- Italy Expels Russian Diplomats Over "Extremely Serious" NATO Spy Case
Italy Expels Russian Diplomats Over “Extremely Serious” NATO Spy Case
What’s being described as an “extremely serious incident” and fast escalating spy case has resulted in the Italian government expelling two Russian diplomats from the country on Wednesday. Russian Ambassador Sergei Razov had been immediately summoned and informed of the drastic punitive action.
The case reportedly involves an Italian navy captain who was caught passing secret documents belonging to the NATO member state to a Russian military official on Tuesday night. The Italian navy officer is alleged to have received money in return.
Via AFP It’s since escalated into a major diplomatic spat between Italy and Russian, with the Kremlin now vowing retaliation for the expelling of the two diplomats. Western allies are now weighing in on the dispute, fueling the controversy further, with British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab saying the UK “stands in solidarity with Italy and its actions today, exposing and taking action against Russia’s malign and destabilising activity that is designed to undermine our NATO ally.”
Here are the few details known related to the spy charges as laid out in Reuters:
The Italian, a captain of a frigate, and the Russian, who was accredited at the embassy, were accused of “serious crimes tied to spying and state security” after their meeting on Tuesday night, Italian Carabinieri police said.
The suspects were not officially identified. A police source said the captain was called Walter Biot, adding that he added accepted 5,000 euros ($5,865) in return for the information.
Italian news sources identified that “NATO documents were among the files that the Italian had handed over” – which has led to inquiries over security vulnerability by other NATO members of the alliance. And further the AFP described “confidential documents” passed during a “clandestine meeting” – after which Russia’s ambassador on Wednesday morning was issued notification of “the immediate expulsion of the two Russian officials involved in this very serious affair”.
It appears the “clandestine meeting” was being monitored by Italian police and intelligence, given there’s widespread reports that the Italian captain was “caught red-handed”. The Russian officials involved avoided arrest due to diplomatic immunity.
The Russian Embassy in Italy, via Wiki Commons Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio stated of the developing case Wednesday that “The accusation of espionage against Italian and Russian officers shows that we must continue to work closely with Europe and our allies to constantly improve our means of protecting the safety and well-being of our citizens.”
No further information has been publicly released as to the identities of the Russians expelled, but it’s being reported via the Russian embassy in Rome that the pair worked in the Russian military attaché’s office, according to Reuters.
The Italian captain Biot meanwhile has been arrested and is undergoing questioning and an investigation.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/01/2021 – 02:45 - China's Threat To Free Speech In Europe
China’s Threat To Free Speech In Europe
Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,
China has imposed sanctions on more than two dozen European and British lawmakers, academics and think tanks. The move comes after the European Union and the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on Chinese officials for human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang region.
China contends that its sanctions are tit for tat — morally equivalent retaliation — in response to those imposed by Western countries. This is false. The European sanctions are for crimes against humanity, whereas the Chinese sanctions seek to silence European critics of the Chinese Communist Party.
The current standoff is, in essence, about the future of free speech in Europe. If notoriously feckless European officials fail to stand firm in the face of mounting Chinese pressure, Europeans who dare publicly to criticize the CCP in the future can expect to pay an increasingly high personal cost for doing so.
On March 22, the European Union and the United Kingdom announced (here and here) that they had imposed sanctions on four Chinese officials accused of responsibility for abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, a remote autonomous region in northwestern China.
Human rights experts say at least one million Muslims are being detained in up to 380 internment camps, where they are subject to torture, mass rapes, forced labor and sterilizations. After first denying the existence of the camps, China now says that they provide vocational education and training.
Among those targeted by the EU are Chen Mingguo, director of the Xinjiang Public Security Bureau (XPSB). In its Official Journal, the EU stated:
“As Director of the XPSB, Chen Mingguo holds a key position in Xinjiang’s security apparatus and is directly involved in implementing a large-scale surveillance, detention and indoctrination program targeting Uyghurs and people from other Muslim ethnic minorities. In particular, the XPSB has deployed the ‘Integrated Joint Operations Platform’ (IJOP), a big data program used to track millions of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region and flag those deemed ‘potentially threatening’ to be sent to detention camps. Chen Mingguo is therefore responsible for serious human rights violations in China, in particular arbitrary detentions and degrading treatment inflicted upon Uyghurs and people from other Muslim ethnic minorities, as well as systematic violations of their freedom of religion or belief.”
The EU sanctions, which involve travel bans and asset freezes, conspicuously exclude the top official in Xinjiang, Chen Quanguo, who has been targeted by U.S. sanctions since July 2020. The EU apparently was attempting to show restraint in an effort to forestall an escalation by China.
The Chinese government responded to the EU sanctions within minutes by announcing its own sanctions on 14 European individuals and entities. The individuals and their families are prohibited from entering mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao. They and companies and institutions associated with them are also restricted from doing business with China.
Those prohibited from entering China or doing business with it are German politician Reinhard Bütikofer, who chairs the European Parliament’s delegation to China, Michael Gahler, Raphaël Glucksmann, Ilhan Kyuchyuk and Miriam Lexmann, all Members of the European Parliament, Sjoerd Wiemer Sjoerdsma of the Dutch Parliament, Samuel Cogolati of the Belgian Parliament, Dovilė Šakalienė of the Seimas of Lithuania, German scholar Adrian Zenz, and Swedish scholar Björn Jerdén.
The ten individuals have publicly criticized the Chinese government for human rights abuses. Sjoerdsma, for instance, recently called for a boycott of the Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022. Cogolati and Šakalienė have drafted genocide legislation, while Zenz has written extensively on the detention camps in Xinjiang.
China also sanctioned the EU’s main foreign policy decision-making body, known as the Political and Security Committee, as well as the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights, the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, and the Alliance of Democracies Foundation, a Danish think tank founded by former NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
In a March 22 statement, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said:
“The Chinese side urges the EU side to reflect on itself, face squarely the severity of its mistake and redress it. It must stop lecturing others on human rights and interfering in their internal affairs. It must end the hypocritical practice of double standards and stop going further down the wrong path. Otherwise, China will resolutely make further reactions.”
A few days later, on March 26, China announced sanctions on nine British individuals and four entities. The individuals include Tom Tugendhat, Iain Duncan Smith, Neil O’Brien, David Alton, Tim Loughton, Nusrat Ghani, Helena Kennedy, Geoffrey Nice, Joanne Nicola Smith Finley. The entities include China Research Group, Conservative Party Human Rights Commission, Uyghur Tribunal and the Essex Court Chambers.
On March 27, China announced additional sanctions on Americans and Canadian individuals and entities. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs warned Canada and the United States to “stop political manipulation” or “they will get their fingers burnt.”
EU-China Investment Deal
The EU sanctions, the first such punitive measure against China since an EU arms embargo was imposed in 1989 after the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy crackdown, appear to indicate that both the EU and the UK plan to follow the United States and pursue a harder line against human rights abuses by the Chinese government.
The bedrock of EU-China relations has always been economic, and European leaders have long been accused of downplaying human rights abuses in China to protect European business interests there.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel recently negotiated a controversial trade deal with China.
The so-called Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), concluded on December 30, was negotiated in great haste. Merkel, facing pressure from both China and German industry, reportedly wanted an agreement at any cost before Germany’s six-month EU presidency ended on December 31, 2020.
The lopsided agreement, which ostensibly aims to level the economic and financial playing field by providing European companies with improved access to the Chinese market, actually allows China to continue to restrict investment opportunities for European companies in many strategic sectors.
One week after the deal was signed, China launched a massive crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong.
Now that China has imposed sanctions on European lawmakers, the investment agreement may never see the light of day. “It seems unthinkable that our Parliament would even entertain the idea of ratifying an agreement while its members and one of its committees are under sanctions,” said MEP Marie-Pierre Vedrenne, a parliamentary point-person for the EU-China deal.
European Responses
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has been strangely silent regarding the Chinese sanctions. Others have been outspoken in their criticism:
“We sanction people who violate human rights, not parliamentarians, as has now been done by the Chinese side,” said German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. “This is neither comprehensible nor acceptable for us.”
After being put on China’s sanctions list, Dutch lawmaker Sjoerd Sjoerdsma tweeted:
“As long as human rights are being violated, I cannot stay silent. These sanctions prove that China is sensitive to pressure. Let this be an encouragement to all my European colleagues: Speak out!”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson invited several of the MPs hit by Chinese sanctions to Downing Street. He tweeted:
“This morning I spoke with some of those who have been shining a light on the gross human rights violations being perpetrated against Uyghur Muslims. I stand firmly with them and the other British citizens sanctioned by China.”
Johnson referred to the parliamentarians as “warriors in the fight for free speech” who have his “full-throated support” and expressed bafflement at Beijing’s “ridiculous” actions.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab added:
“It speaks volumes that, while the UK joins the international community in sanctioning those responsible for human rights abuses, the Chinese government sanctions its critics. If Beijing wants to credibly rebut claims of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, it should allow the UN high commissioner for human rights full access to verify the truth.”
Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith tweeted:
“It is our duty to call out the Chinese government’s human rights abuses in Hong Kong and their genocide of the Uighur people. Those of us who live free lives under the rule of law must speak for those who have no voice. If that brings the anger of China down upon me the I shall wear that as a badge of honor.”
Labour MP Lisa Nandy, in an interview with the BBC, said:
“This is incredibly serious. It’s a direct attempt to silence and intimidate those who criticize the actions of the Chinese government. If China thinks that this will silence critics, they are completely mistaken….
“This will only strengthen our resolve to be more vocal and more resolute in calling out and challenging the grotesque human rights abuses that we’ve seen coming out of Xinjiang and the clampdown on democracy in Hong Kong. We are British Parliamentarians who will not be divided on this. Whatever political tradition we come from, we are first and foremost democrats and we will stand up for those values, especially when they are under attack.”
MP Tom Tugendhat, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, in an interview with the BBC, said:
“What we are seeing at the moment is a vulnerable and weak China that has failed in its democratic outreach to states around the region, it has failed to undermine the coalition of countries that are standing up for human rights and it has failed to undermine the connection between the UK, the US and indeed Europe, so what they are doing is lashing out.
“Sadly, this is a sign of weakness and not a sign of strength and a demonstration that President Xi is failing the Chinese people, the Chinese Community Party and, indeed, failing the whole world.”
British academic Jo Smith Finley tweeted:
“It seems I am to be sanctioned by the PRC (Chinese) government for speaking the truth about the #Uyghur tragedy in #Xinjiang, and for having a conscience. Well, so be it. I have no regrets for speaking out, and I will not be silenced.”
Adrian Zenz, a German scholar subject to Chinese sanctions, tweeted:
“Beijing’s strategy on Xinjiang is fundamentally shifting. Their goal is not mainly to erase the evidence, although they do that. It is now also less about denying said evidence, although they still do it. Rather, they now feel untouchable about it all.
“Beijing’s strategy is to simply crush and silence any global opposition to its atrocity by inflicting crushingly punitive measures on anyone who speaks out. A very concerning development.”
The China Research Group, which was established by a group of Conservative MPs in the UK to promote debate and fresh thinking about how Britain should respond to the rise of China, concluded:
“It is tempting to laugh off this measure as a diplomatic tantrum. But in reality it is profoundly sinister and just serves as a clear demonstration of many of the concerns we have been raising about the direction of China under Xi Jinping. Other mainstream European think tanks have also been sanctioned this week and it is telling that China now responds to even moderate criticism with sanctions, rather than attempting to defend its actions in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.”
The founder of the Alliance of Democracies Foundation, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said:
“We will never give in to bullying by authoritarian states. Our work to promote freedom, democracy and human rights around the world will continue. China has once again highlighted the urgent need for democracies to unite in stemming the tide of autocracy in our world.”
Select Commentary
In an editorial, the Financial Times wrote that the EU’s sanctions on China are a sign of Western resolve on China.
“China retaliated against EU sanctions by punishing several parliamentarians, analysts, and Merics, a think-tank on China based in Berlin known for its judicious analysis. It also targeted the committee of 27 member-state ambassadors to the EU who oversee foreign and security policy. Beijing has in recent years used a divide-and-conquer approach with national capitals to undermine a common EU front. With its Xinjiang abuses and overreaction on sanctions, Beijing has managed the rare feat of uniting the EU on a foreign policy issue.
“By targeting critics of its actions and analysts who refuse to toe its line, Beijing has demonstrated its totalitarian mindset. By punishing European Parliament members, it has made it all but impossible for that legislature to ratify the investment agreement. MEPs were already clamoring for more concessions from Beijing, namely the adoption of international standards outlawing forced labor. China will need to make a double retreat to put the deal back on track, which seems unlikely. Having used the investment deal to drive a monetary wedge between Washington and Brussels, Beijing may feel it can dispense with it.”
The Guardian, in an editorial, wrote:
“The sanctions have drastically lowered the odds of the European parliament approving the investment deal which China and the EU agreed in December, to US annoyance. Beijing may think the agreement less useful to China than it is to the EU (though many in Europe disagree). But the measures have done more to push Europe towards alignment with the US than anything Joe Biden could have offered, at a time when China is also alienating other players, notably Australia….
“Beijing’s delayed response to the UK sanctions suggests it did not anticipate them, perhaps unsurprising when the integrated review suggested we should somehow court trade and investment while also taking a tougher line. But the prime minister and foreign secretary have, rightly, made their support for sanctioned individuals and their concerns about gross human rights violations in Xinjiang clear. Academics and politicians, universities and other institutions, should follow their lead in backing targeted colleagues and bodies. China has made its position plain. So should democratic societies.”
Lea Deuber, China correspondent for Süddeutsche Zeitung, wrote:
“In response to European sanctions against those responsible for human rights crimes in Xinjiang, Beijing is sanctioning European politicians, academics and research institutes. The sanctions must not be understood as a threat against individuals. They are an attack on the entire European Union, on its fundamental values and freedom.
“Beijing accuses the EU of questioning China’s sovereignty. In reality, the regime is trying to force the European Union to take sides in the dispute between the U.S. and China through violence and manipulation. The escalation must be a wake-up call.
“For far too long the EU has believed in the illusion of a middle ground. With a view to the cruel conduct in Xinjiang, Brussels waited for years, only appealing again and again. Even with the sanctions, Brussels had sought a softened solution, disregarding important Chinese players in the region.
“That must come to an end. Berlin must draw conclusions. At the end of last year, contrary to all warnings, the German government pushed through the investment agreement with China. This still has to be ratified by the EU Parliament. That is now unthinkable.”
The Frankfurter Allgemeine, in an article titled, “Anyone Who Does Not Sing Beijing’s Song Will be Punished,” wrote: “In plain language: Beijing wants to decide who in Europe can talk or write about China.”
UK MP Nusrat Ghani, writing for the Spectator, noted:
“There is a positive side to all this. The reaction from the Chinese Communist Party shows that some of the work going on in Parliament is having an effect — and is reaching the ears of those who matter in Beijing. Twelve months ago, the abuse of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang was only whispered about in Parliament. There was no sense that the UK’s supply chains might be affected, or that we could bring about real change. Now the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, of which I am a member, has held an inquiry into forced labor in UK value chains, and we have found ‘compelling evidence’ of Chinese slave labor links to major brands.
“The Chinese authorities should realize that their actions today have laid down a challenge for Parliament. They have essentially told MPs to stop asking questions and to mind their own business. Throughout its history, our Parliament has never much liked that attitude. I can assure the Chinese Communist Party that I and my fellow MPs will continue to shine a light on their activities, and that Parliament — more than ever — stands behind us.”
Robin Brandt, Shanghai correspondent for the BBC, wrote:
“China has gone for the people exerting the most pressure on Boris Johnson to be tough on China. It’s gone for the people who say ‘genocide’ has happened in Xinjiang.
“The measures are essentially tokenistic — it’s unlikely these people or entities did any business with Chinese firms or people anyway.
“Targeting Neil O’Brien is personal for the UK prime minister. The MP is in charge of leading policy in Downing Street.
“Going after Essex Court Chambers — a group of self-employed barristers — for a legal opinion it reached also shows you how China views an independent judicial system. It doesn’t believe in them.”
Sophia Yan, China correspondent for the Telegraph, in an analysis, wrote:
“Beijing’s sanctions against the UK and EU — targeting MPs, academics, even legal groups — show the regime of Xi Jinping will not tolerate dissent from anyone, anywhere….
“China is flexing its muscles to challenge a rules-based world order set by the West in a campaign to be treated as an equal. It plays well at home.
“But there are genuine questions over whether the show of force is wise. Beijing’s behavior is certainly not winning hearts and minds, and instead appears to be doing damage to its international standing.
“Beijing has long bet that most countries would be wooed by lucrative opportunities with the world’s second-largest economy.
“How long that will continue to be the case remains to be seen. Britain, for its part, is unlikely to step back from its criticism of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and it’s hard to see how China could cool tensions if it wanted to….
“A key test of whether Beijing can get away with throwing its weight around like this will be whether the EU moves to ratify an investment agreement with China. It has been in the works for seven years, but EU officials were expressing doubts even before they were hit with sanctions.
“Whether the deal is approved, renegotiated, or scrapped entirely will send a message to Beijing — either that it can indeed do what it wants, or that it’s crossed a line.”
Writing for the Wall Street Journal, Matt Pottinger, former deputy White House national security adviser, concluded:
“Beijing’s message is unmistakable: You must choose. If you want to do business in China, it must be at the expense of American values. You will meticulously ignore the genocide of ethnic and religious minorities inside China’s borders; you must disregard that Beijing has reneged on its major promises—including the international treaty guaranteeing a ‘high degree of autonomy’ for Hong Kong; and you must stop engaging with security-minded officials in your own capital unless it’s to lobby them on Beijing’s behalf.
“Another notable element of Beijing’s approach is its explicit goal of making the world permanently dependent on China, and exploiting that dependency for political ends. Mr. Xi has issued guidance, institutionalized this month by his rubber-stamp parliament, that he’s pursuing a grand strategy of making China independent of high-end imports from industrialized nations while making those nations heavily reliant on China for high-tech supplies and as a market for raw materials. In other words, decoupling is precisely Beijing’s strategy—so long as it’s on Beijing’s terms.
“Even more remarkable, the Communist Party is no longer hiding its reasons for pursuing such a strategy. In a speech Mr. Xi delivered early last year…he said China ‘must tighten international production chains’ dependence on China’ with the aim of ‘forming powerful countermeasures and deterrent capabilities.’
“This phrase — ‘powerful countermeasures and deterrent capabilities’ — is party jargon for offensive leverage. Beijing’s grand strategy is to accumulate and exert economic leverage to achieve its political objectives around the world.
“CEOs will find it increasingly difficult to please both Washington and Beijing…. Chinese leaders, as mentioned, are issuing high-decibel warnings that multinationals must abandon such values as the price of doing business in China. Like sailors straddling two boats, American companies are likely to get wet.
“Beijing is trying to engineer victory from the mind of a single leader; free societies like ours harness the human spirit. Therein lies our ultimate advantage. The Communist Party’s leaders are right about one thing: American CEOs, their boards and their investors have to decide which side they want to help win.”
Tyler Durden
Thu, 04/01/2021 – 02:00 - Washington's Hegemonic Ambitions Defy Multipolar Reality, Risking Catastrophic Conflict
Washington’s Hegemonic Ambitions Defy Multipolar Reality, Risking Catastrophic Conflict
Authored by Finian Cunningham via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
The rapidly shifting international distribution of power creates problems that can only be resolved with real diplomacy. The great powers must recognize competing national interests, followed by efforts to reach compromises and find common solutions.
Over the past week the Biden administration has intensively reached out to Europe to revitalize the transatlantic alliance. In the following on-topic interview, Professor Glenn Diesen explains how the United States is opposed to the emerging reality of a multipolar world because of its winner-takes-all ideology. In doing so, Washington is predisposed to antagonize and militarize relations, primarily with Russia and China. The confrontational policy is aimed at driving a wedge between Europe on the one hand, and Russia and China on the other. The problem for Washington is that such a confrontational policy is unfeasible in a multipolar world. European allies are pressured to align with the U.S., but geoeconomic realities inevitably mean there is a practical limit to the American strategy. Using rhetoric about “values” and “human rights” is just a ploy to gain a false moral authority over rivals. The West’s unilateral use of sanctions is the corollary. But such a strategy is only further forging multipolar reality which is leading to weakness and self-isolation for the United States – and the European Union if the latter chooses to go down that futile route. Professor Diesen contends that without compromise and mutual respect among world powers, the ultimate risk could be catastrophic war. And he says the onus is on the United States and Europe to recognize competing national interests beyond their own, followed by efforts to reach compromises and find common solutions.
Glenn Diesen is a professor at University of South-Eastern Norway. He is also editor of ‘Russia in Global Affairs’ and is a contributing expert at the Valdai Discussion Club. His research focus is the geoeconomics of Greater Eurasia and the crisis of liberalism. He specializes in Russia’s approach to European and Eurasian integration, as well as West-China dynamics. He is the author of several books: ‘The Decay of Western Civilisation and Resurgence of Russia: Between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft’ (2018); ‘Russia’s Geoeconomic Strategy for a Greater Eurasia’ (2017); and ‘EU and NATO relations with Russia: After the collapse of the Soviet Union’ (2015).
His latest two books are ‘Russian Conservatism’ (January 2021, see this link); and ‘Great Power Politics in the Fourth Industrial Revolution’ (March 2021, see this link).
* * *
Interview
Question: The Biden administration is making strenuous efforts at rallying Europe and NATO to take a more adversarial position toward Russia and China: what are Washington’s geopolitical objectives?
Glenn Diesen: Biden’s “America is back” and Trump’s “Make America Great Again” both aim to reverse the relative decline of the United States in the international system. While Trump believed that providing collective goods to its allies as the cost of a hegemon was making the U.S. lose its competitiveness, Biden believes the U.S. must rally its allies against rising adversaries. The geopolitical objectives remain constant: preserving a dominant position for the U.S. in the international system.
The main challenge to U.S. leadership position is geoeconomic as its rivals are developing alternative technologies, strategic industries, transportation corridors and financial instruments. However, the U.S. has not been successful in converting the security dependence of allies into geoeconomic loyalty. This is evident as the European Union uses Chinese technologies and capital, and Germany is working with Russia to construct the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. There are strong incentives for the U.S. to militarize a geoeconomic rivalry as it strengthens solidarity and loyalty among allies. NATO is therefore a good instrument even though Russian tanks are not heading towards Warsaw and Chinese troops are not about to invade Paris.
Question: Will Washington succeed in pushing what appears to be a new Cold War drive?
Glenn Diesen: Washington is certainly worsening relations with both Moscow and Beijing, although it is not clear that they will get the Europeans to follow their lead. The Europeans share many of America’s concerns, although they do not wish to retreat under U.S. protection in a new U.S.-China bipolar system. The EU has defined its interest as pursuing “strategic autonomy” to develop “European sovereignty”. U.S. efforts to rally the Europeans against Russia and China rely on rhetoric over security challenges or human rights issues, although it is meant to translate into reducing economic connectivity with the two Eurasian giants. However, the interests of the Europeans and the U.S. diverge over China, and the Europeans are also growing more concerned over pushing Russia towards China.
Question: You’ve mentioned before how the United States’ goals are: a) to prevent Europe from partnering with Russia for energy trade; and b) to prevent Europe partnering with China for new technology, trade and investment. Is such a divisive U.S. aim possible to achieve in a multipolar, integrated global economy?
Glenn Diesen: U.S. policies aim to prevent the emergence of a multipolar order. In my opinion, this is a misguided objective as Washington must adjust to the changing international distribution of power. I have argued that the U.S. is confronted with a dilemma – it can either facilitate and shape a multipolar system where the U.S. is the “first among equals”, or it can aim to contain rising powers to extend its hegemonic position although then a multipolar system will emerge in direct opposition to the U.S. By containing the rise of both Russia and China, the U.S. encourages Moscow and Beijing to define their partnership often in opposition to the U.S.
The global economy is subsequently fragmenting. The geoeconomic dominance of the U.S. has rested on its leading technologies that buttress its strategic industries, control over the maritime corridors of the world, and control over the main development banks and the world’s trade/reserve currency. Russia and China have therefore developed a strategic partnership to develop their own technological ecosystems, new Eurasian transportation corridors by land and sea, and new financial instruments such as banks, payment systems and de-dollarizing their trade. The U.S. will therefore discover that the effort to isolate China and Russia will result in the U.S. isolating itself.
Question: You’ve also mentioned that the United States may be trying a re-run of the Nixon-era policy from the 1970s of forcing a division between China and Russia. Is such a U.S. objective possible today?
Glenn Diesen: It seems highly unlikely. Nixon was able to split the Soviet Union and China by reaching out to the weaker part, China, based on mutual misgivings towards the power of the Soviet Union. The U.S. therefore accommodated the weaker adversary to balance the stronger adversary.
Today, the stronger adversary is China and the U.S. would therefore have to reach out to Russia. Beijing has no reason to turn against Moscow as Russia does not pose a threat to the Chinese, and Russia’s partnership is vital for China’s geoeconomic rise.
Much can be gained from reaching out to Moscow, although it will be very difficult, and Russia will not turn against China. The U.S. leading role in Europe is reliant on excluding Russia from the continent, and the anti-Russian sentiments in the U.S. make it impossible to find common ground. Also, it is hard to overstate the resentment in Moscow over relentless NATO expansionism towards its borders.
Future historians will likely recognize the historical blunder of not accommodating Russia in Europe. After the Cold War, Russia’s principal foreign policy objective was to be included in a Greater Europe. The remaining hopes for incremental integration with Europe ended in 2014, when the West supported the coup in Ukraine. Russia is now pursuing the Greater Eurasia Initiative and its leading partner toward that end is China.
Reaching out to Moscow will enable Russia to diversify its economic relations and avoid excessive reliance on China, although Russia will not join any partnership aimed against China.
Question: The Biden administration’s overtures for a stronger transatlantic alliance and a more unified NATO appear to be lapped up by various European leaders. For example at the NATO summit of foreign ministers in Brussels on March 23-24, the French top diplomat Jean-Yves Le Drian gushed about a renewed alliance under Biden, declaring that NATO had “rediscovered” itself. Why are European politicians seemingly so ready to appease Washington even when it is at the cost of undermining their own relations with Russia and China?
Glenn Diesen: The Europeans only developed unity after the Second World War under U.S. leadership. Europe has thus only existed as a cohesive sub-region within the larger transatlantic region. During the Cold War this partnership was directed towards balancing the Soviet Union, and after the Cold War the trans-Atlantic partnership enabled collective hegemony. The Europeans have prospered under U.S. leadership and been able to develop regional European autonomy.
The multipolar system challenges the foundation for the internal cohesion of both Europe and the trans-Atlantic region. On one hand, the Europeans want to align their policies with the U.S. to preserve solidarity within Europe and the West. On the other hand, the Europeans desire “strategic autonomy” as they recognize that U.S. and EU interests diverge in a multipolar world. Confronting Russia and China weakens the economic competitiveness of Europe and increases its dependence on the U.S.
Question: Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking during a visit to China this week, remarked that the European Union had unilaterally destroyed relations with Russia due to recent actions, presumably imposing sanctions. Would you agree that the EU has taken unprecedented harmful steps against Russia?
Glenn Diesen: Yes. The sanctions do not provide a solution, rather they undermine the possibility for a partnership to find common solutions. Sanctions are designed to force Russia to make unilateral concessions as opposed to finding mutually acceptable solutions through compromise.
It must be recognized that every conflict has two sides, yet Brussels tends to treat all conflicts as transgressions by Russia that must be punished and corrected by the EU. I often make the argument that Russia is largely a status-quo power in Europe that reacts to Western revisionism. Russia intervened in Crimea in response to the West’s support for the coup, and Russia intervened in Syria in response to Western efforts to topple the government. The problem behind these conflicts is that Russian security interests were never included, and the sanctions are a mere extension of this hegemonic mentality.
The sanctions are condemning Europe to reduced relevance in the multipolar world. A divided Europe creates systemic pressures for the EU to retreat under U.S. protection, and Russia must similarly diversify its economy away from Europe and instead align itself closer with China.
Question: Do you see any prospect of the European Union waking up to the realization that the bloc needs to repair relations with Russia, and China for that matter? Presumably that would require the EU asserting geopolitical independence from the United States, and the question is: has Europe’s political class got the will or even the imagination for this?
Glenn Diesen: How can relations be repaired? The source of all problems with Russia was the failure to reach a mutually acceptable post-Cold War settlement. Efforts to create a Europe-without-Russia inevitably became a Europe-against-Russia. Initially, Russian apprehensions could be ignored as Russia was weak and did not have anywhere else to go. This is no longer the case. The EU can either treat the underlying problem of excluding the largest state in Europe from Europe, or it can aim to treat the symptoms that include Russia’s pivot to the east – primarily China.
Both France and Germany have become more vocal about the folly of continuing to push Russia towards China. France has been more ambitious in terms of rethinking relations with Russia to resolve the underlying problems, while Germany has been more focused on treating the symptoms by maintaining economic connectivity with Russia.
What can the EU do? Suspending NATO expansion towards Russian borders or ending anti-Russian sanctions would undermine both EU and NATO solidarity as it is opposed by the U.S. and certain Central and Eastern European countries. The EU and the West were not designed for a multipolar world and so risk its internal cohesion no matter what is done.
The EU is not demonstrating any intentions of altering its subject-object relationship with Russia, and seeking solutions through mutual compromise. When the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell went to Moscow last month, the effort to improve relations with Russia was therefore limited to lecturing Russia about its domestic affairs and transgressions in international affairs, which, it was inferred, Russia should correct in order to earn the EU’s forgiveness and improve relations.
Question: Finally, are you concerned that deteriorating international tensions could lead to war?
Glenn Diesen: Yes, we should all be concerned. Tensions keep escalating and there are increasing conflicts that could spark a major war. A war could break out over Syria, Ukraine, the Black Sea, the Arctic, the South China Sea and other regions.
What makes all of these conflicts dangerous is that they are informed by a winner-takes-all logic. Wishful thinking or active push towards a collapse of Russia, China, the EU or the U.S. is also an indication of the winner-takes-all mentality. Under these conditions, the large powers are more prepared to accept greater risks at a time when the international system is transforming. The rhetoric of upholding liberal democratic values also has clear zero-sum undertones as it implies that Russia and China must accept the moral authority of the West and commit to unilateral concessions.
The rapidly shifting international distribution of power creates problems that can only be resolved with real diplomacy. The great powers must recognize competing national interests, followed by efforts to reach compromises and find common solutions.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 23:40 - Negative COVID Tests For Sale Are Flooding The Dark Web
Negative COVID Tests For Sale Are Flooding The Dark Web
With Covid test results now becoming the key to people doing the once basic things they used to be able to do without turning over personal health records (i.e. go to the store and buy a sandwich, or do their laundry) it should come as no surprise that dark web searches for Covid test results are skyrocketing.
In fact, Uswitch recently analyzed Google searches and found that the number of people who were searching for “buy covid test results” in January 2021 had doubled since August 2020.
Other media outlets are also starting to pick up on the trend. “At the moment we are scanning more than 200 million dark web pages per week. We do see an increase in Covid-19 vaccine proof or Covid-19 test result but also there were some tests results on offer in certain marketplaces,” a cybersecurity expert in New Zealand told NZHerald this week.
“Fake vaccination certificates are also being sold, as well as fake negative tests, aimed at those traveling abroad,” HealthCareITNews reported on Monday.
Additionally, Google searches for “dark web covid” peaked on May 17, 2020, Uswitch says, “shortly after it was reported that more than 600 Covid-19 related medical products, supplies and fake vaccines had been found for sale on the dark web.”
Uswitch found that people in the U.S. are the most curious about the dark web, and that most access it using the Tor browser:
The flooding of the dark web with fake test results, of course, highlights one of the largest fallacies of the idea of vaccine passports or needing to prove vaccinations: ensuring the integrity of tests and test results. It could also indicate the large number of people who aren’t interested in getting the vaccine, but obviously are interested in getting back to reality.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 23:20 - Meet The Russiagate Prober Who Couldn't Verify Anything In Steele Dossier, Yet Said Nothing For Years
Meet The Russiagate Prober Who Couldn’t Verify Anything In Steele Dossier, Yet Said Nothing For Years
Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClearInvestigations,
For the past four years, Democrats and the Washington media have suspended disbelief about the Steele dossier’s credibility by arguing that some Russia allegations against Donald Trump and his advisers have been corroborated and therefore the most explosive charges may also be true. But recently declassified secret testimony by the FBI official in charge of corroborating the dossier blows up that narrative.
The top analyst assigned to the FBI’s Russia “collusion” case, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane, admitted under oath that neither he nor his team of half a dozen intelligence analysts could confirm any of the allegations in the dossier — including ones the FBI nonetheless included in several warrant applications as evidence to establish legal grounds to electronically monitor a former Trump adviser for almost a year.
FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten made the admission under questioning by staff investigators for the Senate Judiciary Committee during closed-door testimony in October. The committee only this year declassified the transcript, albeit with a number of redactions including the name of Auten, who was identified by congressional sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“So with respect to the Steele reporting,” Auten told the committee, “the actual allegations and the actions described in those reports could not be corroborated.”
After years of digging, Auten conceded that the only material in the dossier that he could verify was information that was already publicly available, such as names, entities, and positions held by persons mentioned in the document.
His testimony, kept secret for several months, is eye-opening because it’s the first time anybody from the FBI has acknowledged headquarters failed to verify any of the dossier evidence supporting the wiretaps as true and correct.
As one of the FBI’s leading experts on Russia, Auten was highly familiar with the subject matter of the dossier and the Russian players it cited. He also had a team of intelligence analysts at his disposal to pore over the material and chase down leads. They even traveled overseas to interview the dossier’s author, former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, and other sources.
Rendezvous with Russians? The FBI early on debunked this claim about Trump’s attorney (below right). Still, they could not corroborate any of the allegations of Trump-Russia “collusion” in the dossier, and actually debunked many of them — including the rumor, oft-repeated by the media, that Trump attorney Michael Cohen flew to Prague in the summer of 2016 to secretly huddle with Kremlin agents over an alleged Trump-Russia plot to hack the election. They determined that Cohen had never even been to the Czech Republic.
Yet Auten and his Crossfire teammates — who referred to the dossier as “Crown material,” as if it were valuable intelligence from America’s closest ally, Britain — never informed a secret surveillance court that the dossier was a bust. Instead, they used it as the basis for all four warrant applications to spy on Carter Page, a tangential 2016 Trump campaign adviser. Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who personally signed and approved the final application, has testified that without the dossier, the warrants could not have been obtained.
Micheal Cohen: The dubious Prague rumor lived on in the media for years.
AP/John MinchilloFinanced by the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 as opposition research against Trump, the dossier was used by the FBI to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrants to eavesdrop on Page from October 2016 to September 2017. A U.S. citizen, Page was accused of being a Russian agent, even though he previously assisted both the CIA and FBI in their efforts to hold Moscow in check. He was never charged with a crime and at least half the warrants have since been invalidated by the court. Page is now suing the FBI, as well as Auten, among other individual defendants, and is seeking a total of $75 million in damages.
The bureau’s handling of the warrants is part of Special Counsel John Durham’s ongoing investigation into the government’s targeting of Trump and his campaign during the election, and later, the Trump presidency. In January, Durham secured a criminal conviction against top Crossfire lawyer Kevin Clinesmith for falsifying evidence against Page to help justify the last warrant issued in June 2017.
It could not be ascertained whether Durham has interviewed Auten — a spokesman did not return messages — but Auten has hired one of the top white-collar criminal defense lawyers in Washington. And former federal law enforcement officials say Auten is certainly on Durham’s witness list.
Andrew McCabe: The former acting FBI boss has testified that without the dossier, spy warrants could not have been obtained. AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File “That analyst needs to be investigated,” said former assistant FBI director and prosecutor Chris Swecker, noting that Auten is a central, if overlooked, figure in the FISA abuse scandal — and one who attended several meetings with McCabe in the Durham case. In fact, the 52-year-old analyst shows up at every major juncture in the Crossfire investigation.
Auten, who did not respond to requests for comment directly or through his lawyer, was assigned to the case from its opening in July 2016 and supervised its analytical efforts, including researching other members of the Trump campaign who might serve as possible targets in addition to Page. He played a key supportive role for the agents preparing the FISA applications, including reviewing the probable-cause section of the applications and providing the agents with information about the sub-sources noted in the applications, and even drafting some of the language that ended up in the affidavits to spy on Page. He also helped prepare and review the FISA renewal drafts.
A 15-year FBI veteran, Auten assisted the case agents in providing information on the reliability of FBI informant Steele and his sources and reviewing for accuracy their information cited in the body of the applications, as well as the footnotes. He also sifted through the emails, text messages and phone calls the FBI collected from the wiretaps on Page. He met with top Crossfire officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, briefed McCabe and then-FBI Director James Comey, and even ran meetings with case agents and analysts regarding the election-year investigation, which he testified “was done as a ‘headquarters special.’ “
Christopher Steele: Personally met with Auten. (Victoria Jones/PA via AP) In addition, Auten personally met with Steele and his “primary sub-source,” a Russian emigre living in the U.S., as well as former British intelligence colleagues of Steele. Auten also met with former Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and processed the material Ohr fed the FBI from Glenn Simpson, the political opposition research contractor who hired Steele to compile the anti-Trump dossier on behalf of the Clinton campaign. He was involved in key source interviews where David Laufman and other top Justice officials were present, and shows up on critical email chains with these officials, who are also subjects of interest in the Durham probe.
Auten also attended meetings of a mysterious top-secret interagency entity, believed to have been overseen and budgeted by then-CIA Director John Brennan, known as the “Crossfire Hurricane Fusion Center,” or the Fusion Cell. Finally, it was Auten who provided analytical support to Special Counsel Robert Mueller when he took over the Crossfire case in May 2017. He brought his team of six analysts with him to Mueller’s office.
Instead of disqualifying the dossier as evidence, Auten let its fictions go into FISA applications. As early as January 2017, Auten discovered that the dossier was larded with errors, misspellings, factual inaccuracies, conflicting accounts and wild rumors, according to a Justice Department inspector general report on the FISA abuses. Instead of disqualifying the dossier as evidence, the report found he let its unsubstantiated innuendo go into the FISA applications.
Auten gave Steele the benefit of the doubt when sources or developments called into question the reliability of his information or his own credibility, according to the same inspector general’s report. In many cases, he acted more as an advocate than a fact-checker, while turning a blind eye to the dossier’s red flags, the report documented.
For example, when a top Justice national security lawyer initially blocked the Crossfire team’s attempts to obtain a FISA warrant, Auten proactively turned to the dossier to try to push the case over the line. In a September 2016 email to FBI lawyers, he forwarded an unsubstantiated claim from the dossier that Page secretly met with Kremlin-tied official Igor Divyekin in July 2016 and asked, “Does this put us at least *that* much closer to a full FISA on [Carter Page]?” (Asterisks for emphasis in the original.)
Carter Page: In an FBI spreadsheet, Auten cited a Yahoo News article as possible corroboration of “Page’s alleged meeting with Divyekin” — even though the source of that article was Christopher Steele himself.
AP Photo/Pavel GolovkinSenate investigators grilled Auten about his eager acceptance of the allegation, which Page had denied in secretly recorded conversations with an undercover FBI informant — exculpatory evidence that was withheld from the FISA court. Auten confessed he had no other information to independently verify the dossier’s charge, which was central to the FISA warrants.
In a declassified internal FBI spreadsheet he compiled in January 2017 to try to corroborate the dossier, Auten cited a September 2016 Yahoo News article as possible corroboration of “Page’s alleged meeting with Divyekin” — even though the source of that article was Steele himself.
“So you had no knowledge of a secret meeting between Divyekin and Page, but you thought this information ‘put us at least that much closer to a full FISA’ on Carter Page?” then-chief Senate Judiciary Committee investigative counsel Zach Somers asked Auten, incredulously. “Why does the mention of a meeting with Page and Divyekin move you ‘that much closer’ to a FISA application if you haven’t confirmed the information in the Steele dossier?”
“There was something about Divyekin,” Auten said. “That’s all I can say.”
In the secret informant recordings, which were made before the Crossfire team submitted its first FISA warrant application in October 2016, Page stated he never met with Divyekin or even knew who he was.
“Were you aware of his statements denying knowing who Divyekin was?” Somers asked Auten. “I don’t recall exactly whether or not I knew those statements at the time or whether I learned about those statements subsequent to that time,” Auten replied.
“Do you think you learned about them prior to the first Page FISA application?” Somers persisted. “I’m not sure if I learned them before the first Page application,” Auten answered.
Former FBI Special Agent Michael Biasello, a 25-year veteran of the FBI who spent 10 years in counterintelligence working closely with intelligence analysts, said Auten should be “held accountable” for his role in what he described as FBI headquarters’ blatant disregard for the diligent process FISA warrants demand.
“A FISA warrant must be fully corroborated. Every statement, phrase, paragraph, must be verified in order for the affiant to attest before a judge that the contents are true and correct,” he said. “I remember agents and analysts scouring warrants and affidavits obsessively to make certain the document was meticulous and accurate.”
“To think the Crossfire team signed off on those FISA affidavits knowing the contents were uncorroborated is unconscionable, immoral and also illegal,” Biasello added. “All of them must be prosecuted for perjury, fraud and other federal crimes.”
The Spreadsheet
Auten oversaw the early 2017 creation of a 94-page FBI spreadsheet that analyzed the credibility of the Steele dossier, excerpt by excerpt.
At first blush, the spreadsheet appears to corroborate some of the rumors. But upon closer inspection, the analysis relies heavily on media reports as the chief pieces of confirmation. The press citations, which number in the hundreds, are used in lieu of official corroboration.
Listed under a section titled “Corroboration,” the spreadsheet repeatedly cites stories published in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and CNN, as well as more overtly anti-Trump outlets like the Huffington Post and Mother Jones. It twice used the same Yahoo News story to corroborate separate Steele allegations, despite the fact Steele was the main source for the article. (During the 2016 campaign, Steele had briefed Yahoo author Michael Isikoff on his opposition research for about an hour in a private room at the Tabard Inn in Washington.)
Auten and his FBI analysts used a magazine article written by the sister of Democratic National Committee contractor Alexandra “Ali” Chalupa — a key promoter of the Trump collusion narrative during the 2016 election — as possible support for Steele’s lurid claim (later debunked) that Trump was compromised by a Russian sex tape.
RealClearInvestigations has learned exclusively that the spreadsheet glosses over one of the most glaring factual errors in the dossier — that Moscow allegedly paid DNC hackers through a Russian consulate in Miami. For starters, there is no Russian consulate in Miami. But Auten and his analysts remained silent about the reference to a phantom Miami consulate. It was never addressed in the nearly 100-page spreadsheet. Highlighting that gaffe might have exposed the shoddiness of the entire case.
In the end, Auten never confirmed anything from Steele’s rumor sheet the FBI cited as probable-cause evidence in its requests to obtain warrants. To the contrary, he “ultimately determined that some of the allegations contained in Steele’s election reporting were inaccurate,” the IG report revealed, although he kept those discoveries from the court.
Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz singled out the lead analyst in his 2019 report for cutting a number of corners in the verification process and even allowing information he knew to be incorrect to slip into the FISA affidavits and mislead the court.
For instance, Auten learned as early as January 2017 that Steele’s primary source, Igor Danchenko, lived in the United States, not Russia; yet Auten and the Crossfire team led the FISA court to believe he was “Russian-based” – and therefore presumably more credible. As RCI first reported, Danchenko was a hard-drinking gossip who had worked for the Brookings Institution, a Democratic Party think tank. It turns out the anti-Trump rumors he fed Steele — in exchange for cash — was dubious hearsay passed along over drinks with his high school buddies and an old girlfriend.
“The FISA applications all say that he’s Russian-based,” Somers pressed Auten. “Do you think that should have been corrected with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court?”
Auten said he raised the issue with Clinesmith, the convicted FBI lawyer. “And what response did you get back?” Somers asked. “I did not get a response back,” Auten replied.
And so the “Russian-based” deception lived on through the FISA renewals. The FBI continued to use the Steele rumor sheet as a basis for renewing its FISA monitoring of Page — and by extension, potentially the Trump campaign and presidency — through incidental collections of emails, text messages and intercepted phone calls. (FISAs let the FBI snoop not only on the target of the warrant, but also anyone communicating with the target and the target’s associates.)
Perhaps most telling, Auten also withheld the fact Danchenko disavowed key allegations Steele put in the dossier.
No Regrets, No Remorse
Nonetheless, Auten appeared unbothered by the myriad problems with the dossier.
He told Horowitz that he did not have any “pains or heartburn” over the accuracy of the Steele reports. As for Steele’s reliability as an FBI informant, Horowitz said, the analyst merely “speculated” that his prior reporting was sound and did not see a need to “dig into” his handler’s case file, which showed that past tips from Steele had gone uncorroborated and were never used in court. In a September 2016 memo used in the FISA applications to describe Steele’s credibility as a source, Auten falsely claimed Steele’s prior material had been corroborated.
According to the IG report, Auten also wasn’t concerned about Steele’s animus for Trump or that he was paid by Trump’s political opponent, calling the fact he was paid by the Clinton’s campaign “immaterial.” Under Senate grilling, Auten confirmed the fact-checking lapses highlighted by Horowitz, but remained unrepentant.
He insisted, “It was justified to open these cases” — not only against Carter Page, but also Trump advisers Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and George Papadopoulos — even while revealing that he and his analysts discussed taking out “professional liability insurance” policies because they worried the irregular Crossfire investigation “would likely result in extra scrutiny.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray has kept Auten in his job at the bureau, where he continues to work at headquarters as a supervisory intelligence analyst. The FBI provided him counsel at his private Senate hearing.
Wray has assured Horowitz he’s conducting a review of all FBI personnel who had responsibility for the preparation of the invalid FISA warrant applications and would take any appropriate action to deal with them for misconduct. It’s not immediately known if Auten has undergone such an internal review. The FBI declined comment.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 23:00 - "Crisis In Paradise" – Mexican Tourist Mecca Descends Into Chaos As Cartels Wage War During Spring Break
“Crisis In Paradise” – Mexican Tourist Mecca Descends Into Chaos As Cartels Wage War During Spring Break
While popular Instagram influencers and millennials flooded beaches, resorts, clubs, cenotes, and the Mayan ruins in Tulum, Mexico, during spring break, the up-and-coming paradise town on the Caribbean coastline of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula is descending into chaos.
These days, Tulum to Cancún (Cancún is about a 73-mile drive north) is flooded with spring breakers, millennials, and anyone trying to escape the virus pandemic in the US and Europe. Tulum is a coastal town. Known for its beautiful beaches and party vibe, but it’s gaining a reputation for crime and violence.
Homicides in Tulum jumped 109% in 2018, surging to 23 from 11, then increasing 47.8% in 2019 to 34. The upward trend continued last year, with homicides up 44.1% to 49. This year, homicides and other violent crimes are expected to hit record highs.
Tulum is undergoing a dangerous turf war among drug cartels. Six cartels operate in the resort town, including the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Zetas Vieja Escuela (Old School Zetas), and the Sinaloa Cartel. The main reason cartels operate in this area is because some tourists want party drugs.
For a town of about 80,000 residents, there are only 150 police officers, said James Tobin, a Quintana Roo-based citizens’ representative on the federal government’s National Security Council, told the local newspaper Reforma.
This week, a cartel shootout occurred in downtown Tulum. A Spanish tourist was “seriously injured” during a shootout, according to El Sol de Puebla.
In the last 24 hours, three cartel shootings have occurred within city limits, killing two and wounding eight.
Baltimore native Alastair Williamson captured the aftermath of one of the shootings in Tulum.
Nothing like a good ole Mexican shootout next to where we were dining #tulum chaos pic.twitter.com/dr7DDhFmfN
— Alastair Williamson (@StockBoardAsset) March 30, 2021
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Twitter user Joey Sutera responded to the chaos unfolding in Tulum. He said:
To all my friends heading to Tulum this month for Zamna & beyond: There is a real problem in this moment that the media is not covering. The cartels are fighting for turf and control even at venues on the beach road and people are getting shot almost daily.
As of now, most of them are gang shootings, but there is always a risk of getting in the middle of a crossfire. Tulum is beautiful, and hopefully it will pass. Just exercise more-than-usual caution.
But it’s not just drug cartels that are dangerous – so are the police.
While drug cartels waged war, demonstrators all week, mainly in the evenings, have flooded the streets in protest against police corruption.
The demonstrations began when a woman in Tulum was killed George-Floyd style last weekend. The video is graphic but has ignited small pockets of social unrest of residents who are absolutely fed up with cartels, police, and the corrupt government.
I doubt we will see a single George Floyd level protest in Mexico over this police killing in #Tulum
The way this unnamed woman’s body is treated is vile
Video is hard to watch
Tragic and senseless
Cops need to at the very least stop kneeling on people— Andrea Noel (@metabolizedjunk) March 28, 2021
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For days, mainly in the evenings and on the downtown strip, young locals protested the police killing of the unarmed women.
#tulum protests continue for second night pic.twitter.com/WBAl6IE6Y5
— Alastair Williamson (@StockBoardAsset) March 30, 2021
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While cartel wars and one protest must be strainful for police and local officials who need to keep the beach town in pristine condition to sucker Americans into paradise to blow their stimulus checks, another protest was seen this week with dozens of demonstrators holding signs such as this one, that read: “Tourist You Are Not Safe In Tulum.” The sign is hard to read, but it appears to say tourists are not safe from “corrupt police officers.”
Last week, one American tourist, who was ruffed up by corrupt police, said:
“I was absolutely scared when a Tulum police officer pulled me over. I was threatened with 36-hours in jail, but there was no way that I was speeding because other cars were going faster than me. Maybe it was the rental car that flagged the officer that I was a tourist. As soon as I grabbed my license from my purse, the officer noticed I only had American dollars and demanded money. If I didn’t pay the fine – he threatened me with jail,” said American tourist Melinda Lewis.
One tourist reached out to us and said their Airbnb host in Tulum warned about a possible cartel war in the beach town.
Other tourists are panicking as they’re being warned about an impending cartel war.
With Instagram influencers flocking to the tiny beach town, there’s a dark secret they won’t share with you on their feed, that is, Tulum is a chaotic hellhole full of corrupt cops and daily shootings as cartels wage war against each other.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 22:40 - US, China, Russia, And Thucydides Trap
US, China, Russia, And Thucydides Trap
Authored by Amir Taheri via The Gatestone Institute,
When Joe Biden started his presidency with the slogan “diplomacy is back!” some wondered what that meant in terms of a coherent foreign policy. Diplomacy, as every sixth-grader knows, is one of the many means needed to implement a policy. On its own, it is either an academic conceit or another name for charade. In the past week or so we have observed diplomacy, as practiced by the new administration, both as a conceit and a charade.
As a conceit, it appeared in the headline-catching slogan “America is back in the Paris Climate Accord” launched by Washington. Now, however, we know that the “return” is so full of “ifs and buts” that even the French, initially applauding loudly, are beginning to wonder whether they have been sold a bill of goods.
Another example was furnished by the tedious scrimmage over the “nuclear deal” with the mullahs in Tehran. President Biden had hinted at a quick return to the path traced by his former boss Barack Obama. Based on that assumption, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab imagined a scenario that would lead to defanging the mullahs with a lasting solution to the 42-year old “Iran problem.” Now, however, we know that Raab may have jumped the gun as the Biden team are still wondering what to do about a deal that Robert Malley, the diplomat in charge of the dossier, has described as defective.
In the broader scheme of things, these two examples may do little harm.
The Paris Climate Accord is more of an aspiration than a strategy while the Iranian nuclear problem has always been a way of avoiding the real issue: the danger that the Islamist regime poses for regional peace and stability. In its charade version, however, the Biden doctrine, if one might suggest such a label, tongue in cheek, could cause lasting damage because it concerns relations with China and Russia.
In the case of China, the new administration opted for a ministerial conference held in Alaska, presumably to underline the chill in relations.
Ignoring a primary lesson of diplomacy which is “getting to know you”, Secretary of State Antony Blinken seized the occasion to read out a litany of woes, leaving the Chinese wondering what was the point of a high-level meeting if it offers nothing but what is a daily staple in American news outlets. The Chinese responded by pouring scorn on America and its habit of lecturing others. What remains a mystery is how the Biden administration really sees the People’s Republic of China, especially at a time that it is engaged in a major redefinition of its role in a rapidly changing world.
Is China a rival, a challenger, a competitor, an adversary or an enemy? Is the US heading for a cold, lukewarm or even a hot war with China? How serious is the danger, expressed by some pro-Biden pundits, of China invading Taiwan and forcing the US into a regional war? On the other hand, what about other pundits, including Henry Kissinger and other China lobbyists in Washington, who want a modus vivendi with Beijing or even see it as a potential partner in tackling such problems as North Korea, Iran or Burma, not to mention the super-arlesienne of Paris Climate Accord?
Flying back home from Anchorage, the Chinese delegation may have had a sigh of relief. Blinken’s verbal tornado indicated confusion while the threat of sanctions has been downgraded to a blunt instrument.
The fact is that Biden has no China policy. Reading the riot act won’t amount to a policy.
The administration’s introductory move on Russia has been even more problematic. At a time that Biden was labeling Russian President Vladimir Putin a “killer”, Washington’s freelance diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad was in Moscow to launch the so-called Afghan peace conference “with the help of our Russian partner.”
Members of Biden’s team claim that Russia intervened in last year’s presidential election to secure victory for Donald Trump. The phrase “Russia wants to subvert our democracy” has become a Bidenian leitmotiv. And, yet, the same Russia is invited as a partner in stabilizing Libya, finding a future for Syria and helping keep the mullahs on leash.
One of Biden’s first “goodwill gestures” was to reinstate the outdated arms limitation accord that Trump had ditched. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov says the accord was reinstated instantly because Washington “accepted all our conditions.”
Not surprisingly, Russian media talk of “confusion” when it comes to Moscow’s relations with the new team in Washington. Calling a head of state “a killer” is not very diplomatic, to say the least. Incidentally, Talleyrand recommended that diplomats praise interlocutors in public but, if needed, insult them in private.
The questions that we asked about China also apply to Russia.
Is Russia an adversary, a rival, a competitor, a challenger or an enemy? Without a cool, clear and rational assessment of its place on a tableau of identities, shaping a coherent strategy regarding relations with powers one has to deal with is well-nigh impossible. You don’t deal with an adversary, even a troublemaker, the same way you do with an enemy. Even enemies could be further categorized, requiring different policies.
An ideological and/or political foe isn’t in the same category as an existential enemy. There are enemies that could be turned into neutrals or even partners if not actual friends. Then there are enemies who, like the bug in a Voltaire short story, are suicidal; they prefer to attack and die rather than live to make peace. There are also enemies you can ignore today because, as that great cynic Bill Clinton pontificated, you could always kill them tomorrow.
Whether China and Russia are enemies of the United States is a question that needs separate treatment.
However, without answering that question it won’t be possible to develop serious policies to deal with them.
Beyond that, it is bad policy, to say the least, to pick a fight with China and Russia at the same time, two rival powers that are deeply suspicious of each other, with contradictory rather than complementary economic and geopolitical interests. President Richard Nixon’s opening to China was a key element in nudging the Soviet Union towards détente and the Helsinki Accords.
George Shultz always advised against taking on two powerful challengers at the same time, even though the US needed to plan for simultaneously fighting two major wars. He understood that foreign policy imperatives should not be confused with military contingency, though the two are complementary. Right now it seems that Biden is more interested in proving he is anti-Trump than dealing with two opportunistic powers determined to lead us into a Thucydides trap and the world order in their narrow interests.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 22:20 - Which US States Have Lifted COVID-19 Restrictions?
Which US States Have Lifted COVID-19 Restrictions?
“Impending Doom”: The words the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, chose Monday to describe where the U.S. was headed with the current opening strategy have been repeated countless times.
Here is the ‘surge’ Walensky is freaking out about.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, 14 U.S. states have already lifted almost all coronavirus restrictions, according to information published by The New York Times and Kayak. No mask mandates, no stay-at-home orders or interstate travel quarantines were in place in Florida, Texas and Georgia as well as in parts of the Midwest and South, while businesses in the states were again almost fully opened.
You will find more infographics at Statista
According to Johns Hopkins University, six out of these 14 opened-up states are currently experiencing rising case numbers again.
In mid-March, only one of them had been recording more new cases. These new outbreaks in opened-up states are currently underway in the Deep North and Midwest Plains as well as in Florida.
Opened-up states which are reporting stagnating case numbers include Texas, Georgia and Mississippi.
The state that remained under most coronavirus restriction was California, where L.A. county as well as San Diego and San Francisco are still seeing many new cases.
Alaska was also mostly opened up, but still enforces an interstate travel quarantine.
All opened-up states have Republican governors.
Interestingly, after President Biden leveraged the CDC Director’s emotional outburst to urge all states to reverse their lifting of COVID restrictions, Walensky said today that:
“Our data from the CDC today suggests that vaccinated people do not carry the virus.”
Which would appear to imply that vaccinated people therefore cannot spread the virus (you can’t spread what you can’t carry) and thus, vaccinated people have no need to wear a mask or adhere to draconian distancing rules.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 22:00 - 'CNN News' Writer Claims "Not Possible" To Assign Gender At Birth
‘CNN News’ Writer Claims “Not Possible” To Assign Gender At Birth
Authored by Alexander Desanctis via NationalReview.com,
In an article reporting on Kristi Noem’s decision to veto the “Fairness in Girls’ Sports” bill, CNN breaking-news reporter Devan Cole claimed yesterday that there’s no way to determine a child’s “gender identity” at birth.
“It’s not possible to know a person’s gender identity at birth, and there is no consensus criteria for assigning sex at birth,” Cole asserted, in a statement better fit for an unhinged opinion article than a news article by a breaking-news reporter.
CNN is a parody website pic.twitter.com/djUrqI0jlt
— B (@aheapofthings) March 30, 2021
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In fact, as most of us are willing to acknowledge, for all of human history we’ve all relied upon a very simple way of actually knowing sex at birth.
There is indeed consensus for knowing biological sex at birth: just gotta look between the legs, it’s really not that hard.
— Just a Fluffy Shiba Inu 🇺🇸 🇫🇷 🇰🇭 (@fluffy_shibainu) March 31, 2021
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The concept of “assigning” sex at birth, far from being based on any “consensus criteria,” is a progressive invention designed to inculcate new parents into believing that a child’s biological sex and gender are sometimes, or even often, misaligned, and that it would be damaging to them to merely accept the reality of their biology at birth.
You… you do know women can get ultrasounds while the baby is still in utero to find out the sex of their child, right? The criteria is pretty cut and dry here.
— Krizzと (@konkarrne) March 31, 2021
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Cole has more to offer in this vein, critiquing two orders that Noem signed in an effort to require that biologically male athletes and biologically female athletes compete against others of their own sex:
Though the two executive orders signed by Noem do not explicitly mention transgender athletes, they reference the supposed harms of the participation of “males” in women’s athletics – an echo of the transphobic claim, cited in other similar legislative initiatives, that transgender women are not women. The orders also reference “biological sex,” a disputed term that refers to the sex as listed on students’ original birth certificates.
To Cole, the activist phrase “transphobic” is a matter of simple fact, fit for use by a hard-news writer, but the phrase “biological sex” is apparently disputed.
Of course, contrary to what Cole and his editors at CNN would like us to swallow wholesale, biological sex is a defined, observable, scientific reality – regardless of what anyone might believe about how best to deal with the policy issue of athletes who identify with the opposite sex.
To pretend that we as a society are incapable of knowing whether a child is a male or female at birth is lunacy. More than that, it’s lunacy in service of the left-wing project to redefine sex and gender as being entirely a creation of each individual, totally untethered from any biological or metaphysical reality.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed this morning, Margaret Harper McCarthy hits on exactly what is so problematic about this effort, especially as codified in the Equality Act, which Democrats are attempting to push through Congress:
At stake in the so-called Equality Act, currently before the Senate, is neither women’s sports nor bathrooms, at least not ultimately. At stake is the freedom of rational human beings to use a common vocabulary when speaking about what all can see…
The Equality Act doesn’t concern such invisible mysteries as the Holy Trinity, for example. That is a matter of belief in the strict sense, though it isn’t irrational or private. Rather, the Equality Act concerns things everyone can see and understand. Infants don’t need instruction to know that their mothers are the ones who are nursing them, and their fathers are the ones who are not. Sexual difference is obvious to anyone with eyes to see.
McCarthy is right. The debate over the Equality Act – or over the South Dakota bill Noem vetoed – isn’t ultimately a debate about bathrooms or sports teams.
It’s a debate about whether we as a society are on board with the program of pretending that men and women are interchangeable, that the realities of biological sex and human nature can be erased if we pretend hard enough.
We know which side CNN is on.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 21:40 - "Buyer Mayhem" – Canadian House Goes For $612,000 Over List After Bidding War
“Buyer Mayhem” – Canadian House Goes For $612,000 Over List After Bidding War
Toronto is the most overheated housing market among any metropolitan city in Canada. The latest example of this is the recent sale of a home that sparked a bidding war among buyers in Banbury Don Mills, a suburb in Toronto’s North York district.
The Globe and Mail report the 3,500 sqft home located at 42 Apollo Dr., Toronto, was listed for $1,998,000 in January and immediately saw massive interest among prospective homebuyers.
Real agent Belinda Lelli said she had 112 showings on the suburban home with more than 17 offers.
“The strategy was to put it on the market before the spring,” said Lelli, because inventories were low in January.
“It was buyer mayhem from the onset,” she said. “I fielded 112 showings and 17 offers.”
She said the house quickly sold for $612,000 over list or a 30% premium versus the initial list price.
Lelli said the suburban area is very sought after in a post-COVID world. “It’s on a very quiet, family-friendly street, and it has five bedrooms, plus one bedroom in the fully finished basement,” she added.
In addition to being in the suburbs, the home can support two at-home offices, bedrooms for two kids, and even a finished basement for a housekeeper, nanny, or an in-law suite.
Lelli correctly points out that the low inventory and cheap mortgage rates resulted in the home’s bidding war. Also, being in the suburbs, city-dwellers are finding the area attractive.
Earlier this month, BMO Senior Economist Robert Kavcic pointed out the “boiling” Canadian housing in one chart, which shows housing prices across Canada have erupted in recent months.
Kavcic said: “that is, the 1-month change is faster than 3-month; which is faster than the 6-month; which is faster than the 12-month. In all cases but the 12-month (and that won’t be long either), price growth had accelerated through the rates seen in 2017, when policymakers were working on multiple fronts to tame the market.”
Rapid home price increases have alarmed the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in a recent Housing Market Assessment report. The agency singled out Toronto and called it the most overheated market in the country.
Royal Bank of Canada economist Robert Hogue finds real estate prices are moving the fastest in suburbs and rural communities.
“Surging prices are also pulling demand forward, with many buyers opting to act now for fear they’ll miss out,” said Hogue, outlining how people can work remotely and want more land in a post-lockdown environment. “The factors driving the current frenzy will eventually reverse or run their course.”
Hogue warns the frenzy won’t last forever as overheated conditions usually result in a correction.
A similar frenzy is happening to Canada’s neighbor in the south, that being the US. The Federal Reserve sparked a housing boom with historically low mortgage rates as the remote-work phenomenon is pushing city dwellers to the suburbs.
In one instance, a home in the Citrus Heights, a suburb of Sacramento, California, was recently listed for $399,900, and in just two days, received a mindboggling 122 offers. The home ended selling well above the list price.
The bottom line is that the Canadian housing market is boiling, and once demand languishes, a correction will be seen.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 21:20 - They're Not Even Trying To Make Sense Now
They’re Not Even Trying To Make Sense Now
Authored by Patrick Armstrong via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
In short, we are supposed to believe that in 2016 the Russian hacked nothing but the election and in 2020 they hacked everything but the election.
The US intelligence community published a report on 10 March, widely reported in the US free speech news media, on foreign interference in the US election (how many oxymorons so far?).
The report establishes a new level of idiocy on the long-running “Russiagate” nonsense.
The idiocy began when Trump, campaigning, remarked that it would be better to get along with Russia than not. A sentiment that would not have surprised Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan or any of the others who recognised that, like it or not, Moscow was a fact. A fact that had to be dealt with, talked to, negotiated with so as to produce the best possible result. Why? Well, apart from the diplomatic reality that it is better to get on with your neighbours, the fact that the USSR/Russia was a nuclear power that could obliterate the USA was adequate reason to keep communications alive. If relations could be improved, all earlier US Presidents would agree, so much the better. But for Trump – the outsider – to dare to say so was an outrage. Or more accurately, a hook on which to hang enough simulated outrage to cost him the election. Then, upsetting all expectations, he won. Immediately pussy hat protests, blather about tax returns, Electoral College speculations, 25th Amendment, psychiatrists opining unfitness (COVFEFE: Bizarre Trump Behavior Raises More Mental Health Questions): an entire industry was created to get Trump out, or, if he couldn’t be got out, then at least prevented from doing any of the things he campaigned on. All the swamp creatures were mobilised. The most enduring of these efforts was the Russia allegation. A Special Counsel was created to investigate Russia, Trump and the election. Leaks from this and other investigations fuelled outrage and talk shows.
One of the indications that the story was actually an information operation and not based on fact was its imprecision. Was Trump merely too friendly with Putin, or was he his puppet? Was Trump just a fool to think that relations with Russia could be improved, or was he following instructions? In short, was he a dupe or a traitor? How exactly had Russia interfered in the election and to what effect? Had a few voters been influenced or had the result been completely determined by Moscow? In short was Moscow running the USA or just trying to? Proponents of these crackpot theories never quite specified what they were talking about – it was all suggestion, innuendo, rumours and promises of future devastating revelations. Some of the highlights of the campaign: Keith Olberman shouting Russian scum! Morgan Freeman solemnly intoning that we were at war, and, night after night, Rachel Maddow spewing conspiracies. Some media headlines: Opinion: Here are 18 reasons Trump could be a Russian asset. Trump is ‘owned by Putin’ and has been ‘laundering money’ for Russians, claims MSNBC’s Donny Deutsch. Mueller’s Report Shows All The Ways Russia Interfered In 2016 Presidential Election. A media firestorm as Trump seems to side with Putin over US intelligence. Trump and Putin, closer than ever. All signs point the same way: Vladimir Putin has compromising information on Donald Trump. And so on. Four years of non-stop nonsense promising, tomorrow, or the next day, the final revelation that would disgrace Trump and rid the country of him forever: my personal favourite is this mashup of TV hairstyles telling us that the walls were closing in. Information war. Propaganda. Fake news.
All this despite the fact that the story as presented simply made no sense at all. As I pointed out in December 2017, if Moscow had wanted to nobble Clinton, it had far more potent weapons at its disposal than a too-late revelation of finagling inside the DNC.
And it wasn’t just TV talking heads; the US intelligence community participated. There were two laughable “intelligence assessments”. The DHS/FBI report of 29 December 2016 carried this stunning disclaimer:
This report is provided “as is” for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.
The DNI report of 6 January 2017 devoted nearly half its space to a four-year-old rant about RT and admitted that the one Agency that would really know had only “moderate confidence”. In short: ignore the first report, and don’t take the second one seriously. Were people inside these organisations trying to tell us it was all phoney? No matter, the anti-Trump conspiracy shrieked out the reports immediately.
One by one, it fell apart. Mueller, despite the prayer candles, came up with nothing. The “Dirty Dossier” was a fraud. The impeachment for something that Biden actually did failed. These dates should be remembered – Crowdstrike CEO Shawn Henry told the House committee that he had no evidence on 5 December 2017; this classified testimony was not made public until 7 May 2020. Simply put: the key allegation, the trigger for all the excitement and investigations that followed, was a lie, many people knew it was a lie, the lie was kept secret for 884 days. But the lie served its purpose.
There were no investigations of this fraud, only pseudo investigations that went nowhere. When the Republicans had a majority on the House of Representatives there were serious investigations but the testimonies – like Henry’s – were kept secret because they were “classified”. When the Democrats gained control, there were continual boasts that the evidence of collusion was overwhelming, but nothing happened either. Trump’s first Attorney General recused himself and the investigation was conducted by the conspirators. His second Attorney General promised much, set up a Special Counsel, but nothing happened. Well, not quite nothing: a junior conspirator had his knuckles rapped for faking a FISA warrant. In short, the Deep State ran the clock out: the swamp drained Trump.
Ran it out quite successfully too: relations with Russia got worse and Trump himself was hamstrung. His orders were ignored everywhere: on investigating the conspiracy and on removing troops; here’s an insider telling us that the Pentagon ignored his orders on Afghanistan. He was stonewalled on Syria: “We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there.” The “most powerful man in the world” was blocked on almost every initiative and the long false Russia connection story was a powerful weapon in the conspiracy to impede his attempts to change course.
In 2021 Trump left office and there was no need to mention any of it again. But here’s where it gets really stupid. In December 2020, the NYT solemnly told us: Russian Hackers Broke Into Federal Agencies, U.S. Officials Suspect: In one of the most sophisticated and perhaps largest hacks in more than five years, email systems were breached at the Treasury and Commerce Departments. Other breaches are under investigation. At the same time we were equally solemnly told by US officials “The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history”.
In short, we are supposed to believe that
in 2016 the Russian hacked nothing but the election
and in 2020 they hacked everything but the election.
How stupid do they think we are? Even stupider evidently. Instead of retiring the Trump/Russia/collusion/interference nonsense when it had achieved its purpose, the Intelligence Community Assessment on Foreign Threats to the 2020 US Federal Elections takes us right back down the rabbit hole. I haven’t read it and certainly don’t intend to (see oxymoron above), but Matt Taibbi has and eviscerates it here; he’s read far enough to have mined this gem “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact”. (Is this a hint from insiders that it’s all fake?) The report claims that Putin authorised, and various Russian government entities conducted, a campaign to denigrate Biden. Specifically by using Ukrainian sources to talk about corruption of Biden and his son Hunter; despite the video of Biden boasting about firing the investigator, we’re assured that this is all disinformation. And the consumers of the NYT and CNN will believe what they were told. Or, actually, will believe what they weren’t told: the media kept quiet. (Now that’s interference and interference that actually might have changed votes.) The report goes on to say that China did something or other and Iran, Hezbollah, Cuba and Venezuela also chipped in. But fortunately no foreign actor did anything to affect the technical part of the election.
The US security organs expect us to believe,
giving no proof,
that there was lots of malign activity
which had no effect on the election whatsoever.
Which is telling us they think we’re even stupider. Russia swung the election four years ago but forgot how to this time? Putin’s attempt to keep Trump in was blocked by security measures adopted when his tool was President? This time Putin wanted Biden in? Russia’s efforts on behalf of Trump were countered by China’s on behalf of Biden and Iran’s interference broke the tie? But then, information operations don’t have to make sense, they just have to create an impression: Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela do bad things to good people.
Oh, and the latest is that Moscow cultivated Trump for over 40 years, Imagine that: in 1980 they were so perceptive as to see the future importance of a property developer; who’ve they got lined up in the wings now? And Rachel Maddow is back at the old stand pushing some conspiracy theory about Trump, Putin and COVID. I guess it’s not yet time to put away the tinfoil hats.
As I have said before, English needs a whole new set of words for the concept “stupid”: the old ones just don’t have the power any more.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 21:00 - "Human Intelligence Drys Up" – US Investigations Into Drug Cartels Halted Over Mexican Standoff
“Human Intelligence Drys Up” – US Investigations Into Drug Cartels Halted Over Mexican Standoff
US law enforcement officials are flying blind with limited to no human intelligence on Mexican cartels due to a new law passed in December by the Mexican government that requires US authorities to share contacts in the country with Mexican officials (who are often corrupt).
Current and former senior officials in both countries tell Reuters US efforts to combat powerful drug cartels inside Mexico have come to a standstill since January as relations fray between them.
Before December, US and Mexican authorities routinely shared intelligence on drug cartels, but the new law now requires US authorities to report their law-enforcement contacts to the Mexican government first. This has temporarily halted joint efforts to prevent the flow of drugs into the US.
Two sources said, “on-the-ground operations, including raids on Mexican drug labs, have largely ceased, and US authorities are now struggling to track movements of U.S.-bound cocaine from Venezuela and Colombia through Central America and into Mexico.”
Sources said US drug agents working on the ground had been followed by local police (who are often paid off by cartels), raising serious concerns about their safety. There’s also been the issue of US law enforcement agents who have been denied visas to work in the country.
“Most of our most important cases are at a standstill,” a senior US law enforcement official told Reuters. “If we have to report our sources to their foreign ministry, it jeopardizes our sources and methods. The system is set up intentionally now so that Mexican law enforcement can’t help us.”
A top Mexican military official told Reuters since the new law went into effect several months ago, most anti-drug efforts with the US have been postponed.
“Without US support – in technology and intelligence – it will be more difficult to contain crime,” the official said.
Another Mexican official described the rift between both countries as more “administrative and temporary than substantive.”
“It’s not that cooperation is now paralyzed,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding that things will normalize.
The new law came into effect shortly after the US arrested former Mexican defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos on drug trafficking charges. The purpose of the arrest was to show close ties between drug cartels and Mexican government officials. However, in Mexico, the arrest was not well received and triggered a backlash.
While the Biden administration is under pressure to control a migrant crisis at the US-Mexico border, US officials are having difficulty tracking shipments of drugs pouring into the US, which comes at a time when US drug overdose deaths have reached an all-time high.
Former DEA head Timothy Shea said, “the big winners are the cartels.” He warned: “It’s just what the cartels wanted so they can expand their reach and smuggle more deadly drugs into the United States.”
He said, “human intelligence is drying up,” making it more difficult to intercept drug shipments.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 20:40 - Hillary Attacks "Shameless Gun Worshipers" Who Are Against "Sensible" Control Legislation
Hillary Attacks “Shameless Gun Worshipers” Who Are Against “Sensible” Control Legislation
Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,
Hillary Clinton has declared Republicans who are against gun control legislation to be “gun worshippers”, and ridiculed them for being “scared” that their rights are being taken away.
Appearing on her own former communications director’s podcast, Clinton declared “You know, democracy is the balancing of interests and rights, and unfortunately at this time, the gun worshipers have a huge advantage because of the filibuster and because of their shameless exploitation of people’s unwarranted fears.”
We talk so much about the right to bear arms in America. @HillaryClinton wants to change the narrative.
What about the rights of everyone else? The right to go to work, to school, or to the grocery store without fear?
Clinton gets candid on #JSAH with @jmpalmieri this Thursday: pic.twitter.com/MFCJyj3KIC
— The Recount (@therecount) March 30, 2021
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Hillary specifically singled out Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who last week labelled Democrats’ gun control efforts in the wake of shootings in Atlanta and Colorado as “ridiculous theater”.
Clinton proclaimed that “The opportunists on the other side, like Cruz and his ilk, they know better and they are in the position of trying to keep people really riled up and scared that sensible gun legislation like we had in the ‘90s for 10 years will somehow undermine their rights.”
“Well, what about the rights of all the rest of us? The rights of us to go to work, go shopping, go on dates to the movie theater, go to school, for heaven’s sake — what about the rest of us?” she continued.
After announcing he is considering executive action, Joe Biden told reporters on Sunday he believes Congress will pass “rational gun control” measures.
“The only gun control legislation that’s ever passed is mine. It’s going to happen again,” Biden Declared.
President Biden confident on passing “rational gun control.”
“The only gun control legislation that’s ever passed is mine. It’s going to happen again,” he told reporters. pic.twitter.com/46CchLrYrb
— Bo Erickson CBS (@BoKnowsNews) March 28, 2021
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Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 20:20 - Foxconn Is Entering The EV Battery Market, Eying Solid State Batteries
Foxconn Is Entering The EV Battery Market, Eying Solid State Batteries
In news that is likely going to send shockwaves through the EV industry, Foxconn looks poised to be developing its own EV-use batteries. The giant electronic OEM is going to be developing both LFP (lithium iron phosphate) and solid-state batteries for use in electric vehicles, industry sources told Digitimes.
Foxconn and Hua-chuang Automotive Information Technical Center under Yulon Motor have established Foxtron Vehicle Technologies, the report says.
As most EV manufacturers, like Tesla, already know – battery packs can account for 50% of the total weight of an EV and 30% of its cost. Manufacturers are working on decreasing not only the cost of packs, but also the mass, which can lead to longer ranges per charge.
Foxconn will reportedly introduce battery samples for EVs in 2021 and bring development to commercial use in 2024, the report notes.
Solid state batteries “will represent a $6 billion industry by 2030,” TechCruch recently wrote. Many of the recent promises in battery development – making them lighter, safer and more powerful, have “largely evaporated”, the report notes. Solid state batteries :lack a liquid electrolyte for moving electrons (electricity) between the battery’s positive (cathode) and negative (anode) electrodes”, making them less flammable and quicker to charge than li-ion batteries.
Colorado-based startup Prieto Battery told TC: “If you run the calculations, you can get really amazing numbers and they’re very exciting. It’s just that making it happen in practice is very difficult.”
So far, no large auto manufacturers have found success in developing solid-state batteries for EVs. If Foxconn can break through on solid state batteries, in addition to simply becoming an li-ion manufacturer, the shockwaves it sends through the industry could be profound.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 20:00 - Record Leverage Means No Policy U-Turn For The PBOC
Record Leverage Means No Policy U-Turn For The PBOC
By Ye Xie, Bloomberg macro commentator and analyst
That seems the thinking behind U.S. President Joe Biden’s economic plan, which now includes a $2.3 trillion spending proposal for infrastructure, green investment and research. Of course, there are still questions about how much Congress can actually deliver, and the spending will be spread out over eight years, meaning the immediate impact on the economy is likely to be less than the headline number suggests. That perhaps explains why Treasury yields increased only modestly Wednesday. The fact that the stock market set new highs suggests that the improvement in earnings is likely to outpace any rise in yields or potential increase in taxes.
Back in China, good economic news continues to be treated as bad news for markets. Despite solid PMI data, the CSI 300 Index fell, making it the only major benchmark to post a loss for the year on Bloomberg’s WEI major equity ranking page. Part of the concern is that policy makers will tighten rates to contain financial leverage. China’s total debt increased 29% points last year to 315% of GDP, driven by companies and provincial governments borrowing during the pandemic, according to Citigroup.
Ironically, the very same debt overhang is a constraint on policy tightening. Those highly leveraged firms are vulnerable to rising interest rates and more stringent financial conditions.
Citigroup’s economists found about 600 listed Chinese companies with leverage ratios 20 points above their sector averages. Their combined market valuation amounted to 11 trillion yuan ($1.7 trillion), or 17% of the stock market. Assuming their debt is mostly financed by banks, every one percentage point rise in the lending rate would boost their interest payments by 152 billion yuan, equivalent to 30% of their profits, economists led by Liu Li-Gang wrote in a note.
Property developers are particularly vulnerable, given their high debt levels and uncertainties regarding regulators’ “three red line” policy aimed at limiting indebted companies’ capacity to borrow. For developers, a rate hike of one percentage point rate will increase their interest costs by 49 billion yuan, or 42% of their profits.
“While rising leverage ratio is a concern, the very factor could also be used to argue for caution when the PBOC starts to exit its supportive monetary policy,” Liu and his colleagues wrote. “If not handled with care, we will not only see the Chinese version of ‘taper tantrum’ in the financial markets, but also potentially witness the rising risk of default from those highly indebted enterprises.”
It sounds like the PBOC will be walking a tightrope from here.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 19:40 - Documents Detail Wild Alleged $25M Gaetz Extortion Scheme
Documents Detail Wild Alleged $25M Gaetz Extortion Scheme
Authored by Joseph Simonson and Emily Brooks via the Washington Examiner
Rep. Matt Gaetz possesses text message screenshots, an email, and a typed document that purportedly support his claims that a federal investigation into his relationship with a 17-year-old is related to an extortion scheme against him.
On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the Justice Department is investigating whether Gaetz had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid her to travel with him. Gaetz has called the report “totally false.” Gaetz told Axios that his lawyers told him that he “was not a target but a subject of an investigation regarding sexual conduct with women.”
The Florida Republican countered the report on Twitter and in statements to Axios and Fox News with a claim that his family is being extorted for $25 million and that the people pushing stories about an investigation into his relationships with women are the people extorting him and the subjects of an FBI extortion investigation over the last few weeks.
The documents in Gaetz’s possession detail an alleged scheme that revolves around attempts by former Air Force intelligence officer Bob Kent and Beggs & Lane attorney David McGee, a former federal prosecutor, to free ex-FBI agent-turned-private investigator Robert Levinson from imprisonment in Iran.
Levinson went missing in Iran in March 2007. McGee is the attorney for the Levinson family. Kent in December 2018 had planned a secret mission to try to rescue Levinson, but he was reportedly thwarted by the federal government.
Screenshots provided to the Washington Examiner show a message that his father, Don Gaetz, a former Florida state Senate president, said he received from Kent on March 16. The message proposes “a plan that can make [Matt Gaetz’s] future legal and political problems go away.” Gaetz has denied any relationship with a minor.
Despite the family members of Levinson saying in March 2020 that they presumed him to be dead based on information given by U.S. officials, the alleged message from Kent said he had located Levinson in Iran and has two “proof of life videos.” Kent also requested the Gaetz family’s help returning Levinson in exchange for giving Matt Gaetz credit for the operation and promising a presidential pardon for unnamed legal issues.
The next day, on March 17, Don Gaetz purportedly met with Kent, and Kent handed him a three-page document outlining “Project Homecoming.” That document detailed a plan to save Levinson at the cost of a $25 million loan.
In 1983, Don Gaetz co-founded VITAS Healthcare, and in 2004, he and his co-founders reportedly sold their stock in the company for $406 million.
In the Project Homecoming document, Kent then asked that the loan should be deposited in the trust account of Beggs & Land, naming David L. McGee, and deposited no later than March 19.
The Project Homecoming document states that Gaetz is “under investigation by the FBI for various public corruption and public integrity issues” and alleges that the FBI is aware of photos depicting Gaetz in a “sexual orgy with underage prostitutes.”
“In exchange for the funds being arranged, and upon the release of Mr. Levinson, the team that delivers Mr. Levinson to the President of The United States shall strongly advocate that President Biden issue a Presidential Pardon, or instruct the Department of Justice to terminate any and all investigations involving Congressman Gaetz,” the document reads.
Provided to the Washington Examiner It also implied that the White House has some knowledge of the plan: “The team has been assured by the President that he will strongly consider such matters because he considers the release of Robert Levinson a matter of National Urgency.” The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Stephen M. Alford, who has previously faced fraud and extortion charges, was also allegedly at the March 17 meeting and gave Don Gaetz his business card showing Captum Consultants. The April 2020 articles of incorporation for the company indicate they came from Beggs & Land, McGee’s firm.
Provided to the Washington Examiner Kent, McGee, and Alford did not respond to requests for comment.
McGee told the Daily Beast on Tuesday night, following Gaetz naming him on national television, that any claims that he or his law firm were involved in extortion are “completely, totally false,” adding, “This is a blatant attempt to distract from the fact that Matt Gaetz is apparently about to be indicted for sex trafficking underage girls.”
Another email chain appears to confirm the existence of the FBI investigating extortion claims.
“My client, Don Gaetz, was approached by two individuals to make a sizable payment in what I would call a scheme to defraud,” Jeffrey Neiman said in a March 25 email to the Department of Justice. “The FBI is not asking Don to voluntarily and proactively assist in their investigation, which Don is willing to do. Please confirm that your Office and the FBI would like Don’s assistance in this matter and that he will be working at the Government’s request.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney David Goldberg responded: “I can confirm that your client is working with my office as well as the FBI at the government’s request in order to determine if a federal crime has been committed. This has been discussed with, and approved by, the FBI as well as the leadership of my office and components of Main Justice.”
The Department of Justice and the FBI declined to comment on the email or the existence of an extortion investigation. Neiman also declined to comment.
Provided to the Washington Examiner Gaetz on Fox News Tuesday night said his father wore a wire in order to assist with the case, and he demanded that the “Department of Justice and the FBI release the audio recordings that were made under their supervision and at their direction, which will prove my innocence.”
He suspects that a leak to the New York Times story about the investigation into whether he had a relationship with a 17-year-old was timed to thwart the FBI investigation into the extortion.
“This former Department of Justice official tomorrow was supposed to be contacted by my father so that specific instructions could be given regarding the wiring of $4.5 million as a down payment on this bribe,” Gaetz said. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that tonight, somehow, the New York Times is leaking this information, smearing me, and ruining the investigation that would likely result in one of the former colleagues of the current DOJ being brought to justice for trying to extort me and my family.”
The 17-year-old in question “doesn’t exist,” Gaetz said, adding that he has “not had a relationship with a 17-year-old. That is totally false.”
READ: FULL DOCUMENTS MATT GAETZ SAYS BACKS UP EXTORTION CLAIM
Jerry Dunleavy contributed to this story.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 19:25 - Navalny Begins Prison Hunger Strike As Supporters Claim Kremlin "Slowly Killing" Him
Navalny Begins Prison Hunger Strike As Supporters Claim Kremlin “Slowly Killing” Him
A day after The Washington Post featured an op-ed claiming that “the Kremlin may be slowly killing Alexei Navalny in prison,” the anti-Putin activist has announced on Wednesday that he’s begun a hunger strike to protest medical conditions at the prison facility, following his 2-and-a-half year sentence which was handed down last month.
He’s said to be protesting the refusal of prison medical staff at the notorious Penal Colony No. 2 east of Moscow to treat a suspected trapped nerve in his back. Navalny has also stated he’s lost sensation in one of his legs due to weeks of severe back pain, for which he recently went to so far as to voice fears his leg may have to be amputated.
Prison authorities have shot back, saying Navalny is in “stable and satisfactory” condition, with top Kremlin officials recently chalking it up to his supporters still engaged in an anti-Russia propaganda war that has help from the West.
Via AP In a letter posted by his legal team to social media Navalny said, “I demand that a doctor be allowed to see me, and until this happens, I am declaring a hunger strike.”
In a prior message last week Navalny first accused prison authorities of “deliberate denial of due medical assistance” in order to ensure his suffering. He essentially claimed “torture” – though he related it to prison-orchestrated sleep deprivation.
“My condition has worsened. I feel acute pain in my right leg, and I feel numbness in its lower part,” Navalny wrote. “I have trouble walking.” His lawyer Olga Mikhailova had added to this in follow-up televised remarks, saying that his condition is “extremely unfavorable”. She said, “Everyone is afraid for his life and health.”
A number of international headlines then seized on the torture allegations, reporting that the 44-year old outspoken Putin critic who previously alleged the Russian president ordered his poisoning with nerve agent last August is now being literally “tortured” as part of his confinement.
He’s also said to have been threatened with solitary confinement over bad behavior and repeat violations for failing to conform to the strict prison regimen.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 19:20 - YouTube Unveils Hide Feature After Americans Mass-'Dislike' Biden Videos
YouTube Unveils Hide Feature After Americans Mass-‘Dislike’ Biden Videos
Authored by Samuel Allegri via The Epoch Times,
Youtube, the video hosting platform owned by Google, announced on March 29 that they are going to test making the “dislike” count on videos invisible.
The tech giant says that it’s being done in response to “targeted dislike campaigns” and “creator feedback around well-being.”
“In response to creator feedback around well-being and targeted dislike campaigns, we’re testing a few new designs that don’t show the public dislike count,” YouTube announced on Twitter.
“If you’re part of this small experiment, you might spot one of these designs in the coming weeks.”
It further states on a Google support page:
“Viewer feedback has always been, and will continue to be, an important part of YouTube. But we’ve heard from creators that the public dislike counts can impact their wellbeing, and may motivate a targeted campaign of dislikes on a creator’s video. So, we’re testing designs that don’t include the visible like or dislike count in an effort to balance improving the creator experience, while still making sure viewer feedback is accounted for and shared with the creator. ”
A majority of responses on both the Twitter announcement and on the support page disapprove of the idea, with some comments suggesting the move is a consequence of the tremendous imbalance of “dislikes” on the present administration’s videos on their White House channel.
Did you seriously do this just for Joe Biden? https://t.co/8b47YLkoZg
— Ezra Levant 🍁 (@ezralevant) March 31, 2021
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Some other commentators expressed concerns that it would not be good for people who want to obtain feedback about the video quality, whether it be for creators or viewers.
In January, YouTube deleted what appears to be thousands of “dislikes” from videos on the official channel of President Joe Biden’s White House. The company said it’s a part of its regular efforts to remove engagement it considers inauthentic.
People on the platform noticed that dislikes have been disappearing by the thousands from several White House videos and started posting before-and-after screenshots on social media shortly after the incoming administration took over the channel and published its first videos.
The screenshots indicate a total of at least 16,000 dislikes were removed from at least three videos. Even after the adjustments, the five videos on the channel had about 14,000 likes combined versus nearly 60,000 dislikes as of 3:30 p.m. on Jan. 21.
Official White House YouTube team gonna be overjoyed at this. https://t.co/wcnd1niCOi pic.twitter.com/i2Kw5ccRPH
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) March 30, 2021
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In response to a screenshot of one of the videos, YouTube told The Epoch Times that it’s monitoring engagement on the site to detect and remove activity it considers spam so that only engagement it considers organic remains. The mechanism worked as intended in the case of the Biden video, the company stated.
“YouTube regularly removes any spam likes or dislikes from your videos,” the company stated in a 2019 tweet.
“It may take up to 48 hours for the numbers to be updated.”
It isn’t clear how YouTube discerns between authentic and inauthentic engagement; the company didn’t immediately respond to a request for further details.
“No one wants this,” Nerdrotic, a pop-culture YouTuber tweeted, adding, “Dislikes are helpful for a great many things and this is what puts YouTube above all others.”
YouTube and its owner, Google, have long faced accusations of political bias. The companies have said their products are developed and run as politically neutral, but employee accounts and leaked internal materials indicate the companies are indeed infusing their politics into their products.
Google shifted millions of votes in the Nov. 3, 2020, presidential election by pushing its political agenda onto its users, according to research psychologist Robert Epstein, who assembled a team of more than 700 voters to monitor what results they were receiving from channels such as search results, reminders, search suggestions, and newsfeeds ahead of the election.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 19:00 - US Army Raises Europe Threat Level To 'Potential Imminent Crisis' On Ukraine-Russia Fears
US Army Raises Europe Threat Level To ‘Potential Imminent Crisis’ On Ukraine-Russia Fears
The recent rise in tensions between the US and Russia over continued simmering conflict in Ukraine seemed to correspond with the Biden administration entering the White House. Many pundits have commented that on a foreign policy front things are eerily feeling like a throwback to the Obama years of 2014 or 2015, whether its the Ukraine and Crimea crises, or Syria returning to headlines again (including Biden’s ordered airstrikes on the country in February), or the growing Russia-NATO standoff.
This past weekend we were among the very few to take notice of the Pentagon’s latest large military equipment delivery to Ukraine’s army via the port of Odessa, following Biden earlier pledging that “Crimea is Ukraine” and that he’d work to thwart Russian aims in the region.
And now this week the US European Command (EUCOM) has issued a notification of a raised ‘threat level’ in Europe. The designation has been officially raised to one of “potential imminent crisis” this week. It comes just as The New York Times and others are reporting a serious escalation in fighting in Eastern Ukraine, which has signaled the collapse of yet another cease-fire.
Illustrative file: AFP/Getty Images The raised threat level centers on Ukraine’s commander-in-chief of national armed forces alleging that Russia has amassed more troops on its border this week, and further that “pro-Moscow separatists were systematically violating a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine,” according to Reuters.
Kiev’s parliament followed by announcing a sharp “escalation” in the east – a contested region which has seen 14,000 deaths going back to 2014.
The NY Times had linked the raised alert status by EUCOM specifically to Ukraine, writing “the U.S. military’s European Command raised its watch level from possible crisis to potential imminent crisis — the highest level — in response to the deployment of the additional Russian troops.”
The report also described the infusion of new Russian military equipment to the Kremlin-backed rebels, something which the latest follow-up statement by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov downplayed, charging that it is the Ukrainian side now taking “provocative actions that would lead to war”.
The Times report cited a US official who estimated that some 4,000 additional Russian troops remained behind along the Ukraine border region following the end of recent military drills, something which one retired Army general said could just be “posturing” designed to test the Biden administration.
Meanwhile Washington has apparently put Moscow ‘on notice’ over a potential Ukraine escalation…
Russia MOD says Milley initiates phone call today just as concern grows again about Russian presence along Ukraine border https://t.co/pZm2NFZlJl
— Barbara Starr (@barbarastarrcnn) March 31, 2021
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Despite long ago falling out of daily and weekly headlines, the war in the Donbass region has remained a ‘low-simmering conflict’ which has never stopped. Battle lines and disputed fronts, along with rival checkpoints, have been consistently manned.
The usual military exercises that take place this time of year, or larger than usual troop build-up?
Russian forces are deploying massive amounts of military hardware into #Crimea. One of the largest deployments I’ve seen in recent memory. pic.twitter.com/KKZnGzS7y1
— The Intel Crab (@IntelCrab) March 31, 2021
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However, as the NYT noted, “Four Ukrainian soldiers were killed and another seriously wounded in a battle against Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk Region” on Tuesday, suggesting a severe flare-up on the horizon which could once again draw in external Western forces, especially as Biden has lately vowed to get “tough” on Putin’s Russia.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 03/31/2021 – 18:40
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