Nov 16

Today’s News 16th November 2018

  • China Reveals Fifth-Generation Stealth Jet's Missile Payload At Zhuhai Air Show

    Last week, Beijing’s fifth-generation stealth jets displayed a dazzling fifteen-minute performance at Airshow China 2018. The jets wowed more than 20,000 spectators by performing combat maneuvers in Zhuhai, South China’s Guangdong Province.

    Two of the four J-20 stealth jets opened their missile bay doors during the presentation, according to new images in a South China Morning Post report. Each plane showed four medium- and long-range missiles in its central bays and a short-range missile on both sides of the aircraft.

    In a Xinhua video, the stunning performance lasted roughly one minute, as the stealth jets showed thousands of spectators the exotic weapons mounted inside the bays

    Xu Anxiang, deputy commander of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, said the demonstration last week indicates that the J-20 “has the initial operational capability.”

    However, it remains a mystery whether the J-20 is capable of launching missiles in high-speed flight.

    “The capability to open bay doors during a high-speed fly-past is still a challenging and advanced technology and capability, because even Russia’s new-generation Su-57 stealth fighter jet is still incapable of doing it,” a military insider who requested anonymity told the South China Morning Post.

    The report specifies that only the US Air Force’s F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II stealth jets are the only fifth-generation jets to be combat proven with opening missile bay doors and launch capabilities at high-speed flight.

    The Global Times, citing Chinese military experts, said “the move displayed the J-20’s superiority” over America’s stealth jets, and increased the confidence of the People’s Liberation Army to safeguard the South China Sea with high-tech planes, a move that has Washington worried.

    Chinese experts also said the F-22 is outdated technology and the F-35 is full of defects. Song Zhongping, previously commented that “the J-20 will engage with rivals in the future who dare to provoke China in the air,” which means there is a strong possibility that fifth-generation stealth jets from China and the US could fight it out over the South China Sea.

    While the J-20 has participated in war games, the plane, unlike its American counterparts, has never seen actual combat.

    The plane does not meet all requirements for a true fifth-generation fighter, and its inferior engine technology is a massive drag on performance. The aircraft is expected to receive a new engine, but it remains unreliable in static tests, indicating, for now, the J-20 relies on Russia for its engine technology.

    It seems China has somewhat mastered the field of cutting-edge aviation technology that was once dominated by the US. It is only a matter of time before the J-20 receives a new engine and is deployed across the South China Sea. 

  • The Meaning Of A Multipolar World

    Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Saker Blog,

    Right now, we live in a monopolar world.

    Here is how U.S. President Barack Obama proudly, even imperially, described it when delivering the Commencement address to America’s future generals, at West Point Military Academy, on 28 May 2014:

    The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. [Every other nation is therefore ‘dispensable’; we therefore now have “Amerika, Amerika über alles, über alles in der Welt”.] That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come. … America must always lead on the world stage. If we don’t, no one else will…

    Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us. [He was here telling these future U.S. military leaders that they are to fight for the U.S. aristocracy, to help them defeat any nation that resists.] …

    In Ukraine, Russia’s recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern Europe. But this isn’t the Cold War. Our ability to shape world opinion helped isolate Russia right away. [He was proud of the U.S. Government’s effectiveness at propaganda, just as Hitler was proud of the German Government’s propaganda-effectiveness under Joseph Goebbels.] Because of American leadership, the world immediately condemned Russian actions; Europe and the G7 joined us to impose sanctions; NATO reinforced our commitment to Eastern European allies; the IMF is helping to stabilize Ukraine’s economy; OSCE monitors brought the eyes of the world to unstable parts of Ukraine.

    Actually, his – Obama’s – regime, had conquered Ukraine in February 2014 by a very bloody coup, and installed a racist-fascist anti-Russian Government there next door to Russia, a stooge-regime to this day, which instituted a racial-cleansing campaign to eliminate enough pro-Russia voters so as to be able to hold onto power there. It has destroyed Ukraine and so alienated the regions of Ukraine that had voted more than 75% for the democratically elected Ukrainian President whom Obama overthrew, so that those pro-Russia regions quit Ukraine. What remains of Ukraine after the U.S. conquest is a nazi mess and a destroyed nation in hock to Western taxpayers and banks.

    Furthermore, Obama insisted upon (to use Bush’s term about Saddam Hussein) “regime-change” in Syria. Twice in one day the Secretary General of the U.N. asserted that only the Syrian people have any right to do that, no outside nation has any right to impose it. Obama ignored him and kept on trying. Obama actually protected Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate against bombing by Syria’s Government and by Syria’s ally Russia, while the U.S. bombed Syria’s army, which was trying to prevent those jihadists from overthrowing the Government. Obama bombed Libya in order to “regime-change” Muammar Gaddafi, and he bombed Syria in order to “regime-change” Bashar al-Assad; and, so, while the “U.S. Drops Bombs; EU Gets Refugees & Blame. This Is Insane.” And Obama’s successor Trump continues Obama’s policies in this regard. And, of course, the U.S. and its ally UK invaded Iraq in 2003, likewise on the basis of lies to the effect that Iraq was the aggressor. (Even Germany called Poland the aggressor when invading Poland in 1939.)

    No other nation regularly invades other nations that never had invaded it. This is international aggression. It is the international crime of “War of Aggression”; and the only nations which do it nowadays are America and its allies, such as the Sauds, Israel, France, and UK, which often join in America’s aggressions (or, in the case of the Sauds’ invasion of Yemen, the ally initiates an invasion, which the U.S. then joins). America’s generals are taught this aggression, and not only by Obama. Ever since at least George W. Bush, it has been solid U.S. policy. (Bush even kicked out the U.N.’s weapons-inspectors, so as to bomb Iraq in 2003.)

    In other words: a mono-polar world is a world in which one nation stands above international law, and that nation’s participation in an invasion immunizes also each of its allies who join in the invasion, protecting it too from prosecution, so that a mono-polar world is one in which the United Nations can’t even possibly impose international law impartially, but can impose it only against nations that aren’t allied with the mono-polar power, which in this case is the United States. Furthermore, because the U.S. regime reigns supreme over the entire world, as it does, any nations — such as Russia, China, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Ecuador — that the U.S. regime (which has itself been scientifically proven to be a dictatorship) chooses to treat as an enemy, is especially disadvantaged internationally. Russia and China, however, are among the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and therefore possess a degree of international protection that America’s other chosen enemies do not. And the people who choose which nations to identify as America’s ‘enemies’ are America’s super-rich and not the entire American population, because the U.S. Government is controlled by the super-rich and not by the public.

    So, that’s the existing mono-polar world: it is a world that’s controlled by one nation, and this one nation is, in turn, controlled by its aristocracy, its super-rich.

    If one of the five permanent members of the Security Council would table at the U.N. a proposal to eliminate the immunity that the U.S. regime has, from investigation and prosecution for any future War of Aggression that it might perpetrate, then, of course, the U.S. and any of its allies on the Security Council would veto that, but if the proposing nation would then constantly call to the international public’s attention that the U.S. and its allies had blocked passage of such a crucially needed “procedure to amend the UN charter”, and that this fact means that the U.S. and its allies constitute fascist regimes as was understood and applied against Germany’s fascist regime, at the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1945, then possibly some members of the U.S.-led gang (the NATO portion of it, at least) would quit that gang, and the U.S. global dictatorship might end, so that there would then become a multi-polar world, in which democracy could actually thrive.

    Democracy can only shrivel in a mono-polar world, because all other nations then are simply vassal nations, which accept Obama’s often-repeated dictum that all other nations are “dispensable” and that only the U.S. is not. Even the UK would actually gain in freedom, and in democracy, by breaking away from the U.S., because it would no longer be under the U.S. thumb — the thumb of the global aggressor-nation.

    Only one global poll has ever been taken of the question “Which country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?” and it found that, overwhelmingly, by a three-to-one ratio above the second-most-often named country, the United States was identified as being precisely that, the top threat to world-peace. But then, a few years later, another (though less-comprehensive) poll was taken on a similar question, and it produced similar results. Apparently, despite the effectiveness of America’s propagandists, people in other lands recognize quite well that today’s America is a more successful and longer-reigning version of Hitler’s Germany. Although modern America’s propaganda-operation is far more sophisticated than Nazi Germany’s was, it’s not entirely successful. America’s invasions are now too common, all based on lies, just like Hitler’s were.

    On November 9th, Russian Television headlined “‘Very insulting’: Trump bashes Macron’s idea of European army for protection from Russia, China & US” and reported that “US President Donald Trump has unloaded on his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, calling the French president’s idea of a ‘real European army,’ independent from Washington, an insult.” On the one hand, Trump constantly criticizes France and other European nations for allegedly not paying enough for America’s NATO military alliance, but he now is denigrating France for proposing to other NATO members a decreasing reliance upon NATO, and increasing reliance, instead, upon the Permanent Structured Cooperation (or PESCO) European military alliance, which was begun on 11 December 2017, and which currently has “25 EU Member States participating: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden.” Those are the European nations that are now on the path to eventually quitting NATO.

    Once NATO is ended, the U.S. regime will find far more difficult any invasions such as of Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria 2012-, Yemen 2016-, and maybe even such as America’s bloody coup that overthrew the democratically elected Government of Ukraine and installed a racist-fascist or nazi anti-Russian regime there in 2014. All of these U.S. invasions (and coup) brought to Europe millions of refugees and enormously increased burdens upon European taxpayers. Plus, America’s economic sanctions against both Russia and Iran have hurt European companies (and the U.S. does almost no business with either country, so is immune to that, also). Consequently, today’s America is clearly Europe’s actual main enemy. The continuation of NATO is actually toxic to the peoples of Europe. Communism and the Soviet Union and its NATO-mirroring Warsaw Pact military alliance, all ended peacefully in 1991, but the U.S. regime has secretly continued the Cold War, now against Russia, and is increasingly focusing its “regime-change” propaganda against Russia’s popular democratic leader, Vladimir Putin, even though this U.S. aggression against Russia could mean a world-annihilating nuclear war.

    On November 11th, RT bannered “‘Good for multipolar world’: Putin positive on Macron’s ‘European army’ plan bashed by Trump (VIDEO)”, and opened:

    Europe’s desire to create its own army and stop relying on Washington for defense is not only understandable, but would be “positive” for the multipolar world, Vladimir Putin said days after Donald Trump ripped into it.

    “Europe is … a powerful economic union and it is only natural that they want to be independent and … sovereign in the field of defense and security,” Putin told RT in Paris where world leader gathered to mark the centenary of the end of WWI.

    He also described the potential creation of a European army “a positive process,” adding that it would “strengthen the multipolar world.” The Russian leader even expressed his support to French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently championed this idea by saying that Russia’s stance on the issue “is aligned with that of France” to some extent.

    Macron recently revived the ambitious plans of creating a combined EU military force by saying that it is essential for the security of Europe. He also said that the EU must become independent from its key ally on the other side of the Atlantic, provoking an angry reaction from Washington.

    Once NATO has shrunk to include only the pro-aggression and outright nazi European nations, such as Ukraine(after the U.S. gang accepts Ukraine into NATO, as it almost certainly then would do), the EU will have a degree of freedom and of democracy that it can only dream of today, and there will then be a multi-polar world, in which the leaders of the U.S. will no longer enjoy the type of immunity from investigation and possible prosecution, for their invasions, that they do today. The result of this will, however, be catastrophic for the top 100 U.S. ‘defense’ contractors, such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Raytheon, because then all of those firms’ foreign sales except to the Sauds, Israel and a few other feudal and fascist regimes, will greatly decline. Donald Trump is doing everything he can to keep the Sauds to the agreements he reached with them back in 2017 to buy $404 billion of U.S. weaponry over the following 10 years.  If, in addition, those firms lose some of their European sales, then the U.S. economic boom thus far in Trump’s Presidency will be seriously endangered. So, the U.S. regime, which is run by the owners of its ‘defense’-contractors, will do all it can to prevent this from happening.

    *  *  *

    Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

  • CIA Considered Truth Serum For Terror Suspects, Says New Unclassified Report 

    The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has just released a new 90-page CIA report, which was provided in advance to the Associated Press (AP), shows how the government’s top spy agency considered using a drug it believed might work as a truth serum and force terror suspects to spill the beans about future attacks.

    The spy agency determined that a drug called Versed, a sedative frequently prescribed to reduce anxiety, was “possibly worth a try.” But according to AP, the CIA did not ask government courts to approve its use.

    The secret program was called “Project Medication” — is now disclosed in a once-classified report that was provided to the ACLU under a court’s order and was released Tuesday.

    The CIA report revealed the internal struggle that medical personnel working in the agency’s interrogation program – routinely breached their professional ethics with the chance to save lives by preventing future attacks.

    “This document tells an essential part of the story of how it was that the CIA came to torture prisoners against the law and helps prevent it from happening again,” said ACLU attorney Dror Ladin.

    CIA doctors, psychologists, physician assistants, and nurses were, directly and indirectly, involved in the interrogation program from 2002 to 2007, the report said. They evaluated and monitored 97 detainees in ten secret CIA bases overseas.

    The report said the CIA completely hid the drug-assisted interrogations from the Justice Department because there were “some significant ethical concerns.”

    The Justice Department spent months approving various forms of interrogation tactics, including sleep deprivation, confinement in small spaces and the waterboarding. It was noted the CIA’s counterterrorism team “did not want to raise another issue with the Department of Justice,” the report said. 

    Before the agency selected Versed, the report said government scientist studied many reports of old Soviet drug experiments as well as the CIA’s discredited MK-Ultra program from the 1950s and 1960s that involved human experimentation with LSD and other mind-altering drugs, in the attempt to obtain the holy grail of truth serums.

    “But decades later, the agency was considering experimenting on humans again to test pseudo-scientific theories of learned helplessness on its prisoners,” Ladin said.

    Versed is marketed under the trade name Midazolam, is a medication used for anesthesia, procedural sedation, trouble sleeping, and severe agitation. It works by inducing sleepiness, decreasing anxiety, and causes a loss of new memories. It can help patients feel relaxed but can cause paranoid or suicidal thoughts and impair memory, judgment, and coordination.

    “Versed was considered possibly worth a trial if unequivocal legal sanction first were obtained,” the report said. “There were at least two legal obstacles: a prohibition against medical experimentation on prisoners and a ban on interrogational use of ‘mind-altering drugs’ or those which ‘profoundly altered the senses.’”

    The AP said the CIA had no comment on the report’s release, but government lawyers indicated in a 2017 court filing that the report, marked “draft,” was just one agency officer’s impressions of the interrogation program. The document is not the CIA’s “final official history, or assessment, of the program,” the lawyers wrote.

    While the harsh interrogation program ended nearly a decade ago, the ACLU thinks it is critical to continue investigating government interrogation programs, since the Trump administration has said they would re-approve harsh interrogation tactics.  

    CIA Director Gina Haspel, who oversaw a secret CIA detention site in Thailand where detainees experienced harsh interrogations, told the Senate that she does “not support the use of enhanced interrogation techniques for any purpose.”

    “The report cites many instances where medical personal expressed concern or protected the health of the detainees. Those who were thrown up against walls — a practice called “walling” — had their necks protected from whiplash by rolled towels around their necks, the report said. When one detainee, who had been wounded during capture, was confined to a box, care was taken not to force his legs into a position that “would compromise wound healing.” Physician assistants overruled using duct tape over the mouths of detainees during flights because air sickness could lead to vomiting and possible aspiration,” said AP.

    Ladin said that does not suggest that CIA doctors were cruel, “but it means they were complicit because this pseudo-scientific torture could not have happened without the doctors’ participation.”

    Dr. Sondra Crosby, who treated victims of torture, including two who were held at CIA secret sites, said the torture was sometimes deadly. 

    “The enduring pain and suffering experienced by the survivors of the CIA program is immense, and includes severe, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, physical ailments, and psychosocial dysfunction,” said Crosby, of Boston University’s School of Medicine and Public Health. “At least one detainee was tortured to death. Their physical and psychological scars will last a lifetime.”

    It seems “Project Medication” is just another failed MK-Ultra esque government program, in search of the holy grail of truth serums. With massive technological innovation in the last ten years and more recently, the Trump administration admitting that they are a fan of harsh interrogation tactics. We must ask this question: Is the CIA closer in finding the ultimate truth serum? 

     

  • Maryland Man Killed By Cops Trying To Take His Guns Under "Red Flag" Confiscation Law

    Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

    On October 1, 2018, Maryland’s new “red flag” gun law went into effect.

    On November 5, 2018, the law claimed its first victim.

    Officially called Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO), “red flag” laws permit police, healthcare providers, or family members (or pretty much anyone, really – let’s be honest here) to petition a state court to order the temporary removal of firearms from a person who may present a danger to others or themselves. A judge decides to issue the order based on statements and actions made by the gun owner. After a set period of time, the guns are returned to the owner unless another court hearing extends the period of confiscation.

    Proponents of the law say it should not be seen as a “gun grab.”

    As of November 8 – just a little over a month after the law went into effect in Maryland – 114 red flag warrants had already been served across the state.

    Proponents of the law also claim it will “save lives.”

    However, a life has already been lost because of the law.

    Gary J. Willis, a 61-year-old Maryland resident, was killed by police when they showed up at his home at 5 am to serve him with a court order requiring that he surrender his guns.

    Anne Arundel County Police said Willis answered the door with a gun in his hand. He initially put the gun down by the door, but “became irate” when officers began to serve him with the order and picked up the gun again, police said.

    Sgt. Jacklyn Davis, a police spokeswoman, said “A fight ensued over the gun.” Police claim that as one of the officers struggled to take the gun from Willis, the gun fired but did not strike anyone. Then, the other officer fatally shot Willis, who died at the scene. Neither officer was injured.

    Davis said she did not know who had sought the protective order against Willis.

    But Michele Willis, the victim’s niece, said this was a case of “family being family,” reports The Baltimore Sun:

    She said one of her aunts requested the protective order to temporarily remove Willis’ guns.

    Michele Willis said she had grown up in the house and had been there Sunday night to move out her son, who had been helping to care for her grandmother.

    She said her uncle “likes to speak his mind,” but she described him as harmless.

    “I’m just dumbfounded right now,” she said. “My uncle wouldn’t hurt anybody.”

    Willis said the officers should have continued to negotiate with her uncle.

    “They didn’t need to do what they did,” she said.

    Police Chief Timothy Altomare said the fatal shooting was a sign that the law is needed:

    “If you look at this morning’s outcome, it’s tough for us to say ‘Well, what did we prevent?’ ” he said. “Because we don’t know what we prevented or could’ve prevented. What would’ve happened if we didn’t go there at 5 a.m.?”

    Can you wrap your head around that statement? I can’t.

    As far as we know, Willis never harmed anyone. Yet, he is dead…because of a law that was supposedly enacted to save lives. If Willis had a history of violence or a criminal record, the police department would surely be talking about it, using it as justification for the man’s murder.

    In reality, red flag laws are ripe for abuse.

    In an article titled Gun Owners Must Oppose Red Flag Laws, Greg Pruett of Gun Owners of America warns,

    A new wave of dangerous laws is being pushed across the United States. These laws don’t require due process and your rights are removed without a crime ever being committed. If this sounds familiar, then it may sound like something out of “Minority Report” with Tom Cruise. Sadly, it isn’t a Hollywood blockbuster, it’s the new America. At least it will be if you don’t fight back.

    “Red Flag” laws, also known as “Extreme Risk Protection Orders” or Gun Violence Restraining Orders,” have now passed in 12 states. Even some Republican-controlled states (Indiana and Florida) have passed these laws. They are dangerous to freedom, unconstitutional, and should be more properly termed, “Gun Confiscation Orders.”

    As of the time of this writing, 13 states have red flag laws: Connecticut, Indiana, California, Washington, Oregon, Florida, Vermont, Maryland, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Illinois. More are surely coming. Bad ideas tend to spread, and cries for stricter gun control have grown much louder and more common.

    Red flag laws are implemented differently in states have have them. Some limit these gun confiscation orders to “immediate family” members, Pruett writes. “But some states, like Oregon, are already expanding their orders to include neighbors, medical professionals, teachers, and other school staff.”

    There is one aspect of red flag laws that is particularly chilling, as Pruett explains:

    Remember, no crime has been committed, and the person who loses their rights does NOT get to defend themselves before those rights are removed. Some have the audacity to call this “due process.” It’s not due process if you aren’t part of the process. Going to court after your guns have been removed, to petition to get them back, is also not due process.

    According to the Capital Gazette (five people were murdered by a lunatic with a vendetta at the newspaper’s Annapolis location back in June), Altomare said of the 19 protective orders granted in Anne Arundel County, his officers have handled nine – and seized “around 33 guns” in the process.

    The Capital Gazette also reports that Altomere said while he is “cautiously optimistic” the rate of protective orders won’t increase too rapidly, the department is building a storage facility specifically to accommodate the increase in seized firearms.

    According to a report by the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, Maryland is expecting 1,342 red flag petitions in the first year of the law being in effect.

    How many more deaths by cop will we see in Maryland by October 2019, then?

    How many people who have never committed a crime will have their Constitutional rights violated due to this law?

    As Scott Boyd of NOQ Report warns,

    All it takes is a good story and a sympathetic judge to take away someone’s guns. In this case, it was a relative of the deceased who filed the petition after an incident that occurred in the beginning of the week. We don’t know the details so there’s no way to judge, but the notion that this incident is proof the law is working is the type of circular reasoning gungrabbers will use to encourage more confiscations.

    Boyd concludes,

    Gary J. Willis isn’t dead because he tried to shoot someone. He is dead because someone convinced a judge that he might shoot someone, and now police are hailing this as a success. The PreCrime Departments are pleased with the results.

    Red flag laws only benefit the government, and render “we the people” defenseless against the ever-growing police state.

  • Ebola Outbreak "Worst In Congo's History" As Hundreds Dead; Risk Of Spread To Uganda "Very High" 

    The most recent Ebola outbreak spreading through the Democratic Republic of Congo is now the worst in the country’s history, with 209 dead and 333 confirmed or probable cases, according to the DRC’s health ministry. 

    According to The Express, efforts to contain the disease have been hampered by localized armed conflict and community resistance to health officials. 

    The outbreak, the second this year, began in North Kivu before spreading east to Ituri. Oly Ilunga Kalenga, the DRC’s minister of public health, said efforts to contain the deadly outbreak have been thwarted by violence against health officials and civilians as militant groups battle for control in the affected region. –Express

    Two health workers were killed during the militant attack according to the minister, while 11 civilians and a soldier were killed last month in the city of Beni – the outbreak’s epicenter. 

    And on Thursday, the United Nations announced that at least seven UN peacekeepers were killed by militants in at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak. 

    “Our peacekeeping colleagues tell us that six peacekeepers from Malawi and one from Tanzania who are part of the U.N. peacekeeping operation in the DRC … were killed yesterday, in Beni territory, in North Kivu,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric. 

    Meanwhile, a USAID worker speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity said “We are absolutely concerned about the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is occurring in an area of active conflict, so physical insecurity is a persistent challenge and complication to the ongoing response efforts.” 

    “No other epidemic in the world has been as complex as the one we are currently experiencing,” said Kalenga. 

    As the rate of new cases has accelerated in recent weeks, neighboring Uganda began vaccinating at-risk health workers on Wednesday in case the virus crosses the border. 

    Now neighboring Uganda is bracing for the virus to cross the 545-mile boundary it shares with DRC. The border is porous and heavily trafficked, with large numbers of local farmers, merchants, traders, and refugees constantly moving through the area. A checkpoint in the region receives 5,000 people on an average day, with the busiest ones swelling to 20,000 twice a week on market days. –Wired

    The Ugandan Health Ministry says it has 2,100 doses of vaccine available for doctors and nurses across five border districts, while four specialized Ebola treatment facilities have been constructed at hospitals near the border. 

    “The risk of cross-border transmission was assessed to be very high at a national level,” said Jane Ruth Acent, Uganda’s Health Minister at a press conference last week. “Hence the need to protect our health workers.”

    Meanwhile, officials in Uganda have been screening anyone crossing in from the Congo since the outbreak began. 

    a series of questions and no-contact infrared thermometers aimed at the side of the head that read out body temperatures like a highway patrolman’s radar gun. Fever is one of the first red flags for an Ebola infection. The process isn’t foolproof; symptoms can take up to three weeks to appear, and lots of other tropical diseases in that part of Africa can also cause soaring temperatures. –Wired

    And as Wired‘s Megan Molteni notes, Ebola has never broken out in a war zone, while Billions of dollars in Chinese infrastructure investments have created greater connectivity throughout Africa that can encourage the rapid spread of Ebola and other diseases. 

    “It’s a cruel irony that better roads and improved connectivity of people also make it easier for the disease to travel, particularly when the public health systems are still lagging behind,” said Boston Medical Center’s Nahid Bhadelia, medical director of the facility’s Special Pathogens Unit. Bhadelia was on the front lines during the 2014 Sierra Leone Ebola outbreak. 

    Similar to the DRC, armed conflict in Uganda between rebel groups may also hobble containment efforts. 

    “We can’t afford for it to go deep in the red security zones where we have no access,” says Mike Ryan, Assistant Director-General of Emergency Preparedness and Response at the World Health Organization. “Ebola exploits the cracks, so the more we can keep it out in the open, the better.” –Wired

    That said, the DRC outbreak appears to be turning a corner, according to Ryan, as transmission of the disease has been relegated to healthcare facilities, as opposed to out in the community.  

    But only in the last few weeks have health workers realized the extent to which Ebola was spreading through Beni’s network of more than 300 healthcare facilities, many of which keep poor patient records. Even as workers vaccinated victims’ close friends and family, new cases would show up seemingly out of thin air. Last week the Washington Post reported that between 60 and 80 percent of new confirmed cases had no known epidemiological link to prior cases. –Wired

     “Fears of this thing becoming endemic are real, and rational, but we also need to see that as a worst-case scenario,” Ryan said. “We still have plenty of opportunities to put this virus back in the box, we just need to get behind the people risking their lives on the front line and push hard for the next three to six weeks. It’s going to be a long march, but I don’t think we should be raising the white flag just yet.“

  • What Genghis Khan Can Teach Us About American Politics

    Authored by Casey Chalk via The American Conservative,

    The brutal warlord understood how to govern shrewdly and even humanely.

    Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Winston Churchill, even Barack Obama: there are many historical figures who Americans have turned to for inspiration in this political distemper. That’s especially true with the midterm elections only a week in the books. But I’ve recently found an even more surprising leader who offers a number of political lessons worth contemplating: Genghis Khan.

    I’m quite serious.

    As a former history teacher, I picked up Jack Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World because I realized I knew relatively little about one of the most influential men in human history. Researchers have estimated that 0.5 percent of men have Genghis Khan’s DNA in them, which is perhaps one of the most tangible means of determining historical impact. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The Mongolian warlord conquered a massive chunk of the 13th-century civilized world—including more than one third of its population. He created one of the first international postal systems. He decreed universal freedom of religion in all his conquered territories—indeed, some of his senior generals were Christians.

    Of course, Genghis Khan was also a brutal military leader who showed no mercy to enemies who got in his way, leveling entire cities and using captured civilians as the equivalent of cannon fodder. Yet even the cruelest military geniuses (e.g. Napoleon) are still geniuses, and we would be wise to consider what made them successful, especially against great odds. In the case of Genghis Khan, we have a leader who went from total obscurity in one of the most remote areas of Asia to the greatest, most feared military figure of the medieval period, and perhaps the world. This didn’t happen by luck—the Mongolian, originally named Temujin, was not only a skilled military strategist, but a shrewd political leader.

    As Genghis Khan consolidated control over the disparate tribes of the steppes of northern Asia, he turned the traditional power structure on its head. When one tribe failed to fulfill its promise to join him in war and raided his camp in his absence, he took an unprecedented step. He summoned a public gathering, or khuriltai, of his followers, and conducted a public trial of the other tribe’s aristocratic leaders. When they were found guilty, Khan had them executed as a warning to other aristocrats that they would no longer be entitled to special treatment. He then occupied the clan’s lands and distributed the remaining tribal members among his own people. This was not for the purposes of slavery, but a means of incorporating conquered peoples into his own nation. The Mongol leader symbolized this act by adopting an orphan boy from the enemy tribe and raising him as his own son.

    Weatherford explains:

    “Whether these adoptions began for sentimental reasons or for political ones, Temujin displayed a keen appreciation of the symbolic significance and practical benefit of such acts in uniting his followers through his usage of fictive kinship.”

    Genghis Khan employed this equalizing strategy with his military as well—eschewing distinctions of superiority among the tribes. For example, all members had to perform a certain amount of public service. Weatherford adds:

    “Instead of using a single ethnic or tribal name, Temujin increasingly referred to his followers as the People of the Felt Walls, in reference to the material from which they made their gers [tents].”

    America, alternatively, seems divided along not only partisan lines, but those of race and language as well. There is also an ever-widening difference between elite technocrats and blue-collar folk, or “deplorables.” Both parties have pursued policies that have aggravated these differences, and often have schemed to employ them for political gain. Whatever shape they take—identity politics, gerrymandering—the controversies they cause have done irreparable harm to whatever remains of the idea of a common America. The best political leaders are those who, however imperfectly, find a way to transcend a nation’s many differences and appeal to a common cause, calling on all people, no matter how privileged, to participate in core activities that define citizenship.

    The Great Khan also saw individuals not as autonomous, atomistic individuals untethered to their families and local communities, but rather as inextricably linked to them. For example, “the solitary individual had no legal existence outside the context of the family and the larger units to which it belonged; therefore the family carried responsibility of ensuring the correct behavior of its members…to be a just Mongol, one had to live in a just community.” This meant, in effect, that the default social arrangement required individuals to be responsible for those in their families and immediate communities. If a member of a family committed some crime, the entire unit would come under scrutiny. Though such a paradigm obviously isn’t ideal, it reflects Genghis Khan’s recognition that the stronger our bonds to our families, the stronger the cohesion of the greater society. Politicians should likewise pursue policies that support and strengthen the family, the “first society,” rather than undermining or redefining it.

    There are other gems of wisdom to be had from Genghis Khan. He accepted a high degree of provincialism within his empire, reflecting an ancient form of subsidiarity. Weatherford notes: “He allowed groups to follow traditional law in their area, so long as it did not conflict with the Great Law, which functioned as a supreme law or a common law over everyone.” This reflects another important task for national leaders, who must seek to honor, and even encourage, local governments and economies, rather than applying one-size-fits-all solutions.

    He was an environmentalist, codifying “existing ideals by forbidding the hunting of animals between March and October during the breeding time.” This ensured the preservation and sustainability of the Mongol’s native lands and way of life. He recognized the importance of religion in the public square, offering tax exemptions to religious leaders and their property and excusing them from all types of public service. He eventually extended this to other essential professions like public servants, undertakers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and scholars. Of course, in our current moment, some of these professions are already well compensated for their work, but others, like teachers, could benefit from such a tax exemption.

    There’s no doubt that Genghis Khan was a brutal man with a bloody legacy. Yet joined to that violence was a shrewd political understanding that enabled him to create one of the greatest empires the world has ever known. He eschewed the traditional tribal respect for the elites in favor of the common man, he pursued policies that brought disparate peoples under a common banner, and he often avoided a scorched earth policy in favor of mercy to his enemies. Indeed, as long as enemy cities immediately surrendered to the Mongols, the inhabitants saw little change in their way of life. And as Weatherford notes, he sought to extend these lessons to his sons shortly before his death:

    He tried to teach them that the first key to leadership was self-control, particularly mastery of pride, which was something more difficult, he explained, to subdue than a wild lion, and anger, which was more difficult to defeat than the greatest wrestler. He warned them that “if you can’t swallow your pride, you can’t lead.” He admonished them never to think of themselves as the strongest or smartest. Even the highest mountain had animals that step on it, he warned. When the animals climb to the top of the mountain, they are even higher than it is.

    Perhaps if American politicians were to embrace this side of the Great Khan, focusing on serving a greater ideal rather than relentless point-scoring, we might achieve the same level of national success, without the horrific bloodshed.

  • 654 Central American Migrants Detained After Crossing Arizona Border

    654 Central American migrants were apprehended over a two-day period this week after they crossed into the United States near the Lukeville, Arizona port of entry, according to Yuma Sector Border Patrol officials. 

    Notably, however, they are not part of the Central American migrant caravans which have begun to arrive in Tijuana. 

    As Breitbart‘s Bob Price reports, the mostly Guatemalan migrants exploited weaknesses in the older border wall infrastructure, while also crossing over the Colorado River in shallow areas. 

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    The apprehensions began during the evening of November 12 after border agents observed approximately 55 Central Americans crossing the Colorado River. The migrants were taken into custody after walking around makeshift vehicle barriers set up because there is no other infrastructure that would otherwise deter pedestrian crossings. 

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    While the 654 migrants apprehended on Monday and Tuesday are mostly from Guatemala, officials said they are not part of the larger caravans making their way northward through Mexico. Instead, they are part of the massively increasing numbers of migrants who cross the Arizona border on a near-daily basis.

    In October 2018, Border Patrol agents in the Yuma Sector apprehended 3,613 migrants who illegally crossed the border between ports of entry, according to the Southwest Border Migration Report published by CBP last week. This is up from 1,536 in October 2017 — an increase of more than 135 percent. –Breitbart

    On Wednesday we reported that the first waves of Central American migrants traveling in a caravan had arrived in Tijuana, while dozens of people began to scale the border fence with San Diego. 

    Border Patrol released a statement Tuesday that said they believe some of those at the fence are members who were traveling as part of the Central American migrant caravan that originated in Honduras.

    Migrants who reached the border fence in that area are from Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. Many are walking and will still need more time to reach the border, and those who have arrived already appeared to do so with the help of buses or other transportation. –Washington Examiner

    On Monday, the first wave of migrants arrived in Tijuana; approximately 80 gay, lesbian and transgender asylum seekers who were bussed ahead by an anonymous organization after they say intolerant fellow asylum seekers were harassing them. 

    That said, the Tijuana-based migrants have yet to make a push into the United States en masse. 

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  • America Has No Peace Movement – Blame The "White Supremacists"

    Authored by Philip Giraldi via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The United States of America has no peace movement even though the country has been mired in unwinnable wars since 2001 and opinion polls suggest that there is only lukewarm support among the public for what is taking place in Afghanistan and Syria.

    This is in part due to the fact that today’s corporate media virtually functions as a branch of government, which some might refer to as the Ministry of Lies, and it is disinclined to report on just how dystopic American foreign and national security policy has become.

    This leaves the public in the dark and allows the continued worldwide blundering by the US military to fly under the radar.

    The irony is that America’s last three presidents quite plausibly can be regarded as having their margins of victory attributed to a peace vote. George W. Bush promised a more moderate foreign policy in his 2000 campaign, Obama pledged to undo much of the harsh response to 9/11 promulgated by Bush, and Donald Trump was seen as the less warlike candidate when compared to Hillary Clinton. So the public wants less war but the politicians’ promises to deliver have been little more than campaign chatter, meaning that the United States continues to be locked into the same cycle of seeking change through force of arms.

    Just last week Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to a BBC journalist and said Iran must do what Washington demands “if they want their people to eat.” Pompeo’s comments should have shocked the public, but they were not widely reported. If Pompeo spoke for the Administration, that means that Washington is now ready, willing and often able to starve civilians and deny them medicines as a foreign policy tool. Iran is now on the receiving end, but the US has also been supporting similar action by the Saudi Arabians in Yemen, which has resulted in widespread starvation, particularly among children. The current policy recalls former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s infamous comment that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children due to sanctions had been “worth it.”

    It is hard to believe that most Americans support Pompeo. To be sure, there are a number of groups in the United States that have the word “peace” or “antiwar” somewhere in their titles. Most would describe themselves as “progressive,” wherein lies the problem in pulling together a more broadly-based coalition that would make America’s warfare state a key target in the national election in 2020. Progressives, or, as they used to be called, liberals, are not like everyone else. Some commentators observing their antics describe them scathingly as “social justice warriors” or SJWs. That means that they have a mandate to oppose all the evils in the world, to include racism, sexism, limits on immigration and capitalism to name only a few. War is somewhere on the list but nowhere near the top.

    SJWs have no comfort zone for dealing with anyone who does not fully buy into their blueprint for global rejuvenation. This means in turn that the antiwar movement, such as it is, is fragmented into a gaggle of groups with grievances that have little ability to establish cohesion with other organizations that might agree completely with their worldview. Folks like me, who are socially and politically conservative but antiwar, do not fit well with their priorities and would prefer to focus on the wars, but that option is not on offer without accepting a lot of sanctimonious garbage.

    A recent email from the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights illustrates precisely what is wrong. I would support the group based on my concern for justice for the Palestinians but have no interest in its ridiculous stereotyping of who is the enemy, i.e. the omnipresent evil “white supremacists” who are also male, Gentile and heterosexual. The email, sent by one Nusayba Hammad, Communications Director, begins:

    “In the past week, white supremacist gunmen murdered 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and two Black people in Louisville, and Trump announced his intention to try to erase trans, non-binary, and intersex folks… Our struggles for justice are inextricably linked: rejecting white supremacy means rejecting antisemitism, anti-Black racism, Zionism, Islamophobia, transphobia, and all forms of oppression. This is especially important knowing that many, many people carry overlapping identities and thus are marginalized at the intersection of overlapping oppressions.” 

    Yes, I know, it is impossible to understand what she is going on about unless one is educated in the progressive codewords. And also yes, the text could have been written by Monty Python. After that introduction the email goes on to provide some resources to “expand [one’s] knowledge,” including this gem:

    “Palestine as a Queer Struggle (video)
    This webinar with Nada Elia, Falastine Dwikat, and Izzy Mustafa covers the intersecting struggles against heteropatriarchy and Zionism. With Trump’s most recent attack on trans, non-binary, and intersex folks, it’s imperative that we understand the importance of standing with queer and trans people in the US and in Palestine as they face multiple layers of oppression.” 

    As war, in this case the slaughter of the Palestinians by the Jewish state, is the ultimate evil and it brings with it many other forms of suffering, it would seemingly not be asking too much to worry about it as a first priority before getting into the “multiple layers of oppression” that seem to bother lefties so much. But, alas, they cannot jettison that baggage and for that reason many “normal” people who want the wars to stop will not be participating in their protests. It’s a shame really, as joining together and fighting to stop the next war is well worth doing for every human being on this planet.

  • Bank Of America Is Leading The New Quant Research Arms Race

    As the financial research industry drifts further away from being 100% human powered to relying upon split second decision-making based on data collected by a human/machine hybrids, Bank of America is seeking to lap the competition. The bank’s head of global research, Candace Browning, has put together a squad of six people, including four PhDs that are going to team up with about 600 Wall Street analysts. According to Bloomberg, the goal of this group is to streamline quantitative analysis: spotting patterns in data sets before anybody else.

    Of course, in order to find these patterns, analysts have to sift through enormous quantities of data, pulled from what are usually non-traditional sources – and haven’t been spotted by others – in order to help forecast things like airline revenue, luxury spending and even the timing of the business cycle. Bank of America clients seem to like this type of analysis: these quant-enhanced reports get about three times more clicks than other publications that the bank delivers to its clients.

    Browning explained BofA’s quantamental approach to Bloomberg as follows: “It’s telling clients something they don’t already know. The future of Wall Street, the future of investing, is going to be aggregating and analyzing data in ways that give you a cutting edge on new information. Once you’ve done that, you still need the human factor.”

    The rise of quantitative analysis shouldn’t be much of a surprise given the fact that trading is moving more towards algorithms and high frequency electronic training. With quicker trading times comes the need for analyzing larger sets of data faster, which could be a laborious task. In fact, one can argue that robots are now writing research meant to be read by other robots – it’s probably only a matter of time before it is written in binary.

    All this takes place as banks are trying to keep up with the breakneck pace of evlution in the industry. In fact, other banks already have a head start: UBS Group’s “Evidence Lab” looks over billions of data points in order to analyze stocks while State Street distributes data on inflation that is based off of more than 5 million item prices sold around the world. Maybe the Fed could use some of these approaches to actually calculate what the real CPI is…

    Meanwhile, Bank of America has found new techniques to survey hundreds of thousands of people about items like iPhones and driverless cars. The data scientists there have done a deep dive into credit card data to help measure home-improvement spending and have also crunched more than 100 economic variables beginning in 1959 to reach the conclusion that a United States recession isn’t imminent. Some of the data is passed along to the bank’s clients but much raw data collected in-house by Bank of America isn’t for sale.

    Daire Browne, Bank of America’s head of global research client services told Bloomberg: “It’s an arms race. There isn’t this big divide anymore of the old-school, fundamental type versus the big, heavy quants.”

    Robo portfolio manager shown her reading quant research

    Of course, with robo research now growing by leaps and bounds, it is only a matter of time before robo portfolio managers take over Wall Street. Earlier this week we discussed how AllianceBernstein was using robots to come up with ideas for fixed income/bond trades. 

    AllianceBernstein’s new virtual assistant can suggest to fixed income portfolio managers what the best bonds to purchase are, using parameters such as pricing, liquidity and risk. The machine has numerous advantages to humans: “she” can scan millions of data points and identify potential trades in seconds. Plus she never needs to take a cigarette or a bathroom break.

    The new virtual assistant, dubbed “Abbie 2.0”, specializes in identifying bonds that human portfolio managers have missed. She can also help spot human errors and communicate with similar bots like herself at other firms to arrange trades. Most important, her greatest expertise is making humans – very expensive humans – redundant.

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