- Guess Where European Workers Go On Strike Most Frequently
This week, the Irish health system was plunged into further chaos as nurses held three consecutive days of strike action.
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation already held three 24 hour strikes in its row over pay, recruitment and the retention of staff. Thousands of patients have already seen their medical appointments disrupted with many operations cancelled.
However, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, data from the European Trade Union Institute shows that as bad as the disruption is, the Irish are not the worst country in Europe for industrial action…
You will find more infographics at Statista
Between 2010 and 2017, 17 days were not worked on average due to industrial action per 1,000 employees. Cyprus had the highest average number of days lost due to strikes in that period – 316.
France is well known for industrial action and it came second with 125 days not worked.
- The Deep Hurt: Lessons From American Coups
Authored by Michael Welton via Counterpunch.org,
As the world watches aghast at another US and allies’ attempt to engineer a coup in Venezuela, I would like to offer a few insights from Stephen Kinzer’ provocative chapter, “The deep hurt,” (pp. 227-250) in his book, The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of the American Empire (2017). This remarkable text carries some hope and lessons for all of us. It tells the story of the great conflict around the turn of 20th century about the role that the US might play in either dominating the world or building a cosmopolitan democracy where all people feel secure that they reside in one country, the earth.
Indeed, Kinzer states:
“Anti-imperialists decisively influenced American history by helping to ensure that the first burst of American annexation would be the last” (p. 228).
Even swash-buckling Teddy Roosevelt was influenced, losing his zest for the idea of conquest. When he charged into the White House he held two views simultaneously, intervene to help other people, without oppressing them. Kinzer thinks that this dichotomy “torments our national psyche” (p. 229). In the early parts of the book Kinzer sets out the anti-imperialist (Mark Twain) and pro-imperialist visions (Henry Cabot Lodge). These speeches are worth gathering round for reflection.
During the following hundred years much of what the anti-imperialists predicted has come to pass. The United States has become an “actively interventionist power. It has projected military or covert power into dozens of countries on every continent except Antarctica”(ibid.). George Frisbie Hoar was right, Kinzer points out, when he “warned that intervening in other lands would turn the United States into a ‘vulgar, commonplace empire founded upon physical force”” (ibid.).
Anti-imperialists also predicted that an “aggressive foreign policy would have pernicious effects at home” (ibid.). Military budgets have soared to heights unimaginable in the days of fervent expansionism in the 1898 war with the Philippines. The armaments industries wield extraordinary clout. The wealth-soaked elites dominate politics. The invasion and overthrowing of distant regimes resides in the hands of a few decision-makers. And militaristic values and rituals saturate American life and expunge peaceful ones.
To be sure, American intervention brought some material blessings (good schools and orderly systems of justice, etc) and rising American power was perceived as “good for everyone simply because it means strengthening the world’s most beneficent nation” (p. 230). The expansionists of 1898 believed that America was “inherently benevolent,” and subject nations would rally around the May pole in celebratory dance. “The opposite happened….Carl Schurz was right when he warned that dominating foreigners would ultimately force Americans to ‘shoot them down because they stand up for their independence’” (p. 231).
Kinzer states that: “In the face of profound new challenges, Americans are once again debating the role of the United States in the world. Should it intervene violently in other countries? This remains what Senator William V. Allen called it in 1899: ‘The greatest question that has ever been presented to the American people’” (p. 231). American culture carries a current of anti-imperialism and commitment to an international legal order. They played a big role in the establishment of the UN and nurturing global governance. They remain the world’s only superpower with enormous capacity to move towards building the cosmopolitan world order. What is evident now in this dark moment of history is that the world as it is, is not the way it has to be.
It is difficult, I think, for the United States with its inordinate military might and present delusionary self-understanding to wrench itself free from wanting to intervene for political and economic reasons. Many in the post-WW I world had placed their bet for a better world on the Presbyterian professor Woodrow Wilson. Famously, Wilson triggered immense hopefulness to the disenfranchised in the colonies of European powers. He preached that they should “choose the sovereignty under which the shall live” (p. 232). In office, American troops were dispatched to intervene in Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Russia….Like his predecessors—and successors—Wilson insisted that he was doing it for the good of the target countries. Americans would leave them alone, he promised, as soon as they learned ‘to elect good men’” (ibid.). Today scholars speak of the “shattered peace” of the post-WW I world. Was the desire to begin building, slowly, carefully, a cosmopolitan world order, as Jan Smuts thought, an “impossible dream”?
Kinzer observes that “this most compassionate of presidents not only invaded countries that defied the United States, but studiously ignored appeals from colonized people outside Europe, notably in Egypt, India, Korea, and Indochina. His hypocrisy set the stage for generations of war and upheaval” (ibid.). Margaret MacMillan’s lively and densely detailed book, Paris 1919 (2001), provides the stories for these outcast colonized countries.
Today, the US has intervened one more time. The difference now may well be that there is little pretence that the US is engaging in the bully politics of “might is right.” They don’t care two hoots about what the world thinks. They do not give a damn about the self-determination of all countries and peoples. This invasion is stripped of any moral or legal justification. The US has decided to declare the Speaker of the House, Juan Guaido, president. This is unheard of! And Canada has forsaken the best of its liberal and social democratic traditions of adherence to rule of law to hitch its caboose to the US’s rampaging imperialist train.
There are several lessons that Kinzer draws from American history of intervention that our worth careful reflection.
1) American imperialists (and many Americans) truly believe that they are superior and that the world would become a better place if nations submitted to their leadership. The United States would be better off, Kinzer says, if it became a learning nation and not a teaching one.
2) Early promoters of American intervention were zealous patriots. They proclaimed love of country and loyalty to the flag. Yet they could not imagine that people from non-white countries might feel just as patriotic. Love of country was a mark of civilization. Lesser peoples, therefore, couldn’t grasp it.
3) Americans have been said to be ignorant about the world. They are, says Kinzer, but so are other peoples. The difference is that American leaders, puffed with a sense of mission, acted on ignorance. American leaders see little reason to bother learning about the nations whose affairs they intrude.
4) Violent intervention in other countries always produces unintended consequences. Cuba was turned into a protectorate in 1901. A fine idea? It led ultimately to a bitter anti-American regime. Intervention in the Philippines sparked waves of nationalism across East Asia that contributed to the Communist revolution in China in 1949. Later American interventions also had terrible results planners never anticipated. From Iran and Guatemala to Iraq and Afghanistan, intervention has devastated societies and produced violent anti-American passion.
5) Generations of American foreign policy makers have made decisions on three assumptions: the US is the indispensable nation that must lead the world; this leadership requires toughness; and toughness is best demonstrated by the threat or use of force. Thus: America is inherently righteous; its influence on rest of world always benign.
6) Most American interventions are not soberly conceived, with realistic goals and clear exit strategies. But violent invasions always leave so-called “collateral damage”: families killed, destroyed towns, ruined lives, damaged land.
7) The argument that the United States intervenes to defend “freedom” rarely matches facts on the ground. Many (most?) interventions prop up predatory regimes. The goal is simply to increase American power rather than to liberate the suffering.
8) Foreign intervention has weakened the moral authority that was once the foundation of America’s political identity. Today many people around the world see it as a bully, recklessly invading foreign lands. The current invasion of Venezuela is such an example. The name “United States” is associated with bombing, invasion, occupation, night raids, covert action, torture, kidnapping, and secret prisons. Who wants to be saved by America? John Bolton recently threatened Maduro with prison in Guantanamo if he doesn’t get the hell out of Venezuela.
9) Nations lose their virtue when they repeatedly attack other nations. That loss, as Washington predicted, has cost the United States its felicity. Kinzer says that the US can regain it only by understanding its own national interests more clearly. He thinks it is late for the United States to change its course in the world—but not too late.
- Does Coconut Milk Make Women's Breasts Bigger? Chinese Ads Say 'Yes'
A Chinese coconut milk manufacturer says that its beverage will make a woman’s breasts grow bigger. The company, Coconut Palm, has spent several years promoting this claim in a series of “tone-deaf” advertisements that offer no evidence to support their claims – causing many to voice their doubts.
While their 2019 pitch features big breasted women on the drink’s distinctive black packaging, a 2017 ad featuring scantily clad women folicking in the ocean recommends that women “drink one can every day, [your] curves will excite people, whiter and more plump,” and “drinking more coconut milk every day can make [your] breasts fuller,” reports the South China Morning Post.
One woman boasts: “genuine Coconut Palm coconut juice, I drank from small to big.”
Does coconut milk give women bigger breasts? According to this Chinese company’s “vulgar” and “tone-deaf” ads, yes https://t.co/WArugMWqO7 pic.twitter.com/u73kcbRO72
— SCMP News (@SCMPNews) February 14, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“When I first saw the advert, I thought some netizen had just Photoshopped it. It’s only now that I realised it was actually true and not someone joking around,” reads onme comment on China’s Twitter equivalent, Weibo.
Others voiced their displeasure. “The old brand has been around for so many years, and still needs to do this!” wrote another person of the Hainan-headquartered company that has been making the drink since 1988.
Ava Kwong, a professor in the University of Hong Kong’s medical faculty, told the South China Morning Post that, based on peer-reviewed scientific literature, she had not come across studies that supported the claims made for the products. –SCMP
Our extensive research for this totally legitimate article also turned up no scientific evidence of breast-enhancing qualities linked to coconut milk.
The company also came under fire for its 2017 papaya juice advertisement, which similarly featured large-chested women in bikinis who claimed: “when I’m full of papaya I’m ample-chested.“
According to SCMP, a representative from the Coconut Palm factory in Hainan told the Beijing Times that they will conduct a thorough investigation into the matter – while the Industrial anbd Commercial Bureau of Longhua district in Haikou is also investigating “and has removed some of the controversial adverts,” according to SCMP, citing state news agency Xinhua.
“Market regulatory departments will strictly, and in accordance with the law, carry out inspections and investigate any unlawful advertisements … to protect the legitimate interests of consumers,” reads the report.
Watch the entire advertisement here, for science:
- Trump To Unveil $8 Billion Border Wall Funding Plan Tomorrow
Having successfully passed the House and Senate, the compromise border security bill to avoid another government shutdown has wended its way to President Trump’s desk.
As he confirmed earlier, Trump plans on signing the bipartisan congressional bill and declaring a national emergency at the southern border to expand the limited border wall funding ($1.375 billion) in the bill.
As Bloomberg reports, Trump plans to use his unilateral authority to spend more than $8 billion to construct physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a White House official, a maneuver that Speaker Pelosi has already warned will likely prompt a lengthy legal challenge:
“The president is doing an end run around Congress, the power of the purse.”
The president will invoke an emergency declaration to redirect an additional $3.5 billion Congress approved for the Defense Department’s military construction budget, said another person familiar with the deliberations.
Trump also will use his ordinary executive authority to reprogram $2.5 billion from the Defense Department’s drug interdiction efforts and $600 million from the Treasury department’s drug forfeiture program, said the person, who asked not to be identified to discuss plans ahead of announcement.
The strategy avoids another politically risky government shutdown while allowing him to show his political supporters he has the will to build the wall.
The White House confirmed that Trump will address the nation with regard the Border Wall situation at 10amET tomorrow.
“President Trump will sign the government funding bill, and as he has stated before, he will also take other executive action — including a national emergency — to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border,” White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
“The President is once again delivering on his promise to build the wall, protect the border, and secure our great country.”
And just in case you were wondering what the left is thinking, here is Beto O’Rourke claiming that Americans have not “in any demonstrative way” been made safer by the current wall and finally addressing Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s question:
“if you could snap your fingers and make El Paso’s border wall disappear, would you?”
O’Rourke replied during an MSNBC interview at the border today…
“Yes, absolutely. I’d take the wall down.”
Crenshaw immediately responded that “at least Beto is honest about his open border policy” since “most [Democrats] claim to support a secure border while simultaneously undermining it at every turn.”
“Should also note: El Paso mayor stated ‘The fence has worked.’ Residents have ‘stated that they felt more secure with the fence.’” Crenshaw added.
Of course, we should expect an avalanche of media-sponsored outrage that President Trump should declare this a National Emergency in order to secure funding, but as The Epoch Times details, there are currently 31 National Emergencies:
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Nov 14, 1979: Blocking Iranian Government Property (EO12170)
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Nov 14, 1994: Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (EO 12938)
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Jan 23, 1995: Prohibiting Transactions With Terrorists Who Threaten To Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process (EO 12947)
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Mar 15, 1995: Prohibiting Certain Transactions with Respect to the Development of Iranian Petroleum Resources (EO 12957)
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Oct 21, 1995: Blocking Assets and Prohibiting Transactions with Significant Narcotics Traffickers (EO 12978)
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Mar 1, 1996: Declaration of a National Emergency and Invocation of Emergency Authority Relating to the Regulation of the Anchorage and Movement of Vessels (Proc. 6867)
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Nov 3, 1997: Blocking Sudanese Government Property and Prohibiting Transactions With Sudan (EO 13067)
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Jun 26, 2001: Blocking Property of Persons Who Threaten International Stabilization Efforts in the Western Balkans (EO 13219)
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Aug 17, 2001: Continuation of Export Control Regulations (EO 13222)
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Sep 14, 2001: Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks (Proc. 7463)
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Sep 23, 2001: Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten To Commit, or Support Terrorism (EO 13224)
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Mar 6, 2003: Blocking Property of Persons Undermining Democratic Processes or Institutions in Zimbabwe (EO 13288)
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May 22, 2003: Protecting the Development Fund for Iraq and Certain Other Property in Which Iraq Has an Interest (EO 13303)
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May 11, 2004: Blocking Property of Certain Persons and Prohibiting the Export of Certain Goods to Syria (EO 13338)
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Jun 16, 2006: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Undermining Democratic Processes or Institutions in Belarus (EO 13405)
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Oct 27, 2006: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (EO 13413)
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Aug 1, 2007: Blocking Property of Persons Undermining the Sovereignty of Lebanon or Its Democratic Processes and Institutions (EO 13441)
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Jun 26, 2008: Continuing Certain Restrictions With Respect to North Korea & North Korean Nationals (EO 13466)
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Apr 12, 2010: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Conflict in Somalia (EO 13536)
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Feb 25, 2011: Blocking Property and Prohibiting Certain Transactions Related to Libya (EO 13566)
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Jul 24, 2011: Blocking Property of Transnational Criminal Organizations (EO13581)
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May 16, 2012: Blocking Property of Persons Threatening the Peace, Security, or Stability of Yemen (EO 13611)
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Mar 6, 2014: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Ukraine (EO 13660)
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Apr 3, 2014: Blocking Property of Certain Persons With Respect to South Sudan (EO 13664)
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May 12, 2014: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Conflict in the Central African Republic (EO 13667)
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Mar 8, 2015: Blocking Property and Suspending Entry of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Venezuela (EO 13692)
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Apr 1, 2015: Blocking the Property of Certain Persons Engaging in Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities (EO 13694)
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Nov 22, 2015: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Burundi (EO 13712)
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Dec 20, 2017: Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption (EO13818)
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Sep 12, 2018: Imposing Certain Sanctions in the Event of Foreign Interference in a United States Election (EO 13848)
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Nov 27, 2018: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Nicaragua (EO 13851)
If President Trump declare the National Emergency tomorrow it will become number 32.
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- US Stealth Jets Conduct Bombing Drill In Philippine And East China Sea
F-35B Lightning II stealth fighter jets with the fixed-wing detachment of Medium Marine Tiltrotor Squadron 262, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), conducted a bombing exercise from the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Wasp in the Philippine and East China Seas, Jan. 26 through Feb. 6, according to a press release by the US Indo-Pacific Command.
F35B releases smart bombs above the Pacific Ocean, Feb. 3, 2019. During the exercise, fifth-generation combat aircraft were armed with Sidewinder missiles and precision-guided munitions.
“We conducted these missions by launching from the USS Wasp, engaging role-player adversary aircraft, striking simulated targets with internally and externally mounted precision guided munitions, returning to the Wasp, and recovering via a vertical landing – a niche capability of the F-35B,” Lieutenant Colonel Michael Rountree, the F-35B detachment officer-in-charge aboard the USS Wasp. “This was the first time that this level of training has been performed by an operationally-deployed F-35B detachment with the 31st [Marine Expeditionary Unit].”
The exercise marks the first time that the F-35B jet performed bombing runs in the Indo-Pacific region, “demonstrating an increase in lethality and integrated amphibious capability,” according to Col. Robert Brodie, commanding officer of the 31st MEU.
“The combination of stealth tactics and fully-loaded strike aircraft increases the lethality of the F-35B, enabling greater contribution and combat effectiveness by the Amphibious Ready Group/Marine Expeditionary Unit Team,” said Brodie, a career F/A-18 Hornet pilot. “The formidable and versatile capability of the F-35B provides a premier platform to support the Marine Air-Ground Task Force’s ability to own the fight in the dynamic and evolving Indo-Pacific environment.”
The purpose of the drill could be a clear warning shot to China.
US and Japanese officials are worried about the sheer number of Chinese warships and bombers patrolling the Senkaku islands, which are uninhabited, located east of mainland China, northeast of Taiwan and west of Japan’s Okinawa prefecture. Their location makes them strategically valuable to both China and Japan. Both countries have overlapping claims.
The 31st MEU is continuously forward-deployed with USS Wasp, provides a rapid lethal force ready to perform combat missions as the top crisis response force in the Indo-Pacific Region.
Conflict with China could be on the horizon. The US military is undoubtedly preparing with stealth jets in a tense region in the East China Sea.
- Oil, Agriculture, & Imperialism: Averting The Fast-Track To Armageddon?
Authored by Colin Todhunter via Off-Guardian.org,
US National Security Advisor John Bolton has more or less admitted that the ongoing destabilisation of Venezuela is about grabbing its oil. He recently stated:
We’re looking at the oil assets… We’re in conversation with major American companies now… It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”
The US’s hand-picked supposed leader-in-waiting, Juan Guaido, aims to facilitate the process and usher in a programme of ‘mass privatisation’ and ‘hyper-capitalism’ at the behest of his coup-instigating masters in Washington, thereby destroying the socialist revolution spearheaded by the late Hugo Chavez and returning to a capitalist oligarch-controlled economic system.
One might wonder who is Bolton, or anyone in the US, to dictate and engineer what the future of another sovereign state should be. But this is what the US has been doing across the globe for decades. Its bloody imperialism, destabilisations, coups, assassinations, invasions and military interventions have been extensively documented by William Blum.
Of course, although oil is key to the current analysis of events in Venezuela, there is also the geopolitical subtext of debt, loans and Russian investment and leverage within the country. At the same time, it must be understood that US-led capitalism is experiencing a crisis of over-production: when this occurs capital needs to expand into or create new markets and this entails making countries like Venezuela bow to US hegemony and open up its economy.
For US capitalism, however, oil is certainly king. Its prosperity is maintained by oil with the dollar serving as the world reserve currency. Demand for the greenback is guaranteed as most international trade (especially and significantly oil) is carried out using the dollar. And those who move off it are usually targeted by the US (Venezuela being a case in point).
US global hegemony depends on Washington maintaining the dollar’s leading role. Engaging in petrodollar recycling and treasury-bond ‘super-imperialism’ are joined at the hip and have enabled the US to run up a huge balance of payments deficit (a free ride courtesy of the rest of the world) by using the (oil-backed) paper dollar as security in itself.
More generally, with its control and manipulation of the World Bank, IMF and WTO, the US has been able to lever international trade and financial systems to its advantage by various means (for example, see this analysis of Saudi Arabia’s oil money in relation to African debt). US capitalism will not allow its global dominance and the role of the dollar to be challenged.
Unfortunately for humanity and all life on the planet, the US deems it necessary to attempt to prolong its (declining) hegemony and the age of oil.
OIL, EMPIRE AND AGRICULTURE
In the article ‘And you thought Greece had a problem’, Norman Pagett notes that the ascendance of modern industrialised humans, thanks to oil, has been a short flash of light that has briefly lifted us out of the mire of the middle ages. What we call modern civilisation in the age of oil is fragile and it is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to extract remaining oil reserves. The age of oil is a driver of climate change, that much is clear. But what is equally disturbing is that the modern global food regime is oil-dependent, not least in terms of the unnecessary transportation of commodities and produce across the planet and the increasing reliance on proprietary seeds designed to be used with agrochemicals derived from petroleum or which rely on fossil fuel during their manufacture.
Virtually all of the processes in the modern food system are now dependent upon this finite resource:
Vast amounts of oil and gas are used as raw materials and energy in the manufacture of fertilisers and pesticides, and as cheap and readily available energy at all stages of food production: from planting, irrigation, feeding and harvesting, through to processing, distribution and packaging. In addition, fossil fuels are essential in the construction and the repair of equipment and infrastructure needed to facilitate this industry, including farm machinery, processing facilities, storage, ships, trucks and roads. The industrial food supply system is one of the biggest consumers of fossil fuels and one of the greatest producers of greenhouse gases.”
Norman J Church (2005)Pagett notes that the trappings of civilisation have not altered the one rule of existence: if you don’t produce food from the earth on a personal basis, your life depends on someone converting sunlight into food on your behalf. Consider that Arabia’s gleaming cities in the desert are built on its oil. It sells oil for food. Then there is the UK, which has to import 40 per cent of its food, and much of the rest depends on oil to produce it, which also has to be imported. Pagett notes that while some talk about the end of the oil age, few link this to or describe it as being the end of the food age.
Without oil, we could survive – but not by continuing to pursue the ‘growth’ model China or India are pursuing, or which the West has pursued. Without sustainable, healthy agriculture, however, we will not survive. Destroy agriculture, or more precisely the resources to produce food sustainably (the climate, access to fresh water and indigenous seeds, traditional know-how, learning and practices passed on down the generations, soil fertility, etc.), which is what we are doing, and we will be in trouble.
The prevailing oil-based global food regime goes hand in hand with the wrong-headed oil-based model of ‘development’ we see in places like India. Such development is based on an outmoded ‘growth’ paradigm:
Our politicians tell us that we need to keep the global economy growing at more than 3% each year – the minimum necessary for large firms to make aggregate profits. That means every 20 years we need to double the size of the global economy – double the cars, double the fishing, double the mining, double the McFlurries and double the iPads. And then double them again over the next 20 years from their already doubled state.”
Jason Hickel (2016)How can we try to avoid potential catastrophic consequences of such an approach, including what appears to be an increasingly likely nuclear conflict between competing imperial powers?
We must move away from militarism and resource-gabbing conflicts by reorganising economies so that nations live within their environmental means. We must maximise human well-being while actively shrinking out consumption levels and our ecological footprint.
Some might at this point be perplexed by the emphasis on agriculture. But what many overlook is that central to this argument is recognising not only the key role that agriculture has played in facilitating US geopolitical aims but also its potential for transforming our values and how we live. We need a major shift away from the current model of industrialised agriculture and food production. Aside from it being a major emitter of greenhouse gases, it has led to bad food, poor health and environmental degradation and has been underpinned by a resource-grabbing, food-deficit producing US foreign policy agenda for many decades, assisted by the WTO, World Bank, IMF and ‘aid’ strategies. For instance, see Sowing the Seeds of Famine in Ethiopia by Michel Chossudovsky and Destroying African Agriculture by Walden Bello.
The control of global agriculture has been a tentacle of US capitalism’s geopolitical strategy. The Green Revolution was exported courtesy of oil-rich interests and poorer nations adopted agricapital’s chemical-dependent model of agriculture that required loans for inputs and related infrastructure development. It entailed trapping nations into a globalised system of debt bondage, rigged trade relations and the hollowing out and capture of national and local economies. In effect, we have seen the transnational corporate commercialisation and displacement of localised productive systems.
Western agricapital’s markets are opened or propped up by militarism (Ukraine and Iraq), ‘structural adjustment’ and strings-attached loans (Africa) and slanted trade deals (India). Agricapital drives a globalised agenda to suit its interests and eradicate impediments to profit. And it doesn’t matter how much devastation ensues or how unsustainable its food regime is, ‘crisis management’ and ‘innovation’ fuel the corporate-controlled treadmill it seeks to impose.
But as Norman J Church argues, the globalisation and corporate control that seriously threaten society and the stability of our environment are only possible because cheap energy is used to replace labour and allows the distance between producer and consumer to be extended.
We need to place greater emphasis on producing food rooted in the principles of localisation, self-reliance, (carbon sequestrating) regenerative agriculture and (political) agroecology and to acknowledge the need to regard the commons (soil, water, seeds, land, forests, other natural resources, etc) as genuine democratically controlled common wealth. This approach would offerconcrete, practical solutions (mitigating climate change, job creation in the West and elsewhere, regenerating agriculture and economies in the Global South, etc) to many of the world’s problems that move beyond (but which are linked to) agriculture.
This would present a major challenge to the existing global food regime and the prevailing moribund doctrinaire economics that serves the interests of Western oil companies and financial institutions, global agribusiness and the major arms companies. These interlocking, self-serving interests have managed to institute a globalised system of war, poverty and food insecurity.
The deregulation of international capital flows (financial liberalisation) effectively turned the world into a free-for-all for global capital. The further ramping up of US militarism comes at the back end of a deregulating/pro-privatising neoliberal agenda that has sacked public budgets, depressed wages, expanded credit to consumers and to governments (to sustain spending and consumption) and unbridled financial speculation. This relentless militarism has now become a major driver of the US economy.
Millions are dead in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan as the US and its allies play out a continuation of what they regard as a modern-day ‘Great Game’. And now, in what it arrogantly considers its own back yard, the US is instigating yet another coup and possible military attack.
We have Western politicians and the media parroting unfounded claims about President Maduro, like they did with Assad, Saddam Hussein, Qaddafi and like they do about ‘Russian aggression’. All for what? Resources, pipelines, oil and gas. And these wars and conflicts and the lies to justify them will only get worse as demand across the world for resources grows against a backdrop of depletion.
We require a different low-energy, low-carbon economic system based on a different set of values. As the US ratchets up tensions in Venezuela, we again witness a continuation of the same imperialist mindset that led to two devastating world wars.
- Radioactive Fukushima Debris Picked Up By Remote-Controlled Robot For First Time
A remote-controlled robot sent into the bowels of a melted nuclear reactor at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant has made picked up pebble-sized chunks of radioactive debris for the first time, according to AFP.
On Wednesday, operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) sent a remote-controlled probe to the bottom of the plant’s No. 2 reactor and lifted five small pieces of radioactive debris two inches.
“We were able to confirm that the fuel debris can be moved,” said spokeswoman Yuka Matsubara, adding “We accomplished the objective of this test.”
Matsubara says tht TEPCO plans to move more debris by next March.
Robots have already peered inside the reactor to allow experts to assess the melted fuel visually, but Wednesday’s test was the first attempt to work out how fragile the highly radioactive material is.
Removing the melted fuel is considered the most difficult part of the massive clean-up operation in the wake of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl.
It is not expected to begin until 2021, and TEPCO has other issues to resolve including how to dispose of large quantities of contaminated water stored in containers at the plant site. –AFP
The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami swept across mainland Japan and killed over 15,000 people – knocking out the emergency generators at the Fukushima site. With no power, plant operators were unable to cool the – resulting in the meltdown of units 1, 2, and 3, along with hydrogen air explosions and the release of radioactive material into the air and the Pacific Ocean.
According to Gizmodo, the most difficult part of cleaning up the site will be dealing with the intense radiation coming from the melted fuel. In February 2017, a remote-controlled robot became unresponsive after two hours of exposure inside of reactor No. 2. Radiation has been reported as high as 650 sieverts per hour – enough to kill a human within seconds.
Illustration showing how radioactive debris from the reactor pressure vessel are collecting at the bottom of the primary containment vessel.
Image: Tepco via GizmodoLast year, a remote controlled probe with a camera was sent back into the No. 2 reactor, which confirmed that fuel debris had in fact melted through a containment area known as the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) a.k.a. the reactor core, and made its way down to the primary containment vessel (PCV).
Images of the chamber showed pebble- and clay-like deposits covering the entire bottom of the PCV pedestal. This accumulated waste, along with similar piles at reactors No. 1 and 3, needs to be cleaned up, and Tepco is currently trying to determine the best way of doing so.
To that end, the state-owned company devised an operation to see what that material is like and determine if it can be moved. On Wednesday February 13, Tepco sent a probe equipped with a remotely operated robotic hand down into the No. 2 lower chamber, Japan Times reports. Using its tong-like fingers, the probe picked up five grain-sized pieces of radioactive melted fuel. AFP reported that the pieces were moved to a maximum height of 2 inches (5 centimeters) above the bottom of the chamber. In addition to taking images with a camera, the probe measured radiation and temperature during the investigation, according to a Tepco release.
The Japan Times reports that TEPCO plans to move forward with another test in April to remove some debris from the chamber, and hopes to start removing radioactive material from the chamber in earnest by 2021.
- If Everything Is Great, Why Are So Many IPOs Getting Pulled In The Last Moment
Every day, the question about organic demand for stocks in this market, or the lack thereof, rears its ugly head.
As we observed yesterday, while stocks have been blazing higher for the past 7 weeks, in a bizarre twist professional investors, including institutions, hedge funds and retail investors have been selling in droves.
So who was buying? The answer, as Bank of America revealed, is the companies themselves, as yet another spree of corporate buybacks has been unleashed in 2019…
… with the result that buybacks this year are already set to smash last year’s records, as YTD repurchases are trending 78% higher compared to the same period in 2018 (as a reminder, total announced buybacks in 2018 hit a record $1 trillion).
The problem with this, however, is that while companies are buying back their own stock – largely to boost management’s equity-linked executive comp – there is no appetite for others’ stock.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in the US IPO market, where in stark denial of the scorching equity rally, there has been a sudden and unexpected freeze.
Indeed, as Bloomberg notes, Amazon isn’t the only company scrapping its New York debut: Cibus Corp. today became the last company to postpone its Nasdaq listing on the morning it was supposed to start trading; it was the third firm on this week’s IPO calendar to inexplicably shelve plans at the last minute.
Here Bloomberg makes a laughable argument, stating that there is “mounting evidence of rocky market conditions.”
Uhm, where exactly? In the 17% surge in the S&P in under 7 weeks? Or the record collapse in both the VIX and yield spreads.
No, dear Bloomberg editors, there are no “rocky market conditions.” There are simply no buyers, because the only “buyers” in this market are either shorts forced to cover, or companies buying back their – and only their – stock.
Where Bloomberg is right, however, is in stating that after the postponement by Cibus, plus those by BankFlorida and Virgin Trains USA LLC earlier this week, “it’s more than fair to worry about market conditions for new issues.”
For comparison, zero launched IPOs were postponed at this point in 2018. And those fears will only grow bigger when you look at IPOs that did manage to lift off: three of four “successful” public offerings are already trading below their offering price, while the only stock in the green (TCR2 Therapeutics) closed just 7 cents higher after its first day of trading today.
On average, the full 2019 IPO class has been a disaster, and is failing to keep pace with the market, unless of course one realizes that the “market” is merely companies lifting themselves – and only themselves- by the bootstraps in the form of buybacks.
As for organic demand for equity risk, well the sudden burst of pulled IPOs tells you all you need to know.
Will this change? For the answer, keep an eye on the primary market: Stealth BioTherapeutics will attempt to buck the trend during tomorrow’s scheduled debut. However, don’t hope to use the IPO market as an equity barometer into next week: nNext week’s IPO calendar is blank thanks to today’s deadline for companies to price IPOs without having to provide updated – and audited – financial information for all of 2018. Additionally, presidents’ Day vacations would have likely made next week a quiet one, anyway.
The silver lining is that at least the government won’t be shutting down again, so the new issue market should finally have a chance to normalize as the SEC goes through its backlog and IPO candidates update their financials.
However, whether or not that means that “organic” buyers finally emerge, the kind that doesn’t buy back their own shares, is a different matter entirely. So far, and for the past 7 weeks, that has not happened. Which is why until such time as real buyers finally emerge, instead of just buybacks and short squeezes, hold that IPO champagne on ice…
- NJ Pension Fund Might Ditch Enquirer Owner As Bezos Blackmail Backlash Intensifies
As federal prosecutors explore whether National Enquirer publisher AMI broke the law by allegedly trying to blackmail Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, one public pension fund in blue-state New Jersey is exploring ways to hit AMI where it would hurt the most: in its pocketbook. Or at least, find a way to punish the investors who have helped keep AMI afloat, according to Bloomberg.
Kevin O’Malley, a principal at Chatham Asset Management
Following reports that AMI is in dire financial straits, and facing a popular backlash, New Jersey’s State Investment Council, which exercises ultimate authority over its $77 billion state pension fund, is reportedly considering ditching its investment in Chatham Asset Management, the $4 billion hedge fund that owns 80% of AMI, after the “seriously troubling” revelations about the paper’s attempt to blackmail Jeff Bezos.
New Jersey’s State Investment Council called Jeff Bezos’s allegations against the National Enquirer seriously troubling and said it’s evaluating its options for the state pension fund’s investment in Chatham Asset Management, the hedge fund that owns most of the newspaper’s parent company.
“The allegations of AMI’s conduct, if true, are completely unacceptable and violate our expectations for investment partners,” Adam Liebtag, acting chairman of the investment council, said in an email, referring to Enquirer parent American Media Inc. “It is extremely disappointing that the Pension Fund, as an investor, and our beneficiaries, have to be linked to such a distasteful story.”
The council’s acting chairman, Adam Liebtag said the board has relayed ts concerns to Chatham, and though its investment in the fund manager has been successful, is seriously considering ditching the fund.
“While the investment has performed well to date, that is no excuse for this type of behavior. We continue to explore all available options,” he said.
Limiting risk is also a factor in the fund’s decision-making, as the board is reportedly responsible for making sure companies in which it is invested follow all applicable laws.
The state pension fund’s investment in Chatham has become the subject of renewed scrutiny after after a bombshell blog post published by Bezos, who accused the Enquirer of trying to blackmail him with photos of him with a woman who wasn’t his wife. The tech billionaire also suggested that American Media might have been acting on behalf of President Donald Trump and questioned whether it was motivated by coverage of Saudi Arabia in Bezos’ Washington Post newspaper.
Elkan Abramowitz, an attorney for AMI Chairman David Pecker, has denied that there was any blackmail, extortion or political motivation involved in the fight between the tabloid and Bezos. Chatham, meanwhile, has said that it has no involvement in the editorial process or the day-to-day business decisions of the company.
If NJ’s pension fund does drop Chatham, this could have repercussions across the asset management industry. After all, Leon Cooperman, the CEO of Omega Advisors, still owns a small stake in AMI. If the backlash grows, institutions might start evaluating whether to pull out of that fund, too.
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