- UK Strikes Emergency Deal With CO2 Producer To Restart Operations Amid Shortage
UK Strikes Emergency Deal With CO2 Producer To Restart Operations Amid Shortage
US company CF industries will restart carbon dioxide (CO2) production this week at one of its two shuttered UK plants after the government offered financial support. CF closed both plants last week after soaring natural gas prices made it uneconomical to produce CO2, a byproduct of fertilizer that is derived from natural gas.
According to FT, CF’s ammonia plant at Billingham will “immediately restart operations” after the government signed an “exceptional short-term arrangement” with the company.
“The government will provide limited financial support for CF Fertilisers’ operating costs for three weeks while the CO2 market adapts to global gas prices,” the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said on Tuesday. Sources told FT, financial support could be upwards of £20 million.
British Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said the short-term financial agreement with CF will last for several weeks to increase the production of CO2 for critical industries.
“This agreement will ensure the many critical industries that rely on a stable supply of CO2 have the resources they require to avoid disruption,” Kwarteng said.
George Eustice, environment secretary, said with one plant coming back online, it would be enough to divert new CO2 supplies to industries that need it the most, such as the meat industry, food packaging industry, hospitals, and nuclear power plants, among others.
The closure of CF’s Billingham and Ince plants is about 45% of the country’s commercial production of CO2. The government warned with limited supplies. Companies could pay upwards of 500% more for the CO2. This will make the production or handling of products even more expensive for companies that will either eat costs and experience margin compression or pass the costs on to consumers.
COMMODITY INFLATION: UK government flags massive jump in industrial CO2 prices.
“The food industry knows that there’s going to be a sharp rise in the cost of CO2 […] from £200 a ton, eventually closer to £1,000,” Environment Secretary George Eustice said pic.twitter.com/B36nO1KQ21
— Javier Blas (@JavierBlas) September 22, 2021
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With soaring natural gas prices, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said earlier this week that his government would do everything in its power to prevent an energy crisis from severely disrupting the economy.
There’s also been destabilization in energy markets where smaller power companies are folding left and right as a bankruptcy wave appears to have begun.
The disruptive nature of soaring natural gas prices is rippling through the UK economy and may get worse ahead of winter.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/23/2021 – 02:45 - The Afghanistan Debacle Was A Major Wake Up Call For NATO
The Afghanistan Debacle Was A Major Wake Up Call For NATO
Overview of Prior EU Bureaucratic Actions
The vestiges of the Trump administration’s “America first” foreign policy have forced Europe to consider more autonomous defense initiatives. The EU lacks the military capabilities required to confront mounting geo-strategic concerns. Limited defense budgets increase Europe’s reliance on US expenditures, and uneven national allocations to NATO threaten the political viability of the alliance.
To rectify strategic shortcomings, the EU introduced the European Defense Fund (EDF). The EDF establishes the industrial foundation required for a resilient European defense program. The EU’s 2016 Global Strategy report included the EDF. The strategy sought to integrate Europe’s foreign policy and allocate resources toward external security threats.
In 2018, the EU established The Capability Development Plan (CDP) to “address long-term security and defense challenges”. The CDP encourages supranational cooperation and promotes capability cohesion with NATO. In the midst of COVID’s economic disruption, bridging the capability gap remains an aspirational strategic objective. The notional budgetary allocations to the EDF and CDP (proposed within EU defense and security briefs prior to 2020) may decrease to account for the fiscal and political uncertainty caused by the pandemic.
Military Realities
Beyond the broad, rather philosophical debate surrounding European strategic autonomy, the Afghanistan imbroglio reveals military deficiencies that are unique to the EU. The disparity in military expenditures across Western states may prove unsustainable as geostrategic competition intensifies. Inadequate defense budgets preceded the capability deficiencies that plagued NATO’s European member states in Afghanistan.
In an interview with Foreign Policy, retired British General Richard Barrons states that without the US, “NATO is a very limited concept and very limited force”. As the future strategic risks and threat perceptions of Europe and the US diverge, Europe will be responsible for defending its own interests. A shift toward a more autonomous European foreign policy will include improving the ability of the EU to intervene and protect their strategic priorities.
Russian belligerence in Eastern Europe adds a measure of urgency to the question of strategic autonomy. The lingering ambiguity regarding US willingness to fulfill Article V commitments remains a driver of EU security policy initiatives. NATO-Russia force balance improvements on NATO’s eastern flank will be a strategic priority as Russia calculates the cost of future belligerence. Improving force readiness and maintaining operative-forward deployment positions in Eastern Europe may support European defense autonomy and promote capability cohesion within NATO.
Political Implications
Emmanuel Macron continues to advance his conception of ‘European Sovereignty’. In a February interview with the Financial Times, Macron said that he defends strategic autonomy “not because I am against NATO or because I doubt our American friends…but because I think we need a fair sharing of the burden and Europe cannot delegate the protection of its neighborhood to the USA.”
Angela Merkel agrees that Europe must “take [its] fate into [its] own hands”. Macron faces reelection with an approval rating hovering around 40% and Merkel steps down as chancellor in September. Therefore, transitional stability is a reasonable concern. Policy continuity among the EU’s principal members may determine the efficacy of Europe’s independent security agenda.
The resurgence of the ‘America First’ mentality is a threat to transatlantic defense cooperation. Hardline voters in Republican strongholds may determine the extent to which US foreign policy reflects isolationist doctrine. A 2024 general election triumph by a viable Republican candidate might call into question America’s commitment to Article V and to NATO itself.
Public opinion may determine how, and to what degree, European policymakers pursue strategic autonomy through increased budgetary expenditures. Though 61% of Europeans hold a favorable opinion of NATO, all but five member states oppose, in the majority, defending a NATO ally should Russia attack. Such polling data suggests an overreliance on US protection, the aggregate fragility of Article V commitments, and the necessity of a more independent European security apparatus.
Outlook
Theresa May, while addressing Parliament, framed the question of European strategic autonomy, “What does [the Afghanistan pullout] say about us as a country? What does it say about NATO, if we are entirely dependent on a unilateral decision by the U.S.?”. Forward-facing policy proposals will address the capability disparities within NATO and without it. Public opinion and the political will of elites to increase military expenditures against possible political headwinds determine, in part, the ultimate impact of such initiatives.
A more functional independent European security may inoculate the EU against the inherent uncertainty of quadrennial US presidential transitions. The volatility of US domestic politics will contribute to European skepticism regarding US commitment to the collective defense provision of the NATO charter. Transatlantic incredulity will introduce urgency into policy planning and may provide political justification for increased defense spending.
The Afghanistan pullout has renewed calls to improve EU intervention capabilities. France and Germany have proposed the creation of an “initial entry force”. The conceptual force includes 5,000 troops supported by aircraft and ships. Such an EU rapid-reaction force, employed in concert with increased global development expenditures, may provide stability for struggling democracies abroad. Pursuing a balanced, synergistic combination of hard and soft power projection will make the EU a more capable NATO partner and a more formidable international actor.
US-Russia-China trilateral relations will play a large role in shaping the transatlantic alliance in the medium and long term. In the short term, while US and EU threat perceptions regarding Russia and China differ, regional NATO cooperation in the Middle East will be a necessity. It is unclear what the nature of Russian and Chinese influence will look like on the ground, but the willingness of the two powers to engage with the Taliban is telling. The urgency with which NATO and the EU respond to these developments may determine the scale of imminent irregular migration crises.
In a September 1st guest essay for the New York Times, Josep Borrell Fontelles (the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy) underscores the instructive nature of the Afghanistan withdrawal. He writes that “Some events catalyze history: The Afghanistan debacle is one of them.” Whether Europe will pursue more efficacious security policies remains unclear.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/23/2021 – 02:00 - Do The 'Global Managers' Really Want The Pandemic To End?
Do The ‘Global Managers’ Really Want The Pandemic To End?
Authored by Brian Jones via TheAmericanConservative.com,
Early treatment of symptoms is the last remaining enemy of the global Covid consensus…
In his March 17, 2020, article in Stat, Stanford epidemiologist Dr. John Ioannidis argued for a vast reconsideration of the societal response to the emerging SARS-COV-2 pandemic, commonly called Covid-19.
For unknown reasons, the scientific and medical tradition forming the foundation for how to respond to pandemics was being quickly disbanded. Abandoning such previously established traditions entailed filling the void with the appearance of a new global consensus: The combination of unending non-pharmaceutical interventions (masks, social distancing, etc.) and universal vaccination was the key that would end the pandemic.
The totalizing power of this new global pandemic consensus has certainly been effective over the last year and a half. However, the last month and a half has brought about a palatable instability to this apparently once-certain agreement.
Until now, Corona policy in every western country has unfolded more or less according to the same script, devised by the World Health Organization at the end of February 2020. The final act was supposed to be the wide-scale eradication of Corona after mass vaccination. It is now clear that this will never happen. For the first time since March 2020, there is no obvious international consensus on the way forward.
The global political and health managers of Western nations and their media allies increasingly seem uncertain as to where to go next. Lurking behind the uncertainty of how to respond to the variants, however, is the last remaining consensus. And while it is the last remaining consensus, it has been a little-known, yet real, part of the script from the beginning. It is as simple as it is all-encompassing: Use every available means possible to assault early treatment of the virus.
Consider one of the latest displays of this charade.
Many have now seen, or heard about, the American podcaster Joe Rogan’s recent experience with Covid-19. After recognizing some of the common symptoms of Covid-19, Rogan decided to “throw the kitchen sink at it.” Following the insights offered by Dr. Peter McCullough and his multi-drug treatment protocol, Rogan pursued infusion of monoclonal antibodies. Along with antibody infusion, Rogan took a cocktail that consisted of ivermectin, Azithromyicin, the corticosteriod Predinsone, and high doses of vitamin D (through drip line). Within 72 hours after beginning the treatment regimen, Rogan declared that he felt great, and had practically recovered from the virus.
We would not have needed the gift of prophecy to have predicted what followed: The Covid machine was deployed to attack Rogan. The inspiration for the assault has been helped by a recent tweet from the FDA, which read: “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.” Moving on from its initial onslaught against the effective early use of hydroxychloroquine, the global consensus has now overwhelmingly shifted its ire to ivermectin. Coinciding with the attack on Rogan was a supposed news story from Rolling Stone, which claimed that access to emergency care for gunshot victims at an Oklahoma hospital was threatened due to the number of patients who had been poisoned by overdosing on ivermectin. The hospital offered a clarification that denied the claims, which had been made by a former employee. And yet, only updates have been added; thus far, the story has not been retracted.
This widespread jettisoning of the principle and effectiveness of preventative and early treatment has been described as “therapeutic nihilism.” Nearly two years into this pandemic, getting early treatment for Covid-19 that can prevent hospitalization and death is still extremely difficult. Continued attempts to undermine early treatment protocols, as well as frequented campaigns against those who are skeptical of the prevailing narrative, give the impression that certain interested parties are hesitant to bring the pandemic to an end.
The global managers writing and executing the Covid script are using it to manipulate the populace. I am reminded of the Polish philosopher and statesman Ryszard Legutko’s 2016 book The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies. Following the collapse of totalitarianism regimes in 1989, Legutko began noticing something that was as confusing as it was unsettling. Supporters of communism appeared to find a somewhat comfortable home in liberal democratic societies. In an attempt to parse out and understand this political phenomenon, Legutko came to realize some shared similarities between the principles of communism and modern liberal democratic regimes:
Communism and liberal democracy proved to be all-unifying entities compelling their followers how to think, what to do, how to evaluate events, what to dream, and what language to use. They both had their orthodoxies and their models of an ideal citizen. [Emphasis added]
What Legutko’s diagnosis reveals is that the global response to the pandemic has been utilized to accelerate the conditions whereby rigorous and independent thinking may be snuffed out. The pandemic seems to have accelerated the project of Western nations transmuting into large, mechanizing systems oriented towards uniformity of thought and practice.
Here is Stanford’s Ioannidis commenting upon this disturbing integration of rapidly declining transparency and collectivism:
The retraction of a highly visible hydroxychloroquine paper from the The Lancet was a startling example: A lack of sharing and openness allowed a top medical journal to publish an article in which 671 hospitals allegedly contributed data that did not exist, and no one noticed this outright fabrication before publication. The New England Journal of Medicine, another top medical journal, managed to publish a similar paper; many scientists continue to heavily cite it long after its retraction.
Such a situation reveals the emptiness of supposed concerns about “evidence.” Abused tropes such as “follow the science” are revealing themselves to be nefarious power grabs seeking to destroy nuance. “Good” citizens should not even consider the possibility of calling into question the prevailing narrative regarding Covid. More specifically, it is anathema to even fathom the thought that preventative and early treatment should be a fundamental pillar of the response to a pandemic.
As the consensus equating vaccination with the elimination of the virus continues to weaken, Ioannidis’s original prediction continues to be persuasive: The response to SARS-COV-2 will eventually be seen as a “once in a century evidence fiasco.” But the citizens of Western nations must think critically for themselves if the coils of the Covid machine have a chance of being loosened.
Tyler Durden
Thu, 09/23/2021 – 00:00 - Bill Gross's Feud With His Neighbor Is A Cockroach That Just Won't Die
Bill Gross’s Feud With His Neighbor Is A Cockroach That Just Won’t Die
If you’re wondering what, exactly, Bill Gross and his wife have decided to take on as a hobby during their “retirement”, we might know. It appears the Gross household has made it the family’s life work to bicker with their neighbor, Mark Towfiq, until the end of time.
That’s because the feud you may have foolishly thought ended with a court decision back in December 2020 has once again reignited, with Gross’s wife, Amy, claiming that Towfiq has “driven her from her oceanfront home,” according to Bloomberg.
Amy Gross and Bill Gross “I fear going into my backyard. I couldn’t have my wedding reception there. I couldn’t have my birthday there,” the former tennis pro told Bloomberg.
The couple has once again found themselves in court after neighbor Towfiq asked a judge to find them in violation of a court order handed down in December that says the family can’t play music loudly when they are not outdoors.
Carol Nakahara, Towfiq’s wife, testified: “I thought this was over. What else are we supposed to do?”
But Gross’ wife insists she’s the victim, stating she needs to announce every time she’s out back of her own home so the neighbors don’t call the police. She testified: “I’m being monitored 24-7 inside my home. I’m very frustrated.”
The sculpture and net on left, and the yards in question / Bloomberg Gross and Towfiq have a feud that’s as inane as it is lengthy. It was thought to have culminated in December of 2020, when Gross lost a lawsuit after Trowfiq and his wife sued the billionaire bond king over what court documents described as a coordinated campaign of harassment intended to coerce the couple into dropping a nuisance complaint involving a lawn statue and safety net owned by Gross.
Gross also sued for installing cameras on his property. Towfiq initially sued for psychological distress, arguing that Gross subjected him to a form of “torture” for refusing to simply drop his complaint to the town about Gross’s lawn sculpture.
Gross has a history of high-profile feuds, including with his ex-wife, whom he terrorized with fart spray and old fish. And that was before he retired from his day job as a portfolio manager at Janus Henderson.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 23:40 - Escobar: Eurasia Takes Shape, Part 1 – How The SCO Just Flipped The World Order
Escobar: Eurasia Takes Shape, Part 1 – How The SCO Just Flipped The World Order
Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,
As a rudderless West watched on, the 20th anniversary meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was laser-focused on two key deliverables: shaping up Afghanistan and kicking off a full-spectrum Eurasian integration.
The two defining moments of the historic 20th anniversary Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Dushanbe, Tajikistan had to come from the keynote speeches of – who else – the leaders of the Russia-China strategic partnership.
Xi Jinping: “Today we will launch procedures to admit Iran as a full member of the SCO.”
Vladimir Putin: “I would like to highlight the Memorandum of Understanding that was signed today between the SCO Secretariat and the Eurasian Economic Commission. It is clearly designed to further Russia’s idea of establishing a Greater Eurasia Partnership covering the SCO, the EAEU (Eurasian Economic Union), ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and China’s Belt and Road initiative (BRI).”
In short, over the weekend, Iran was enshrined in its rightful, prime Eurasian role, and all Eurasian integration paths converged toward a new global geopolitical – and geoeconomic – paradigm, with a sonic boom bound to echo for the rest of the century.
That was the killer one-two punch immediately following the Atlantic alliance’s ignominious imperial retreat from Afghanistan. Right as the Taliban took control of Kabul on August 15, the redoubtable Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, told his Iranian colleague Admiral Ali Shamkhani that “the Islamic Republic will become a full member of the SCO.”
Dushanbe revealed itself as the ultimate diplomatic crossover. President Xi firmly rejected any “condescending lecturing” and emphasized development paths and governance models compatible with national conditions. Just like Putin, he stressed the complementary focus of BRI and the EAEU, and in fact summarized a true multilateralist Manifesto for the Global South.
Right on point, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan noted that the SCO should advance “the development of a regional macro-economy.” This is reflected in the SCO’s drive to start using local currencies for trade, bypassing the US dollar.
With Iran’s arrival, the SCO member-states now number nine, and they’re focused on fixing Afghanistan and consolidating Eurasia.
Watch that quadrilateral
Dushanbe was not just a bed of roses. Tajikistan’s Emomali Rahmon, a staunch, secular Muslim and former member of the Communist Party of the USSR – in power for no less than 29 years, reelected for the 5th time in 2020 with 90 percent of the vote – right off the bat denounced the “medieval sharia” of Taliban 2.0 and said they had already “abandoned their previous promise to form an inclusive government.”
Rahmon, who has never been caught smiling on camera, was already in power when the Taliban conquered Kabul in 1996. He was bound to publicly support his Tajik cousins against the “expansion of extremist ideology” in Afghanistan – which in fact worries all SCO member-states when it comes to smashing dodgy jihadi outfits of the ISIS-K mold .
The meat of the matter in Dushanbe was in the bilaterals – and one quadrilateral.
Take the bilateral between Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Chinese FM Wang Yi. Jaishankar said that China should not view “its relations with India through the lens of a third country,” and took pains to stress that India “does not subscribe to any clash of civilizations theory.”
That was quite a tough sell considering that the first in-person Quad summit takes place this week in Washington, DC, hosted by that “third country” which is now knee deep in clash-of-civilizations mode against China.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was on a bilateral roll, meeting the presidents of Iran, Belarus, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. The official Pakistani diplomatic position is that Afghanistan should not be abandoned, but engaged.
That position added nuance to what Russian Special Presidential Envoy for SCO Affairs Bakhtiyer Khakimov had explained about Kabul’s absence at the SCO table: “At this stage, all member states have an understanding that there are no reasons for an invitation until there is a legitimate, generally recognized government in Afghanistan.”
And that, arguably, leads us to the key SCO meeting: a quadrilateral with the Foreign Ministers of Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi affirmed: “We are monitoring whether all the groups are included in the government or not.” The heart of the matter is that, from now on, Islamabad coordinates the SCO strategy on Afghanistan, and will broker Taliban negotiations with senior Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara leaders. This will eventually lead the way towards an inclusive government regionally recognized by SCO member-nations.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was warmly received by all – especially after his forceful keynote speech, an Axis of Resistance classic. His bilateral with Belarus president Aleksandr Lukashenko revolved around a discussion on “sanctions confrontation.” According to Lukashenko: “If the sanctions did any harm to Belarus, Iran, other countries, it was only because we ourselves are to blame for this. We were not always negotiable, we did not always find the path we had to take under the pressure of sanctions.”
Considering Tehran is fully briefed on Islamabad’s SCO role in terms of Afghanistan, there will be no need to deploy the Fatemiyoun brigade – informally known as the Afghan Hezbollah – to defend the Hazaras. Fatemiyoun was formed in 2012 and was instrumental in Syria in the fight against Daesh, especially in Palmyra. But if ISIS-K does not go away, that’s a completely different story.
Particular important for SCO members Iran and India will be the future of Chabahar port. That remains India’s crypto-Silk Road gambit to connect it to Afghanistan and Central Asia. The geoeconomic success of Chabahar more than ever depends on a stable Afghanistan – and this is where Tehran’s interests fully converge with Russia-China’s SCO drive.
What the 2021 SCO Dushanbe Declaration spelled out about Afghanistan is quite revealing:
1. Afghanistan should be an independent, neutral, united, democratic and peaceful state, free of terrorism, war and drugs.
2. It is critical to have an inclusive government in Afghanistan, with representatives from all ethnic, religious and political groups of Afghan society.
3. SCO member states, emphasizing the significance of the many years of hospitality and effective assistance provided by regional and neighboring countries to Afghan refugees, consider it important for the international community to make active efforts to facilitate their dignified, safe and sustainable return to their homeland.
As much as it may sound like an impossible dream, this is the unified message of Russia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan and the Central Asian “stans.” One hopes that Pakistani PM Imran Khan is up to the task and ready for his SCO close-up.
That troubled Western peninsula
The New Silk Roads were officially launched eight years ago by Xi Jinping, first in Astana – now Nur-Sultan – and then in Jakarta.
This is how I reported it at the time.
The announcement came close to a SCO summit – then in Bishkek. The SCO, widely dismissed in Washington and Brussels as a mere talk shop, was already surpassing its original mandate of fighting the “three evil forces” – terrorism, separatism and extremism – and encompassing politics and geoeconomics.
In 2013, there was a Xi-Putin-Rouhani trilateral. Beijing expressed full support for Iran’s peaceful nuclear program (remember, this was two years before the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the JCPOA).
Despite many experts dismissing it at the time, there was indeed a common China-Russia-Iran front on Syria (Axis of Resistance in action). Xinjiang was being promoted as the key hub for the Eurasian Land Bridge. Pipelineistan was at the heart of the Chinese strategy – from Kazakhstan oil to Turkmenistan gas. Some people may even remember when Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, was waxing lyrical about an American-propelled New Silk Road.
Now compare it to Xi’s Multilateralism Manifesto in Dushanbe eight years later, reminiscing on how the SCO “has proved to be an excellent example of multilateralism in the 21stcentury,” and “has played an important role in enhancing the voice of developing countries.”
The strategic importance of this SCO summit taking place right after the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok cannot be overstated enough. The EEF focuses of course on the Russian Far East – and essentially advances interconnectivity between Russia and Asia. It is an absolutely key hub of Russia’s Greater Eurasian Partnership.
A cornucopia of deals is on the horizon – expanding from the Far East to the Arctic and the development of the Northern Sea Route, and involving everything from precious metals and green energy to digital sovereignty flowing through logistics corridors between Asia and Europe via Russia.
As Putin hinted in his keynote speech, this is what the Greater Eurasia Partnership is all about: the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), BRI, India’s initiative, ASEAN, and now the SCO, developing in a harmonized network, crucially operated by “sovereign decision-making centers.”
So if the BRI proposes a very Taoist “community of shared future for human kind,” the Russian project, conceptually, proposes a dialogue of civilizations (already evoked by the Khatami years in Iran) and sovereign economic-political projects. They are, indeed, complementary.
Glenn Diesen, Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal, is among the very few top scholars who are analyzing this process in depth. His latest book remarkably tells the whole story in its title: Europe as the Western Peninsula of Greater Eurasia: Geoeconomic Regions in a Multipolar World. It’s not clear whether Eurocrats in Brussels – slaves of Atlanticism and incapable of grasping the potential of Greater Eurasia – will end up exercising real strategic autonomy.
Diesen evokes in detail the parallels between the Russian and the Chinese strategies. He notes how China “is pursuing a three-pillared geoeconomic initiative by developing technological leadership via its China 2025 plan, new transportation corridors via its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, and establishing new financial instruments such as banks, payment systems and the internationalization of the yuan. Russia is similarly pursuing technological sovereignty, both in the digital sphere and beyond, as well as new transportation corridors such as the Northern Sea Route through the Arctic, and, primarily, new financial instruments.”
The whole Global South, stunned by the accelerated collapse of the western Empire and its unilateral “rules-based order,” now seems to be ready to embrace the new groove, fully displayed in Dushanbe: a multipolar Greater Eurasia of sovereign equals.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 23:20 - Russia Uses AUKUS Spat To Highlight "Shock" Of Disunity For NATO
Russia Uses AUKUS Spat To Highlight “Shock” Of Disunity For NATO
Russia is now weighing in on the AUKUS agreement unveiled last week and which has enraged France given it effectively got cut out of its prior $66 billion deal to deliver submarines to Australia, and instead now Washington will give Canberra nuclear-powered submarines for the first time.
The Russian Foreign Ministry highlighted NATO disunity and “shock” within the alliance after EU leadership said the bloc was caught completely off-guard, only learning about the pact when it hit the media. Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova pointed out on Wednesday, “It came as a total surprise and a shock for NATO.”
She continued: “It came as an absolute surprise not for those whom the US, Australia and the UK call their opponents and whom they are collaborating against, but for their allies and the military and political blocs that the US and the UK are part of,” as cited in TASS.
“The developments that are unfolding around Australia, a seemingly a faraway land, what is happening there is not just interesting – though it is interesting indeed – but it also requires special attention from the political analyst community, including experts on international relations and military and strategic issues,” the Russian diplomat added.
Reading between the lines, she appears to be suggesting a fragile or greatly weakened NATO alliance, given the major inter-NATO spat was unleashed by dealings in “a seemingly faraway land” – as Zakharova put it.
After all, it led to France recalling its ambassador to Washington for what’s believed to be the first time in history (a move done also with the ambassador to Australia). Tensions are also running high between France and the UK over what Paris charged as ‘backroom dealing’ and “duplicity, disdain and lies”.
Russia is not happy about AUKUS. Moscow’s top security official says the US/UK/Australia nuclear bloc a hostile step aimed not only at China, but it’s a threat to “the entire security architecture in Asia.”https://t.co/Ukxb6gJoIf
— Bryan MacDonald (@27khv) September 21, 2021
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China has been especially angered at the potential for a large US ally operating nuclear subs in its Indo-Pacific backyard. No doubt Moscow is unhappy too that Australia will join the small number of nations that possess them, which currently includes only the US, UK, France, China, India as well as Russia. The US will now transfer technology and help allowing Australia to construct at least eight nuclear powered submarines.
But with the diplomatic fighting still unfolding between Europe on one side, and the UK and US on the other over the AUKUS, likely at the Kremlin they’re currently content to kick back and grab the popcorn.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 23:00 - Greenwald: A Definitive Account Of The CIA/Media/BigTech Fraud Over Hunter Biden Emails
Greenwald: A Definitive Account Of The CIA/Media/BigTech Fraud Over Hunter Biden Emails
Authored by Glenn Greenwald via greenwald.substack.com, (Watch Glenn’s podcast on this fiasco here),
A severe escalation of the war on a free internet and free discourse has taken place over the last twelve months. Numerous examples of brute and dangerous censorship have emerged: the destruction by Big Tech monopolies of Parler at the behest of Democratic politicians at the time that it was the most-downloaded app in the country; the banning of the sitting president from social media; and the increasingly explicit threats from elected officials in the majority party of legal and regulatory reprisals in the event that tech platforms do not censor more in accordance with their demands.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer warns that emails and other documents reported on by The New York Post about Joe Biden’s activities in Ukraine and China may be “Russian disinformation,” Oct. 16, 2020. But the most severe episode of all was the joint campaign — in the weeks before the 2020 election — by the CIA, Big Tech, the liberal wing of the corporate media and the Democratic Party to censor and suppress a series of major reports about then-presidential frontrunner Joe Biden. On October 14 and then October 15, 2020, The New York Post, the nation’s oldest newspaper, published two news reports on Joe Biden’s activities in Ukraine and China that raised serious questions about his integrity and ethics: specifically whether he and his family were trading on his name and influence to generate profit for themselves. The Post said that the documents were obtained from a laptop left by Joe Biden’s son Hunter at a repair shop.
From the start, the evidence of authenticity was overwhelming. The Post published obviously genuine photos of Hunter that were taken from the laptop. Investigations from media outlets found people who had received the emails in real-time and they compared the emails in their possession to the ones in the Post‘s archive, and they matched word-for-word. One of Hunter’s own business associates involved in many of these deals, Tony Bobulinski, confirmed publicly and in interviews that the key emails were genuine and that they referenced Joe Biden’s profit participation in one deal being pursued in China. A forensics analyst issued a report concluding the archive had all the earmarks of authenticity. Not even the Bidens denied that the emails were real: something they of course would have done if they had been forged or altered. In sum, as someone who has reported on numerous large archives similar to this one and was faced with the heavy burden of ensuring the documents were genuine before risking one’s career and reputation by reporting them, it was clear early on that all the key metrics demonstrated that these documents were real.
Despite all that, former intelligence officials such as Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan and his Director of National Intelligence James Clapper led a group of dozens of former spooks in issuing a public statement that disseminated an outright lie: namely, that the laptop was “Russian disinformation.” Note that this phrase contains two separate assertions: 1) the documents came from Russia and 2) they are fake (“disinformation”). The intelligence officials admitted in this letter that — in their words — “we do not know if the emails are genuine or not,” and also admitted that “we do not have evidence of Russian involvement.” Yet it repeatedly insinuated that everyone should nonetheless believe this:
Letter from 60 former intelligence officials about the New York Post reporting, Oct. 19, 2020 But the complete lack of evidence for these claims — that even these career CIA liars acknowledged plagued their assertions — did not stop the corporate media or Big Tech from repeating this lie over and over, and, far worse, using this lie to censor this reporting from the internet. One of the first to spread this lie was the co-queen of Russiagate frauds, Natasha Bertrand, then of Politico and now promoted, because of lies like this, to CNN. “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say,” blared her headline in Politico on October 19, just five days after the Post began its reporting. From there, virtually every media outlet — CNN, NBC News, PBS, Huffington Post, The Intercept, and too many others to count — began completely ignoring the substance of the reporting and instead spread the lie over and over that these documents were the by-product of Russian disinformation.
On October 21 — exactly one week after the Post‘s first report — The Intercept published a false story under the melodramatic headline “We’re Not a Democracy” about these materials from former New York Times reporter James Risen. This propaganda assault masquerading as “news” mindlessly laundered the CIA’s lies about the laptop. This is what appeared in this outlet that still claims to do “adversarial” reporting:
Their latest falsehood once again involves Biden, Ukraine, and a laptop mysteriously discovered in a computer repair shop and passed to the New York Post….This week, a group of former intelligence officials issued a letter saying that the Giuliani laptop story has the classic trademarks of Russian disinformation.
Note that even the intelligence officials, who acknowledged they had no evidence to support this claim, were more honest than The Intercept, which omitted that critical admission. Days later, this very same outlet — which I co-founded seven years earlier to be adversarial, not subservient, to evidence-free assertions from the intelligence community, and which was designed to be an antidote to rather than a clone of The New York Times — told me that I could not publish the article I had written about the Biden archive because it did not meet their lofty and rigorous editorial standards: the same lofty and rigorous editorial standards that led to uncritical endorsement of the CIA’s lies just days earlier. It was that episode, as Matt Taibbi recounted at the time, that prompted my resignation from the outlet I created in protest of this censorship, in order to report instead only on free speech platforms such as this one.
But the media disinformation about the Post‘s documents — obviously designed to protect Joe Biden in the lead-up to the election — were not the worst aspect of what happened here. Far worse was the decision by Twitter to prohibit any discussion of this reporting or posting of links to the story both publicly and privately on the platform. Worse still was the immediate announcement by Facebook through its communications executive Andy Stone — a life-long Democratic Party operative — that it would algorithmically suppress the story pending a “fact check” by “Facebook’s third-party fact-check partners.” Despite multiple requests from me and others, Facebook never published the results of this alleged fact-check and still refuse to say whether it ever conducted one. Why? Because the documents they blocked millions of Americans from learning about were clearly true and authentic.
While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook’s third-party fact checking partners. In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform.
— Andy Stone (@andymstone) October 14, 2020
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As indicated, there was ample proof from the start that these documents were genuine and that the only ones engaged in “disinformation” and lies was this axis of the CIA, corporate media, and Big Tech. Yet the most dispositive proof yet emerged on Tuesday — not from a right-wing news outlet that liberals have been trained to ignore and disbelieve but from one of the most mainstream news institutions in the country.
A young reporter for Politico, Ben Schreckinger, has published a new book entitled “The Bidens: Inside the First Family’s Fifty-Year Rise to Power.” To his great credit, he spent months investigating the key documents published by The New York Post and found definitive proof that these emails and related documents are indisputably authentic. His own outlet, Politico, was the first to publish the CIA lie that this was “Russian disinformation,” but on Tuesday — without acknowledging their role in spreading that lie — they summarized Schreckinger’s findings this way: the book “finds evidence that some of the purported Hunter Biden laptop material is genuine, including two emails at the center of last October’s controversy.” In his book, the reporter recounts in these passages just some of the extensive work he did to obtain this proof:
A person who corresponded with Hunter in late 2018 confirmed to me the authenticity of an email in the cache. Another person who corresponded with Hunter in January 2019 confirmed the authenticity of a different email exchange with Hunter in the cache. Both of these people spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing fears of being embroiled in a global controversy.
A third person who had independent access to Hunter’s emails confirmed to me that the emails published by the New York Post related to Burisma and the CEFC venture matched the substance of emails Hunter had in fact received. (This person was not in a position to compare the published emails word-for-word to the originals.)
The National Property Board of Sweden, part of the Swedish Finance Ministry, has released correspondence between Hunter and House of Sweden employees to me and to a Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter, under the country’s freedom of information law. Emails released by the property board match emails in the cache.
Excerpts from POLITICO reporter Ben Schreckinger’s new book: “The Bidens: Inside the First Family’s Fifty-Year Rise to Power”, Sept. 2020 Given what I regard as the unparalleled gravity of what was done here — widespread media deceit toward millions of American voters in the weeks before a presidential election based on a CIA lie, along with brute censorship of the story by Big Tech — and given that so much of what was done here took place on television, we produced this morning what I regard as the definitive video report of this scandal. I realize this report is longer than the standard video — it is just over an hour — but I really believe that it is vital, particularly with the emergence of this new indisputable proof, to take a comprehensive look at how the intelligence community, in partnership with Big Tech and the corporate media, disseminated massive lies and disinformation, using censorship and other manipulative techniques, to shape the outcome of what was a close election. (We will very shortly institute our new feature of producing transcripts for all videos above ten minutes in length, but I really hope that as many people as can do so will watch this video report).
After observing what they did, I hope and believe you will have a similar reaction to the one I had after spending the day compiling and reporting it all. No matter how much you despise this sector of the corporate media, it is nowhere near close enough to the level of contempt and scorn they deserve. You can watch our video report on my Rumble page or on the player below.
Watch:
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Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 22:40 - China Locks Down Northeastern City After Discovering First Outbreak Since February
China Locks Down Northeastern City After Discovering First Outbreak Since February
China’s latest COVID outbreak continued to smolder through the mid-Autumn festival. In the Northeastern city of Harbin, where authorities imposed a new round of lockdown restrictions after discovering a single case. Another 5 new local infections were confirmed on Wednesday, bringing the total cases in the city to 8.
Officially, China has recorded fewer than 100K COVID cases and fewer than 5K deaths, although the true number may never be known. Recently, the country has seen a handful of outbreaks as new variants have finally invaded the country, overpowering China’s domestically produced COVID jabs. In total across the country, China reported a total of 16 cases Wednesday. It’s Harbin’s first outbreak since February.
Despite the negligible number of cases, authorities in Harbin imposed travel restrictions ordering residents not to leave the city while a range of venues – including spas, cinemas, karaoke halls, dancing and gaming venues and mahjong salons – have been temporarily closed.
In response to the outbreak, Harbin will conduct city-wide testing before Thursday while some venues will be shut in keeping with China’s “war-like” response to dealing with COVID. China’s virus outbreak was previously in southeastern province of Fujian..
Those approved for essential travel will need to show a green health-code pass to prove they are “safe”.
Religious sites, as well as large-scale conferences and events, have also been subject to close. Tourist attractions are required to work at half capacity and stagger the flows of people.
In order to facilitate the mass testing in Harbin, vaccinations were suspended for three days. The outbreaks keep happening despite Beijing announcing earlier this month that it has fully vaccinated 1 billion of its population against the disease, with Chinese vaccines used at the forefront of the mammoth inoculation campaign.
According to the SCMP, authorities haven’t linked the cases in Harbin to the delta variant outbreak in Fujian province, which is more than 1,400 miles away in the country’s southeast, where 13 new infections were recorded. No deaths were reported. Authorities have begun gene-sequencing efforts to determine the source.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 22:20 - Watch: 'Liberal Media Darling' George W. Bush Confronted By Iraq Veteran
Watch: ‘Liberal Media Darling’ George W. Bush Confronted By Iraq Veteran
Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,
An Iraq veteran gave George W. Bush a stark reminder this past weekend that although he’s now a liberal media darling, there are plenty of Americans who remember the lies that led to millions of deaths.
Corporal Mike Prysner was captured on video launching into a tirade against Bush during a speech in Beverly Hills.
“When are you going to apologize for the million Iraqis who are dead because you lied?” Prysner yelled at Bush.
“You lied about weapons of mass destruction! You lied about connections to 9/11! You sent me to Iraq! You sent me to Iraq!” Prysner continued.
Bush can be heard responding “you said you’d behave yourself.”
As he was bundled out of the room, Prysner demanded Bush “apologise” adding “my friends are dead, you killed people.”
Watch:
Following a 9/11 memorial speech in which he directly compared supporters of President Trump to Al Qaeda terrorists, Bush is being held up as an icon by the left.
As journalist Glenn Greenwald noted last week, “it turned into this love-fest. I mean they dripped with effusive praise for him because of what he said, essentially that the 9/11 attacks are the same as the three hour riot on January 6th, and more importantly that the people who did 9/11, Al Qaeda, are similar or identical to ‘the same foul spirit’ as he put it, Trump supporters essentially.”
“A domestic war on terror against your fellow citizens is music to the ears of American liberals because they want nothing more than treating their political adversaries, like the Bush administration treated Al Qaeda,” Greenwald asserted.
Watch:
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Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 22:00 - JPMorgan Being Investigated By Brazilian Authorities Over Potential Oil Bribes
JPMorgan Being Investigated By Brazilian Authorities Over Potential Oil Bribes
Another day, another “cost of doing business” fine likely on its way for one of the big banks.
J.P. Morgan is being investigated by Brazilian authorities about whether or not the bank “played a role in an alleged bribery and money laundering scheme that dated back to 2011 and involved state-run oil company Petrobras”, according to a new exclusive from Reuters.
The probe is in preliminary stages, according to the report.
Authorities are looking at the purchase of 300,000 barrels of Petrobras fuel by the bank in 2011, according to court documents and sources.
The documents included email messages, witness testimony and bank records. Regulators are in the midst of trying to decypher whether or not bribery continued in subsequent years.
Testimony from a former Petrobras fuel trader named Rodrigo Berkowitz was reviewed by Reuters. The trader makes note two fuel cargoes that were sold to a JPMorgan unit in his testimony.
The investigation is one piece of a larger look by Brazilian authorities into wrongdoing in the commodity trading space. Authorities are seeking to figure out if JP Morgan secured oil shipments at artificially low prices by sending bribes to employees at Petrobras’ trading desk using middlemen.
Investigations are also ongoing into some of the world’s largest commodity traders after years of probes looking into whether or not bribes were offered to win contracts in countries in Latin America.
No charges have been brought in the ongoing investigation. Petrobras told Reuters it has “zero tolerance in relation to fraud and corruption.”
J.P. Morgan, on the other hand, declined to comment.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 21:40 - House Progressives Strip $1BN In Military Aid For Israel From Stopgap Funding Bill
House Progressives Strip $1BN In Military Aid For Israel From Stopgap Funding Bill
Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,
House Democrats removed $1 billion for additional military aid for Israel from a stopgap funding bill that was passed in the House on Tuesday.
The $1 billion would be on top of the $3.8 billion the US already gives Israel each year. Israel requested the additional amount after its bombardment in Gaza in May, which killed over 250 Palestinians, including over 60 children.
Image: Associated Press The Israelis say they need the money to restock the iron dome missile defense system. But when the request was first reported, Israeli officials also said they would also use the money to purchase munitions, mainly precision-guided bombs for the Israeli Air Force.
The stopgap bill is being pushed through to avert a government shutdown, but it could fail in the Senate. The $1 billion for Israel was removed over protests by progressive Democrats, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI).
Since no Republicans were expected to vote for the bill, Democratic leadership needed the support of the progressives to pass the legislation.
US lawmakers were quick to assure Israel that it will get its money. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) promised to bring the extra $1 billion to a vote in the House as early as this week during a call with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.
This evening, I announced on the Floor that the House will consider legislation this week to fully fund Iron Dome. We will act to ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, and I expect strong, bipartisan support for this effort.
— Steny Hoyer (@LeaderHoyer) September 22, 2021
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“This evening, I announced on the Floor that the House will consider legislation this week to fully fund Iron Dome,” Hoyer wrote on Twitter. Other members of Congress said the extra $1 billion will be included in the 2022 defense appropriations bill.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 21:20 - Not The Onion: UN Mulling Taliban Request To Address General Assembly
Not The Onion: UN Mulling Taliban Request To Address General Assembly
A UN spokesman revealed late Tuesday that the Taliban has formally requested to address world leaders gathered this week in New York for the United Nations General Assembly meeting.
It comes after the international body received an official letter on Monday addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the group is “requesting to participate” in the high-level debate, according to AFP.
“The credentials committee will now rule on the request,” the UN statement added, suggesting the body is actually taking the request seriously.
UN headquarters in NYC, via Shutterstock As a now established government having control over all of Afghanistan following the late August US troop pullout and evacuation, the Taliban says it even has a permanent representative to the UN at this point, named as Doha-based spokesman Suhail Shaheen, which means it’s challenging the legitimacy of the current representative, Ghulam Isaczai.
AFP has more details of the letter’s contents as follows:
It was signed by Amir Khan Muttaqi as “Minister of Foreign Affairs,” the spokesman said. The letter also indicated that Ghulam Isaczai “no longer represents” Afghanistan at the United Nations.
…The note, which had the letterhead “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” said that former president Ashraf Ghani was “ousted” on August 15, the day he fled the country.
The UN spokesman confirmed the letter had been submitted for consideration to the “credentials committee” to consider further action.
That committee includes the US, Russia, China, South Africa, Sweden, Sierra Leone, Chile, Bhutan and the Bahamas. Likely China and Russia would push for allowing the Taliban’s participation at the UNGA, while Washington would no doubt see it as an embarrassment and deeply awkward.
#Taliban have challenged the credentials of Afghanistan’s former U.N. ambassador and are asking to speak at the #UNGA76…#UN says….https://t.co/oKPIUK5J9V
— Sumaira Khan (@sumrkhan1) September 21, 2021
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Continued US sanctions on the Taliban would prevent or at least complicate any Taliban official’s in-person trip to New York, so such a potential address to the assembly would take place via video link. This scenario is similar to the Iranian situation – with sanctions on him personally President Ebrahim Raisi was prevented from traveling and spoke via a pre-recorded video.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 21:00 - Stunning Interview Sees China Warn "23 Million Australians" That US Pact Now Makes Them "Target" For Nuclear Attack
Stunning Interview Sees China Warn “23 Million Australians” That US Pact Now Makes Them “Target” For Nuclear Attack
During an Australian TV primetime segment this week, the well-known China-based expert Victor Gao, who is vice president of the Center for China and Globalization and once served as communist leader Deng Xiaoping’s translator, issued a chilling scenario and shock to his Aussie audience over the controversial AUKUS defense pact between the US, Australia and the UK.
Gao bluntly warned that the deal which will see Washington give Canberra nuclear submarine technology now makes all of Australia a target for nuclear strike:
“The watershed moment will be if Australia is armed with nuclear submarines to be locally produced in Australia, Australia will lose that privilege of not being targeted with nuclear weapons by other countries,” Gao warned.
He then appealed to the “23 million Australians” who will now live with this anxiety if the deal is completed in the coming years over “possible nuclear war” on their doorstep and over their cities.
Gao posed that the stakes are incredibly high: “And that should be the wake up call for the Australians – the 23 million Australians. Do you really want to be a target in a possible nuclear war? Or do you want to be free from the ‘nuclear menace’ going forward?“
Of course the subtext, almost unbelievably, is that Beijing is declaring that Australia will become fair game for nuclear first strike. The incredulous ABC Australia news host then questioned back at him: “It is extraordinary that you’re talking about nuclear war and attacks on Australia,” the anchor said.
The questioning then turned to whether what Gao was saying reflects the position of Chinese government, to which he responded…
Listen, as a general policy Australia is not targeted with nuclear warheads right now… now if the Australian government wants to… go nuclear, with nuclear submarines, they will lose that privilege of not being targeted with nuclear warheads going forward. It’s as simple as that… this is the most profound consequence.
He charged that it’s a “gross violation” of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty by the US and UK, underscoring the “consequences” of this for Australia.
Via The Drive The ABC host questioned directly, “Are you saying that Australia will be targeted by China? Are you warning that Australia now is under threat?”
Gao that repeated that his words have been “clear” – reiterating that China will see Australia as in breach of having a nuclear free zone and that this will carry with it profound consequences. He then repeated his “thinly-veiled threat that the AUKUS pact announced last week was a ‘gross violation of international law’ that will have ‘profound consequences’ for ‘brainless’ Aussies.”
Meanwhile, here’s Rabobank’s take on the stunning interview and not so subtle threat….
I have to share last night’s ABC interview with China’s Victor Gao as a sample of the current zeitgeist in this region. It is worth a watch in its entirety if you don’t live in the region: imagine if this was your prime-time TV slot last night.
Gao was emphatic about Australia being “logically” targeted for a potential nuclear attack because it wants nuclear-powered submarines. Notably, he is correct in saying this threat is clear strategic logic. Yet geostrategists would point out that Australia wanting such subs is also clear strategic logic – of the need for a balance of power and deterrence against any threats.
Also recall, this is happening as China lobbies Australia to support its entry into the CPTPP trade partnership – which would of course help Beijing prop up those soon-to-be-needed-even-more trade surpluses, structurally.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 20:40 - UBS Trader Sues Bank, Claims "Toxic Environment" Destroyed His Mental Health
UBS Trader Sues Bank, Claims “Toxic Environment” Destroyed His Mental Health
Sympathy for the junior bankers who have been overworked to the bone waned a bit yesterday when it was revealed that the leader of the original uprising of Goldman junior bankers was the son of a vice chairman at TPG, the private equity giant and longtime Goldman client.
But as it turns out, twenty-something analysts aren’t the only ones struggling with long hours and deteriorating mental health. One trader from UBS’s London office says his job was so psychologically demanding that he’s now suing UBS for the psychic damage to which he was subjected.
Simon Rope, a 35-year-veteran at UBS, is seeking $273K over alleged “negligence” by the bank’s management that led to him developing an anxiety disorder due to the extreme stress of the trading floor,
According to Bloomberg, the case – which was filed in the UK – “offers a window into the stressful world of trading, and the mental toll it can have on workers under pressure to drive profits and not make costly mistakes.”
Lawyers for Rope, who has been on medical leave and hasn’t been on a trading floor since 2018 (though Rope is still employed at the bank), claim their client was subjected to a “toxic environment” on the trading floor where “often bad tempered” traders would “shout across the trading floor and publicly shame” him. They added that this “generally pressured environment” represents “the unavoidable reality of the work of a City trader,” UBS lawyers said.
By 2016, symptoms of a stress and anxiety disorder had begun to develop, and by 2018 he and his three colleagues were trading around 3,500 different stocks. “An exceptionally large number of companies for such a small team to cover,” they said in documents filed at the High Court in February.
The trouble with Rope’s claim is that for years beforehand, Rope “not only coped but thrived in for decades, giving the bank a good basis for its belief that he was psychologically able to manage the demands” of his most recent role.
Rope’s lawyers wrote that by the beginning of 2018, Rope was experiencing “exhaustion, finding it increasingly difficult to sleep, was no longer able to socialize, and was focusing all his efforts on functioning solely for work.”
Most of the joy in Rope’s life at this point came from criticizing a group of UBS managers known as “the Shooting Party” (the nickname is related to a practice of leaving the office early on Friday to go “shooting”).
Though we very much doubt the humor is intentional, UBS claimed in its defense papers that “disillusionment and discontent with management during times of structural change and rationalization is common on the workplace.”
UBS did say that shouting sometimes occurred on the trading floor and that the language of traders was “intemperate” from time to time. The bank denies the claims made by Rope’s legal team, and claims he was not “drowning” in work.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 20:20 - Biden To Stick Haitian Immigrants In Gitmo, Seeks Contractor With 'Creole-Speaking Guards'
Biden To Stick Haitian Immigrants In Gitmo, Seeks Contractor With ‘Creole-Speaking Guards’
The Biden administration is looking for a private contractor to operate a migrant detention facility at the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, according to NBC News, citing government records. One requirement – some of the guards must speak Spanish and Haitian Creole, and the contractor itself needs to be able to build temporary housing facilities.
The razor wire-topped fence of Camp 6 detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, seen in 2014. Photograph: Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty Images “The service provider shall be responsible to maintain on site the necessary equipment to erect temporary housing facilities for populations that exceed 120 and up to 400 migrants in a surge event,” reads the contract solicitation.
A little-known immigrant holding facility on the base has a capacity of 120 people, the records say, and it “will have an estimated daily population of 20 people,” according to a solicitation for bids issued Friday by the Department of Homeland Security.
The records provided no indication that the Biden administration is planning to transfer migrants from the southern border to Guantánamo Bay. In the recent past, migrants picked up at sea have been housed there for short periods. -NBC News
What will Democrats say?
In late 2019, then-anonymous Trump admin DHS official Miles Taylor claimed in a book that Trump proposed sending migrants to Guantánamo, leading to mass pearl-clutching on the left over the ‘inhumane’ president who was also both orange and bad.
What will they say now?
Gitmo’s history of housing immigrants
In the early 90s during the George H.W. Bush administration, as many as 12,000 Haitians seeking asylum in Florida were sent to the Guantanamo Bay holding facility overseen by then-Attorney General William Barr. At the time, immigrants’ advocates said that the policy was driven in part by the fact that some Haitians were HIV-positive, according to the report.
“It’s highly concerning that the administration may be considering using Guantánamo to detain Haitian asylum-seekers or others, according to Wendy Young, president of the immigrant advocacy group Kids in Need of Defense, who added “It’s a sense of déjà vu all over again.”
According to Young, Guantánamo “was used in the early 1990s and proved highly deficient in terms of providing the services that migrant families and children urgently need, including legal representation,” and “Instead of defaulting to a law enforcement response grounded in deterrence, the administration should instead live up to our legal and ethical obligation to allow Haitians to apply for asylum. Conditions in Haiti underscore how essential that is.”
The new DHS contract solicitation says that the winning bidder would have to supply tents and cots and that “the contractor must be able to have these assembled and ready with little notice,” adding, “In addition, the service provider must maintain a roster of at least 50 individuals who meet the minimum requirements of the unarmed custody officer job classification and have a viable contingency plan to deploy these individuals within 24 hours of notification.“
“At least 10% of the augmented personnel must be fluent in Spanish and Haitian Creole. Air transportation to/from the facility is the sole responsibility of the service provider,” the contract ads.
Will AOC condemn Biden’s new kids in cages – island edition?
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 20:00 - FDA Agrees With Advisors, Limits Booster Jabs To Older & Immunocompromised Americans
FDA Agrees With Advisors, Limits Booster Jabs To Older & Immunocompromised Americans
Following Friday’s decision by the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel to only recommend the use of boosters for patients who are a) immunocompromised, b) overweight or c) both, Bloomberg reports that the FDA has decided to accept the advisory panel’s conclusions, as expected – representing a major victory for “the science” over President Biden’s political priorities.
The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee – also known as VRBPAC – is a panel of senior advisors for the FDA, and after a long public meeting on Friday, it voted overwhelmingly against approving a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab for every patient over the age of 16 (though it did leave a door open to approving booster jabs for all eventually).
Now, the FDA on Wednesday has decided to accept VRBPAC’s recommendations, according to Bloomberg.
FDA TO AUTHORIZE 3RD PFIZER SHOT FOR 65 AND OVER, HIGH-RISK
In keeping with panel reco
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 22, 2021
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NEW: The FDA is set to authorize Pfizer boosters tonight, in line with VRBPAC recommendations, per a source.
Boosters for 65 and up, those at high risk of severe cases, or in workplaces with high exposure risk, per source. Announcement said to be imminent but not confirmed.
— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) September 22, 2021
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The expected emergency clearance for the number of booster jabs will be for people 65 and older, those most susceptible to severe disease and people whose jobs put them at risk, Bloomberg’s source added.
Most importantly, the FDA’s decision will scuttle – well, at least for now – the Biden Administration’s plan to start doling out third “booster” jabs to any American over the age of 16 (in Israel, they have been available to anyone over the ae=ge ofthat the Biden administration would have to forgo, temporarily, a wider rollout of boosters that it had proposed last month. Third doses are already authorized for certain people with compromised immune systems.
While hundreds of thousands of Americans have already received a third dose (the CDC has allowed them for older, sick patients), only 54.8% of America’s adult population has been fully inoculated.
Along with the Biden Administration, which is scrambling to do everything in its power to combat the delta variant (even if some of those moves, like mandatory masking, aren’t as effective as one might expect) Pfizer is also bound to be disappointed by the FDA’s decision.
The FDA’s decision to defy Biden follows by nearly two weeks the president’s own decision to abandon his promise not to mandate vaccines, when Biden ordered all federal employees, as well as employees for government contractors and other private small and medium size businesses, to get vaccinated. Polls have shown nearly half of Americans disapprove of the rule.
This isn’t the final word on whether the entire population will eventually be required – or aggressively “incentivized” – to get a third dose of one of the mRNA vaccines. The FDA has room to change its recommendations or decisions as more scientific data and research comes in.
Looking ahead, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is expected to meet Thursday to make its own recommendations about who should receive the additional dose.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 19:40 - Biden's Debt Limit Game Of Chicken
Biden’s Debt Limit Game Of Chicken
By Philip Marey of Rabobank
Summary
- In October we could see both a government shutdown and a government default if the spending and debt bill approved by the House of Representatives yesterday does not pass the Senate.
- This is a game of chicken in which the Democrats try to force the Republicans to share the blame for suspending the debt limit in light of the midterm elections in 2022.
- This stand-off is completely unnecessary and if the Republicans don’t blink, the Democrats can still raise the debt limit and adopt a spending patch through budget reconciliation.
- However, this will raise the internal pressure in the Democratic Party regarding Biden’s legislative agenda by adding another time constraint.
Introduction: Pelosi is raising the stakes
Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would fund the government through December 3, 2021, and suspend the debt limit through December 16, 2022. Note that this would remove the debt limit from the legislative agenda until after the midterm elections on November 8, 2022. There were 220 Democratic votes in favor of the bill, and 211 Republican votes against it. This bill is supported by the Democratic leadership, including President Biden. However, before he can sign this into law, the Senate has to vote on it. This is expected to happen later this week or early next week. On Monday, Senate Minority Leader McConnell said the Republicans will support a clean continuing resolution that includes disaster aid and refugee resettlement funding, but not legislation to raise the debt limit. If the spending and debt bill does not pass the Senate, we could see both a shutdown and a default of the US government in October, a probability that is growing by the day according to the T-Bill market.
Each October, the start of the new fiscal year requires either a spending bill1 or a continuing resolution (a spending patch that does not last the entire fiscal year). If such a measure is not adopted before October 1, the federal government will have to shut down, because the authority to spend money is lacking. The House bill would delay this until after December 3, giving Congress more time to come up with a full fiscal year spending bill. However, if the Senate does not pass it, the government will partially shut down on October 1.
Meanwhile, August 1 saw the return of the debt limit, which had been suspended in 2019. The Treasury is taking extraordinary measures to allow the federal government to keep fulfilling its obligations, but in a September 8 letter to House Speaker Pelosi, Treasury Secretary Yellen indicated that these measures will be depleted sometime “during the month of October.” If the debt limit is not raised before this occurs, the federal government will be in default.
The bipartisan route or via budget reconciliation?
The first observation we would like to make is that the possible standoff that could lead to a government shutdown and default is entirely unnecessary. The Democrats could have chosen to raise the debt limit through budget reconciliation. This would not require a single Republican vote. So keeping it out of budget reconciliation and asking the Republicans for support is a conscious decision by the Democratic leadership. The main reason is that raising the debt ceiling could hurt the Democrats in the midterm elections in 2022, so they prefer sharing the blame with the Republicans by forcing them to support a suspension of the debt limit. In other words, the Democrats have set up a game of chicken to get the Republicans’ fingerprints on the debt limit suspension. The Democrats are counting on business leaders to pressure the Republican Party into avoiding a government default. However, the Republican Party’s relationship with corporate America has suffered in recent years as the party has moved toward economic populism. Of course, Biden only needs 10 Republican votes. However, in August 46 Republican senators signed a letter that they would not raise the debt limit. Hence, at most 54 votes are available, which is not enough.
As long as this spending and debt bill is not approved, the government will partially shut down on October 1 and “during the month of October” the government will no longer be able to meet all its obligations, thus being in default. So Congress has about a week to prevent a government shutdown and at most 5 weeks to avert a government default.
If the Republicans don’t blink
The Republicans have said they won’t raise the debt limit, because the Democrats are trying to pass a $3.5 trillion package through budget reconciliation and passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan earlier this year without any Republican votes. However, President Biden is calling their bluff by attaching the debt limit suspension to a spending patch and a hurricane relief bill. This will make it more difficult for Republicans to explain to the voters that they are going to shoot this down in the Senate. If they do, the federal government will be heading for default in October.
However, if the Republicans don’t blink, the Democrats can still raise the debt limit and adopt a spending patch through budget reconciliation, without a single Republican vote. Of course, this implies an additional deadline on the $3.5 trillion health care, education and climate package. There is already a weaker deadline because Pelosi has promised to bring up the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill for a vote by September 27, which is also a time constraint on the $3.5 trillion package because progressives do not want to pass the infrastructure bill before the health care, education and climate bill. This is the second reason why the Democratic leadership has chosen this confrontational route to a game of chicken: it will give them more time for the $3.5 trillion deal.
In table 1 we have summarized the four deadlines that are coming together in just a few weeks.
The game
If the US government shuts down or even defaults, this is entirely a self-inflicted event. In fact, this can be seen as a three stage game. Pelosi has made the move in the first stage, by choosing to attach debt suspension to the spending patch. If she had put forward a clean CR, the Republicans in the Senate were willing to accept. However, now she is triggering a game of chicken (stage 2) where the Republicans will either stick to their promise not to raise the debt limit or blink.
If they blink, a government shutdown and default will be avoided. If they don’t, the Democrats will have to decide whether to shut down the government and risk a default or raise the debt limit through budget reconciliation (stage 3).
In the final stage of the game, the Democrats have the power to raise the debt ceiling and adopt a spending patch, through budget reconciliation, without any Republican vote. Therefore it will be difficult to blame a government shutdown or even a default on the Republicans. The mainstream media may try to do so anyway, but conservative media – which are relevant to Republican voters – will explain the realities to their audience. Therefore, there is no electoral need for the Republicans to blink. If they have the stomach for it, they can win this game and force the Democrats to “own” their spending spree. What’s more, if the Democrats fail to stick together under pressure, Biden’s ambitious legislative agenda could dissolve in October.
By forcing the debt limit legislation into the budget reconciliation process the Republicans will also increase the internal pressure in the Democratic Party regarding the Biden agenda, by adding another time constraint on the $3.5 trillion plan and the $1 trillion infrastructure bill. This is also an incentive for the Democrats to keep the debt limit out of budget reconciliation. From this perspective, we could draw the conclusion that the internal divisions in the Democratic Party are contributing to the choice of the Democratic leadership to play a game of chicken on the debt ceiling that could result in a government default. However, this plan could very well backfire and force the Democrats to raise the debt ceiling through budget reconciliation. The main challenge will then be to keep the Democratic Party together on the $3.5 trillion package, which could very well result in a substantial reduction of that number.
Conclusion
We could have called this special report “McConnell’s Game of Chicken.” After all, in August 46 Republican senators signed a letter that they would not raise the debt limit. However, the Democrats don’t need Republican support to adopt a spending patch and raise the debt limit: it can all be done through budget reconciliation. However, the Democrats made a conscious decision to take the bipartisan route, a route they usually shun. But they don’t want to be seen as the party that raised the debt limit and rather share the blame of suspending it, in light of the midterm elections in 2022. This appears particularly weird since the Democrats want to get a $3.5 trillion package through budget reconciliation, without the need of Republican votes. So the Democrats want to go on a spending spree, but they don’t want to be seen as the party that raises the credit card limit.
This is why we call it “Biden’s Game of Chicken.” At first sight it would appear that the Republicans are up to their old tricks again of sabotaging Democratic policies through the debt limit, jeopardizing the reputation of US government debt. However, this is not a repeat of the Tea Party obstruction of the Obama administration. This time the Democrats are intentionally looking for a confrontation they can easily avoid. In fact, McConnell has already indicated that he would support a clean CR, without a debt limit suspension attached to it. The Democrats won the elections, they want to spend trillions on Democratic priorities without Republican support, and they can raise the debt limit in the same process.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 19:20 - China's Xi Jinping Promises No New Coal Plants Abroad As It Ramps Up Domestic Production
China’s Xi Jinping Promises No New Coal Plants Abroad As It Ramps Up Domestic Production
Chinese leader Xi Jinping pledged at the United Nations General Assembly meeting on Tuesday to halt the construction of coal-fired power plants abroad.
“China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad,” Xi said in a prerecorded video. The announcement comes one year after he said China is on a path to reach carbon-neutral by 2060.
Xi provided no timetable for ending overseas coal-fired power projects and didn’t address China’s increasing need to fire up domestic coal and fossil fuel power plants.
Watch part of Xi’s speech here:
While China could hinder future coal development across Belt and Road Initiative countries, domestic coal consumption continues to boom at home amid increasing power demand.
Last month, China announced it would restart dozens of coal mines in the Inner Mongolia region and may produce as much as 44 million tons of coal, satisfying the growing calls for power amid the pick up in industrial activity this year.
The news of Xi’s support for emerging market countries in developing green and low-carbon energy contradicts what’s happening in Mainland China.
“China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.”
President Xi at #UNGA
— Chinese Mission to UN (@Chinamission2un) September 21, 2021
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Remember when China promised to hit peak carbon emissions in 2030 and reach carbon neutrality in 2060? Maybe it will (spoiler alert: it won’t)…
… but long before 2060, China plans on taking coal-based pollution on a domestic level to new heights to satisfy power demand.
Renewable energy has grown significantly in China, though coal power is cheap and will remain king and is expected to continue growing.
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 19:00 - Space Force Unveils Prototypes Of Uniform For Guardians
Space Force Unveils Prototypes Of Uniform For Guardians
Authored by GQ Pan via The Epoch Times,
The very first group of Guardians on Tuesday unveiled the U.S. Space Force’s (USSF) first prototype service dress uniform, which features a dark navy color, an upturned collar, and a diagonal row of six buttons.
During a speech at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond called two Guardians onto the stage to showcase the prototype. He noted that the service is open to “comments and tweaks” in the coming months before the uniform goes into wear testing.
Today, @SpaceForceCSO Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond unveiled the Guardian Service Dress prototype a modern, distinctive, professional uniform during the @AirForceAssoc‘s #ASC21. pic.twitter.com/tnDJnMkCMo
— United States Space Force (@SpaceForceDoD) September 21, 2021
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The coat’s six silver buttons, according to Raymond, are meant to represent the fact that the USSF is the sixth branch of the U.S. Armed Services. Photos released by the official USSF Twitter account reveal more details, including the service’s delta emblem on the buttons and mirror-finished “U.S.” pins on the collar.
Raymond also revealed the USSF’s physical training uniform, which is being wear-tested. A video shows the uniform and a gray T-shirt bearing the stylized words “Space Force” in white on the back, and black shorts with the delta emblem in white.
The Guardians will continue to wear the Operation Camouflage Pattern (OCP) uniform as their combat uniform. The OCP is already in use by the Army and the Air Force.
The uniform announcement comes after USSF Chief Master Sergeant Roger A. Towberman showed off the new insignia on social media.
Chief Master Sergeant of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman announced today the new design of the #SpaceForce‘s enlisted rank insignia. #SemperSupra pic.twitter.com/2O6P441u8h
— United States Space Force (@SpaceForceDoD) September 20, 2021
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“The delta is the foundation for all USSF enlisted insignia,” read an infographic shared by Towberman. “The six-sided border surrounding the insignia represents the USSF as the sixth branch of the U.S. Armed Forces.”
According to Towberman, each specialist stripe represents “terra firma, a solid foundation of skills” upon which Space Force operations are built. Changing the straight stripes to chevrons at higher ranks symbolizes the change Guardians go through as they take on greater responsibilities.
“The placement of the Delta above the globe further signifies this higher level of responsibility, while the Delta breaking through the orbits shows their willingness to explore and innovate,” he explained.
[ZH: we still think this is better…]
Meanwhile, other sci-fi fans have pointed out the similarity to various shows:
A friend just texted me: “Tell me the space force uniform isn’t a complete rip-off of battlestar galatica” and reader— https://t.co/UEyvBY573A pic.twitter.com/8teKYBPWC5
— Valerie Insinna (@ValerieInsinna) September 21, 2021
Tyler Durden
Wed, 09/22/2021 – 18:40
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