- Germany Can't Locate Scores Of ISIS Fighters Who May Have Slipped Back Into The Country
The German government can’t locate over 160 German “Islamic State” sympathizers who left home to fight with the terrorist organization and may have returned to Germany, according to Welt am Sonntag.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior speculates that most of them were likely killed in combat, but that they could have “succeeded in escaping and/or disappearing” back into the country. The ministry added that it’s unlikely that the individuals would pass unnoticed in Germany because of “various measures (including wanted lists or entry bans), which make uncontrolled re-entry much more difficult.”
The request for information was made by the Free Democrats (FDP), whose secretary general Linda Teuteberg told Welt that it was highly disturbing that further steps weren’t taken to prevent potential ISIS fighters from re-entering Germany “in light of the known patchy protection at the EU’s external borders.”
Teuteberg added that the government has “no plan for dealing with foreign fighters from Germany” or prosecuting them for their actions.
“This applies to the Germans detained in the conflict zones, as well as the more than 200 former IS supporters who are now back in Germany,” she said, adding that German authorities should step up measures to strengthen German authorities’ ability to investigate and prosecute war crimes on foreign soil.
In April, German prosecutors charged a 27-year-old German woman was busted by an undercover German security services officer she enlisted to drive her to the Middle East so that she could join up with the Islamic State, which she had been supporting some time. During the drive, she told him all about her time in the organization – which the German recorded.
Identified only as “Jennifer W” due to German privacy laws, she was eventually charged with purchasing a 5-year-old Yazidi girl in Iraq to use as a slave, only to let her die in the scorching heat. American intelligence officials tipped off their German colleagues about the woman, who then set her up with the German driver who she told about “leaving her home in northwestern Germany in August 2014, and making her way through Turkey and Syria to Iraq,” according to the New York Times.
Once in Iraq, she joined the Islamic State and “swiftly rose through the ranks, becoming a member of the Hisbah, the morality police, patrolling the parks of the Iraqi cities of Falluja and Mosul.”
According to the indictment, Jennifer W. and her husband “bought a 5-year-old girl in summer 2015 from a group of prisoners of war and kept her in their home as a slave.”
“After the girl fell ill and wet her mattress, the defendant’s husband punished the girl by chaining her up outside in the searing heat and leaving her in great agony to die of thirst,” prosecutors said. “The defendant let her husband do as he liked, and took no action to save the girl.”
Officials have not identified the husband, but German news media have reported he is an ISIS member, believed to be living in the region where Iraq borders Turkey.
“Her job was to make sure that women were upholding the terror organization’s dress and behavior codes,” said prosecutors. “To intimidate them, she carried an AK-47 machine gun, a pistol and an explosive vest.”
- 'BorisGate' Is Beneath Us
Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,
Whatever you think of BoJo, we mustn’t normalise smear tactics and tabloid nonsense…
Three days ago the police were called round to the flat shared by perspective Tory leader, and likely future Prime Minister, Boris Johnson and his girlfriend Carrie Symonds.
There had apparently been reports of a loud argument, banging and yelling etc. The police talked to both the people present and then left. No one was detained, charged, cautioned. Legally speaking, there was no incident. It would not warrant a mention most of the time.
However, the same neighbours who called the police also recorded the argument and sent the recording to The Guardian.
The Guardian, who have all the class of the Daily Mail, but none of the honesty, duly published it. Red banner. Shrieking tabloid headline. At least The Sun admits what it is.
And so we have Borisgate, or rather #BorisGate.
Boris refused to answer questions about the incident the next day, and Jeremy Hunt has been piling on the pressure to produce “an explanation”. Apparently “we had a row, it’s none of your business” isn’t enough of an explanation.
Hunt’s obsession with this topic is understandable, he’s massively trailing in the leadership contest and needs all the ammunition he can get his hands on.
However, the media circus around this situation is most unusual. It is all the media want to talk about. Some papers are attacking Johnson and demanding an explanation, some are attacking his neighbours as “leftists”. The Sun is…being The Sun.
There have even been accusations of “domestic violence”, despite the fact there was – as far as we can determine – no indication of any such thing. Not from the police who were there, or from any of the people involved.
We haven’t been able to track down the audio, all we have are reported quotes in the press, and there’s very little to go on there. “Get off me” is the most contentious phrase quoted and, without context, it could mean anything.
Framing that as “domestic violence” is premature, at best.
Factual accuracy matters – even when it contradicts your personal preferences and political loyalties. There is nothing here to suggest domestic violence, and nothing good will come from saying there is.
However that didn’t stop the predictable names on twitter jumping to conclusions and fuelling the controversy:
Labour MP Jess Philips Calls Out Boris Johnson Over Police Row https://t.co/cVWzOoXMP5
— Jess Phillips (@jessphillips) June 23, 2019
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Even the editor of The Canary (who really should know better) took part:
The establishment press is attacking Boris Johnson’s neighbours for reporting suspected domestic violence to police.
This is an escalation in a near 4yr media assault on the left.
It’s no good whining now Centrists. You got us here by legitimising this whole smear campaign.
— Kerry-Anne Mendoza (@TheMendozaWoman) June 23, 2019
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All of this over an “incident” that was totally meaningless. No police detention. No arrests, charges or cautions or even a sign of violence.
This is a fake scandal. Whether it was created, or simply seized upon, by the media and various “liberal” influencers on social media I don’t know. But whatever you think about Boris Johnson, his personality or his politics, this is deeply inappropriate. We’re meant to be better than this.
Is that the politics we want? A system where people are secretly recorded during their private, unflattering moments and then held up to public ridicule and censure?
Leftists who say “yes” to that question need to be careful. What’s good for Boris is good for Corbyn, we already got a taste of that during the “stupid woman” farce.
Accept this with Johnson, and in the run-up to the next General Election Tory supporters, tabloid journalists, and every other anti-Labour force will be crowding around Corbyn’s house with microphones pressed to the walls. Nobody is perfect, Corbyn will probably slip at some point.
…and even if he doesn’t, there’s no reason to assume the forces opposed to Corbyn would be bound by reality, or in any way limited to what actually happened. We already know that’s not the case.
In a world where video editing can make Nancy Pelosi appear to drunkenly slur her words, a muffled audio recording of Corbyn having an argument, saying something vulgar, offensive or (let’s play the odds here) antisemitic could be knocked up in an afternoon.
When we endorse smear tactics and media witchhunts, we make it acceptable that these tools be used against us as well as them. Do unto others…etc.
These “scandals” will create a future where we won’t debate the issues, we’ll just try and out smear each other.
And that’s even assuming that everything here is as it seems.
This scandal breaking just days before Johnson is expected to become Prime Minister is odd timing, especially when it comes hot on the heels of ex-MI6 man (and media favourite) Rory Stewart getting kicked out of the race.
The neighbours calling the police isn’t strange of itself, but recording the row is. And then they sent it to The Guardian, the Deep States mouthpiece and paper of record.
The Guardian ran their “exclusive” within a few hours (not including the recorded audio, only referencing alleged quotes, the actual audio is apparently hard to get hold of).
Since then the Graun has had seven different articles and opinionpieces about it in less than 3 days. (Correction: 9, two more appearedwhile this article was being written).
It’s unquestionably a roll-out, the only uncertainty it’s whether opportunistically seized upon, or cynically created.
The mainstream media don’t report things because they’re true, they don’t talk about them because they’re important and they don’t write articles because “the public need to know”. The MSM only report things that serve an agenda, true or false, real or imaginary. The narrative matters, the facts don’t.
That said, “BorisGate” is an indication that the UK Deep State has some internal rift, and that some powerful interest is very much against Johnson becoming Prime Minister. (That’s been obvious since the sudden emergence of Rory Stewart, a candidate who appeared from nowhere, has an intelligence background, and had all kinds of undeserved praise heaped on him by the BBC and everyone else).
But that is analysis for a different time – In the end, it doesn’t really matter what sits at the root of “BorisGate”. The important question is: shouldn’t we be better than this?
Isn’t the point of civilised political debate to discuss issues on an intellectual level, not hurl smears and dirt at each other? To be calm and collected, rather than emotionally manipulative and sentimental?
Either this is a genuine situation, an establishment mouthpiece paper running an hysterical story supplied to them by prying neighbours – OR it’s a Deep State psy-op hoping to influence politics
Either way, it’s nothing we should tolerate, let alone celebrate.
- China Tests New Helicopter Drone Slated For Service In South China Sea
China, having claimed most of the South China Sea for itself, has published a new report that suggests helicopter drones could soon be deployed to its militarized islands.
The AV500W vertical take-off and landing unmanned helicopter manufactured by Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) has completed its first-night operation under challenging conditions, showing that the new helicopter drone is ready for serious production and future deployment.
Global Times said the AV500W test flight was conducted on June 14 in South China’s Hainan Province. The helicopter drone performed a night-time mission to identify a vessel with its electro-optical sensors.
“During its flight, the AV500 overcame challenging environments including strong winds and high salinity and humidity, AVIC said in the statement, noting the operation proved the drone helicopter’s capability to operate at night.”
During a test several years ago in Northwest China’s Gansu Province, the helicopter climbed to an altitude of 16,400 feet, demonstrating its superior flight capabilities.
A military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Thursday that the new helicopter drone is set to be offered to domestic and international clients.
The expert said the drone could carry out a patrol, reconnaissance, damage evaluation, and attack missions.
The drone successfully conducted a missile firing test in 2018, making it combat ready, and appealing to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) controlling the militarized islands in the South China Sea, otherwise known as Spratly islands.
The AV500W, AV500 and XM20 drone helicopters complete successful test flights over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. pic.twitter.com/9sx1iMg975
— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) November 25, 2017
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The AV500W can carry 385-pound payload and fly a little over 100 mph carrying laser-guided missiles or machine guns, AVIC said.
Since the PLA doesn’t have helicopter drone gunships patrolling the South China Sea, the US Navy who conducts freedom of navigation missions near the Spratly islands might one day be greeted by a helicopter drone from China.
- Cockburn: Trump May Be In Too Deep To Avoid War With Iran
Authored by Patrick Cockburn via The Unz Review,
President Trump’s last-minute change of mind over launching US airstrikes against Iran shows that a military conflict of some description in the Gulf is becoming highly probable. His hesitation was most likely less connected with an Iranian surface-to-air missile shooting down a US surveillance drone than with his instinct that militarising the crisis is not in America’s best interests.
If Trump had not pulled back and the strikes against Iranian radars and missile batteries had gone ahead, where exactly would that have got him? This sort of limited military operation is usually more effective as a threat than in actuality. The US is not going to launch an all-out war against Iran in pursuit of a decisive victory and anything less creates more problems than it resolves.
Iran would certainly retain post-strike the ability to launch pin-prick attacks up and down the Gulf and, especially, in and around the 35-mile wide Strait of Hormuz through which passes 30 per cent of the world’s oil trade. Anything affecting this choke point reverberates around the word: news of the shooting down of the drone immediately sent the price of benchmark Brent crude oil rocketing upwards by 4.75 per cent.
Note that the Iranian surface-to-air missile shot down a $130m (£100m) drone, in practice an unmanned aircraft stuffed with electronic equipment that was designed to be invulnerable to such an attack. The inference is that if US aircraft – as opposed to missiles – start operating over or close to Iranian airspace then they are likely to suffer losses.
But the dilemma for Trump is at a deeper level. His sanctions against Iran, reimposed after he withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, are devastating the Iranian economy. The US Treasury is a more lethal international power than the Pentagon. The EU and other countries have stuck with the deal, but they have in practice come to tolerate the economic blockade of Iran.
Iran was left with no choice but to escalate the conflict. It wants to make sure that the US, the European and Asian powers, and US regional allies Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, feel some pain. Tehran never expected much from the EU states, which are still signed up to the 2015 nuclear deal, and has found its low expectations are being fulfilled.
A fundamental misunderstanding of the US-Iran confrontation is shared by many commentators. It may seem self-evident that the US has an interest in using its vast military superiority over Iran to get what it wants. But after the failure of the US ground forces to win in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Somalia, no US leader can start a land war in the Middle East without endangering their political survival at home.
Trump took this lesson to heart long before he became president. He is a genuine isolationist in the American tradition. The Democrats and much of the US media have portrayed Trump as a warmonger, though he has yet to start a war. His national security adviser John Bolton and secretary of state Mike Pompeo issue bloodcurdling threats against Iran, but Trump evidently views such bellicose rhetoric as simply one more way of ramping up the pressure on Iran.
But if a ground war is ruled out, then Iran is engaged in the sort of limited conflict in which it has long experience. A senior Iraqi official once said to me that the Iranians “have a PhD” in this type of part political, part military warfare. They are tactics that have worked well for Tehran in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria over the past 40 years. The Iranians have many pressure points against the US, and above all against its Saudi and Emirati allies in the Gulf.
The Iranians could overplay their hand: Trump is an isolationist, but he is also a populist national leader who claims in his first campaign rallies for the next presidential election to “have made America great again”. Such boasts make it difficult to not retaliate against Iran, a country he has demonised as the source of all the troubles in the Middle East.
One US military option looks superficially attractive but conceals many pitfalls. This is to try to carry out operations along the lines of the limited military conflict between the US and Iran called the “tanker war”. This was part of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and the US came out the winner.
Saddam Hussein sought to throttle Iran’s oil exports and Iran tried to do the same to Iraq. The US and its allies weighed in openly on Saddam Hussein’s side – an episode swiftly forgotten by them after the Iraqi leader invaded Kuwait in 1990. From 1987 on, re-registered Kuwaiti tankers were being escorted through the Gulf by US warships. There were US airstrikes against Iranian ships and shore facilities, culminating in the accidental but very avoidable shooting down of an Iranian civil airliner with 290 passengers on board by the USS Vincennes in 1988. Iran was forced to sue for peace in its war with Iraq.
Some retired American generals speak about staging a repeat of the tanker war today but circumstances have changed. Iran’s main opponent in 1988 was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Iran was well on its way to losing the war, in which there was only one front.
Today Saddam is gone and Iraq is ruled by a Shia-dominated government. Baghdad is trying to stay neutral in the US-Iran crisis, but no Iraqi leader can afford to oppose Iran as the greatest Shia power. The political geography of this part of the Middle East has been transformed since the Iran-Iraq war, with change very much to the advantage of Iran. From the Afghan border to the Mediterranean – in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon – Shia communities are in control or are the most powerful forces in the state. The US and UK often refer to them as “Iranian proxies” but in practice Iran leads a sectarian coalition with a religious basis.
It is a coalition which has already won its main battles – with Shia parties in Iraq, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon – and this outcome is not going to change. The Houthis in Yemen, who belong to a different Shia variant, have survived a prolonged attempt by Saudi Arabia and UAE to defeat them.
Compared with 28 years ago in the Gulf when the US was last fighting a limited war with Iran, the US is in a weaker position. Israel, Saudi Arabia and UAE may have urged Trump to tear up the nuclear deal and confront Iran, but they show no enthusiasm to join any war that ensues. Supposing that this month’s pin-prick attacks on tankers were indeed carried out by Iran, which seems likely, then the purpose will have been to send message that, if Iran’s oil exports can be cut off, so too can those of the other Gulf producers. Trump thinks he can avoid the quagmire of another Middle East war, but he may already be in too deep.
- Stunned Anderson Cooper Cuts CNN Interview After Trump Accuser Calls Rape "Sexy"
Less than 48 hours after columnist (and soon to be book author) E. Jean Carroll accused (in a New York Magazine article) Donald Trump of raping her in a dressing room in high-end department store, Bergdorf Goodman, in the 1990’s, CNN had gleefully invited the accuser on to discuss the details of this horrific act from her past.
Things did not go according to plan for CNN… and we suspect for Ms. Carroll’s book sales.
While President Trump has vehemently denied the rape took place, a sensitive Anderson Cooper welcomed the woman on to his CNN show… then things went ‘full awkward’.
Cooper asked Carroll, “you don’t feel like a victim?” after she suggested that was the case, and things went downhill fast.
The seemingly unstable Carroll replied, “I was not flung to the floor.”
Cooper retorted, “I think most people think of rape as a violent assault…”
To which Carrol replied, stunning the CNN anchor, “I think most people think of rape as being sexy…”
Cooper stuttered, stumbled, and quickly cut the interview straight to a commercial break, but not before Carroll could add “…think of the fantasies.”
Perhaps next time, CNN will vet the mental health of their Trump-bashing guests a little better? Are we still supposed to believe every accuser or did Carroll just crush the credibility of the last two years of #MeToo-ism accusations in one 30-second breakdown?
- Is This Nation The Next "Digital Nomad" Hotspot?
Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,
By the summer of 1936, Europe was in a state of perpetual crisis. Hitler’s rise to power, German invasion of the Rhineland, Spanish Civil War, Fascist Coup attempt in France, etc. World War was just a few years away.
25-year old Scotsman with a proper Scottish name – Fitzroy MacLean, who was in the His Majesty’s Foreign Service, was on his way from Paris to his new post in Moscow, where he would spend the next few years of his life traveling around the Soviet Union… and specifically Eurasia.
No Westerner had been to the region for decades.
He wrote his memoirs of the trip in a great book called Eastern Approaches. It’s a must read for any travel lover. To give you a flavor of the book, Maclean describes a night he spent in a dingy basement room at an inn where the floor above him was a restaurant:
At a point which must have been just above my bed a team of six solidly built Armenians were executing, with immense gusto, a Cossack dance, kicking out their legs to the front and sides and springing in the air, to the accompaniment of a full-sized band and of frenzied shouting and hand-clapping from all present. There was no hope of sleep. I ordered a bottle of vodka and decided to make a night of it.
Maclean writes very fondly of Almaty, then the capital city of the Soviet republic of Uzbekistan
Alma Ata must be one of the pleasantest provincial towns in the Soviet Union. . .
In Kazakh its new name means ‘Father of Apples’, an appellation which it fully merits, for the apples grown there are the finest in size and flavour that I have ever eaten. The central part of the town consists of wide avenues of poplars at right angles to one another.
In some respects, very little has changed. Almaty is still very much a provincial town– quiet, picturesque with tree-lined streets and bazaars.
It’s no longer the capital– that distinction is in a city formerly known as Akmolinsk, which became Akmola, and was then renamed Astana in the 1990s, and renamed again to Nursultan a few months ago.
Almaty is more quaint and traditional than Astana/Nursultan. It’s incredibly cheap.
Gasoline is about 40c per liter, less than $1.50 per gallon.
Kazakhstan’s economy is a one-trick pony. But it’s a great trick… one that has created a lot of wealth.
70% of exports are energy. #1 producer of uranium, with roughly 40% of the world’s supply. Top producer of coal, oil, and gas.
Limited population… smaller than metropolitan Paris, but larger than all of Western Europe combined.
So this has had a hugely beneficial impact that has actually trickled down and created a robust middle class.
You can see a lot of wealth. Nice houses, nice apartments, nice cars. Incredible infrastructure– highways better than what I’ve driven on in North America and Europe.
Despite that economic success and robust growth, this is definitely not a place for a casual entrepreneur. Large scale energy or agricultural project, sure.
What’s really compelling is for people who are location-independent… who can take their work with them and roam from place to place. Tens of millions of people, more and more every day.
Kazakhstan ticks the boxes… sufficient Internet speed (minor censoring that’s easy to get around with VPNs), incredibly cheap.
Good lifestyle– plenty of nightlife, plush shopping malls and restaurants.
Remote, but easy to get to. Air Astana flies to plenty of gateway cities like Bangkok, Hong Kong, Beijing, Dubai, Moscow, etc. plus other major airlines fly to/from Frankfurt, Istanbul.
But there are lots of cheap places with decent Internet.
What’s really exceptional about this place is the outdoors… it’s Disneyland for nature lovers.
20 minutes in one direction and you’re in the Tien Shan: Mountains of Heaven. Ski resorts, hiking, cable car rides, pristine alpine lakes.
20 minutes in the other direction and you’re in the vast open plains… the legendary steppe grasslands of central Eurasia that extend all the way to Mongolia.
I spent some time here en route to Uzbekistan for our Total Access trip. Wild horses across the infinite openness. Some of the most scenic vistas I’ve ever seen traveling across 120+ countries on all seven continents.
And no one else around. You feel like you’re on your own planet. No endless nuisance of rules and signs telling you what to do, where to go, etc. Just beauty and freedom.
And to continue learning how to ensure you thrive no matter what happens next in the world, I encourage you to download our free Perfect Plan B Guide.
- iPhone X Sales Collapse Triggers Serious Breach Of Contract With Samsung
In an exclusive, ChannelNews reveals Apple is facing hundreds of millions of dollars in penalty payments to Samsung because iPhone demand has fallen.
Apple “demanded” that Samsung construct one of the world’s biggest OLED manufacturing facilities exclusively for iPhone screens.
Overconfidence of Tim Cook, not adjusting forecasts for trade wars nor a structural decline in global growth, has crushed Apple iPhone demand across the world and breached the contract of 100M OLED iPhone screens per year with Samsung.
“Although Apple requested Samsung Display to extend its plant believing that it would use about 100 million OLED panels annually, actual market demand was far lower than Apple’ prediction.” said a Samsung media executive.
“Samsung Display took a huge blow as a result and requested a penalty from Apple in accordance with the contract.” they added.
While trade wars and lower global growth negatively weighed on iPhone demand, the price of the iPhone X also deterred consumers from upgrading.
Sources told ChannelNews the contract between both companies had significant “penalty clauses,” which Apple is currently trying to finagle itself out of. Another source told the Australian news outlet that Apple had already made one tranche of payments covering part of the fine.
Apple responded by announcing the supplied Samsung OLED were “faulty” which sources say is a stalling tactic as lawyers are negotiating the fines.
In a separate report, ETNews says the Samsung A3 plant, can deliver 105,000 6th generation flexible OLED panels per month, is working under 50% capacity.
ETNews says Apple will likely skip out on paying the complete fine to Samsung. Instead, the company will upgrade iPhone XR, iPads, and MacBooks with OLED panels to compensate for the loss of the iPhone X.
“Apple made some suggestions such as guaranteeing the supply of OLED panels for other Apple products. Samsung Display was also levied a small penalty due to faulty performance of few panels that were supplied to Apple and they are looking into many options as they both have to pay each other a penalty,” an industry source said.
The drop in units for Apple iPhone X with an OLED screen is occurring at the same time the smartphone bubble is deflating. Even Samsung Galaxy smartphones are experiencing declining sales.
ETNews said Apple has started to work with LG Display for OLED panels, but analysts believe the move will result in less production capacity and more expensive OLED panels than Samsung.
Apple has also invested in JDI (Japan Display) who will be manufacturing the company’s LED panels in the near future.
It’s hard to imagine how the largest corporation in the world [Apple] could make such a careless sales forecast of one of its most popular products that resulted in hefty fines. Nevertheless, what’s more, baffling is how Apple couldn’t see the cycle down of the global economy that started in 1Q18.
- EIA Warns "Limited Options To Bypass" Straits Of Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz, located between Oman and Iran, connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. The Strait of Hormuz is the world’s most important oil chokepoint because of the large volumes of oil that flow through the strait. In 2018, its daily oil flow averaged 21 million barrels per day (b/d), or the equivalent of about 21% of global petroleum liquids consumption.
Chokepoints are narrow channels along widely used global sea routes that are critical to global energy security. The inability of oil to transit a major chokepoint, even temporarily, can lead to substantial supply delays and higher shipping costs, resulting in higher world energy prices. Although most chokepoints can be circumvented by using other routes that add significantly to transit time, some chokepoints have no practical alternatives.
Volumes of crude oil, condensate, and petroleum products transiting the Strait of Hormuz have been fairly stable since 2016, when international sanctions on Iran were lifted and Iran’s oil production and exports returned to pre-sanctions levels. Flows through the Strait of Hormuz in 2018 made up about one-third of total global seaborne traded oil. More than one-quarter of global liquefied natural gas trade also transited the Strait of Hormuz in 2018.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on Short-Term Energy Outlook (June 2019), ClipperData, Saudi Aramco bond prospectus, Saudi Aramco annual reports, Saudi Ports Authority, International Group of Liquefied Natural Gas Importers, and U.N. Conference on Trade and Development
Note: LNG is liquefied natural gas; Tcf is trillion cubic feetThere are limited options to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
Only Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have pipelines that can ship crude oil outside the Persian Gulf and have the additional pipeline capacity to circumvent the Strait of Hormuz. At the end of 2018, the total available crude oil pipeline capacity from the two countries combined was estimated at 6.5 million b/d. In that year, 2.7 million b/d of crude oil moved through the pipelines, leaving about 3.8 million b/d of unused capacity that could have bypassed the strait.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on ClipperData, Saudi Aramco bond prospectus (April 2019)
Note: Unused capacity is defined as pipeline capacity that is not currently used but can be readily available.Based on tanker tracking data published by ClipperData, Saudi Arabia moves the most crude oil and condensate through the Strait of Hormuz, most of which is exported to other countries (less than 0.5 million b/d transited the strait in 2018 from Saudi ports in the Persian Gulf to Saudi ports in the Red Sea).
EIA estimates that 76% of the crude oil and condensate that moved through the Strait of Hormuz went to Asian markets in 2018. China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore were the largest destinations for crude oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz to Asia, accounting for 65% of all Hormuz crude oil and condensate flows in 2018.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on tanker tracking data published by ClipperData, Inc.
In 2018, the United States imported about 1.4 million b/d of crude oil and condensate from Persian Gulf countries through the Strait of Hormuz, accounting for about 18% of total U.S. crude oil and condensate imports and 7% of total U.S. petroleum liquids consumption.
- Pakistanis Boycott Proctor & Gamble After Feminist Detergent Ad Insults Islam
Proctor & Gamble has come under fire in Pakistan after running a commercial for their Ariel soap brand which encourages women to break free of conservative norms and pursue careers, according to Gulf News.
In the ad, several women representing different professions – including a journalist and doctor – are seen pushing dirty sheets hanging on a clothesline off the screen.
The sheets are printed with common refrains used to reinforce the oppression of women in Pakistan, including the question “What will people say?”, which heralds scandal every time a woman chooses to challenge gender norms.
The commercial ends with a close-up shot of the Pakistan women’s cricket team captain Bismah Maroof saying: “Stay within the house… these are not only sentences but stains”. –Gulf News
The ad, according to Pakistanis, is an insult to Islam – and has been accordingly assigned the hashtag “#Boycott Ariel” over Twitter.
آئیے ہم سب ایک بات طے کرلیں۔#BoycottAriel pic.twitter.com/NwuhbiJtZ7
— Faizan Akhtar (@FaizanAkhtar313) June 24, 2019
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“They (are) insulting Islamic teaching in their advertising,” wrote Binte Suleman on Twitter.
Another critic, Ahmed, wants Proctor & Gamble punished “for such conspiracy against our Islamic values.”
We demand to remove/ban the cheap advertise immediately on media & to punish the company for such conspiracy against our Islamic values.#BoycottAriel#BanAriel pic.twitter.com/rEyZPwSlPq
— Ahmed (@imMhboob) June 22, 2019
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#BoycottAriel
After Aurat march another stupidity, goofines,cheapness is here…
Please take action against🚫 these liberals, who promoting liberalism in Pakistan. They destroy the teaching of Islam & promoting fitna. Really the end is near…🙏 pic.twitter.com/scbJROGTeX— S🆎🅰️ KhAn 🇸🇦 🇵🇰 (@SabaKhan18sabs) June 22, 2019
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As Gulf News notes: “Much of society lives under a patriarchal, outdated code of so-called “honour” that systemises the oppression of women who defy tradition by, for example, choosing their own husband or working outside the home.”
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