- New Cold War In Africa? Russia Bolstering Military Advisers To Central African Republic
Following the significant expansion of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) forces throughout the African continent over the past half-decade, Russia is playing its own hand at advising indigenous forces while increasing its military footprint in central Africa.
At the end of last week Russia announced it would be significantly expanding its military advisory role in the Central African Republic (CAR) after earlier this year it established 175 trainers to CAR forces and donated hundreds of weapons weapons following an exemption from a United Nations arms embargo that would allow external forces to bolster the CAR government’s fight against militia groups waging an insurgency.
Last Friday Russia said it is deploying 60 more instructors to engage it what international reports have described as “its most significant military foray in Africa in decades”. And on Monday, a high Russian official who personally represents President Putin in the region indicated an open-ended commitment to the conflict which could involve sending more troops.
The Russian President’s Special Representative for the Middle East and Africa, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, addressed the issue of scope and timeline to the operations on Monday to reporters: “It all depends on the will of the country’s government, of its legitimate authorities,” according to TASS. “When we have the opportunity, we always respond to requests. I am talking about cooperation in the sphere of security.”
“So I am not ruling that out [sending additional military instructors to the Central African Republic]. If there is a need for more, there will be more,” Bogdanov said.
Russia had initially sent military advisers and technical aid to country last March at the request of the CAR’s president. The country has been in crisis since 2013 when the Islamist Seleka coalition from the north of the country took over Bangui – the country’s capital and largest city – toppling then-President Francois Bozize. Chaos was unleashed further as counter-militias went after Muslims in the wake of massacres against Christians and followers of traditional African religions. The U.N. has cited that over 6,000 people were killed during the opening part of the crisis.
The Central African Republic (CAR):
Meanwhile Russian media sources have long confirmed that many of the Russians in CAR are private security contractors engaged in multiple roles such as “mediating negotiations among armed groups, securing mining projects and advising CAR’s president,” according to TASS.
According to Reuters, the number of Russian contractors in the country remains a matter of speculation:
Estimates of the total number of Russians in CAR vary widely, from 250 to 1,000. The foreign ministry did not respond directly to questions about the presence of private security contractors.
But Russia has also been quick to note that it coordinates with the U.N. and operates in accordance with its approved obligations: “There is an agreed framework, some restrictions, but we act in accordance with our obligations,” the deputy foreign minister explained. The 60 additional instructors Russia lately announced will reportedly coordinate with U.N. forces already in the country.
Western media began more closely scrutinizing Russia’s role in central Africa after three Russian journalists were murdered while reporting from the country in late July.
The three journalists were well-known for their independent and Russian-opposition reporting, and were said by their editors to be investigating a Russian private military company, called Wagner, with links to the Kremlin when they were ambushed near the village of Sibut, almost 200 miles north of CAR’s capital of Bangui.
- Britain's Grooming Gangs: Part 2
Authored by Denis MacEoin via The Gatestone Institute,
Men, after a certain age — as nature seems to have intended to preserve the human race — are often sexually attracted to women. Women, similarly, are often sexually attracted to men, even if many cultures try to keep that proclivity a closely-guarded secret.
Different cultures handle human sexuality in different ways, presumably to avoid the potential social disruption it could create. This control has traditionally been affected by religious doctrines, laws, and patriarchal priests, ministers, rabbis, muftis and other clergy. In the West, women’s dress, behaviour, and rights to autonomy have been freed from religious control only in the 20th and 21stcenturies, with the rise of the suffragettes, feminism and the availability of safe contraception.
Judaeo-Christian culture has involved restrictions of this kind, with monogamy enforced, adultery condemned, divorce often hard or sometimes impossible to obtain even for women suffering physical and psychological abuse, a lifetime of childbirth and nurturing, often while turning a blind eye to men’s sexual independence. Changes that have taken place in Western culture for the past century are unlikely to undergo much reversal in the years to come. Most women today in the West dress as they choose, some modestly, others in inviting ways. Women insist on civil rights, play increasingly important roles in politics, business, the military, education, and all professions, and there are even female members of the clergy in many churches, such as the Anglican Church and the synagogues and temples of the Jewish Reform and Conservative movements.
This is the new, Western world in which immigrants from other cultures now live, some with relief, others too bewildered to find safe pathways through which to negotiate their way between our freedoms and their inherited assumptions about women, their place in society, and their sexuality. Nowhere is this dilemma sharper than between Muslim immigrants in the West and the democratic values they encounter.
In part, this is because traditional and current Islamic culture with regard to sexuality differs markedly from that of the West. As in the Judaeo-Christian universe, women are restricted and men are given superior rights, but Islam, both as a religion and a culture, has a very different set of rules and legal codes for relations between the sexes, both in the obvious ways (burqas, niqabs, and hijabs) and in less familiar concepts. It is possible that these differences that go far to explain why child sexual grooming gangs and the collective sexual harassment of women have taken hold in some places.
Here are a few of those differences.
Shari’a law allows a man up to four wives, but women only one husband. Shari’a law also allows a man the right to have sexual relations with as many slave girls or concubines as he can afford (hence the sometimes massive harems kept by Muslim rulers, officials, and wealthy men). Shari’a law also allows a man the freedom to divorce a wife sometimes by as little as saying three times “I divorce you”. The practice was outlawed in India only this year, and rights for divorce are much harder for a woman to exercise.
Shari’a law allows a man in Shi’i Islam the liberty of taking a temporary wife in mut’a (“pleasure”) marriage in a contract for as short as an hour; and, in some places in Sunni Islam, to have a “traveller’s wife” or wives in misyar marriage when travelling from home. To add to all this, men are granted houris (beautiful virgin companions) when they pass into eternal life, with some 70 reserved for martyrs. In one famous statement by a religious scholar, “the erection is eternal”.
To a certain type of Western man, this might seem to be sexual heaven: almost as many women as you want on a flexible basis. No alimony in case of divorce, automatic custody of children once they turn seven, no guilt. The 19th-century ruler of Iran, Fath-‘Ali Shah (1769-1834), was famous for his long beard, his more than 1,000 wives, his 60 sons, his 55 daughters, and his royal family of over ten thousand by the mid-century.
Although Muslim men are, of course, no different from the rest of us, nevertheless, all the rules governing sexuality may be easily found in the learned tomes of Shari’a law, enforced by fatwas from jurisprudents, and enshrined in the judicial systems of more than one Islamic country in the present day. The result is the perpetuation of attitudes towards women that often appear to debase them and allow men to treat them with contempt.
The most painful modern examples of this contempt may be found in Muslim countries that carry out public floggings (see here, here and here) for offences such as “standing too close” to a man or for running away from husbands who beat them and stoning women to death, even for being raped (for example, here and here).
These take place in Sudan, Indonesia, Iran, in some Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, in parts of Pakistan, the Maldives, and, of course, in areas controlled by the Islamic State.
As often cruelty to women happens not only behind closed doors, but in the public square, one can only guess how this display affects both women and men. Sons see how their mothers are treated; this too doubtless informs their behaviour.
In Iran, the use of sexual torture on women in prisons is the subject of a full-length study. Shadi Sadr and Shadi Amin’s book, Crime and Impunity: Sexual Torture of Women in Islamic Republic Prisons details topics such as “Raping of Virgins before Execution”, “Prison Marriages”, “Rape of Prisoners” — all backed by witness testimonies and case studies.
One cannot rule out the likelihood that even knowing of — let alone witnessing — such humiliation may have, in a way, energised Britain’s child sexual grooming gangs.
A congruent practice found in some Arab states, notably Egypt, is another public spectacle that involves men watching women being chased, sexually abused, and raped. This is known as taharrush (harassment) or taharrush jama’i (mass harassment). Here is one description of what happens:
A group of Muslim men target a (non-Muslim) woman who is not wearing Hijab in a crowd, encircle her, sometimes singing, dancing and/or chanting, and push her companions, if any, out of the circle. The woman is caught off guard and at first thinks the Muslim men just want to sing and dance with her, until the circle closes around her, at which point more Muslim men join to form three layers that render the circle virtually impenetrable.
At that point, those in the inner layer rip off the woman’s clothes, grope, beat, sexually assault and rape her while those in the second layer watch the assault take place, and those in the outer layer, who are too far away or too short to watch the assault, dissuade or fight off would-be rescuers, even telling them that they are just helping a woman in need.
It should be added that the woman need not be a non-Muslim. Many Muslim women are chased and handled in this way. The online journal Jadaliyya, published by the Beirut-based Arab Studies Institute, studied this activity as far back as 2013. The journal stated that, “In Egypt, sexual harassment is widespread and touches the lives of the majority of women whether on the streets, in public transportation, or at the work place, the super market, or political protests.” The same article later declares:
“… one key argument in the victim-blaming that is salient in our everyday narratives is the common and vulgar perception that sexual harassment occurs when women dress ‘provocatively.’ In fact, the only thing that Egyptians who face sexual harassment have in common is that over ninety-nine percent of them are females.”
It should not be surprising, then, that the sight of non-Muslim girls and women walking freely on European streets even in winter clothes has provoked large numbers of male refugees and migrants to engage in taharrush jama’i, starting with the assaults in Cologne and other German cities on New Year’s Eve 2016. Cologne’s police chief, Jürgen Mathies, declared:
“Many of the alleged attackers were from countries where this behaviour, where women are hemmed in and then abused by a large number of men at once. I must say that this phenomenon was not known to me in Germany before.” [For his full statement in German, see here.]
By January 7, Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt) had already identified the assaults as a form of taharrush jama’i, and on June 7 their full report on the incidents made the same link.
At this point it is necessary, however painfully, to note that the common denominator in all these forms of harassment and abuse of women is that the men involved are all members of the same religious and cultural group. There are, of course, variations between countries and even parts of countries, specific groups, and many individuals. It would be totally inaccurate, wrong and invidious to say that all Muslim men share these characteristics, but it remains clear that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, (out of 1.8 billion) do. The problem has been exacerbated since the late 1970s and the Iranian Revolution by the shift away from secularism back towards religiosity. Even Turkey, which, under Atatürk and his successors, had been the most secular Muslim state, has now reverted to pious and radical Islamism.
Turkey’s educational system now rears children and young people to become obedient Muslims instead of thinking adults.
One aspect of Shari’a law exists, however, that may well have a bearing on attitudes towards non-Muslim girls and women of all ages. This is the ruling that “captive women” (who are invariably non-Muslims: Jews, Christians, Yazidis, Hindus or others) taken in jihad wars may be made sex slaves, forcibly married, used as concubines, and bought and sold in the marketplace.
It is important not to assume that the members of British grooming gangs consider themselves jihadis entitled to capture non-Muslim girls. They do not even appear at all pious. But knowledge of such practices (for example here, here, and here) is likely to have some impact on Muslims coming from countries where some form of slavery or indentured servitude still exists. In December 2014, Daniel Pipes identified Afghanistan, Mali, Mauritania, Oman, rural Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen as Muslim-majority states holding on to enslavement, even despite some laws to ban the practice. World Atlas adds Iran and South Sudan to its list of countries with the highest prevalence of slaves in our era.
Sadly, in the case of Britain’s grooming gangs, religious ideology does not play a role in forbidding child sexual grooming. It is important to examine, as we shall do in Part 3, just how crucial a factor this seems to have been in community silence about them.
- From Earthquake-Sensing To Sex-Simulation – Microchip-Implanted Biohacking Has Gone Wild
The human augmentation market could increase tenfold, to $2.3 billion, in seven years. Biohacking advocates say 100,000 people around the world have already been transformed into human cyborgs, which means they have microchip implants in their bodies to open doors, store passwords, hold personal data, and or even for simulation sex.
Patrick Kramer, the chief executive officer of Digiwell, a Hamburg startup turning people into cyborgs, spoke with Bloomberg about microchipping and body hacking.
Kramer said he had implanted about 2,000 microchips in the past 18 months, and even told Bloomberg that he has three chips in his hands: one to open his office door, another to store health data, and the last enables him to share contact information.
Digiwell is one of a handful of biohacking and human augmentation companies in Europe and estimates that there are about 100,000 cyborgs worldwide. “The question isn’t ‘Do you have a microchip?” Kramer says. “It’s more like, ‘How many?’ We’ve entered mainstream.”
Advisory firm Gartner Inc. identified do-it-yourself biohacking as an emerging technology trend– others include artificial intelligence, automation, and blockchain with the potential to severely disrupt businesses heading into 2020.
Another research firm OG Analysis predicts the human augmentation market, which includes bionic limbs and computer brains could grow more than tenfold, to $2.3 billion. “We’re only at the beginning of this trend,” says Oliver Bendel, a professor at the University of Applied Science & Arts Northwestern Switzerland who specializes in machine ethics.
A Spanish dancer named Moon Ribs told Bloomberg she has a microchip in her arm connected to seismic sensors, which is triggered by earthquakes. She uses the technology in a performance art piece called Waiting for Earthquakes. Neil Harbisson, a colorblind artist from Ireland, has sensors in his head that lets him “hear” colors. And lastly, if these cyborgs are not weird enough, Rich Lee, from Utah, developed a cyborg sex toy he calls the Lovetron 9000, a vibrating device to be implanted in the pelvis.
Lee gave a speech at BdyHax, a conference in Austin earlier this year that brought together national and international speakers on wearable and implantable tech, brain-computer interfaces, prosthetic tech, gene therapy, bioethics, and the latest breaking research in the field. At the Austin conference, speakers included the developer of an artificial pancreas, a representative of a group advocating tech connections to the brain, and a scientist from DARPA.
Friedmann Ebelt, an activist with Digitalcourage, a German data privacy and internet rights group, told Bloomberg that biohacking raises many questions, particularly about data protection and cybersecurity as every tech gadget risks being hacked. Ebelt said that hackers could turn implants into cyberweapons, with the potential to send malicious links to others. “You can switch off and put away an infected smartphone, but you can’t do that with an implant.”
To become a cyborg, Digiwell charges $40 to $250 per chip, plus a $30 fee to inject the device, which can be completed at their Hamburg office. His clients include a lawyer who wants access to confidential files by using his hand to open an electronically locked filing cabinet, a teen with no arms that has a chip in her foot to open doors and an elderly man with Parkinson’s disease who continually forgets his keys.
Kramer is also the co-founder of another company called VivoKey Technologies, which is developing a device that will generate passwords for online transactions, and buyers can download software to upgrade it with more functions. “Humanity can’t wait millions of years for evolution to improve their brains and bodies,” Kramer says. “That’s why we’re doing it ourselves.”
BofA chief investment strategist Michael Hartnett tends to agree technological innovation is becoming rapidly transformational, notably in fields of information technology, biotech, and automation.
He said in a recent note:
“The greater speed & connectivity of technology is extremely disruptive to numerous industries; accelerating supplies of robots, AI, data, human life are profoundly deflationary.
By 2023, the average $1,000 laptop will be able to communicate at speed of the human brain…and 25 years later, at the rate of the entire human face.
The number of connected devices per person: 0.08 million in 2003; 3.5 billion in 2015, 6.6 billion in 2020.”
Biohacking is an open innovation and social movement that seeks to enhance the capabilities of the human body. This technology is rapidly turning people into cyborg-like creatures. Some of the tech has not been rigorously tested in laboratories, which means there are many unknown unknowns about the long-term health implications of biohacking.
- "Putin's Puppet" Advances Nuclear Missile Escalations Against…Putin?
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,
Yesterday the news broke that Swamp Monster-In-Chief John Bolton has been pushing President Trump to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the 1988 arms control agreement between the US and the Soviet Union eliminating all missiles of a specified range from the arsenals of the two nuclear superpowers. Today, Trump has announced that he will be doing exactly as Bolton instructed.
This would be the second missile treaty between the US and Russia that America has withdrawn from since it abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002. John Bolton, an actual psychopath who Trump hired as his National Security Advisor in April, ran point on that move as well back when he was part of the increasingly indistinguishable Bush administration.
This is why John Bolton shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near US foreign policy. This would undo decades of bipartisan arms control dating from Reagan. We shouldn’t do it. We should seek to fix any problems with this treaty and move forward. https://t.co/xj5FqyCyS6 #FoxNews
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) October 20, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
“This is why John Bolton shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near US foreign policy,” tweeted Senator Rand Paul in response to early forecasts of the official announcement.
“This would undo decades of bipartisan arms control dating from Reagan. We shouldn’t do it. We should seek to fix any problems with this treaty and move forward.”
“This is the most severe crisis in nuclear arms control since the 1980s,” Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director general of the Royal United Services Institute, told The Guardian.
“If the INF treaty collapses, and with the New Start treaty on strategic arms due to expire in 2021, the world could be left without any limits on the nuclear arsenals of nuclear states for the first time since 1972.”
“A disaster for Europe,” tweeted Russia-based journalist Bryan MacDonald. “The treaty removed Cruise & Pershing missiles, and Soviet ss20’s from the continent. Now, you will most likely see Russia launch a major build up in Kaliningrad & the US push into Poland. So you’re back to 1980, but the dividing line is closer to Moscow.”
“Russia has violated the agreement. They’ve been violating it for many years and I don’t know why President Obama didn’t negotiate or pull out,” Trump told reporters in Nevada.
“We’re not going to let them violate a nuclear agreement and do weapons and we’re not allowed to. We’re the ones that have stayed in the agreement and we’ve honored the agreement but Russia has not unfortunately honored the agreement so we’re going to terminate the agreement, we’re going to pull out.”
What Trump did not mention is that the US has indeed been in violation of that agreement due to steps it began taking toward the development of a new ground-launched cruise missile last year. The US claims it began taking those steps due to Russian violations of the treaty with its own arsenal, while Russia claims the US has already been in violation of multiple arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament agreements.
#Ryabkov: US seeking pretext for breakup of #INFtreaty. Liability for destruction of one of the pillars of the system of arms control will fall on Washington
➡️ https://t.co/r8Qj2KUO0h pic.twitter.com/g68j83KeZH— Russia in USA 🇷🇺 (@RusEmbUSA) December 19, 2017
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
So, on the one front where cooler heads prevailing is quite literally the single most important thing in the world, the exact opposite is happening. Hotter, more impatient, more violent, more hawkish heads are prevailing over diplomacy and sensibility, potentially at the peril of the entire world should something unexpected go wrong as a result. This is of course coming after two years of Democratic Party loyalists attacking Trump on the basis that he has not been sufficiently hawkish toward Russia, and claiming that this is because he is Putin’s puppet.
In response to this predictable escalation the path for which has been lubricated by McResistance pundits and their neoconservative allies, those very same pundits are now reacting with horror that Putin’s puppet is now dangerously escalating tensions with Putin.
“BREAKING: Trump announces that the United States will pull out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty that the US has been in for 31 years,” exclaimed the popular Russiagater Brian Krassenstein in a tweet that as of this writing has over 5,000 shares. “Welcome back to the Cold War. This time it’s scarier And no, It’s not Obama, or Hillary or the Democrat’s fault. It’s ALL TRUMP!”
“Hilarious to listen to all this alarmed screaming about US withdrawal from INF Treaty emanating from those who for 2 years have been demanding that Trump get tough with Russia,” tweeted George Szamuely of the Global Policy Institute. “Now that they’ve got their arms race I hope they are pleased with themselves.”
“Are those who have spent the past two years warning of a Trump-Kremlin conspiracy & cheering confrontation w/ Russia ready to shut the fuck up yet?” asked Aaron Maté, who has been among the most consistently lucid critics of the Russiagate narrative in the US.
Are those who have spent the past two years warning of a Trump-Kremlin conspiracy & cheering confrontation w/ Russia ready to shut the fuck up yet? https://t.co/SnOCgKS8vb
— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) October 20, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Are they ready to shut the fuck up? That would be great, but this is just the latest escalation in a steadily escalating new cold war, and these blithering idiots didn’t shut the fuck up at any of the other steps toward nuclear holocaust.
They didn’t shut the fuck up after Trump’s capitulation to the longstanding neoconservative agenda to arm Ukraine against Russia.
They didn’t shut the fuck up after Americans killed Russians in Syria as part of their regime change occupation of that country.
They didn’t shut the fuck up when this administration adopted a Nuclear Posture Review with greatly increased aggression toward Russia and blurred lines between when nuclear strikes are and are not appropriate.
They didn’t shut the fuck up when Trump started sending war ships into the Black Sea “to counter Russia’s increased presence there.”
They didn’t shut the fuck up when this administration forced RT and Sputnik to register as foreign agents.
They didn’t shut the fuck up when this administration helped expand NATO with the addition of Montenegro, at the assigning of Russia hawk Kurt Volker as special representative to Ukraine, at the shutting down of a Russian consulate in San Francisco and throwing out Russian diplomats in August of last year, when Trump threw out dozens more diplomats in response to shaky claims about the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, or when he implemented aggressive sanctions on Russian oligarchs.
Why would they shut the fuck up now?
As signs point to Mueller’s investigation wrapping up in the near futurewithout turning up a single shred of evidence that Trump colluded with the Russian government, it’s time for everyone who helped advance this toxic, suicidal anti-Russia narrative to ask themselves one question: was it worth it? Was it worth it to help mount political pressure on a sitting president to continually escalate tensions with a nuclear superpower and loudly screaming that he’s a Putin puppet whenever he takes a step toward de-escalation? Was it worth it to help create an atmosphere where cooler heads don’t prevail in the one area where it’s absolutely essential for everyone’s survival that they do? Or is it maybe time to shut the fuck up for a while and rethink your entire worldview?
* * *
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, checking out mypodcast, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal,buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
- China Slams Pompeo's "Ignorant And Malicious" Debt-Trap Warning
The Communist Party’s simmering antipathy toward Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – which was on full display earlier this month during an unprecedented public confrontation between Pompeo and his Chinese counterpart during a meeting in Beijing – boiled over once again this week as a series of editorials in China’s Global Times and China Daily newspapers attacked the secretary of state over remarks he made during a recent tour of Latin America, where he warned about the dangers of China’s so-called “debt diplomacy.”
Per Reuters, Pompeo met heads of state in Panama and Mexico during a Latin American tour late last week. And during one brief meeting with reporters, Pompeo warned during a visit to Mexico City that “when China comes calling it’s not always to the good of your citizens” referring to China’s strategy of extending cheap credit, then seizing assets – like they did with a port in Sri Lanka – that will help further the country’s neocolonialist ambitions.
“When they show up with deals that seem to be too good to be true it’s often the case that they, in fact, are,” he said on Thursday in Mexico City, according to comments posted on the US State Department’s website.
Though Pompeo clarified that the US has nothing against legitimate Chinese investments.
“When they show up with a straight-up, legitimate investment that’s transparent and according to the rule of law, that’s called competition and it’s something that the United States welcomes,” said Pompeo. “But when they show up with deals that seem to be too good to be true it’s often the case that they, in fact, are.”
Of course, Pompeo isn’t the only senior Trump administration official to criticize these aggressive tactics. Mike Pence centered his criticism of China’s economic aggression around the country’s strategy of using credit as a tool to entrench its global dominance and further expand its One Belt One Road global development strategy.
But in an editorial published Monday, the state-run China Daily newspaper said Pompeo’s comments were “ignorant and malicious” and that criticisms surrounding the country’s use of “debt traps” were false.
“Pompeo’s latest undisguised message to Panama and other countries not to participate in China-proposed Belt and Road projects lays bare the U.S. condescending and bullying manner to the region,” said the English-language China Daily.
“Washington continually tries this tired old tactic of trying to pin suspicions about China’s motives on the Belt and Road so as hinder its advancement,” the newspaper added.
The Global Times said in a separate editorial that Pompeo’s comments were “disrespectful” and accused the US of “trying to drive a wedge” between China and Latin America.
“For years, Latin American countries have been pursuing peace and development, on which, however, the U.S. did not offer much support. Latin American countries depend on the U.S. economy, but the U.S. does not make the region rich and prosperous.”
“Relations between China and Latin America are based on mutual respect and equality. As China is winning trust and support from Latin America, the U.S. feels lost and is trying to drive a wedge.”
There’s a hint of irony in these criticisms, because while the US has long maintained strong political influence in the region, more recently, China has been making inroads that have driven several Latin American countries away from the US sphere of influence. Over the past two years, three Latin American countries – El Salvador, Panama, and the Dominican Republic – have switched diplomatic ties from Taiwan to Beijing. And China’s money-for-oil loans have essentially kept Venezuela’s disintegrating economy on life support. America’s dominance of the region may be nearing its twilight – no matter what Pompeo does or doesn’t say.
- CDC's Salmonella Warning: Don't Dress Up Chickens For Halloween
Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has had to warn Americans about the dangers of dressing up their chickens for the upcoming Halloween festivities. The CDC warns that putting your chickens in a costume could result in a salmonella infection.
The agency says handling chickens to put on a costume on them and cuddling the birds can lead to salmonella exposure and an eventual infection. However, for some chicken owners, like Stephanie Morse, the birds are family and their owners enjoy dressing them up each year.
“I just like to put a t-shirt on them or a sweater,” Morse said according to KOAA News 5, an NBC affiliate.
This Salmonella outbreak appears to be dominated by a strain of bacteria that seems to be resistant to drugs making it much more difficult to treat if a person is sickened. Antibiotics resistance is becoming worrisome to health officials too, as many in developed countries overuse antibiotics, or take them for a virus such as the common cold or the flu.
Symptoms of a salmonella bacterial infection, which typically begin 12 to 72 hours after exposure to the bacteria, include diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps and can last four to seven days. Most people infected with Salmonella recover without treatment, though in rare cases, antibiotics are needed for treatment. This particular strain of Salmonella has demonstrated resistance to multiple antibiotics, meaning treatment may be more difficult for the more severe cases. –SHTFPlan
As of right now, the CDC is still tracking and investigating a current salmonella outbreak and so far it’s reached 29 states, and infected 92 people. The agency says handling chickens could be a contributing factor to the outbreak. But for chicken owners like Morse, it’s as if she was told to not pet her dog.
“Can you ever imagine not being able to dress up your chickens? Or hold them?” she asked reporters
“No. No. I love to hold them, I love to talk to them. Everybody has names,” Morse said.
- "This Is Just The Very Tip Of The Iceberg" – Spike In Tariffs Paid By US Businesses
President Trump is about to get an earful from Americans hurt by the escalating trade war.
New data shows, American businesses and consumers just paid a 45% spike in duties, according to Tariffs Hurt the Heartland, a campaign that highlights the negative impacts of President Trump’s trade war on US businesses and the economy.
Trade data released last Thursday during a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania discussed the tariffs’ impacts, featuring distillers, pork producers, frame manufactures, and other industry experts.
“For the most recent months available, August 2018, the amount of tariffs paid increased by $1.4 billion — or 45% — as compared to tariffs paid in August 2017. Tariff costs in Michigan tripled to $178 million and more than doubled in multiple states — to $424 million in Texas, $193 million in Illinois, $50 million in Alabama, $29 million in Oklahoma, $23 million in Louisana, and $7.3 million in West Virginia.
These costs strain businesses of all sizes but are particularly painful for small business, manufacturers, and consumers who bear the burden of tariff increases in the form of higher prices,” via the data compiled by The Trade Partnership and released by Tariffs Hurt the Heartland.
“These tariffs are taxes on American businesses and consumers,” said Tariffs Hurt the Heartland spokesperson Angela Hofmann. “They aren’t paid by other countries. They are paid here at home. What this data shows is that we are already seeing a steep increase both nationally and at the state level in the tariff costs businesses and consumers are paying.”
“This is just the very tip of the iceberg. The data released today offers a glimpse at what the coming pain from the trade war looks like. Once the tariffs on an additional $200 billion in goods kick in — these numbers will continue to trend sharply upward. We are hopeful that this data, combined the personal stories of harm that we’re sharing across America, will encourage this administration to move away from tariffs and to find new solutions to growing access to foreign markets,” Hofmann said.
The graduation of the trade war, and respective GDP hit, is shown by the Bloomberg chart below.
Tariffs Hurt the Heartland noted that today’s trade data is showing a vicious spike in duties paid, which is only the beginning of the trade war; costs will continue to rise as the other announced tariffs go into effect.
“In Pennsylvania alone, we are seeing 55% higher costs or $45 million a month for state business from last year to this year. And it’s only going to get worse once additional tariffs kick in. Continuing to go down this track will only lead to more layoffs and higher prices,” Hofmann said.
“The steel and aluminum tariffs have had significant cost implications for the states. The section 232 steel tariffs have cost American companies an additional $1.5 billion, including $475 million in August. Previously, these products were duty-free. Imports into these states paid the most taxes for steel subject section 232 tariffs: Texas ($289 million), Michigan ($139 million), California ($104 million), Illinois ($103 million), Pennsylvania ($98 million) and Ohio ($77 million).
Aluminum tariffs also hurt producers throughout the country, costing American companies more than $125 million in the month of August alone. The largest increases to existing tariffs were paid in Texas ($14 million), New York ($11 million), California ($10 million), Kentucky ($7.4 million) and Illinois ($6 million).
Lastly, section 301 tariffs cost American companies roughly $550 million in August. Products subject to section 301 remedies faced $594 million in tariffs in August, compared to just $46 million in August 2017. The large increase in tariffs came despite a less than 1% increase in the value of imports. Keep in mind: “List 2” tariffs did not take effect until August 23 and another batch of “List 3″ tariffs will take effect in September, so tariff costs should rise significantly in future months,” said the report.
Companies in Texas have paid $654 million more in tariffs in June through August than in the same three months the prior year, a 142% increase that is a direct consequence of President Trump’s escalating trade war. The impact is hurting small and medium-sized businesses.
Tariffs Hurt the Heartland shows that duties are not limited to just Texas, but have affected companies and consumers across the entire country.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll from early Sept. shows people in each of the five industrial states: Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin; overwhelmingly think President Trump’s trade wars are “Not good” for their families.
Earlier this month, JPMorgan Chase & Co. turned cautious on the global economy, as they warned: a “full-blown trade war” next year between China and the US is expected. It seems like trade conflict between the world’s largest economies could erupt in the coming months, further straining American business and consumers, and send the world plunging into a global recession sometime in the next 12 to 16 months.
“A full-blown trade war becomes our new base case scenario for 2019,” JPM wrote in a recent note. “There is no clear sign of mitigating confrontation between China and the U.S. in the near term.”
Tariffs Hurt the Heartland ends the report with this video, letting the American people know that tariffs are nothing more than taxes. Prepare for 2019 and beyond; your taxes could jump significantly.
- America Has A Milk Problem
Authored by Fred Dunkley via Safehaven.com,
Not only does America have milk – it’s got a surplus of over 8 million metric tons, forcing dairy farms to shutter and farmers to simply start dumping millions of gallons of milk that far exceeds domestic and foreign demand.
Declining consumption, increased production, retaliatory tariffs and lower prices in the face of increased costs have been walloping American farmers for some two years now, according to the Reedsburg Times Press.
Northeastern states are the most affected by the glut. The State of Wisconsin has seen a net loss of more than 400 dairy farms this year alone, and in December last year, the state’s farmers dumped a record 160 million pounds of skim milk they couldn’t sell. That’s three times the amount they were forced to dump in 2012, according to CSMonitor.
By July, farmers in the Northeast had dumped 145 million pounds of milk, and 23.6 million pounds of that was dumped in July alone, according to Bloomberg.
Much of the blame will be laid on Canada, which moved last year to implement its own supply management by restricting dairy trade from the U.S.
But the blame isn’t all about Canada, and you have to follow some less direct paths to the end of this glut.
For instance, the European Union has also seen a surge in its exports of dairy, and because Russia in 2014 largely banned all dairy exports from the EU, the EU has tapped up other markets, pushing out American dairy.
Nor is it just about exports.
Americans, while enjoying a brief flirtation with a yogurt craze, are now weaning themselves off milk, which has always been the dairy farmers top revenue generator.
But American farmers aren’t necessarily like other industries from an operational perspective. They milk cows whether the market wants them to or not. They keep producing, even when supply is at the glut level. Then, it’s either shut down or find another way to put all the milk to use.
“Dairy farmers are free-market guys – they don’t want to be told how much to produce,” Richard A. Ball, commissioner of New York’s Department of Agriculture and Markets, told Bloomberg.
“It’s a lot more fun to talk about how to increase demand than restrict what they’re doing.”
One potential light amid all this dairy darkness is the ‘New NAFTA’ agreement reached at the end of September, replacing NAFTA with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which will give the U.S. greater access to the Canadian dairy market. In other words, dairy farmers from New York and Wisconsin, most notably, will be able to sell more of their product to Canada’s protected dairy market. In figures, it means opening up the Canadian market to American dairy farmers by 3.6 percent—or, accessing 3.6 percent of Canada’s $16-billion dairy market.
According to the Wisconsin Agriculturalist, prior to the new trade deal, Canada had a 7.5-percent tariff on milk exports that were within quotas. Once it fell outside of quotas, that tariff became 241 percent. For blended dairy powder, over-quota tariffs were 270 percent.
So the new deal is a potential light – but not enough, say some. And while it might have somewhat of a stabilizing effect, it’s not enough to raise prices for American farmers.
Other milk deals with top trading partners Mexico and China will have to be realized for American farmers to see prices increase at all—and this is where Trump’s tariffs still really hurt. Last year, U.S. producers sold $1.31 billion in dairy products (cheese, mostly) to Mexico, and $576 million to China. Both are now levying new tariffs on American dairy.
According to a study commissioned by the U.S. Dairy Export Council (USDEC), retaliatory tariffs by China and Mexico could lower dairy exports by $2.7 billion and depress dairy farmers’ revenues by $16.6 billion over the next several years.
And a little good news on the domestic front wouldn’t hurt, either. Milk is being vilified by food gurus and health figures.
There are plenty of other domestic enemies to the American dairy farmer, too. According to Public Opinion Online, more than 100 farmers have seen their supply contracts canceled by Dean Foods to make way for Walmart to start producing its own milk and attempt to dominate the supply chain. And from a price point, the retail giant is facing a win-win situation. While the national average for a gallon of milk is around $3.23, Walmart is selling its own brand for $2.
- Harvard Calls It: Housing Market Slowdown Will Hurt Renovation Boom
The Trump bump has faded, and the real estate market is expected to soften into 2019.
The annual growth in national home improvement and repair spending by Americans is expected to slow in 2019, according to the Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) released Thursday by the Remodeling Futures Program at the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.
The LIRA project seems to be ringing the proverbial bell on the US real estate market, indicating year-over-year increases in residential remodeling expenditures will peak at 7.7% this year and then start a downward trajectory through the second half 2019.
Chris Herbert, managing director of the Joint Centers for Housing Studies, explained that remodeling activity remains above trend, but due to rising interest rates and waning existing home sales, the renovation boom could be constructing a top.
“Rising mortgage interest rates and flat home sales activity around much of the country are expected to pinch otherwise strong growth in homeowner remodeling spending moving forward,” said Herbert. “Low for-sale inventories are presenting a headwind because home sales tend to spur investments in remodeling and repair both before a sale and in the years following.”
Last month, Bank of America warned existing home sales have peaked, reflecting declining affordability, greater price reductions, and deteriorating housing sentiment.
Chief economist Michelle Meyer, said that “the housing market is no longer a tailwind for the economy but rather a headwind.”
BofA economist, John Lovallo became even more bearish on US real estate last week. He downgraded homebuilder stocks Toll Brothers, PulteGroup, and NVR and lowered his homebuilding estimates for 2018 and 2019.
“This morning BofA Merrill Lynch’s US economic team lowered its 2018-2019 housing starts and new home sales forecasts and thus we slightly temper our macro housing assumptions,” Lovallo said in a note Thur.
Analysts at Credit Suisse also downgraded homebuilding stocks, along with Home Depot and Lowe’s, due to higher interest rates hurting housing demand.
Homebuilders have been under pressure in Oct. The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF is down more than -23% YTD. This collapse in price coincides with a surge in interest rates. The 10-year note yield hit its highest level since 2011 earlier this month, and if 3.21 continues to violate, then yields risk higher highs.
Reuters News – Homebuilders down for three days in a row
- Shares of U.S. homebuilders continued their fall on the third consecutive day after BAML downgrades weak housing data earlier this week
- D.R. Horton, KB Home, PulteGroup, M/I Homes, Lennar and Toll Brothers fell between 2pct and 3.2 pct
- PHLX housing index .HGX down 1 pct
- Analyst expect rising interest rates to temper some demand and affect housing affordability in U.S., weighing on earnings of homebuilders
- BofA Merrill Lynch said Thur. U.S. housing recovery will be driven by entry-level and first-time buyers
- Weak housing data Wed. showed homebuilding dropped more-than-expected in Sept., while building permits fell to a near 1.5 yr low
- Separately, on Thur., Toll Brothers founder Robert Toll stepped down as executive chairman; Toll to remain a member of the board
- PHLX housing index .HGX fell 25.9 pct YTD
With housing peaking – if Harvard, BofA and Credit Suisse are all correct – the real estate market could be in for a whirlwind of trouble next year; something the Trump administration cannot afford into the next presidential election.
Digest powered by RSS Digest
Saving...