Sep 03

Today’s News 3rd September 2018

  • Dijsselbloem: Greece Should Have Been Grateful For European Aid, Kept Mouth Shut

    Greece should have been grateful for European aid and kept its mouth shut. That’s the clear message from former Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem in an interview this weekend.

    He has clearly not recovered yet from the traumatic experience with former Greek finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis.

    At the same time and after three painful bailout agreements that increased the debt and pushed millions to impoverishment, KeepTalkingGreece.com reports that Dijsselbloem went on to say that:

    “Greece is obviously not a success story, demands on Greeks were to heavy” and that the Greek “crisis has been so deep, that you can’t call it a success.”

    Euro zone countries have asked for too much from the Greek people in return for international bailout loans, former Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said in an interview on Dutch television on Saturday.

    “On reforms, we have asked a lot from the Greek people, too much,” Dijsselbloem told current affairs program Nieuwsuur.

    “Reforms are hard enough to accomplish in a society with a well-functioning government, but this was obviously not the case in Greece.”

    “Greece is obviously not a success story,” Dijsselbloem said.

    “Their crisis has been so deep, that you can’t call it a success.”

    At the same time, in the usual North European arrogance, he said that Greece should be grateful for the help it received and keep its mouth shut.

    “Politics is just a tricky job, you have to compromise, Greece was dependent on help from others, and then to put a big mouth against the people who help you…

    We set conditions for that. Disagree, but you can not raise a big finger at them,” Dijsselboem said.

    Does Dijsselbloem – who blindly followed the strict austerity orders by German finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble during 2013-2018 – now show some kind of remorse? Hardly.

    KeepTalkingGreece points out – harshly but fairly – that Dijsselbloem is one – yet another one – of the self-righteous, light-weight men who found themselves in a powerful position and who now has nothing else to do than write a book about his glorious past, when he was at the spotlight of media.

    He and his Labor party were defeated big in the Dutch parliamentary elections last year and is set to publish a book on his time as head of the Eurogroup.

    Read more here…

  • Euroscepticism In The Czech Republic: A Central European Disaster Waiting To Happen, Or Hot Air?

    Authored by Louis Cox-Brusseau via Global Risk Insights,

    The rise of euroscepticism in Central Europe has been well documented, particularly in the Czech Republic. Among the nations of the Visegrad Four, anti-EU sentiments have long provided easy fuel for political actors willing to appeal to populist instincts to secure political power, but rarely do such sentiments crystallize into concrete anti-European movements. In the Czech Republic, however, political instability and populist rhetoric employed at the highest level is frequently warned against as a harbinger for a potential earthquake in Czech – and potentially Central European – relations with the EU. But how likely is such an event in real terms?

    It is no secret that the Czech Republic harbours one of the highest levels of eurosceptic sentiment in the European Union, a fact which has drawn plenty of analytical attention from outsiders and – particularly in light of the tectonic consequences of the Brexit referendum in 2016 – no end of warnings and extrapolations by parties concerned that a similar ‘Czexit’ referendum could very well take place. In the immediate term, it is certainly justifiable for external investors and third parties to be concerned by Czech euroscepticism as an economic and political risk; Eurobarometer has historically recorded significant levels of discontent with the EU both pre- and post-accession, which has never appreciably declined, and in late 2017 36% of Czechs recorded were unhappy with their status as an EU member, the highest percentage of any EU Member State.

    The roots of Euroscepticism

    Euroscepticism in Czech is an ongoing study; whilst the country benefits enormously from EU funding, the EU is nevertheless often held as the cause of economic woes by a salient portion of the Czech populace. Grassroots resentment over inequalities in salary between the Czech Republic and neighbour countries (for example, in Germany, where an occupation as sales assistant can yield a salary five times greater than its Czech counterpart) is widespread.

    Socially, the story is similar: the advent of Brussels-imposed migration quotas in 2015 was almost universally poorly received in the Czech Republic, where anti-migrant and Islamophobic sentiment is extremely widespread, and to this day the migrant quota debacle has dramatically deteriorated Czech perceptions of EU membership, regardless of the fact that the migration quotas were rejected by the Czech government, and that Czech economy and society continues to benefit from and grow with the aid of EU funding programmes.

    Potential outcomes

    The EU continues to be scapegoated by Czech politicians seeking support from the eurosceptic vote. In real terms, the consequences of this may be dramatic: persistent whispers at the highest levels of Czech politics calling for a Czexit referendum suggests that Czech euroscepticism could, if unchecked, become the groundswell behind an anti-EU movement that eventually leads to a referendum on Union membership with dramatic consequences.

    However, whilst the victory of Czech President Miloš Zeman in the January elections of this year, and the reappointment of Andrei Babiš to the post of Prime Minister were received by European analysts as indicators that euroscepticism is gaining ground steadily, the reality may be quite different.

    Both Mr. Zeman and Mr. Babiš stand to gain very little from a Czech departure from the European Union; Mr. Babiš in particular is unlikely to follow through with any threatened referendum on Czech membership given his economic interests in remaining within the EU. In particular, however, it is noticeable that both Mr. Zeman and Mr. Babiš have distanced themselves publically from the extreme anti-EU voices within the Czech government, refusing to enter into cooperation with hardline or single-policy parties advocating for EU departure. Following the 2018 presidential election results, only one extreme eurosceptic party entered the Lower House of the Czech Parliament, the SPD (Freedom and Direct Democracy) party under Tonio Okamura.

    Ahead of the October 2018 Czech parliamentary elections, the outlook on the future of Czech euroscepticism may not be as negative as has been posited by some analyses.

    As long as political movers rely upon the European Union’s status as scapegoat – whether in the form of President Zeman’s reprimands over perceived bureaucratic incompetence in Brussels, or Prime Minister Babiš’ invocation of the sensitive subject of migration quotas – to build their support base, Czech euroscepticism will be considered a potential risk to EU-Czech relations and the interests of external actors in the Czech Republic.

    However, those with the greatest power in Czech politics – although perfectly content to utilise euroscepticism and populism as tools in their political arsenal – are very well aware of the damage a Czech departure from the European Union would cause to the Czech Republic.

  • China's "Dark Sword" UAV Program

    Submitted by SouthFront

    China’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicles development in general corresponds to global trends. Though in view of its technological lag that existed until recently, Beijing emphasized copying US and Israeli craft.

    China, however, has made a qualitative leap in the last 10-15 years in establishing its own UAV scientific and technological infrastructure. The new Chinese UAV types are equal, and in some respects even superior to their US equivalents. They have a competitive price and, therefore, high export potential. This is true, for example, for the reconnaissance CH-5 (Caihong-5).

    The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) UAVs’ tasks and missions are likewise similar to the US ones. Their main functions are:

    • Reconnaissance;
    • Target designation;
    • Missile strikes on land targets;
    • EW;

    Today such craft are mainly used in operations against asymmetrical and, as a rule, technologically less well equipped adversaries like small states, contested grounds via indirect war by proxy, terrorist/rebel forces, etc. At the same time, given the current level of technology, it’s difficult to imagine a conflict among big players without massive UAV use.

    Unlike the US, China does not have its own wealth of experience in UAV combat use, though some believe that Chinese drones used, for example, in Myanmar and Laos, are flown by Chinese operators. The PLA actively uses drones for surveillance of maritime and land borders, and for combating piracy.

    UAVs play a big role in PLA’s missions in pursuit of Chinese regional and global interests. Beijing seeks to create military capabilities enabling it to act effectively both in indirect and direct clashes with a technologically advanced adversary, which first and foremost includes the United States. Therefore China’s military and political leaders have pursued the development of novel weapons types, including supersonic and hypersonic UAVs.

    One of such future UAV development paths is the AVIC 601-S program. It had led to the construction of such experimental vehicles as Sky Crossbow, Wind Blade, Cloud Bow, Warrior Eagle, Sharp Sword, and Dark Sword. Chinese scientists are actively experimenting on various layout schemes (flying wing, forward-swept wings, etc.) and technological innovations in order to arrive at optimal solutions for UAVs, in order to increase their speed, maneuverability, and stealth.

    The Dark Sword (Anjian), whose photos appeared in the media in early June, is a qualitatively different UAV, according to expert assessments.

    Dark Sword’s conceptual model was initially demonstrated to the public in 2006 at the Chkhuhai airshow in the Guandong Province, and at the 47th International Air Salon at Le Bourget in 2007. Alleged Dark Sword flight photos appeared later, in 2011, but their veracity is doubtful.

    The Dark Sword was being developed by the Shenyang Aeroplane Design Institution as part of the aforementioned  AVIC 601-S program. Its development and production costs are unknown.

    The limited information available in open sources makes it difficult to draw accurate conclusions concerning its characteristics, which led some to claim it is capable of hypersonic speeds. Updated conclusions and assumptions have been made mainly on the basis of a Dark Sword photo which appeared in the Internet.

    This UAV’s design indicates Chinese engineers were aiming to achieve:

    • high speed and flight radius;
    • maneuverability;
    • reduced radar observability;

    According to some estimates Dark Sword can reach Mach 1, though others claim it’s Mach 2. This is suggested by the tail control surfaces and also the Diverterless Supersonic Inlet  (DSI). Its use allows to reduce air resistance at high speeds and radar observability. Similar technologies ae being used on the Chengdu J-20 and J-31 fighters, and on the US F-35 Lightning II.

    Dark Sword ought to have high maneuverability thanks to its canard layout and twin vertical stabilizers. Its stealth is enhanced by the use of radar-absorbing materials and the above-mentioned DSI air intakes. It’s believed Dark Sword could be produced in two variants, manned and unmanned. It will most likely be armed by the most advanced Chinese missiles, such as the PL-15 and its variants.

    Experts’ views on the Dark Sword development vary. According to the Military Watch Magazine, Dark Sword could enter operational use in the near future and thus become the world’s first 6th-generation fighter. It can’t be ruled out, however, this is only an experimental testbed to test a variety of next-generation technologies. Justin Bronk at RUSI notes that “we only see that which the Chinese want us to see”. Therefore we can’t assess the veracity of the photograph or reflect on the circumstances in which it was made. Thus it is unknown whether China is actually financing a project which will soon reach its completion phase, or is merely trying to induce other countries to spend money on similar costly projects with uncertain future.

    It is highly probable that the Dark Sword and other AVIC 601-S program vehicles are mainly experimental. But if Dark Sword becomes an operational weapon, it will have a fundamental impact on the wars of the future.

    The Chinese UAV could be used not only for reconnaissance and ground target strikes as part of the existing UAV doctrine, but also break through enemy defenses and strike deep targets. It could operate independently as a strike UAV or as part of a force package, supporting piloted aircraft.

    Given its extended range, it can be used to attack land, air (including other UAVs) and naval targets, for example, carrier battlegroups. Dark Sword could be further developed for aircraft carrier operations.

    Dark Sword will become a delivery vehicle for various weapons, including long-range air-to-ground and air-to-air missiles, but in the future also lasers. It could also carry mobile and highly effective electronic warfare systems to disrupt land forces, air, and naval communications systems. One has to consider the possibility Dark Sword could be used as a “suicide” UAV, but that’s not as likely considering its cost.

    UAV operator training should take less time and money than pilot training, since their level of qualifications is much lower.

    Other countries could respond to the Chinese challenge in several ways.

    From the technical point of view, other countries will seek to create similar high-speed UAVs in conjunction with already existing systems. This approach would require considerable expenditure and time. It’s highly likely the US will continue the development of own hypersonic technologies.

    Another approach is improving air defense, electronic warfare, and, possibly, lasers, capable of “burning” its electronic payloads. Since UAVs depend on communications systems, this appears to be the optimal approach. Russia, which lags in UAV development, will seek to improve its electronic warfare systems which have traditionally been the Russian MIC’s strong suit. The US will do the same.

    From the point of view of military planning, there will occur a reconceptualization and perfecting of existing approaches. Particular emphasis will be placed on reconnaissance and intelligence efforts to locate UAV command posts and strike them using all available weapons.

    China thus managed to establish an industrial foundation over the last few decades to produce own UAVs. This is a manifestation of China’s political strategy and is driven by Beijing’s desire to consolidate its position as a superpower technologically on a par with the US. As already existing models enter service and future projects are developed (for example, improved air-to-air missiles and others), China will greatly improve its standing both on a regional and global scale.

    China’s ability and readiness to perform a wide range of missions in regions with high conflict potential will also increase. At the same time, China’s main competitors and potential adversaries will also grow concerned with Beijing’s ascendancy, potentially leading to an escalation of global tensions.

  • What An Impeachment Would Look Like

    Once again, the rhetoric about impeaching President Trump has heated back up since Cohen and Manafort were charged; but how would the process work?

    An impeachment is a lengthy process and, as Statista’s Fabian Moebus notes, requires a simple majority from the House Judiciary Committee, the House of Representatives and a two-thirds majority of the Senate.

    While each step is quite explicitly described by the constitution, the possible indictments are worded rather vaguely. Consequently, most attempts to impeach the president are rejected by the House Judiciary Committee.

    Infographic: What an Impeachment Would Look Like | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    There were only two cases in which it went all the way to the senate vote. But the cases of Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998-99 both fell short of the two-thirds majority of the Senators.

    The only actual withdrawal from office came from President Richard Nixon in 1974 after he deflected a potential impeachment by resigning. In his case, the loss of trust from his own party essentially left him with no other choice.

  • Van Dongen: Why Africa Faces The Biggest Threat Of Ebola Explosion

    Authored by John van Dongen via ModernGhana.com,

    Senior government officials in Tanzanian, Rwandan and Ugandan, have said their countries are on a high risk of Ebola outbreak after the disease killed 75 out of 111 patients in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.

    After we sent a wake-up call in July 2018 to the Ugandan Government that Ebola will be introduced to Uganda after vaccine trials are conducted in DRC Congo and that the Ugandan the Tanzanian, Rwandan and Ugandan governments took excessive measurements.

    We warned the Ugandan government that Ebola will enter in a certain region in the North East of Uganda under the disguise of so-called European proclamation that opposition armed forces will not allow WHO, UNHCR and Europe to interfere in the Ebola outbreak.

    History of Ebola and Crimean Congo Haemorrhagic Virus

    Scientists studying viral disease agents in the laboratory for biowarfare purposes and cure against it have become infected in Russia, United States, Crimea, Tajikistan, Philippines, Germany, Former Yugoslavia, United Kingdom, Netherlands, South Africa many decades ago.

    A similar accident with Ebola had reportedly occurred at the US Army’s biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, where the Ebola virus was invented, but the researcher involved didn’t acquire the disease. This incident is not listed on the CDC’s list of confirmed outbreaks, perhaps because the researcher didn’t develop antibodies.

    At the beginning of the former century, new concerns about bio-weapons being used to generate terror and also with a series of new disease-causing microbes have resulted in infections and deaths of workers studying them in the laboratories. And now we have bats, monkeys, tics, swine, horse flies and mosquitos are spreading genetic manipulated diseases made in biowarfare Centers throughout the hearts of all epidemics.

    Some latest examples: the 2014 infections and deaths of five researchers who were isolating the West African Ebola virus for deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) sequencing epidemiology studies. Beginning in March 2014, a devastating Ebola outbreak in West Africa caused widespread suffering and damaged fragile public health systems.

    Hundreds of thousands of unwitting people are systematically exposed to dangerous pathogens and other incurable diseases. Biowarfare scientists using diplomatic cover test man-made viruses at Pentagon bio-laboratories in 25 countries across the world causing especially Ebola and HIV in Africa for depopulation reasons.

    These US Ebola biowarfare-laboratories are funded, amongst many others, by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a $ 2.1 billion military program, Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), and are located in former Soviet Union countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa.

    It is very striking the number of American research laboratories, who have created the Ebola virus, working on protection against bioterrorism has increased from 20 to 400 over the last 10 years throughout the Ebola and HIV fallout regions.

    Most of these centers appeared in African countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, DRC, Tanzania, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Egypt. Such laboratories allow developing biological weapons.

    US government agencies have a long history of carrying out allegedly defensive biological warfare research at labs in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

    This includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is now the point agency for managing the Ebola spill-over into the US.

    If you look at a map of the west coast of Africa you can see where laboratories are located as they are across the heart of the Ebola epidemic. Probably some of these labs are the origins of the Ebola epidemics.

    Source: SouthFront.org

    Laboratory-acquired viral and bacterial infections in research facilities happen. Although less common than infections of clinical workers handling patient samples, infections of researchers with serious pathogens can lead to death.

    This is an increasing problem as governments of USA and technically advanced nations have increased research on potential bioterrorism agents and as concerns have grown about the capture of such bioweapons by rogue nations and non-government groups.

    Millions or billions on our planet worry whether the African pandemic might be rapidly turning into a global epidemic spreading to every corner of the earth.

    The World Health Organisation (WHO) and US government are busily downplaying the risks to citizens here in North America.

    The specific character of Ebola spreading and high lethality of the virus allows killing people selectively targeting villages, cities or countries. Biological war might be very fast and successful if a state for a case of unforeseen circumstance already has a developed and tested vaccine.

    The US Department of Defense (DoD) is funding Ebola trials on humans, trials which started just weeks before the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Sierra Leone.

    The reports continue and state that the DoD gave a contract worth $140 million to Tekmira, a Canadian pharmaceutical company, to conduct Ebola research.

    This research work involved injecting and infusing healthy humans with the deadly Ebola virus, which started in January 2014 shortly before an Ebola epidemic was declared in West Africa in March.

    In bringing the two Ebola-infected Americans back from West Africa to the CDC, in addition to optimizing their survival chance, the other all too obvious explanation is to harvest their Ebola cells for extraction that will then be used to patent the most deadly strain ever known to man.

    No doubt the US government is highly invested in Ebola for both potential profits developing a vaccine as well as for a potential solution as a convenient biowarfare global population-killer.

    Speaking of profits, Tekmira Pharmaceuticals, a pharmacological company gets a huge benefit because millions of peoples, as well as governments, bought prepared vaccine.

    It’s not above suspicion that the American military has also been doing research on Ebola as a bioweapon.

    Its stable nature in aerosol makes it attractive as a potential biological weapon. USA have been using DRC, Uganda, Liberia and Sierra Leone as an offshore to circumvent the Convention on Biological Weapons and do bio-warfare work.

    Georgia

    For instance, the US Army has been deployed to Vaziani Military Air Base, 17 km away from the Pentagon bio-laboratory at The Lugar Center in Georgia.

    Leaks from within Western establishments and their behavior fuel the conspiracy theories that Ebola is bio-weapon created by the West to depopulate Africa.

    Crimea

    In 1943 Crimea faced a severe outbreak of Crimean Congo Haemorrhagic Virus CCHV (Ebola). Several scientific textbooks like ‘Medical Aspects of Biological Warfare’ (1997) by Zygmunt F. Dembek, a Lieutenant Colonel of the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, as well as ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’ by Eric A. Croddy et al. and finally, ‘A Companion to the Anthropology of Environmental Health’ by Wiley Blackwell tell us why Ebola takes its route from Crimea to the Congo.

    So if Ebola came from laboratories of the US Army then, what is the connection of the presence of US Army and World Health Organization WHO and the Centers for Disease Control CDC facilities in the Philippines?

    How is it possible that people from the World Health Organization examined Ebola contaminated pigs and a worker in a pig farm in Bulacan, before the outbreak in Reston in 1976? It is only the WHO and some elements of the US Army in the Philippines that have the capability to transport, spread and identify the Marburg virus in the early sixties.

    Sequential Ebola outbreaks and events

    *In 1967, 31 people from Marburg and Frankfurt, Germany, and then in Belgrade, former Yugoslavia, went down with the so-called Marburg fever. It was allegedly imported by green monkeys which originated in Uganda.

    *In 1967, Crimean Congo Haemorrhagic Virus (Ebola) was isolated in what was at that time the Belgian Congo. In 25% of those afflicted, it resulted in bleeding to death. And it resulted just after the aforementioned outbreaks in Germany and Yugoslavia. This virus which then made its appearance in Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa is closely related to the California Encephalitis Virus.

    *In 1975, this disease cropped up 8000 kilometers away in South Africa in 1976 and over 1000 migrants catch the Ebola disease and never returned home. CCHV made it’s appearance as ‘Ebola fever,’ in Sudan and Zaire, (in American hospitals). 50% of patients died.

    It is scientifically well known this CCHV is not only related to California Encephalitis but also to rabies, and its spread is allegedly unknown. And almost all scientists in the field of biowarfare products know about genetic engineered techniques in order to make animals and insects susceptible to the Ebola/CCHV viruses.

    *In 1976 Ebola occurred in Nzara (the source town), Mardi, Tumbura, and Juba (Cities in present-day South Sudan). The index cases were workers in a cotton factory. The disease was spread by close contact with an acute case, usually from patients to their nurses. Much medical care personnel was infected.

    *In 1979 in Sudan Ebola occurred in Nzara and Maridi. This was a recurrent outbreak at the same site as the 1976 Sudan epidemic.

    *In 1989, the CDC reports, Ebola-Reston virus was introduced into quarantine facilities in Virginia and Pennsylvania by monkeys imported from the Philippines. No humans were infected.

    The Reston virus (RESTV) was first identified when it caused high mortality in crab-eating macaques in a primate research facility responsible for exporting animals to the United States. Three workers in the facility developed antibodies to the virus but did not get sick

    *In 1990, Ebola-Reston virus was introduced once again into biowarfare quarantine facilities in Virginia and Texas by monkeys imported from the Philippines. Four humans developed antibodies but did not get sick.

    *In 1994 Ivory Coast This case was the first and thus far only recognition of Tai Forest virus (TAFV). Approximately one week after conducting necropsies on infected western chimpanzees in Tai National Park, a scientist contracted the virus and developed symptoms similar to those of dengue fever. She was discharged from a Swiss hospital two weeks later and fully recovered after six weeks

    *In 1994/1995 Occurred in Makokou and gold-mining camps deep in the rainforest along the Ivindo River. Until 1995, the outbreak was incorrectly classified as yellow fever.

    * From 1994 till 1996 four Ebola outbreaks occurred in the village of Mayibout 2 and neighboring areas. A chimpanzee found dead in the forest was eaten by villagers hunting for food. Nineteen people involved in the butchery of the animal became ill, and other cases occurred in their family members.

    In the Booué area with the transport of patients to Libreville. The index case-patient was a hunter who lived in a forest timber camp. The disease was spread by close contact with infected persons.

    A dead chimpanzee found in the forest at the time was determined to be infected on both sides of the border between Gabon and the Republic of the Congo (RC). This outbreak included the first reported occurrence of Ebola virus disease in the RC.

    *In 1996, Ebola-Reston virus was introduced into a quarantine facility in Texas by monkeys imported from the Philippines. No human infections were identified.

    *In 2000 until the beginning of 2001 Ebola Occurred in the Gulu, Masindi, and Mbarara districts of Uganda. The three greatest risks associated with Sudan virus infection were attending funerals of case-patients, having contact with case-patients in one’s family, and providing medical care to case-patients without using adequate personal protective measures

    *In May of 2004, a Russian scientist died of Ebola after accidentally pricking herself with a syringe while conducting research on infected guinea pigs in Siberia.

    *In 2004 Ebola occurred in Yambio county in Western Equatoria of southern Sudan (present-day South Sudan). This outbreak was concurrent with an outbreak of measles in the same area.

    *In 2004 The largest outbreak of Ebola Marburg virus ever occurred in Angola.

    *In 2007 Ebola Occurred in the Bundibugyo District in western Uganda. This was the first identification of the Bundibugyo virus (BDBV)

    *In 2009, a scientist in Berlin, Germany accidentally pricked herself

    and was infected with Ebola. She was given an experimental vaccine as part of her treatment and did not become ill.

    *In 2012 Ebola occurred in the Kibaale District Uganda.

    *From 2013 till 2016 widespread Ebola outbreaks occurred in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Mali, United States, Senegal, Spain, and Italy.

    If Ebola came from laboratories of the US Army then; what is the connection of the presence of the US Army, the World Health Organization WHO and the Centers for Disease Control CDC in Ebola facilities in the Philippines in the sixties and seventies?

    As the Marburg virus before the outbreak in 1967 has not existed then, how is it possible that worldwide everybody works with the Marburg virus without Leve1-4 laboratories at that particular time, and secondly how could they act without legal permission or official guidelines as we stated: It is noteworthy to remember the signing of the Geneva accord by Nixon in 1970?

    Editorial

    According to all the aforementioned events, namely; involvement of national military, medical and pharmacological biowarfare institutes, track of the green monkeys causing Ebola laboratory outbreaks in 1967, in Germany, Belgrade and Frankfurt at the same time, its discovery in Crimea in 1943, its detection and isolation, the appearances of Ebola virus in insects and animal species, as well as to publish about the Ebola virus at the Fourth Congreso Latinoamericano de Microbiologia in Lima, Peru on the 26th of November 1967, only six days after the identification, shows the man-made interferences of the development of man-made Ebola viruses.

    Whatever the Marburg or Ebola virus may be it must be created long before its first outbreak in 1967 and the first outbreak in The Congo in 1976.

    The virus is human-made and tested on black skinned people in Africa in order to find vaccines against it for military defense purposes and to depopulate the African continent.

  • China's "New Silk Road" Project Hits Debt Jam

    President Xi Jinping’s “Belt and Road” trade infrastructure project could be hitting significant bottlenecks as some countries begin to sound alarms regarding the massive debt loads their governments are incurring.

    Xi first announced the trade initiative also known as the “New Silk Road” in 2013, which needs more than $26 trillion of infrastructure investment by 2030 to keep regional economies expanding. The project includes railways, power plants, ports, highways and other projects across the world, with Beijing providing billions of dollars in credit to drive these schemes.

    Major governments including the United States, Japan and India have expressed grave concern Beijing is trying to construct a new economic system that will erode their influence.

    Xi said China’s trade with Belt and Road countries had exceeded $5 trillion, with outward direct investment surpassing $60 billion.

    Already, some Chinese-led projects have experienced high levels of complaints that they are too expensive and give little work to local contractors. In response, some governments including Thailand, Tanzania, Sri Lanka and Nepal have halted, scaled back, and or renegotiated projects with Beijing.

    In August, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad canceled various projects including a $20 billion rail system he said his country could no longer afford.

    Recently, Pakistan’s new prime minister, Imran Khan, has vowed more transparency amid fears about the country’s ability to repay Chinese loans related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

    Last December, Sri Lanka had to sell its controlling stake of Port of Hambantota to a Chinese state-owned finance firm after it almost defaulted on a $1.5 billion loan from Beijing.

    Hambantota port formally handed over to China-led company 

    Mohamed Nasheed, the exiled leader of the opposition in the Maldives, warned China’s debt-fueled projects in the Indian Ocean archipelago amounted to a “land grab” and “colonialism,” with 80 percent of its debt held by Beijing.

    “China does not have a very competent international bureaucracy in foreign aid, in expansion of soft power,” Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder and research director at J Capital Research, told AFP.

    “So not surprisingly they’re not very good at it, and it brought up political issues like Malaysia that nobody anticipated,” she said.

    “As the RMB (yuan) becomes weaker, and China is perceived internationally as a more ambiguous partner, it’s more likely that the countries will take a more jaundiced eye on these projects.”

    The Center for Global Development, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C. that focuses on international development, discovered “serious concerns” about the sustainability of the sovereign debt in eight countries receiving infrastructure project funds from Beijing.

    Those were Pakistan, Djibouti, Maldives, Mongolia, Laos, Montenegro, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

    For example, a $6.7 billion China-Laos railway project represents almost half of the Southeast Asian country’s GDP, according to the study.

    President Choummaly Sayasone (center right), Zhang Dejiang (center left) break ground to commence construction of the China-Laos railway project in Vientiane, capital of Laos, on December 2015.

    In Djibouti, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that the African country faces a “high risk of debt distress” as its public debt soared from 50 percent of GDP in 2014 to 85 percent in 2016.

    Next week, a group of African leaders will gather in Beijing for an economic conference which will include talks on the “Belt and Road” initiative.

    On Friday, foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying denied that Beijing is strategically implanting huge amounts of debt in its trading partners to eventually expect default and acquire the country’s assets for pennies on the dollar.

    “It’s unreasonable that money coming out of Western countries is praised as good and sweet, while coming out of China it’s sinister and a trap,” she said.

    Stevenson-Yang said China’s loans are recorded in dollar terms, “but in reality, they’re lending in terms of tractors, shipments of coal, engineering services and things like that, and they ask for repayment in hard currency.”

    Five years into China’s debt-fuelled “New Silk Road” initiative across many countries in the Eastern Hemisphere, it seems as a handful of governments are mounting complaints against Beijing for inducing a debt trap that strips their countries of its critical assets.

  • Russian Oligarch And Putin Pal Admits To Collusion, Secret Meetings

    Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a close associate of Vladimir Putin, has gone on record with The Hill‘s John Solomon – admitting to colluding with Americans leading up to the 2016 US election, except it might not be what you’re thinking. 

    Deripaska, rumored to be Donald Trump’s “back channel” to Putin via the Russian’s former association with Paul Manafort, says he “colluded” with the US Government between 2009 and 2016. 

    In 2009, when Robert Mueller was running the FBI, the agency asked Deripaska to spend $25 million of his own money to bankroll an FBI-supervised operation to rescue a retired FBI agent – Robert Levinson, who was kidnapped in 2007 while working on a 2007 CIA contract in Iran. This in and of itself is more than a bit strange. 

    Deripaska agreed, however the Obama State Department, headed by Hillary Clinton, scuttled a last-minute deal with Iran before Levinson could be released. He hasn’t been heard from since.

    FBI agents courted Deripaska in 2009 in a series of secret hotel meetings in Paris; Vienna; Budapest, Hungary, and Washington. Agents persuaded the aluminum industry magnate to underwrite the mission. The Russian billionaire insisted the operation neither involve nor harm his homeland. -The Hill

    In other words – Trump’s alleged “back channel” to Putin was in fact an FBI asset who spent $25 million helping Obama’s “scandal free” administration find a kidnapped agent. Deripaska’s admitted 

    Steele, Ohr and the 2016 US Election

    As the New York Times frames it, distancing Deripaska from the FBI (no mention of the $25 million rescue effort, for example), the Russian aluminum magnate was just one of several Putin-linked Oligarchs the FBI tried to flip.

    The attempt to flip Mr. Deripaska was part of a broader, clandestine American effort to gauge the possibility of gaining cooperation from roughly a half-dozen of Russia’s richest men, nearly all of whom, like Mr. Deripaska, depend on President Vladimir V. Putin to maintain their wealth, the officials said. –NYT

    Central to the recruiting effort were two central players in the Trump-Russia investigation; twice-demoted DOJ #4 official Bruce Ohr and Christopher Steele – the author of the largely unverified “Steele Dossier.” 

    Steele, a longtime associate of Ohr’s, worked for Deripaska beginning in 2012 researching a business rival – work which would evolve to the point where the former British spy was interfacing with the Obama administration on his behalf – resulting in Deripaska regaining entry into the United States, where he visited numerous times between 2009 and 2017.  

    The State Department tried to keep him from getting a U.S. visa between 2006 and 2009 because they believed he had unspecified connections to criminal elements in Russia as he consolidated power in the aluminum industry. Deripaska has denied those allegations…

    Whatever the case, it is irrefutable that after he began helping the FBI, Deripaska regained entry to the United States. And he visited numerous times between 2009 and 2017, visa entry records show. –The Hill

    Deripaska is now banned from the United States as one of several Russians sanctioned in April in response to alleged 2016 election meddling. 

    In a September 2016 meeting, Deripaska told FBI agents that it was “preposterous” that Paul Manafort was colluding with Russia to help Trump win the 2016 election. This, despite the fact that Deripaska and Manafort’s business relationship “ended in lawsuits, per The Hill – and the Russian would have every reason to throw Manafort under the bus if he wanted some revenge on his old associate. 

    So the FBI and DOJ secretly collaborated with Trump’s alleged backchannel over a seven-year period, starting with Levinson, then on Deripaska’s Visa, and finally regarding whether Paul Manafort was an intermediary to Putin. Deripaska vehemently denies the assertion, and even took out newspaper advertisements in the US last year volunteering to testify to Congress, refuting an AP report that he and Manafort secretly worked on a plan to “greatly benefit the Putin government” a decade ago. 

    Soon after the advertisements ran, representatives for the House and Senate Intelligence Committees called a Washington-based lawyer for Mr. Deripaska, Adam Waldman, inquiring about taking his client up on the offer to testify, Mr. Waldman said in an interview.

    What happened after that has been in dispute. Mr. Waldman, who stopped working for Mr. Deripaska after the sanctions were levied, said he told the committee staff that his client would be willing to testify without any grant of immunity, but would not testify about any Russian collusion with the Trump campaign because “he doesn’t know anything about that theory and actually doesn’t believe it occurred.” –NYT

    In short, Deripaska wants it known that he worked with the FBI and DOJ, and that he had nothing to do with the Steele dossier.

    Today, Deripaska is banned anew from the United States, one of several Russians sanctioned in April by the Trump administration as a way to punish Putin for 2016 election meddling. But he wants to be clear about a few things, according to a statement provided by his team. First, he did collude with Americans in the form of voluntarily assisting and meeting with the FBI, the DOJ and people such as Ohr between 2009 and 2016.

    He also wants Americans to know he did not cooperate or assist with Steele’s dossier, and he tried to dispel the FBI notion that Russia and the Trump campaign colluded during the 2016 election. –The Hill

    Interestingly, Steele’s dossier which was partially funded by the Clinton campaign, relied on senior Kremlin officials. 

     

    It would be most helpful if the Department of Justice could please investigate and then prosecute themselves and/or members of the previous administration, so that journalists like John Solomon, Sara Carter, Luke Rosiak, Chuck Ross and others don’t have to continue to break stories that are seemingly ignored by all but a handful of Congressional investigators.

  • Chris Martenson: The Whole System Is Rigged

    Authored by Chris Martenson via PeakProsperity.com,

    As the dog days of summer wind down, it’s hard not to notice how the climate is suffering brutally right now across many areas of the globe.

    Crop failures have hit hard across Europe. Australia is under an intense drought. Warm water representing ‘archived heat’ has penetrated deep into the arctic.  Coral reefs are dying through mass bleachings. The stocks of ocean fisheries are in deep trouble. Insect and bird populations remain in a state of collapse.

    It couldn’t be any more clear that our society’s demands for ever-more “growth” are taking an increasingly dangerous toll. “Growth” is now the enemy of life on the planet; yet there are precious few leaders willing to admit as much. 

    What we need is less pressure on vital ecological systems and precious remaining resources. But good luck finding a politician willing to admit that.

    Though a refreshing exception is French environmental minister Nicolas Hulot who dramatically resigned his position last week, on live television, declaring “I don’t want to lie to myself anymore.”  His view is that the government is not addressing the major environmental issues properly and he didn’t want his presence to give the false appearance that it was.  Kudos to Nicolas, though I’m not sure that losing such a rare principled person in government is a step in the right direction.

    Operating On Blind Faith

    Most politicians appear to think that there are no big issues out there ecologically-speaking. Of course, very few of them spend any time outside or understand where their food even comes from. Most subsist on the blind faith that our planet will somehow always bounce back from the abuses we inflict on it, despite reams of mounting evidence that it’s hitting a mulitplying number of breaking and tipping points.

    Sadly, the mainstream media chooses to toss wedge issue after wedge issue, ususally in the most inflammatory ways it can, at an increasingly irate general populace that has almost zero clue about the true source of the shocks (financial, economic, and ecological) they are experiencing. This prevents society from having an informed discussion about the real risks we should be concerned with.

    As heart-tugging a topic as ‘border kids’ might be, the monster asset price bubbles blown by the central banks get almost no attention in the media — despite their ability to destroy the futures and dreams of pretty much everyone reading this article.

    Our media is failing us, badly, by focusing on symptomatic issues that enrage and divide us, while remaining silent on the causal matters of vital importance to all of us. 

    In other words, you’d do well to ignore the pre-packaged opinions being spoon fed into your mind by the media professionals. Instead, look at the data yourself and come to your own conclusions about what’s happening.

    Notice the near complete lack of insect diversity and numbers? What about the collapsing populations of frogs and reptiles?  How about the missing seabirds?  Did you know that humans have worked their harvesting down to the lowest part of the food chain and are now netting krill — removing the base of the pedestal for the oceanic food chain?

    Why is it so hard for our culture to recognize that an economic model founded on the idea of perpetual exponential expansion, while living on a planet with finite resources, is a thoroughly unworkable idea?  How can we all so blithely ignore the obvious indicators screaming that we’ve already hit the limits of that model? 

    The lengths to which humans are now going for new deposits of oil, copper, water, arable land and other essential economic inputs are staggeringly desperate.  Each should be a warning sign unto themselves.

    But taken together?

    Ignoring them requires the same degree of self-deception that addicts employ in their belief that they still have things under control, and can stop anytime.

    Yeah, right.  Somehow ‘that day’ never arrives.  It’s always just one more fix, one more day.

    Except in this case it’s just one more election, one more quarter of growth, one more injection of central bank money.

    Frustrating? You bet.

    Trying to elevate the critical observation that pursuing infinite growth on a finite planet is not only impossible, but a really terrible idea, has been a frustrating endeavor.

    We here at PeakProsperity.com have been at this for over a decade, and we can tell you first-hand, Folks, this ain’t easy.

    While the logic support it is extremely straightforward, it runs afoul of the majority’s entrenched belief systems. So even the most basic and compelling of data is ignored. Instead,  tortured anecdotes are held up as “proof” that their treasured belief systems are correct.

    Here’s an example. 

    Anecdote:  “Electric car sales are up 40% in Europe!” 

    Somehow this is proof that we’re on the right track. Electric cars are going to rapidly replace internal combustion cars, and thereby solve all the issues related to the world’s addiction to fossil fuels.

    Basic data: “There’s not enough cobalt or lithium to even replace 25% of all cars on the road, let alone 100%.  EV cars still consume extraordinary resources, and release a huge amount of carbon in their manufacture. Massive subsidies are required to make them economically attractive, even to wealthy citizens of wealthy nations, so they aren’t well suited to the bulk of the world’s population.  And if these cars were somehow all powered by electrcity from solar and wind, those energy sources are still themselves massively dependent on fossil fuels for their mining, manufacture, transportation, installation and replacement.”

    The basic data says that instead of salivating over expensive and advanced personal transportation methods designed to preserve the status quo of our current failing infrastructure, we should instead be dedicating a large part of our efforts towards mass transit, relocating our work/play/farm spaces so that they are closer together, and use vastly fewer resources to deliver the same services we rely on.

    Recently I’ve been frustrated by the efforts to convince Americans that our democracy is under attack by outside agents when there’s ample evidence — concrete, hard, firm evidence which I’ve repeatedly covered — that US elections have been spitting out improbable and even sometimes impossible election results for the past 14 years, ever since insecure, low-integrity eVoting platforms and central tabulators were introduced.

    Yes, nefarious agents may well indeed be undermining our democracy. But the real villains appear much more domestic than foreign.

    There’s nothing more poisonous to the notion of democracy than fraudulent election outcomes. Nothing. And yet the number of people rising up in protest on this issue may as well be zero, as long as we’re rounding to the nearest whole percentage.  Meanwhile millions are up in arms about the still-unproven allegations that Russia tipped the recent presidential elections with a laughably tiny amount of social media ads.

    For those interested in more detail on just how badly manipulated recent voting results have become, read my recent account on the topic here. And then, just for fun, take a look below at the voting “architecture” put in place in Ohio under its disgraced Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell and which delivered a very surprising win for G. W. Bush over John Kerry.  The pre and exit polls both showed an overwhelming win for Kerry. Oops! The new Deibold electric voting machines (which Blackwell owned a stake in) instead reported a surprising win for GWB: 

    Click to Enlarge

    You don’t have to be an IT expert to detect that there are numerous places for bad actors to insert themselves into this system and romp about with the vote totals.  It’s a ridiculous joke of an architecture that, honestly, seems to have been specifically-designed to allow fraud.

    In fact, this schematic reveals that the shady company “entrusted” to add up the vote totals had inserted a key piece of machinery as a “man in the middle” and not as a mirror server.  That meant that the vote totals could be easily manipulated in a way that could not be undone or later refuted. 

    Even the most unschooled of individuals must be aware that vote counting cannot ever be a matter of “trust us”.  With so much on the line, it must always be assumed that cheating is going to happen, not that it might happen. Checks and balances need to be in place to counter such abuse.

    Several important questions emerge.  Why did Kerry, knowing all of this, concede defeat so graciously within 24 hours? Why was such an obviously corrupt architecture put in place and not challenged? Why does it still persist to this day? Why have no major news outlets run a major investigative inquiry and publicized a huge expose on the utter lack of integrity within the US voting system?  Why do we have a perfectly secure system in place for using a credit/debt card to buy a $2 slushy at 7-11, but somehow secure and trustworthy voting remains a mysteriously-unachievable outcome for a nation as advanced as the US?

    The simple that explains all this: Voting is rigged, and the entire power structure wants it that way.

    The wonder of it all is that there are a lot of people in Ohio desperately up in arms about Russian meddling right now, blissfully unaware that their entire state is shot through with election fraud courtesy of both major parties. 

    Yes, their democracy is under attack, and it has been for a long time. But it certainly isn’t the Russians designing, installing, and defending the Ohio voting systems. 

    The Outlook Is Deteriorating Fast

    There are lots of things that we should be very concerned about and practically none of them are to be found on the news.  In the rare cases they are, they’re presented without meaningful context and very rapidly replaced by trivial distractions.

    We should be asking ourselves why that’s the case.

    More to the point, you need to understand that very serious risks to your future prospects, well-being and liberty are building. The mounting warning signs are all around you if you look for them, though they’ll be carefully filtered out from the nightly news or your social media feeds.

    Getting access to good information is difficult these days. And it’s getting harder, not easier. Only a few massive corporations own nearly all of our media outlets. They have a narrative they want sold, often developed with the goverment, and they invest billions to refine their craft of delivering it. Better algorithms, in-product placements, and mentally-addictive formats for delivering you distracting, emotionally manipulative context that has practically zero positive bearing on your life. 

    In short: it’s a rigged game. Perhaps it always has been, but in today’s digital age, the tools of state are becoming ever more crafty, sophisticated and complete. 

    Gone are the days when our financial markets served as important signals about the health of the economy.  Today, they’ve been replaced by ““markets”” that central bankers and other bureaucratic planners utterly own and control. The only signals they send are what those running the show want us to hear.

    Our precious ecosphere is disintegrating. The fossil fuels bonanza we are hopelessly addicted to is ending. But there is no Plan B to deal with these existential challenges (beyond the elites’ private plans to bunker down and ride out the trouble when it begins). 

    The message to take from this is: You are on your own.  There’s no benevolent government preparing to step in and sort things out for you if/when collapse arrives.  Your pensions are already gone — the math is cruelly certain on that. Self-interested corporations set the rules. Power will never be fairly redistributed due to elections. 

    Were a future of unlimited growth possible, these worries wouldn’t really matter.  But it isn’t. So none of this is fine.  Now that the pie is no longer growing, the obvious truth is that the rigged system is handing over a larger and larger portion of that stagnant pie to fewer and fewer people.

    That’s an incontrovertible fact. But it’s reported by the media as if it were a wayward comet nobody expected that just showed up in the night sky.  Rich people getting richer, what are you gonna do?

    Never mentioned is that the system is rigged to create that outcome. And that the central banks have engineered it on purpose. 

    It’s time to wake up and see what’s really going on. 

    This is especially true right now for anyone with assets in the US equity ““markets””. With indices back at all-time highs, record complacency reigns. But scratch lightly on the “everything is awesome!” veneer, and an ugly picture of accelerating rot and instability immediately appears

    In Part 2: The Outlook For The Markets Is Deteriorating Fast we expose the truly frightening contagion currently decimating a long list of emerging market countries and explain how it threatens to bring down the world economy with it. Collapse happens from the outside in, and the periphery is falling fast…

    Yes, the entire system is rigged. But when a breaking point is reached, and things get so bad they spiral out of the control of the manipulators, Look out below!

    Click here to read Part 2 of this report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)

  • Trump Allies Fume Over "Political Hand-Grenades" At Hyper-Partisan McCain Funeral

    President Trump’s allies, both in Washington D.C. and across the country, are fuming after the funeral for the late Sen. John McCain turned into an anti-Trump rally.

    Meghan McCain, along with former Presidents Obama and George W. Bush, used the somber event to take pot-shots at Trump – who was golfing during the ceremony while his daughter Ivanka sat through harsh criticism of her father – seated next to her husband, Jared Kushner.

    McCain’s service was, on one level, a return to old Washington civility, with Republicans and Democrats, past presidents, friends and foes gathered in unity. But as its tributes echoed with overt criticism of the president, it only deepened the hostility between the city’s establishment and the outsider in the White House. –Politico

    McCain was perhaps Trump’s most prominent nemesis in Washington D.C. – first withdrawing support for Trump during the 2016 election after the Access Hollywood “pussy tape” was leaked, and later hand delivering the infamous “Steele Dossier” to former FBI Director James Comey (who already had a copy). McCain would fly back to Washington D.C. in July of last year to a standing ovation on the Senate floor – only to cast the deciding vote against Trump’s repeal of Obamacare. 

    And after Meghan McCain said during her father’s eulogy that “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great,” and former Presidents Obama and Bush took similar veiled shots at the President – albeit without mentioning him by name, Trump’s allies across the country were left fuming. 

    Following the Saturday spectacle, Trump campaign adviser Katrina Pierson tweeted: “@realDonaldTrump ran for @POTUS ONE time and WON! Some people will never recover from  that. #SorryNotSorry Yes, #MAGA” 

    American Conservative Union Chair Matt Schlapp tweeted: “I hope I have lots of time but if not: anyone can come, will be about God and not politics, and celebrate.”

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    Others echoed the disgust: 

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     We’re sure McCain would have wanted it this way. 

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