Sep 25

Today’s News 25th September 2018

  • Watch Algerian First Arrivals: Spain's 2019 Migration Crisis Will Dwarf Italy's Disaster

    According to GEFIRA’s source, these migrants left Algeria.

    Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Turkey are functioning now as transit countries while neither Frontex nor the European Union are showing any signs to solve the problems.

    A total of 152 immigrants aboard 13 pateras have been rescued while they were adrift in Cartagena waters.

    The navigators have been assisted by Red Cross personnel.

    Once identified, they have been taken into the custody of the National Police, which processes the documents.

     Source Telecartagena

  • America Is Quietly Expanding Its War In Tunisia

    Authored by Heni Nsaibia via The National Interest,

    The first documented U.S. direct military engagement in Tunisia since World War II has largely passed unnoticed…

    Last month, a U.S. Africa Command spokesperson confirmed in a Task & Purpose report that Marine Corps Raiders were involved in a fierce battle in 2017 in an unnamed North African country, where they fought beside partner forces against militants of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). AFRICOM acknowledged that two Marines received citations for valor but withheld certain details, such as the location – undisclosed due to “classification considerations, force protection, and diplomatic sensitivities.” The command also said the Marine Special Operations unit was engaged while on a three-day train, advise and assist operation. However, subsequent research and analysis strongly suggest U.S. involvement runs much deeper. In fact, the dramatic events described in the award citations obtained by Task & Purpose align with those that took place in Tunisia, which has been combatting a low-level insurgency in its western borderlands for the past seven years. Evidence indicates the battle occurred at Mount Semmama, a mountain range in the Kasserine governorate, near the Algerian border. There, the United States sustained its first casualty in action in Tunisia since World War II.

    While not of the same magnitude, the events that AFRICOM confirmed took place on Feb. 28, 2017, echo a disastrous ambush less than seven months later in the village of Tongo Tongo, Niger. In that battle, members of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara killed four Army Special Forces soldiers and four Nigerien partners. U.S. partner forces engaged militants of AQIM’s Tunisian branch, the Uqba ibn Nafaa Battalion (KUBN) in a firefight, which resulted in the killing of one militant. The engagement also necessitated a request for air support to rout the militants. The jihadis then attempted to flank the joint U.S.-Tunisian force from the rear, forcing the Marines to return fire. While engaged on the ground, U.S. forces were also part of the air-support component. When a Tunisian soldier manning an M60 machine gun aboard a helicopter sustained wounds after being shot twice by militants returning accurate fire, a U.S. Marine Raider took control of the machine gun to maintain suppressive fire against the militants and simultaneously treated the wounded Tunisian soldier. The Marine Raider unit and their Tunisian partner force each sustained one casualty in the battle, both of whom recovered from their wounds. At the time, local media reported the incident without alluding to any U.S. participation.

    Eventually, Tunisian forces secured the site of the battle and seized an Austrian Steyr AUG rifle, ammunition, and other supplies. Two jihadis were killed in action: a Tunisian and an Algerian. The latter was a veteran insurgent who was wounded a decade earlier by a U.S. airstrike while fighting under the banner of Al Qaeda in Iraq, according to a biographical note published by Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate. However, any U.S. involvement in connection to his death was never mentioned.

    The United States has maintained a military presence in Tunisia for at least four-and-a-half years, rendering it unlikely that the events of Mount Semmama were an isolated incident limited to a mere advisory role, as the AFRICOM spokesperson claimed. The battle involving U.S. troops occurred amid an intense campaign aimed at dislodging militants from their mountain stronghold. Eleven days before the jointly conducted U.S.-Tunisia operation, another operation had taken place at a nearby location at Mount Semmama, also resulting in the killing of two militants. It is presently unknown whether U.S. troops participated in the preceding operation. It remains an open question as to whether the knowledge of the U.S. encounter in Kasserine would have eventually surfaced had Task & Purpose not filed a Freedom of Information Act request. It was that request which prompted AFRICOM’s release of the partially redacted commendations for valor awarded to two Marine Raiders for their actions at Mount Semmama.

    Since its 2010 revolution, Tunisia has carried a burden of expectations as a regional model for democracy, challenged with building political consensus, a staggering economy, a population yearning for progress, and rising security challenges. In this context, the United States has sought to sustain Tunisia’s shaky democratic transition primarily by shoring up its military, which received steadily increasing security assistance from 2014 to 2017. Tunisia now receives more U.S. defense aid than any other country in North Africa and the Sahel region, except for Egypt.

    The U.S. military presence has been continuous since February 2014, when the Pentagon deployed a team of several dozen special operations troops to a remote base in western Tunisia. Tunisian soldiers accompanied by U.S. military advisors have on at least one occasion discovered and observed a populated militant camp in Kasserine. In the years since, the Air Force component of AFRICOM has frequently flown intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions across Tunisia from bases in Sigonella and Pantelleria, Italy. In the wake of the March 2015 terrorist attack at the Bardo Museum in Tunis, U.S. forces provided operational assistance to a counterterrorism operation targeting core members of KUBN in the town of Sidi Aich, Gafsa. U.S. staff and drones have also operated out of the Sidi Ahmed Air Base in Bizerte.

    The U.S.-Tunisia partnership in the military and security domain is multifaceted. It is composed of defense capacity-building, strengthening border security, and as is so often emphasized, training partner forces in counterterrorism strategies and tactics. However, the questions of U.S. troops and drones operated out of Tunisia have been a source of polemic and its sensitivity should not be underestimated. American foreign policy is generally unpopular and unfavorable attitudes toward the United States are widespread in Tunisian society. For instance, in 2012 protesters outraged by an anti-Islamic short film ransacked the U.S. embassy and set fire to a nearby American school in the capital of Tunis. More recently, the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital triggered a wave of protests across Tunisia. The issue of U.S. military presence has also sparked controversy, being the subject of heated debates at the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, Tunisia’s parliament. On numerous occasions, there has been pressure on President Béji Caid Essebsi and Prime Minister Youssef Chahed on the matter of national sovereignty. Furthermore, the revelation of the clash in Kasserine eighteen months ago testifies to a deeper level U.S. involvement on the ground than AFRICOM is willing to admit. The details of the 2017 battle at Mount Semmama contribute to a slowly growing public understanding of the expansion of covert and overt military action on the African continent, where the United States is secretly at war.

  • Majority Of Europeans Support Refugees, But Disapprove Of EU Policies

    For years, the migration crisis has divided Europe, empowering a populist tidal wave across the continent. According to Eurostat, the number of first time asylum applications in 2017 was 650,000 – substantially lower than in 2016 (1.2 million) and 2015 (1.26 million). However, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, while tensions are still high despite that decline, a new Pew Research survey has found taking in refugees is not the key issue. In fact, most countries have a major problem with how the EU is handling the crisis.

    Pew found that sizeable majorities in Spain, Germany, France and Sweden all support taking in people fleeing violence and war. Even in the UK where Brexit has caused enormous uncertainty and the subject of migration provokes bitter debates, 74 percent of those polled said they favor taking in refugees. In Europe, Hungary is an exception to the supportive trend with 54 percent saying they oppose taking in refugees. In an unprecedented move last week, the European Parliament backed sanctions against Hungary and its right-wing Orban-led government, accusing it of corruption and human rights violations.

    Infographic: Support For Refugees Highest In Western Europe | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    While support for taking in refugees is strong in most EU countries, Pew found that there is widespread disapproval of how the EU is handling the situation. 92 percent of respondents in Greece, 84 percent in Sweden and 80 percent in Hungary all believe the EU is mishandling the crisis. Even in countries where support for taking in refugees is highest, criticism of the EU remains strong. In Germany and France, the share of dissaproval is 66 percent and 74 percent respectively.

    Elsewhere in the world, the picture is more mixed when it comes to helping refugees. While opposition is very strong to taking in refugees in South Africa (50 percent) and Russia (47 percent), it is lower in Australia, Japan and the United States. Looking at the latter, 66 percent of people support taking in refugees while 29 percent are opposed.

  • Tensions Grow As China, Russia, And Iran Lead The Way Towards A New Multipolar World Order

    Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Military and economic tensions are increasing due to the ramped-up warlike-stance of the US establishment. The impossibility of halting the shifting world order in favor of prolonging the unipolar moment has left the US deep state reaching for any available weapon at hand, taking no heed of the dangers and consequences of such a reckless foreign policy.

    With the province of Idlib ever closer to being liberated from terrorists by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), the tensions between the US and Syria (and Syria’s allies) are rising. Every significant military campaign by the SAA seems to be accompanied by the usual alarms and false reports emanating from the Western media and governments warning of an imminent (staged) use of chemical weapons by the SAA. Tensions are rising as several American voices, including that of the President, have expressed the desire to strike Syria over any alleged use of chemical weapons, without even waiting for any independent verification. Threats by the US, the UK and France to bomb Russian troops in Syria are voiced everyday on Western media. The insanity is reaching disturbing levels.

    These developments in Syria appear to be accompanied by the persistent attempts of Ukraine and the United States to sabotage the Minsk agreements, re-igniting the conflict in order to blame it on Russia. The assassination of Aleksandr Zakharchenko, charismatic leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), killed a few days ago in a terrorist attack, should be seen in this light.

    More false accusations against Moscow, this time of having poisoned former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the UK, follow on from allegations of Moscow interfering in the US presidential election. Added to this situation of rising tensions between great powers are the constant threats, together with economic and financial warfare, directed at Iran by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

    It is not surprising that, given this context, the Russian Federation has just carried out the greatest military exercise in its history. The Vostok 2018 military exercise is extensively described by TASS:

    The Vostok 2018 troop exercises have started in Russia’s Far East. Taking part in the drills are about 300,000 Russian troops, over 1,000 aircraft, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles, up to 36,000 tanks, armored personnel carriers and other vehicles, up to 80 ships and supply vessels. Exercises similar in scale have not been held since 1981 when the Zapad-81 drills that involved about 100,000 troops were held in the Soviet Union’s Belarusian, Kiev and Baltic Military Districts and in the Baltic Sea.

    It should not come as a surprise that the People’s Republic of China has sent thousands of men and materiel to participate in the exercise, sending a clear message to Washington and the West. As the West’s warmongering continues, this widely controversial article in The Atlantic came out and provides the following hint:

    The inclusion of a relatively small Chinese contingent in this year’s edition [Vostok 2018 military exercise] is not quite the signal of a military alliance that some see, but it has certainly made the West take notice. It’s hard to escape the symbolism when as Russian and Chinese troops were training together, Putin and Xi Jinping were holding a summit and pledging closer business and political cooperation. At a time when Washington and Europe have tried to isolate Moscow diplomatically, this is clearly intended as a message that Putin is still capable of making connections with countries not willing to follow the West.

    The Eastern Economic Forum held in Vladivostok marks yet another significant point in the new Sino-Russian strategy to isolate and limit Western-induced chaos, strengthen the support for countries affected in one way or another by Washington, and expand cooperation in every direction possible. The economic ties between the two countries’ production systems deserve attention, especially in light of future agreements between the industrial giants of the two countries. The partnership is broad and goes far beyond the territories of Russia and China. Technological cooperation is expanding in regions such as Africa and South East Asia, often symbiotically offering important agreements to third countries. Civil nuclear energy and arms sales seem to be Moscow’s speciality, just as generous loans and joint development of basic resources (hospitals, schools, water networks, sewerage, motorways, ports) are Beijing’s. Such offers of assistance are important for capturing not only the attention of Third World countries keen to break free from the West’s colonial chains, but also of those countries that need to transition quickly into the new multipolar world order.

    An example is Japan, with Abe also present in Vladivostok, exploring ways to balance the Chinese expansion in Asia. In reality, such a reading belongs very much to the Western way of thinking, in which everything must be seen in zero-sum terms. What many in the West struggle to understand, especially among European and American journalists and analysts, is how Washington’s attitude over recent years is actually serving to push together the four Euro-Asian giants of China, Russia, Japan and India. While maintaining sometimes strong ties with the West, the trend is decidedly different from the past. Abe was in discussion with Putin to sign the long-awaited peace agreement between the two countries. India seems increasingly anxious to expand its strategic independence, especially from an energy point of view, cooperating with Iran and ignoring Western sanctions, and from a military standpoint, buying the S-400 air defence system.

    In general, a multipolar environment of international relations already prevails in vast areas of the planet, both from a military and economic standpoint. De-dollarization appears to be an inevitable trend for the purposes of achieving significant economic sovereignty, thereby avoiding the vulnerability of US-dollar blackmail as a destabilization tool used by Washington and the Federal Reserve. With an imminent economic crisis in the West, fuelled and exacerbated by more than ten years of artificially printed money (quantitative easing), an economic prophylactic is a priority for Washington’s declared rivals (Iran, China, Russia). The consequences for the international financial system could be much more serious than the two previous crises of 1929 and 2008, especially according to Chris Hedge in his recent analysis.

    Unprecedented joint military exercises, economic cooperation as a means of diversification, strategic partnerships – these have become normal in Eurasia, especially for Russia, China and Iran, who continue to advance their formula for overcoming the chaos wrought by Washington and her Israeli and Saudi sidekicks. The prevailing modus operandi of Western policy-makers for countries they cannot control seems to be to sic onto them the dogs of chaos and destabilization in order to destroy them. This can be seen, for example, in the assassination of Zakharchenko in eastern Ukraine (Donbass) by the Kiev junta, probably even employing elements of Daesh or al Qaeda; the same tools used by the US in the Middle East to sow chaos.

    The situation is not different in Syria, with Washington, London and Paris intent on stopping the liberation of Idlib, a remaining pocket containing thousands of Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists. Seventeen years after September 11th 2001, the United States unstintingly supports the terrorists who, according to the official story, killed thousands of its own civilians on home soil.

    Logic and reason seem to have been abandoned long ago in Washington’s decision-making, even more so given that Trump has completely renounced all his electoral promises regarding foreign policy. The rapprochement with Moscow is now a distant mirage; the special relationship between Xi Jinping and Trump is just the latter’s propaganda, anxious as he is to reach an agreement with the DPRK and show some example of success to his base.

    The logic of imposing more than $200 billion in tariffs on Chinese products, and then asking for strong support from Beijing in mediation with Pyongyang, seems more like the moves of a desperate person rather than those of an amateur. Even historical allies like South Korea, Pakistan, India and Turkey, as repeatedly stressed recently, fear Washington’s irrationality and politics of “America First” and are running for cover. They are diversifying energy resources and ignoring American diktats, buying armaments from Russia, cooperating with China in large infrastructure projects to connect the vast Eurasian continent, and participating in economic and financial forums to diversify funding and cooperate on a new and industrial level.

    Indeed, the strategic triangle that emerges between Tehran, Beijing and Moscow, seems to draw all the neighbouring countries into a large geopolitical waltz. A transition to a multipolar reality brings many advantages to Washington’s allies, but it also brings many tensions with American oligarchs. The example of the sale of the S-400 in Ankara is an important wake-up call for the oligarchs of the American military-industrial complex, who see a potential loss in revenue. In the same way, the creation of an alternative system to SWIFT strongly reduces the centrality of American banking institutions and thus their political weight. We must also keep in mind Sino-Russian actions in Africa, which are progressively breaking the chains of Western neo-colonialism, thereby freeing African countries to pursue a more balanced foreign policy focused on their national interests.

    This transition phase that we have been living in over the last few years will continue for some time. Like an already written script, the trend is easily discernible to a lucid mind free of Western propaganda. Erdogan certainly is not a person to be completely trusted, and the talks in Astana should be understood in this light, especially if viewed from the Russian-Iranian point of view. Yet such cooperation opens the door to an unprecedented future, although at present Astana seems more like an alternative to a bloody war between countries in Syria than a conversation between allies. Syria’s future will unavoidably see the country’s territorial integrity maintained, thanks to allies who are now disengaged from the Western system and are gravitating around centers of power opposed to Washington, namely Beijing, Moscow and Tehran.

    The reconstruction of the country will bypass western sanctions and bring significant amounts of money to the country. In the same way Iraq, once under the rule of a dictator friendly to Washington, today openly and genuinely collaborates with Moscow, and especially Tehran, in defeating the Wahhabi proxies of Riyadh, an American ally.

    The economic battle serves to complete the picture, with European allies forced to suffer huge economic losses as a result of sanctions against Russia and Iran. The tariffs on trade, especially to countries like Turkey, Japan and South Korea (although it seems that this proposal was intentionally sabotaged by a collaborator within the Trump administration), are further serving to push US allies to explore alternatives in terms of trust and cooperation.

    China and Russia have seized the opportunities, offering through adroit diplomacy military, industrial and economic proposals that are drawing Washington’s historical allies into a new political reality where there is less space for Washington’s diktats.

    The European establishment in some Western countries like Germany, France and the UK seems to have decided wait out Trump (this torture perhaps brought to an early end through a palace coup). But many others have instead intuited what is really happening in the West. Two factions are fighting each other, but still within the confines of a shared worldview that sees the United States as the only benevolent world power, and the likes of China and Russia as rivals that need to be contained. In such a difficult situation to manage, well-known leaders like Modi, Abe, Moon Jae-In and Erdogan are starting to take serious steps towards exploring possible alternatives to an exclusive alliance with the United States, that is, towards experiencing the benefits of a multipolar-world environment.

    It is not just a question for these countries of breaking the strategic alliance with the United States. This aspect will probably not change for several years, especially in countries that have enormous military and economic ties with Washington. The path that South Korea, Turkey and Japan appear to be taking is deeply rooted in the concept of Multipolarity, which diversifies international relations, allowing countries to shop around to find the best opportunities. It is therefore not surprising to see the Japanese prime minister and the Russian president discussing at the economic forum in Vladivostok the possibility of signing a historic peace treaty. In the same way, if Turkey suffers a double political and economic attack from the US, it should not surprise us if they decide to purchase the S-400 defense system from Russia or start a full fledged campaign to de-dollarize. Such examples could be repeated, but the case of South Korea stands out. There is no need for Seoul to wait for Washington to mess things up diplomatically with Pyongyang before discussing the rebirth of relations between the two countries. Seoul is anxious to seize the opportunity for a renewed dialogue between leaders and solve the Korean impasse as much as possible. Finally, India, which has no intention of losing the opportunity for an economic partnership with Beijing and a military one with Moscow, launched the basis for a multi-party discussion between the Eurasian powers on the Afghan situation that has caused so much friction with Islamabad, especially with the new political phase that Imran Khan’s victory as Pakistan’s prime minister promises.

    Washington faces all these scenarios with skepticism, annoyance and disgust, fearing losing important countries and its ability to determine the regional balance around the planet. What fascinates many analysts is the stubbornness and stupidity of US policy-makers. The more they try to prolong the US unipolar moment, the more incentive they give to other countries to jump on the multipolar bandwagon.

    Even countries that probably have deep ties with the United States on an oligarchic level will have no alternative other than to modify and redesign their strategic alliances over the next 30 years. The United States continues along the path of diplomatic arrogance and strategic stupidity, mired in a civil war among its elites, with no end in sight.

    Each scenario involving the US now has to be viewed with two factors in mind: not just the attempt to maintain an imperialist posture, but also an internal struggle involving its elites. This adds a further level of confusion for America’s allies and the world in general, who strain to decipher the next moves of a deep state totally out of control.

  • The Anatomy Of A Cannabis Plant, And Its Lifecycle

    By 2027, it’s projected that the legal cannabis market in the U.S. and Canada could hit $47.3 billion in size.

    As Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes, that will make it bigger than annual global sales for raw metals like nickel and silver put together. It would be a size that even exceeds the North American pork market.

    But while almost everyone has a sense of the basic mechanics of mining or ranching, knowledge around the essentials of cannabis are understandably not as well ingrained in our culture.

    CANNABIS PLANTS 101

    Today’s infographic comes to us from The Green Organic Dutchman, and it breaks down the anatomy of a cannabis plant, the differences between types of plants, and also the basics around cannabis cultivation.

    Courtesy of: Visual Capitalist

    Here are some of the more important things you need to know about the plant:

    Plant Anatomy
    Commercial cannabis comes from the female species, which have long skinny stems and large, iconic fan leaves. The plant is trimmed down into buds, which come together in a cola at the top of the stem.

    Trichomes are a blanket of crystal resin coating the cannabis plant, and they contain both terpenes and cannabinoids.

    Cannabinoids
    The two most well-known cannabinoids are THC and CBD, which also occur in the largest volume.

    Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is known to cause psychoactive effects or the “high” felt from cannabis.
    Effects: pain relief, anti-nausea, sleep aid, appetite and mood stimulant.

    Cannabidiol (CBD) lacks nearly any psychoactive effect, making it preferred as a medicine.
    Effects: pain relief, anti-nausea, anti-inflammatory, anti-anxiety, seizure reduction.

    Other cannabinoids such as cannabichromene (CBC), cannbigerol (CBG), and cannabinol (CBN), have similar therapeutic properties. Research is also validating the plant’s efficacy in treating medical conditions such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, PTSD, and Alzheimer’s.

    Terpenes
    Terpenes are organic, aromatic compounds found in the oils of all flowers, including cannabis. Interestingly, these oils have their own independent medical potential that is waiting to be unlocked.

    Cannabinoids and terpenes work in harmony, resulting in an “entourage effect” and enhances the medical properties of cannabis

    Sativa, Indica, Hybrid
    There are two common types of cannabis plants: sativa and indica.

    Sativa plants have long and thin leaves that are lighter in color. Buds are long and wispy, and feature red or orange coloring. They tend to contain high THC and low CBD levels – optimal for daytime use, described as being energizing, stimulating, and creative.

    Indica plants have leaves that are wide, broad, and deep in color. Buds are dense and tightly packed, featuring purple coloring. Indica usually contains medium levels of THC, and a higher amount of CBD. Its effects are often described as being relaxing and calming, which is more optimal for nighttime use.

    It’s also worth noting that hybrid strains can often bring together the best qualities of both into one plant.

    THE LIFECYCLE OF A CANNABIS PLANT

    Every stage of growth of a cannabis plant needs different care:

    1. Germination (Seed): 1-2 weeks
    Seeds ready for germination are dark brown, hard, and dry. Encourage sprouting by watering seeds in a paper towel.

    2. Seedling: 2-3 weeks
    Move seeds into growing medium. Plants need the maximum light at this stage, and appropriate water levels. Cotyledon (seed leaves) and iconic fan leaves will grow.

    Light: 18-24 hours
    Humidity: 70%
    Temperature: 20-25°C

    3. Vegetative: 2-8 weeks
    Plants need flowing dry air, fresh warm water, and increased nutrients – especially nitrogen. It’s important at this stage to separate male and female plants before pollination to prevent female plants producing seeds instead of trichomes.

    Light: 12 hours sunlight (18 hours fluorescent light)
    Humidity: 50%
    Temperature: 20-24°C

    4. Flowering: 6-8 weeks
    Gradually reduce light exposure to produce medicinal qualities. Increase phosphorous levels and decrease nitrogen. Fertilizers can help stimulate bud formation.

    Light: 12 hours
    Humidity: 40-50%
    Temperature: 20-28 °C

    5. Harvesting
    Trim and dry the buds. The plant is ripe when buds turn from milky white to reddish orange. Harvest once 70-90% of pistils are browned for maximized taste and effect.

    Humidity: 50%
    Temperature: 20-25°C

    As the cannabis industry matures, consumers will demand the highest-quality products. Growing cannabis in a natural environment is increasingly vital to create a premium end-product.

    In the next part of this series, we will dive into various growing methods and the benefits of organic methods on quality and effects of cannabis.

  • Why Chris Hedges Thinks The American Empire Has Lost Control… And Its Failure Is Imminent

    Authored by Brian Bethune via Macleans.ca,

    Pretending the world isn’t bleak feeds the mania for unreal hope that exists within American culture…

    Chris Hedges – Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, ordained Presbyterian minister, ferocious anti-corporate activist and prolific author – has long occupied an isolated spot among American public intellectuals, as much a moral crusader as a political critic. But as American, and Western, politics continue to decay and xenophobic nativism continues to rise, Hedges, 61, seems less and less an outlier, his critique of contemporary America more acceptable to his countrymen. And that’s without walking back any of his analysis. If Hedges was worried nine years ago in Empire of Illusion that his nation – like all republics before it – would fail to survive the acquisition of an empire, he’s now convinced it won’t. The title of his newest book, America: The Farewell Tour, says it all. In powerfully reported chapters – including “Decay” (deindustrialization), “Heroin” (the opioid epidemic), “Sadism” (the pornography-industrial complex), and “Hate” (racism) – Hedges talks to the most oppressed and dispossessed citizens of an empire he thinks has not much more than a decade of life left.

    Q: A very bleak and wide-ranging report. The Farewell Tour is, in its way, the antithesis of Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now.

    A: That book is the modern version of Candide. I mean it is completely unplugged from reality. Pinker, who has spent his life in academic gardens like Harvard, just doesn’t understand what societies look like when they break down. I’ve been there. I’m not an academic. I was primarily a war correspondent for 28 years. Pinker doesn’t get the dark side of human nature and how technology has, in degenerated societies, accelerated the power to commit wholesale slaughter. People love his book. It’s what they want to hear. But it’s not real.

    Q: Yet he is correct that much of the world, especially in Asia, has been lifted out of poverty in the last generation.

    A: But consider income inequality in China. It’s massive—there’s now a Chinese oligarchy just like the ones in the rest of the world. China is buying up half of Vancouver—what’s that town north of Vancouver that’s becoming the largest Chinese-speaking city outside of China? Richmond? To somehow measure wealth by GDP is a mistake. Having worked in places, especially Africa, in vast urban slums, I know the poverty is worse [than it was] for people who at least had subsistence agriculture before. So the whole measurement of wealth is wrong. The rise of global oligarchic classes with obscene amounts of money doesn’t mean the world’s richer. Not unless you read Thomas Friedman.

    Q: You argue from a socialist perspective…

    A: I’m not an ideologue. I once gave a talk in a Canadian university—I think it was the University of Winnipeg—some place where you can still hire Marxist economists. That doesn’t happen in America. Anyway, I finished my talk and one of the members of the economics department who had been sitting in the back stood up and said to the students, “I just want to make it clear that he’s not really a socialist, he’s a radical Keynesian.” Which actually is true. He wasn’t wrong. I’m not a Marxist. I read Marx and I think Marxist critique and understanding of capitalism is absolutely vital and true and probably the greatest critique we have. If I were running a hedge fund, I would only hire Marxists because they understand that capitalism is about exploitation, the maximization of profit and reducing the cost of labour. I think sometimes, to put it in Canadian vernacular, I’m a Tommy Douglas socialist.

    Q: I think “perspective” still works here, given you don’t see any difference between the purported liberal and conservative parties in the U.S. or in the rest of the developed world.

    A: Put it this way: nations have lost control of their own economies, in essence. So it doesn’t matter what people want. There is no way to vote against the global interests of Goldman Sachs or ExxonMobil. You can’t do it. And this, of course, is what has created political crises. The result is anger and authoritarian populist figures like Orbán in Hungary and the leaders of the current Polish government, and similar strong movements in France, Germany, Italy. This is a global phenomenon of which Trump is a part. But there’s an important difference. America is an empire. So we’re much more fragile than nation-states, non-imperial countries.

    Q: And much more dangerous. You cite historians who note how rising empires tend to be judicious in their use of military force, while declining empires are prone to wild swings of the bat to try to stay on top.

    A: Yes, much more dangerous. You see that throughout history: the ancient Greeks invading Sicily, and their entire fleet sunk, thousands of soldiers killed and their empire becoming unsustainable; or in 1956 when Britain tries to invade Egypt after the nationalization of the Suez Canal, retreats in humiliation and thereby triggers a financial crisis and the end of the pound sterling as a reserve currency, marking the death of the British Empire, which had been on a slow descent since the end of World War One. The dollar as the world’s current reserve currency is running on fumes. The moment that’s over, American financial supremacy is instantly finished. It will be very similar to the aftermath of the Suez disaster—something like that is always characteristic of late empire. And the fragility of an empire means that when collapse comes it’s almost instantaneous. You look back at the rapid final fall of the old Soviet Union. A failing empire is like a house of cards that just comes down—it’s not a slow descent. We know from history what happens. It’s not a mystery.

    Q: You don’t believe there is anything the system—meaning the opposition party, meaning the Democrats—can do to effect real change in the U.S.

    A: Let’s be clear. The Democratic Party under Bill Clinton transformed itself into the traditional Republican Party, and the Republican Party moved, was pushed, so far to the right it became insane. The Democratic Party is a creation of the better-educated, more enlightened wing of the billionaire class, those who don’t want to be identified as racist, misogynist, homophobic Islamophobes. But fundamentally, the economic structures and imperial structures remain untouched because the Democratic Party, like the Republican Party, depends on corporate money to exist. So figures like [Nancy] Pelosi or [Chuck] Schumer have power within the party because they control the money and which candidates get the money. They’re the bag people, and they are acutely aware that should they institute real electoral reform—purging corporate money from the system—they wouldn’t hold political power. However decayed the ship of state is, they are not going to give up their first-class cabins. The Democrats’ entire electoral strategy is to hope that Trump implodes.

    Q: To run on “we’re not Trump”?

    A: Yeah—which could fail, by the way. Their elites, which include the media elites, are woefully out of touch with the country.

    Q: When you write about Charlottesville, it’s clear you feel that all the people there, whether neo-Nazis or counter-protesters, were reacting to the same economic, social and psychological dislocations.

    A: Yes.

    Q: With no answers at all from their government short of mass incarceration?

    A: That’s right, that and militarized police. And again, in Canada too—look at the streets of Toronto during the G20.

    Q: So that is the answer to the question puzzled liberals pose in America: why do Trump supporters in particular, or Republican working-class supporters in general, vote against what liberals see as their own interests?

    A: That idea is just untrue. The Democratic Party has long abandoned working-class America. And the sense of betrayal on the part of the Democrats was deeper because traditionally the Democrats had been at least open to the interests of labour. That was all abolished under Bill Clinton, who—like Hillary—understood astutely that if they did corporate bidding they would get corporate money. The political spectrum in the United States across the two major parties is now so narrow as to be almost irrelevant. What they argue about are cultural or social issues. But that’s a form of anti-politics. They don’t actually argue about anything of substance in terms of the economy or foreign policy. That’s why you see complete continuity between Republican and Democratic administrations. So the rage is quite legitimate. That was fascinating for me when I was in Anderson, Ind., which is—was—one of GM’s epicentres. After NAFTA, carmakers could move to Mexico and pay workers $3 an hour without benefits. According to the old UAW officials, their members voted for Sanders in the primary but then voted for Trump in the general, because they weren’t going to vote for Clinton. They were fully aware that their city, their lives, their families, their ability to make an income that could sustain them, was taken away from them by the Democratic Party machine. Oh, and when I say complete continuity, one caveat—Barack Obama’s assault on civil liberties and levels of deportations of undocumented workers were actually worse than Bush’s.

    Q: Civil liberties have been eroding for quite a while in the U.S., at least since the Patriot Act.

    A: This is global. You have it in Canada, too. That security bill Harper passed that Trudeau hasn’t revoked? Your wholesale surveillance is as draconian as ours.

    Q: One of your major themes is that contemporary politics has neither language nor platform to talk about economics and social issues from an anti-corporate, anti-capitalist position.

    A: Not within the mainstream media, which has co-opted political language quite effectively. There is no genuine debate about the nature of corporate capitalism: how it works, what its economic effects are both nationally and globally, what its political effects are. It’s never discussed at all. In Canada the situation is better because of people like John Ralston Saul, Naomi Klein, Adbusters, so it’s at least possible to raise the issue. But in the U.S. it is quite stunning how it’s completely censored from public discourse. The health-care system is the perfect example. There is no rational discussion of it because people who advocate universal government-funded health care are never allowed to have a platform. We just don’t talk about how much money we spend for the most inefficient health-care system in the industrialized world. Instead, Americans get spectacle: this endless reality television show with porn stars and a maniacal idiot in the Oval Office sitting in front of a television set tweeting, and it’s good entertainment. CNN made more money last year than they’ve ever made. But it is not news. It has nothing to do with news.

    Q: What can you tell me about the mix of hope and despair in your book. Is there hope in it?

    A: I don’t think like that. One of the great existential crises of our time is to understand how bleak the world is, and resist anyway. But pretending that it’s not bleak feeds the mania for unreal hope that exists within American culture that I don’t share. That’s our exit door—it allows us to find excuses not to react with the militancy that we must embrace if we’re going to ultimately survive. There is a moral dimension to fighting radical evil. Most rebels throughout history do not succeed. But you don’t succeed without them, and the situation truly is hopeless if we do nothing. If we resist we have hope, however marginal and impossible that hope may seem. If we don’t resist, you can’t use the word hope.

  • Ted Cruz And Wife Chased Out Of DC Restaurant By Anti-Kavanaugh Protesters

    Senator Ted Cruz, a supporter of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, was verbally assaulted by a group of protesters at a DC restaurant Monday night while trying to dine with his wife, as seen in a video posted by twitter account Smash Racism DC. 

    The protesters, chanting “we believe survivors,” blocked Cruz’s wife from exiting the restaurant at one point, prompting the Texas Senator to ask them to “let my wife through.” 

    In another clip, a woman claiming to be a survivor of sexual assault approached Cruz and his wife accompanied by her backup chanters, asking to discuss Brett Kavanaugh, “I know that you’re very close friends with Mr. Kavanaugh. Do you believe survivors sir? We believe survivors. Senator, I have a right to know what your position is on Brett Kavanaugh. I’m a survivor of sexual assault. There are now three people that have come forward and said that Brett Kavanaugh attacked them. Have you talked to him about that?” 

    Smash Racism says that they were unpaid, and that “most of us would do this for free any night of the week if we could.” 

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    (h/t Cassandra Fairbanks @ Gateway Pundit) 

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  • Millennials Are Flocking To Cheap Rust Belt Cities

    Educated, but poor, millennials are transforming neighborhoods in several Rust Belt states like Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin in search for affordable communities.

    Since the end of the American high (the late 1960s), the Rust Belt had experienced decades of deindustrialization and a mass exodus of residents. Manufacturing plants closed down, jobs disappeared, and communities disintegrated, as this once vibrant region is now a symbol of decay and opioids.

    However, this trend has reversed in recent years, as some millennials have abandoned big cities for Rust Belt communities, in hopes to catch the falling knife and invest in real estate that could be near its lows.

    It is a massive risk, and the narrative behind this “attractive investment bet” are affordable communities, unlike the Washington Metropolitan Area, San Francisco, New York, San Diego County, and Boston.

    Yet this revitalization of the Rust Belt economy could not have come at the worse time: Last week, Bank of America rang the proverbial bell on the US real estate market, saying existing home sales have peaked, reflecting declining affordability, greater price reductions and deteriorating housing sentiment.

    While it is difficult to say what exactly happens in Rust Belt communities in the next downturn, one should understand that housing prices in these regions will probably stay depressed for the foreseeable future. So, if the millennial who was hoping for a Bitcoin-style like move, they should think again as investing in Rust Belt communities is a long-term strategy.

    Constantine Valhouli, Director of Research for the real estate research and analytics firm NeighborhoodX, told CNBC that millennials are flocking to these areas not just for home ownership, but rather rebuilding these communities from the bottom up.

    “It is about having roots and contributing to the revival of a place that needs businesses that create jobs and create value.”

    According to Paul Boomsma, president and CEO of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World (LeadingRE), some of these formerly blighted towns are gradually coming back to life. The latest influx of millennials view these regions as financial opportunities and places to construct new economies – especially with real estate prices far below the Case–Shiller 20-City Composite Home Price Index.

    “Millennials are swiping up properties for next-to-nothing prices near downtown city areas that have completely revitalized,” Boomsma said. LendingRE has listed a three-bedroom Victorian home in Mansfield, Ohio, with an asking price of $39,900.

    The median home value in Mansfield is $60,300, now compare that to the median home value of nearly $700,000 in New York City and a whopping $1.3 million in San Francisco, and it is obvious why millennials are flocking to the Rust Belt. Experts add that there is more to consider than discounted prices.

    “There is a community-mindedness with millennials that attracts them to the smaller Rust Belt towns,” said Peter Haring, president of Haring Realty in Mansfield, Ohio.

    “We are seeing an intense interest in participating in the revitalization of our towns and being a part of the community. It’s palpable, and it’s exciting,” he added.

    Haring said affordable homes in Mansfield comes with a significant drawback: distance. The closest large cities, Cleveland and Columbus, are each an hour’s drive, and amenities are lacking.

    “For people working in those cities, they are sacrificing drive time,” Haring said. “In some cases, they are sacrificing the convenience of nearby shopping and restaurants.”

    But for millennials that is a little concern: they have the luxury of working remotely and ordering consumable goods from Amazon.

    “More and more people are now working virtually, which means they do not need to be in their office and can work from almost anywhere,” said Ralph DiBugnara, senior vice president at Residential Home Funding. “So why not find somewhere to live where your city dollars can go a lot further?”

    CNBC points out that some large corporations are moving back into these areas, the same areas that they left decades ago for cheap labor overseas. One example is home appliance manufacturer Whirlpool, whose corporate headquarters are in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

    “It helped revitalize surrounding areas with new lifestyle and cultural amenities,” said LendingRe’s Boomsma. “This type of corporate commitment draws a young workforce, who are attracted by the lifestyle, paired with the relative affordability.”

    Todd Stofflet, a Managing Partner at the KIG CRE brokerage firm, said for the millennials who still cannot afford to buy a home, the Rust Belt also has a robust rental market. Millennials who are heavily indebted with student loans, auto debt, and high-interest credit card loans could discover that these low-cost regions are perfect strategies to break free from the debt ball and chain and start saving again. Restore capitalism and say goodbye to creditism, something the Federal Reserve and the White House would not be happy about.

    Millennials are creating demand for new apartments, which is a “a catalyst for retail, grocery and office development,” Stofflet added. “As downtown populations experience a resurgence, so does the dining, entertainment and lifestyle of the area.”

    Although discounted real estate prices in Rust Belt regions are appealing in today’s overinflated Central Bank controlled markets, Daniela Andreevska, a marketing director at real estate data analytics company Mashvisor, cautioned millennials to learn about the dynamics of why these communities have low prices.

    “One should keep in mind that many of the homes there are foreclosures or other types of distressed properties,” she said. “You should analyze and inspect the property well in order to know how much exactly you will have to pay in repairs before buying it.”

    These migration trends indicate both positive and negative shifts: on one hand millennials are fleeing unaffordable large cities to Rust Belt regions, in an adverse reaction to failed economic policies to reinflate the housing market. On the other hand, for millennials with insurmountable debt, migrating to these low-cost regions could be the most viable solution to get their finances under control.

  • The UN Accidentally Exposed Passwords And Sensitive Data To The Entire Internet

    Via TheAntiMedia.com,

    The U.N. accidentally released passwords, internal documents, and other sensitive details when it failed to properly secure its accounts on Trello, a popular workplace project management website.

    According to The Intercept, “[a]ffected data included credentials for a U.N. file server, the video conferencing system at the U.N.’s language school, and a web development environment for the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.” It was made available to anyone who had the links to the material as opposed to specific users granted access.

    The security slips were first identified by Security researcher Kushagra Pathak back in August after he conducted Google searches, which led him to public Trello pages that also linked to Google documents and Jira pages. Jira is an “issue tracking app,” as noted by The Intercept.

    Despite Pathak’s attempts to notify the U.N., the international governing body first took two weeks to respond and verify they would investigate his concerns. A little over a week later, they told him they were unable to locate the vulnerabilities and asked for more information on how he located the exposed information. “May we request you to provide the exact Google search criteria that was used?” they asked him.

    Throughout this time, he continued to send them his findings on the publicly available information.

     “In all, he reported 60 Trello boards, several Google Drive and Google Docs links that contained sensitive information, and sensitive information from a public U.N. account on Jira,” The Intercept reports.

    The outlet also says they contacted the U.N. on September 12, and a day later, they started taking down the exposed information.

    In an email statement to The Intercept, U.N. spokesperson Florencia Soto Nino-Martinez said :

    “Some of the boards listed have communications materials which are not sensitive, while some have outdated information. However, we are reviewing all boards on the list to ensure that no passwords or credentials are shared through this medium.”

    She also said:

    “We take security very seriously and have reached out to all staff reminding them of the risks of using a third-party platform to share content and to take the necessary precautions to ensure no sensitive content is public.”

    The Intercept noted “just some” of the information made available to the public:

    • A social media team promoting the U.N.’s “peace and security” efforts published credentials to access a U.N. remote file access, or FTP, server in a Trello card coordinating promotion of the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers. It is not clear what information was on the server; Pathak said he did not connect to it.

    • The U.N.’s Language and Communication Programme, which offers language courses at U.N. Headquarters in New York City, published credentials for a Google account and a Vimeo account. The program also exposed, on a publicly visible Trello board, credentials for a test environment for a human resources web app. It also made public a Google Docs spreadsheet, linked from a public Trello board, that included a detailed meeting schedule for 2018, along with passwords to remotely access the program’s video conference system to join these meetings.

    • One public Trello board used by the developers of Humanitarian Response and ReliefWeb, both websites run by the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, included sensitive information like internal task lists and meeting notes. One public card from the board had a PDF, marked “for internal use only,” that contained a map of all U.N. buildings in New York City. Another card had an attached PDF that included a phone tree with names and phones numbers of people working for a division of U.N.’s human resources department. Some cards contained links to internal documents hosted on Google Docs that, in turn, contained sensitive information about web development projects, including a web address and password to access a staging environment to test early features of the website.

    • The U.N. website developers also used a public Jira bug tracker that contained detailed technical information about how the sites were developed and what issues they were having.

    Pathak says he thinks organizations make their sensitive information public simply because it’s easier. They can “share the details present on the board with their team members just by sharing the URL of the board with them without adding them to the board,” he said.

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