears of a liberal gun grab and a drive for self-protection are pushing sales higher.
“As we’ve seen in the past, the recent publicizing of mass shootings has fueled people’s concerns about their personal safety. We are seeing many first-time gun buyers, and our concealed carry classes are booking up quickly,” said Anderson.
“Political figures talking about gun bans and confiscation is also starting to figure into sales. We’ve seen a slight uptick in the sale of tactical rifles as a result,” he added. –Washington Examiner
Democrats continue to prove themselves to be the best people to drive up gun sales. They are literally making their goal of an enslaved populace harder by spewing propaganda seconds after a mass shooting. It looks like innocent people don’t like being told they aren’t allowed to protect themselves and considering the second amendment was written to protect Americans from tyrants, it makes sense that democrats want it gone, while free people stock up.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/11/2019 – 22:45 - How 5G Will Change Your Life
How 5G Will Change Your Life
As Saxo Bank’s Peter Garnry recaps yesterday’s Apple event, the company introduced its iPhone 11 which now comes in three different versions with cheapest version selling for $699 which a price cut aimed to lure smartphone buyers back into Apple’s realm (at the expense of a drop in Apple’s ASP). The stock market reacted positively to the news, but criticism has surfaced that Apple is falling behind as the new iPhone 11 is not coming with a 5G integration which makes almost impossible for Apple to have growth in China where local smartphone makers such as Huawei is introducing smartphone with 5G integration. Beginning in the second half of 2020 this will be a constraint for Apple.
Why does 5G matter?
To answer that question, we have excerpted from a recent Deutsche Bank report explaining “how 5G will change your life.”
Cellular network evolution; Image: Micron Amidst hype and high expectation, the 5G roll-out has begun. It recently launched in Korea, while the US, UK and others have commenced trial versions and China has said it will soon grant commercial licenses for its network. To take advantage, companies such as Samsung and LG have launched 5G smartphones. In total, $160bn is being invested annually in the construction of 5G networks according to GSMA, the mobile network operators’ association. It expects 5G to contribute $2.2tn to the global economy in the coming 15 years, just a little less than the size of the UK economy.
Yet, for all the fanfare, many in the industry are quietly nervous. Among other things, one of the biggest concerns is that there is no ‘killer application’ ready and waiting to be unleashed that requires the 5G network. That trepidation stands in direct contrast to the 4G and 3G roll-outs. The former allowed good-quality streaming video and the latter photo sharing and other types of multimedia. Both were a boon for hardware, software, and network providers.
Overview of 5G Key Enabling Technologies; source: Samsung This is backed up by our dbDig primary research1 which shows that in the US, only ten per cent of customers are prepared to pay $6 or more for 5G services and one-quarter of customers say they are not prepared to pay any extra at all. Yet when we look at China a different picture emerges. Indeed, two-thirds of Chinese customers are willing to pay for 5G if it means quicker uploads to social media or the ability to play mobile games with very low load time. That is double the proportion of US customers who are willing to pay for the same services. It seems part of the reason is that the Chinese are far more likely to report issues with signal strength when they are in rural areas. Given smart phones have become a crucial engagement tool in rural Asian areas (see our piece titled, ‘The emerging market technology skip’) the willingness of the Chinese to upgrade is not surprising. However, the future for 5G smartphone service in developed markets seems more uncertain.
On top of the concerns about user uptake are the voices of health professionals, environmentalists, and politicians who worry about radiation emissions. Take Brussels, for example, a city with very strict radiation regulations. There, a pilot 5G project was halted on health grounds with the environment minister proclaiming, “The people of Brussels are not guinea pigs.” In Switzerland, authorities have commenced a 5G radiation monitoring programme. And all this comes before considering the stern political rhetoric that has accompanied the choice of Chinese suppliers for 5G infrastructure (see our piece titled, ‘The politics of 5G’).
So given that many smartphone users are wondering whether they should bother upgrading to 5G, the network providers cannot be blamed for wondering just how aggressively they should spend the money to roll out 5G networks. Consider that 5G works on a much shorter wavelength than 4G. Because of that, it cannot travel as far as the longer wavelengths of earlier networks. It also has more trouble penetrating the thick walls of buildings. To deal with this, network providers will need to install perhaps five times more base stations than they have with 4G, and some of those stations may be more costly to build. The extra cost, then, is significant and the initial roll-outs will almost certainly be confined to densely-populated urban areas.
So, is it a situation of “build it and they will come”? Will the roll out of 5G spur a frenzied development of 5G-specific applications in a similar way to how 4G catalysed a plethora of video-related products? Or will network providers need to see evidence of a demand for 5G and a willingness to pay before they can justify the expense of rolling out 5G beyond city centres? While we wait for the ‘killer app’ to be developed, the answer is it will probably be a bit of both until a virtuous cycle is established.
The thing is that unlike the move to 3G and 4G, some of the most important uses of the 5G network are unlikely to take place on a smartphone, at least for now. Instead, the initial uptake in 5G will likely be driven by the manufacturing industry and public utilities, not individual consumers. Some countries have made significant plans for this. Germany, for example, has reserved a 100 megahertz band between 3.7 and 3.8 gigahertz to be used exclusively by industrial companies for their local networks. German company Siemens is one of the companies at the forefront of 5G industrial applications (see our piece titled, ‘Siemens case study’).
5G mobile tower in London; image: EE Some call it the Industrial Internet of Things, others Industry 4.0. Either way, the story is the same. The IIoT is a network of intelligent industrial devices, that is, machines that have in-built sensors that collect data and communicate with each other. This allows them to adjust how they perform a task to what is happening elsewhere in the factory, or inform a human of a certain need to make the process more efficient. The idea is not new, but so far, ‘smart factories’ have been extremely limited. One key problem is the latency of existing 4G networks. Although it may be small, just a second’s delay for a precision manufacturing job can result in serious damage to the product. The 5G network with latency at the lower end of the millisecond range will go a long way to fixing that. For example, a robot arm will be able to stop itself immediately if a camera identifies a foreign object on the conveyor belt.
The very-low latency of 5G opens up the possibilities for using machines in remote locations or where it is difficult to lay cables. For example, industrial companies use IWLAN networks for the monitoring of power networks on islands or the identification of leaks in oil and gas pipelines.
Reliable wireless connectivity will also enable autonomous robots on the factory floor. These will be able to move themselves to where they are needed, particularly in cases where a breakdown or bottleneck occurs at one point on the production line. It is true that factories are currently configured for cable-connected robots and reorganising the factory to allow for autonomous robots will be expensive. But in time this will change as the design of many factories is currently very inefficient as they are frequently back-solved to account for the requirements of cable-connected robots. Not only that, but it will also allow for more mobile human staff in factories. Currently, most control panels are wired as they are generally deemed too critical to be left to a wireless connection. Reliable 5G connections will change that. Furthermore, ultra-low latency augmented reality applications will also be enabled for technicians.
Of course, industrial markets are just at the beginning of their digitisation journey. As factories begin to implement 5G, the network will grow. That will allow control to be increasingly decentralised. It will also allow for a link to be made with suppliers. This is great news for those that engage in just-in-time inventory processes, or wish they could. For example, if a supplier can be notified of a factory delay the moment a machine detects it, shipments from that supplier can be delayed to accommodate. This also trims energy costs and reduces throughput times.
Another application factory owners have long desired is predictive maintenance. Apart from the speed and latency benefits of 5G, the network is much better than 4G at handling multiple devices at once. In fact, 5G makes it possible to transmit the data generated by one million IoT devices per square kilometre in a factory complex. That should cover the complete production line of most factories and their associated temperature measurement and flow sensors. Indeed, by some estimates there will be 80 billion connected devices generating 180 zettabytes of data in 2025, 45 times the amount of data generated in 2013.
All that data allows for the strain on components to be better analysed and the cost savings can be significant. This is best illustrated with an example. Take a brewery which has thousands of valves that secure the smooth transfer of liquid through the machines. From time to time, one will break causing downtime or, even worse, a contamination of the product. To avoid this, the norm is to exchange all valves at specific intervals based on historic projections of breakage rates. In a 5G smart factory, sensors can measure the actual strain on the valves and alert the human controllers when a specific one needs to be replaced before it breaks and without throwing away otherwise perfectly good valves.
Further down the road, 5G technology should accelerate the adoption of industrial and enterprise mobile internet use case beyond factories. One example is the opening up of new technology acceptance models for mainstream consumer internet companies to expand into enterprise solutions. In fact, given the potential applications, this will likely become a mega-trend. The US will likely lead the way. To put the figures in context, the technology software and services industry represents one-third of all US listed technology companies’ market value. In North Asia by contrast, the figure is under ten per cent and it is difficult to identify many strong enterprise software companies in the region. That said, it will not be all one-way traffic from North America. China has strong ambitions to build stronger digitally-connected infrastructure and aims to become less reliant on foreign and overseas technology for enterprise software.
While the first applications of 5G may be in the industrial space, one of the most anticipated consumer-facing applications is the autonomous car. The necessity is the close-to-zero latency of 5G – critical if autonomous cars are to be linked together and make split-second decisions. Although the world is some way from widespread adoption of autonomous cars, they have the potential to offer safety and environmental benefits with 5G as the backbone. They will also likely be the most visible part of a smart city (see our piece titled, ‘Who wants to live in a Smart City’).
5G Timelines and global R&D activities; source: Samsung Other consumer-facing applications currently under development include remote surgery which requires very-low latency services. On the entertainment front, virtual reality films will require the high speed of 5G networks. Consider that a standard two-hour film streamed in high-definition on Netflix will consume four gigabytes of data. The same film in virtual reality will use ten times the amount.
To examine just the consumer and industrial benefits of 5G is to merely see one side of the coin. The other is which companies and industries will benefit and, crucially, when.
In the first instance, it is the hardware equipment makers that should benefit as they are the ones to construct the infrastructure to lay out the 5G network. Then it will be the turn of the software makers. History shows that the providers of content, such as video and games, have benefitted at this point as digital content tends to be more intuitive from a business model standpoint and thus has faster adoption. Following this are businesses that require more infrastructure support. With 3G and 4G, this included the e-commerce and food delivery industries.
The consumer internet industry is likely to be a ‘late cycle’ beneficiary of 5G technology. Internet companies tend to identify and release new innovative services and content once there is sufficient reach and penetration. Thus, a sufficiently installed 5G base is a likely pre-requisite for the consumer internet industry.
Yet, the industry will also note how market valuations reacted to the 3G and 4G upgrades in the past. At first, investors were pessimistic, fearing the unknown costs and worried about the extent of adoption of the applications enabled by the technology as well as cannibalisation. These fears weighed on market valuations early in the cycle before becoming a tailwind later. This was particularly noticeable in Asia. During 2011 and 2012, major Asian internet stocks reached then-historic valuation lows in China, Japan, and Korea. In China, the market valuation of these large listed stocks remained flat in 2011 despite the jump of one-third in the underlying earnings outlook. In the more mature Japanese market, the aggregate sector’s market value fell eight per cent despite a six per cent increase in earnings.
As the industry decides the extent of its initial roll-out, it will be cognisant of the lessons learnt from the transition from 3G to 4G. Then, streaming video was the ‘killer application’ that was ready to go as soon as the 4G network was installed, and customers were enthusiastic in their take-up. The net consequence was lower earnings for consumer internet companies as the increase in bandwidth and content procurement costs skyrocketed, relative to the periods where text and static image-based content consumption were mainstream. In other words, the early phase of improving network quality was a cost that wracked on the nerves of investors. It would be safe to assume telecommunication executives will use this experience and temper their enthusiasm for an immediate wide-spread 5G roll out.
But despite the nerves of suppliers, the concerns of health professionals, and the political complications, the tangible benefits of 5G networks, will likely become commonplace far sooner than many expect.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/11/2019 – 22:25
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